Club Week. The time when clubs hunt for new members. Every club tries to snag some fresh blood for itself. During this period, all the clubs set up their booths and lure in their prey to make them part of the whole.
Carnivora was no different.
Right now it was the turn of the cultural clubs.
The drama club was putting on some kind of play in the evening. Evan didn't know the story, but it seemed to be some kind of horror or thriller. It was about a carnivore who fell in love with a herbivore and constantly had to fight the urge to eat the love of his life.
They'd offered that role to Evan, but he turned it down. Theater had never really been his thing.
Evan, Shaun, and Rufus wandered between the booths. Maybe they'd find something for themselves.
The literature club? Well, rummaging through books was never really his passion.
Poetry club? Rhymes weren't his thing either.
Eventually they sat down on a bench somewhere and started chatting. Evan was the first to speak.
"Got any plans?"
"I'm waiting for the sports clubs. I'll try to get into track and field."
Rufus had already shown himself to be a pretty serious athlete. He ran basically every day, and a light morning workout was mandatory for him.
"And you, Shaun?"
The ram let out a heavy sigh.
"You're not gonna believe me anyway."
"Try us."
"Alright. My patron is a porn mogul. I'm training to be an actor. By the end of the year I'll have my official debut. I don't really have time for a club."
Evan and Rufus burst out laughing.
"That was a good one."
"Shaun, the king of porn?"
"Told you you wouldn't believe me. What about you, Evan?"
"I'll wait for the cooking clubs."
Evan hadn't given up on his culinary ambitions. What surprised him was how many cooking clubs there were. There were clubs focused on meat or on plants. The meat ones were further split into roast clubs, stew clubs, and tons of others. It was enough to give him a headache. Although after seeing the two separate cafeteria windows, he could kind of understand it.
They chatted for a few more minutes. Suddenly Shaun picked up a call and said he had to go. Rufus decided it was time to hit the gym. Evan decided to wander around a bit longer.
He walked and walked until he stopped in front of something that looked like a manga and anime club.
He stopped and stared.
Buttons, what looked like fan-made comics, plus posters from series he didn't recognize.
At that moment, a bunny girl walked up to him.
"Can I ask you something?"
Evan nodded.
"I saw you with the rabbit and the ram, and I was wondering…"
For a second Evan thought she was going to ask about Rufus, but no. She meant…
"…which of you is seme and which is uke?"
"There's nothing going on between us."
He told the truth, but her face clearly said: yeah, sure.
"Yuki, go help Rice with the doujins."
The bunny girl walked off. His rescuer was a cat girl with black-and-silver stripes.
"Sorry about her. She can't control her fantasies whenever she sees guys alone together. Anyway, I'm Nekogawa Aiko."
"Evan Smith."
"Nice to meet you, Evan. I never thought I'd see a real human."
"And I never thought I'd see a world like this."
After a moment they both burst out laughing and slipped into conversation. Talking with her felt oddly easy. After a few minutes, she started fiddling with her fingers.
"So… I'd like to ask you for a favor."
"What kind of favor?"
He glanced at her tail. It was wrapped around her leg, and her ears were laid back.
"Well, our club is working on a new manga with a human character. So far, all we've had are old paintings and drawings from the internet, so…"
"You want me to pose for you?"
She nodded vigorously in response. Her ears tilted slightly backward, her tail curled around his calf, and he could feel the tip of it trembling. On top of that, she was looking up at him from under her lashes. For Evan, that kind of thing was an instant kill.
"Alright."
Aiko smiled, and her tail and ears shot straight up.
"Oh yes, perfect."
"A real human, in the flesh."
"I'll capture every detail of the working muscles."
"Every nuance of human anatomy."
"This is going to be a masterpiece."
At first he thought it would be just the two of them—and at the beginning it was. He was alone with Aiko, shirtless, posing for her. She was drawing intently in her sketchbook. There was something incredibly cute and predatory about it, like a cat crouched by a mouse hole.
But their solitude didn't last long. After a few—maybe a dozen—sketches, the other club girls barged in. Aiko couldn't exactly kick them out, and Evan's furry charm had already broken, so they stayed.
Over time he lost everything… except his underwear. The girls didn't want to stop there, but Aiko threatened them with the Headmaster, and they calmed down a bit. Even so, they covered his briefs with a white cloth, making him look like some model for an antique painting.
And in the meantime, he had to twist and turn into various poses, each one greeted with squeals of delight. By the time they finally let him go, the day's festival events were already over.
Aiko kept apologizing for taking so much of his time. The other girls, on the other hand, were gushing over the drawings.
"I'm really sorry again."
"It's alright, but… this is… kind of… embarrassing."
At some point, the girls got carried away and all the drawings turned full-on rule 34.
"Well, all I can do is apologize and… I'm not trying to pressure you into joining the club, but maybe you'll drop by again sometime?"
"I'd like that."
Just seeing how happily her tail started swishing was reason enough to consider it.