“A Fan of Your Physical Form” (57.5) (Oka)

"I'm thinking we have a big chase scene through here," Kalei said, framing the path in front of her with her hands. "It'd be sweet if we could all get motorcycles."

"We'd need at least three," Marmalade said. "Two for the chase, and one on camera."

"But we could have whoever's filming stay on the side, with some movie magic we could do it with even one!" Kalei said.

"We should likely put a permission form in for any filming on a campus locale like this," Lillia said. "I can begin drafting letters that we can use as a base."

"As long as we don't do anything with that big table, I'm game for whatever," Zeta said.

"Oh man, but that table would be great for like a conference room scene," Kalei said.

"Why not use one of the actual conference rooms for that!" Zeta said.

The garden on campus was impressively sized, but I was maybe unfairly judging it for not being a perfect natural landscape like my dream. There was no body of water for Zeta to dip her toes in, no open space where we could be alone. The more we wandered, the more certain I was that this would not be the place for Zeta and I to have any kind of secret getaway.

At least Kalei had backed off about joking about Zeta and me, her film aspirations taking priority. I didn't want to tell her we maybe didn't have the capability to have a motorcycle chase through a school garden for our movie, but I admired her for thinking big.

The more I thought about a secret getaway, the more I found myself zoning out of the conversation.

"Come around this way," Kalei said, guiding the group behind a knee-high row of bushes. "Maybe get the camera angle from here?"

Zeta and I were in the back of the group. Kalei had everyone's attention filming test footage of one of the spy demons of our movie spying on the other clans from the shadows. To try and see the exact angle Kalei was filming at, Zeta leaned forward a bit, putting her hands on her knees. My mind was completely off the video now, my gaze fixated entirely on my girlfriend.

She's so pretty I could explode. It's so cute when her tail starts moving around in that way when she's trying to focus on something. I might actually explode if I don't get some time with her. Could we maybe sneak off?

I wasn't sure where we could even go. If we went back to our room, the exact same things that always happen would happen. Should we just run around the school and find some hiding place? That had been my daydream for a while. That we could find a secret little getaway, and hopefully have lots of time to have fun there.

"Oh, perfect, there you are,"

"Eep!" I yelped, partially from thinking I got caught staring at my girlfriend's butt and partially because the group that approached consisted of four girls, Fauni, Peaches, Astrid, and Erika. At first glance, the four popular girls wouldn't be my first guess as people who would be in the door-to-door magazine sales club. I was bracing for them to fight after I blew up at them earlier.

They didn't seem mad, though?

"Are ya cooled off now?" Fauni, the club president, said.

Fauni was a fashionista type, always keeping up with the latest trends and incorporating them as much as she could with our uniforms. She was a heavyset girl with a bright and bubbly personality, but didn’t talk much during classes where I saw here the most, and seemed to stick to her own cliques outside of them. Peaches was a short Kanibari rabbit who was obsessed with reality shows and always talking about them, and Astrid and Erika were always hanging out together. I didn’t know them well enough to think of any other way to describe them than average girls, but that seemed mean to them, if I got to know them better I could probably learn more about them.

None of us were particularly close with the club members, but we were at least on "cordial in class" level when I wasn't shouting. Fauni was the nicest of them by my estimation, and I was glad in hindsight she wasn’t there for my little incident. Astrid and Erika faced my wrath there, which might have put a pin in me getting to know them better.

"Sorry again," I said.

"Oka like yelled yelled at you guys?" Kalei said.

"She was pretty heated according to my compatriots,” Fauni said. Astrid and Erika nodded. “But we are the forgiving types, especially because we didn't get to make our important offer.”

"If it's magazines, I'm afraid my money for the next while will be going to a preorder of the deluxe edition of Dentist Haircut 1.5, the interquel that's going to drop some lore before DH2 comes out." Kalei said.

"We'll save you the sales pitch for now," Fauni said. "The main thing we wanted to ask is if you wanted to join us on a trip to the beach tomorrow."

"A beach trip in the middle of winter?" Zeta asked. "Wouldn't that be kinda...cold?"

"Haven't you seen the winter day beaches?" Kalei asked. "They get a bunch of weather Cani and fire Cani and make it feel like it's summer. With your weather power, that could be a future career."

"Huh..." Zeta said.

"It's quite expensive, if I remember right." Lillia said.

"Which is why we're inviting you," Fauni said. "The company that sponsors our club is doing a trip, but we need at least ten people or they won't let us go."

"Don't you have more club members that could go?" I asked.

Fauni counted on her fingertips as she listed the other members. "Clarabel has to get her wisdom teeth out, Bri has to get her wisdom teeth put back in, Connie is visiting her uncle, Rory got common shift sickness, and Valeri and Alecia have a date."

"I'm down for this," Kalei said.

"I'll invite Ko, and she'll surely bring her sister," Lillia said.

"Bring as many as you want! Honestly, we need to pump up our numbers." Fauni said.

"The magazine club is all about pumping up numbers," Peaches said. "Learned that trick from the bad boy of Season 38 of Dangerous Island Getaways."

"If we go, do we get to skip class?" I asked.

"You just need a day pass," Astrid said. "The club can provide those. We don't have class cuz of the holiday."

"Wait, it is?" I said.

"Uh huh, architecture appreciation day," Fauni said. “Just got added to the calendar a week or so ago. Go PTA!”

It wasn't a tough choice. Kalei started brainstorming immediately about filming while we were there, but my mind went right to wondering what Zeta and I could do on our trip.