Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Faulty Reasoning ❯ The Stranger ( Chapter 4 )

Big thanks to Zoey Hellmaster (You really motivated me to update quicker), Bakuraluva (I'm flattered!), Melaiya (::huggle::), and Joeysgal (who says Jou will be making the move?)

Chapter 4-The Stranger

It was Friday. The best day of the school week. Seto Kaiba sat back in his chair, sulking. Thus far, Friday had sucked. He glowered at the history teacher, Albatou-sensei, the most feared teacher in the school-but only when he wasn't looking.

It had begun late last night when all the intruder alarms started going off for no apparent reason. The security guards and he himself-with the aid of a baseball bat-had checked the premises from top to bottom. And that was no small job. In the morning there was not a single spoon in the house. Some daft maid had apparently taken them to be cleaned.

He tried to look interested in the history lecture and took a few notes for good measure. He slouched further in his chair and reflected on the previous period's events. A muscle beneath his left eye twitched.

It had been Phys. Ed. with Enna-sensei and his latest applied torture, pickle ball. It was a relatively simple concept, all that was required was a few oversized table tennis rackets, a net, a ball, and players. Then you played a large scale equivalent of ping pong.

Seto Kaiba was, naturally, quite good at it. They had spent yesterday learning how to play and today the class was paired off and told to practice while Enna-sensei assisted the terminally spastic boy, Toshiro. He had unthinkingly paired Seto with Katsuya Jounouchi, which naturally resulted in an explosive singles pickle ball game. Even the teacher gave up on the hopeless Toshiro to watch.

It had started off civilly enough. The two had picked up their respective paddles, called dillers. Seto shook his head sadly at that, someone had obviously been suffering from an excess of cleverness. Jounouchi also took a ball, and they stalked off to opposite sides of the court. They squared off and Jou leisurely served and Seto returned just as easily. They both volleyed lazily back and forth in an effortless manner that said, "We can do this all day."

They only did it about ten minutes. One or another of the klutzy girls in the class had tripped and fallen in such a manner that her underwear was exposed to the boys on Jou's side of the courts, causing Jou to return a bit more forcefully than intended. This caught Seto by surprise and so exacted his revenge by putting the ball in a difficult corner. Jou nearly had to dive to save it and so hit it back at punishing speed.

It seemed to have degenerated from there. The students could only watch in terrified awe as the poor plastic ball was beaten furiously between combatants bent on the other's destruction, or at the very least, incapacitation if either managed a good hit on the head. And then, against all odds it managed to degenerate further. Seto shook his head clear as he realized he was narrating the episode like a clash of gladiators.

Anzu had had enough of watching the boys duke it out via a hollow plastic ball and decided to end it. She yelled at both of them, effectively distracting Jou and throwing off Seto's aim. Jou stood unguarded for a few gut twisting, and quite frankly ball shrinking, split seconds as the angry missile sped toward Jou at somewhere below waist height. Seto felt himself cringing even as Jou moved to block, while the rest of the males unconsciously crossed their legs. The paddle came up just in time and deflected it off to the side.

Seto felt an odd moment of relief on Jou's behalf before he heard a yelp and Enna-sensei's horrified groan. They both spun woodenly to see Anzu rubbing her forehead vigorously as a few tears escaped her eyes. Jou couldn't seem to decide whether to laugh it off and give her a hand up or babble apologies like an idiot and pray she didn't kill him. He settled for glaring at Seto.

Seto felt that this merited some sort of comment. "Nice shot. I always thought that girls cried because you hit on them, Jounouchi, not just because you hit them."

Jou looked about to take the bait, but then thought better of it and turned to his friend. He touched Anzu's shoulder in a vague and worried way. She smiled at him and said something, then allowed him to pull her to her feet and escort her to the nurse, apparently forgiven. Why she had let him off so easily was a bit beyond Seto. He would have at least held out for an apology. Enna-sensei had assigned them both a week's worth of detention and dismissed class early.

It seemed that the drama in Yuugi's group of friends was inescapable. He shifted slightly in his chair as he continued to reflect upon his rival's choice of friends. This morning he had been unusually early to homeroom, which he had with several people of Yuugi's psychotic clique, and had settled in to finish his newspaper. Fifteen minutes later Ryou Bakura and Jounouchi stumbled in killing themselves laughing. It hadn't occurred to him then, but there seemed to be a lot of flirting going on between the two. Nothing new, Jou was usually flirting with anything having a pulse, including his friends and inanimate objects, or otherwise fighting with it, also including his friends and inanimate objects.

But Ryou was flirting back, not very well, perhaps trying to flirt back would be a better term. Still...

Seto put on a sudden burst of faked attentiveness and scribble a series of nonsensical notes as the teacher strolled about the room calling upon people to answer questions. Albatou-sensei returned to the front on the classroom and continued on from his lectern, apparently satisfied.

Seto recalled what he had seen yesterday. He had been standing at his locker at the end of school when the two had passed by on their way out. Ryou had asked Jou two questions, the first of which Jou hadn't heard and the second he'd given an answer to. Seto had heard both questions. He wasn't the least surprised by Jou's answer, but the fact the Ryou had asked the questions was curious indeed.

He considered what he knew about each of them and smiled. Well, well, well. This ought to be good.
***

Seto opened the car door and flopped gratefully into the oh-so-comfortable leather seats. He checked his mirrors and pulled out onto the road, happy to be on his way home. The weekend was here, thank the gods. He needed two days away from the nuthouse known as Domino High. He groaned. He'd get to spend some extra time there next week for detention, joy of joys. He drove through the midtown traffic, his patience slowly draining away to the chorus of horns.

He jerked off the main road and decided to invent a new way home. He wound his way through secondary streets and unfamiliar neighborhoods, but he, fortunately, had an excellent sense of direction. When he finally arrived home he found that he was ten minutes later than if he had sat in traffic, but he was in a far better mood. He went through the house looking for signs of his brother. He eventually found Mokuba in the kitchen, face down in a bowl of soup.

"What, pray tell, are you doing?"

Mokuba looked up from his bowl, dripping chicken soup all over everything in sight. "Well, you see, big brother...thing is...we have no spoons...or forks...or knives."

"They're not back yet? It shouldn't take this long! They were gone this morning-"

"Never to return," Mokuba interrupted meekly.

"Excuse me?" asked Seto, feeling his left eye twitch again. He knew he was not going to like this.

"I was talking to everyone before you got home and none of them have touched the spoons, or seen them. And I don't think any of them were lying."

"So what you are telling me is that, last night when the alarms went off, someone had broken into the house, stolen the entire fifty thousand dollar set of silverware, eluded myself and the guards while carrying at least sixty pounds of flatware, and none of us had any idea until about-" he glanced at his watch- "sixteen hours later?"

Mokuba grimaced, "When you say it like that it sounds so bad. But, basically, yeah."

Seto closed his eyes and counted to ten. Then counted to ten again. And once more for good measure, then released the breath he had been holding. What a way to shoot a good mood to hell. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

W ai! Thanks so much to my reviewers! You all rock! I love you guys! Whoo. I finish this at 1:00 last night. Sorry about the wait guys! Whee! I just got my pictures back for the Big Apple Anime Fest! Cosplay is amazing. WEEHEE! Alright, I'm sorry. So please review and light a fire under my behind. Oh and any song titles you mention will be greatly appreciated! Please? ~Karre