“I’m sorry, why are you quoting English poetry at me?” James asked. The purple-haired teenager blinked and switched back to Japanese.

  “It’s literature!” he said. “We’re the literature club, so I wanted to greet you with a poem in your own language!”

  “I… see?” James responded, not sure of what to say. He stared at the boy’s hair suspiciously. Normally, he would assume it was merely dyed, but Harue’s vibrant orange hair had made him suspicious of any unnatural hair colours.

  Suki squeezed his arm reassuringly. “Wouldn’t it have been better,” she said, “to have used a familiar poem, rather than rework an obscure Australian ballad into a tale about some kind of… sex criminal?”

  “Ah! A fellow enthusiast!” The purple-haired youth exclaimed. “You might be right, but I’ve been working on the poem in honour of Hatakiyama-sensei’s arrival on campus.”

  “The sex criminal is real?” Suki said with alarm.

  “No, no, I assure you, Hatakiyama-sensei’s conduct has been nothing less than exemplary!”

  “And yet…” Suki said doubtfully.

  The literature enthusiast dipped his head in acknowledgement. “It’s just that Hatakiyama-sensei is so good-looking that he drives many students towards… excessive acts, without him even trying.”

  “Sounds dangerous,” James said.

  “I’m sure they wouldn’t… I’m sure he wouldn’t do anything untoward,” the youth said. “I hear that’s why he’s so late getting back to campus— he wants to make sure that the PMC is at full strength to keep the horde at bay.”

  “The horde?” Suki said. “Are a few teenage girls really so dangerous?”

  The older teenager raised his eyebrows. “When,” he said, “Did I say I was only talking about women?”

  “Um,” James said, not knowing what to make of that. “Is it true that the school has a club to take care of security? And that they carry swords around?”

  He had seen a pair of students with swords, dressed in a white school uniform, but he still didn’t quite believe it.

  “Ah, the long arm of the student council,” the boy said. “I’m Aizawa Kaito, by the way. If you join up, feel free to call me Kai-kun.”

  “James St John,” James said. “Oh, St John is my family name. And this is Ikari Suki-san.”

  Kaito gave them a perfunctory bow, which they returned. “Pleased to meet you. Yes, the PMC is real. They don’t often have to draw their swords; generally, their presence is enough to calm things down.”

  “Not often isn’t never. Have there been… incidents?” James asked.

  “Oh yes,” Kaito said, laughing. “The students here can be a rambunctious bunch. But it all gets covered up or smoothed over by the council.”

  He leaned forward.

  “There are quite a number of stories I could tell you if we weren’t in the corridor,” he said softly. “We’re working with the Media Club to compile a secret history of the things that the Student Council would rather keep quiet. If you’d like to join up, I could tell you…”

  “No thanks,” James said. “At least, not today.”

  They left the literature club president to his poems and moved on to check out the other clubs. Today was the first day of school, but there were no lessons. There would be an opening assembly in the afternoon, but the morning was reserved for new students to check out the clubs available on campus. Since the lifeblood of a club was new members, the attempts at attracting attention could get fairly obnoxious.

  It wasn’t long before they saw one of Harue’s posters advertising her new club. It was a simple message, written over a silhouette of a girl dancing in an idol costume.

  Coming soon!

  Idol Club!

  Call if interested!

  Based on the lack of any other advertising stuck on the walls—outside of the carefully managed noticeboards—James was one hundred percent certain that posters were not allowed and would get taken down by staff or the PMC if they noticed them. He was also certain that it wouldn’t stop Harue from putting up more. James didn’t know where she’d gotten free access to a photocopier, but she’d had a full ream of the things this morning.

  “It looks surprisingly good, for something she drew by hand,” James commented.

  “It’s the calligraphy,” Suki told him.

  “Even though it was drawn in marker pen?” he asked.

  “Even so. The spacing, the line angles, the curves… they all speak of someone classically trained in the art.”

  “Classically trained is not the first thought that comes to mind about Harue,” James joked.

  “She seems thoroughly modern,” Suki agreed, “But if what she told us is true, her family must be beyond traditional. Can you imagine having aunts over a thousand years old?”

  “Do you think she was telling the truth? She lies a lot, by her own admission.”

  “I don’t know,” Suki admitted. “She showed us her spirit powers, but a god? Kept confined to his temple with sex? It seems ridiculous.”

  James was going to agree, but at that moment, they were accosted by the next pushy club member.

  “Hey! You’re an American? You like baseball, right?”

  James looked over at the fairly tall and well-muscled Japanese teenager shouting at him from behind a table. A girl was sitting next to him, looking on in horror.

  “Yeah, I’m an American,” he said. “Just call me Yanqui-jin, why don’t you? And you are?”

  The boy had the grace to look embarrassed. “Sorry,” he said. “You speak Japanese pretty good, huh?”

  The girl next to him stood up and bowed. “I apologise for my co-captain,” she said and gave the boy a little kick. “His rudeness was unacceptable.”

  The boy gave a little bow. “Sorry, again,” he said. “It’s just that it gets pretty competitive on the first day. I’m Iwasaki Sousuke, and this is my co-captain. Ogasawara Akiko-san.”

  “I’m James S—James, and this is Ikari Suki-san. Co-captain instead of president, then?”

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  “Yeah, we have two teams, women and men,” Sousuke said.

  “How progressive,” Suki commented.

  “Well, it’s not like it was a hundred years ago,” Sousuke laughed. “So are any of you interested in joining? We could use a heavy-hitting American on the team.”

  “I dunno,” James said. “I don’t want to make any decisions until I’ve looked at everything.”

  Sousuke made a tch sound. “C’mon, man! Normally, I’d use the prospect of getting a little closer to the lovely Captain Akiko. But you wouldn’t be interested in that, would you?”

  “No,” Suki said, clutching James’ arm a little tighter. “He would not.”

  Sousuke laughed. “Ah, young love,” he said. “But listen, if you are interested in joining an athletics club, it should be ours because—”

  “Because they are weak!” someone shouted from further down the corridor. Sousuke grimaced and tried to continue. But the new speaker shouted over him.

  “So weak that they must clutch at the scraps of the first-years left from our table!”

  James looked over at the new arrival. He was even taller than the baseball captain, with an elaborately styled haircut and the squarest jaw that James had ever seen on a Japanese person.

  “I,” he said loudly, “am Nakamura Ryota, President of the Athletics Club!”

  He stepped forward, only to be met by Sousuke, who came out from behind the table to stand in Ryota’s way.

  “Back off, ass!” Sousuke said, glaring up at his rival. “You’ll get your chance once we’ve signed both of them up.”

  Suki looked at them both and then turned to Akiko, who was holding her head in both hands. “Are sporting club presidents an exception to the rule of Japanese politeness?” she asked.

  Akiko groaned. “These two are just… they always get like this,” she said.

  “Look, just chill, guys,” James said to the two presidents, “We weren’t planning on signing anything until we checked everyone out.”

  “You don’t understand,” Sousuke said. “This man—”

  “You don’t understand,” Ryota interrupted again. “The Athletics Club is the only choice.”

  “Only because you killed all the other clubs off!” Sousuke exclaimed.

  “Killed? No. United. When I came here, all of the clubs were disorganised. Fragmented. Weak. There was duplication of roles, funds were being misused. Now there is one club. Under my guidance, the sporting clubs have joined to work in harmony.”

  Ryota broke away from his chest-to-chest standoff with Sousuke and pointed at James.

  “Imagine!” he shouted. “One club, with facilities and training for any sport you can imagine! Track! Boxing! Judo! Ping pong! You can specialise in one or switch between them as much as your heart desires.”

  “Not baseball,” Sousuke ground out.

  “Not yet,” Ryota sneered. “We will subsume you, along with the remaining holdouts. And then the Student Council will have no choice but to bow to my demands!”

  “It will never happen!” Sousuke yelled. “I’ll die first!”

  “Hey, is that ōtani Shōhei, over there?” James asked casually.

  “What! Where?” both combatants yelled. They looked in the direction he pointed, but when they turned back, James had already made his escape.

  “Learning things from Mitsue, are you?” Suki giggled, having been dragged along.

  “Nah, that’s good old American trickery,” James said. “Let’s step in here, in case they chase us. Wait—why is it so dark in here?”

  James and Suki stared around the room they’d entered in confusion. It was a standard classroom, but all the desks and chairs had been moved over to the walls, stacked two desks high. The windows had been covered over with black paper, and the lights were turned off. Aside from the doorway behind them, the only light came from coloured paper lanterns that had been strategically placed throughout the room.

  In the centre of the room, an ornately decorated divan had been placed, and two girls were draped across it, dressed in white silk shifts that looked, to James’ quickly averted eyes, dangerously close to indecent.

  Beyond the divan, at the front of the classroom, several easels had been set up, manned by students shrouded in the darkness, intent on the scene before them.

  James and Suki both jumped at the sound of the sliding door closing behind them. It, too, had its window covered with dark paper. In the now very dim and flickering light, they stared at the woman who was now standing behind them.

  She was tall, blond and gorgeous. Golden curls cascaded past her shoulders, reaching almost to her waist. Her skin was an alabaster white that seemed to glow in the darkness and contrasted with her lips, which were a vivid shade of red. Her eyes were a darker ruby, glittering with reflected light.

  She was wearing a perfectly normal school uniform, but despite being indoors—and in near darkness—an old-fashioned parasol was resting on her shoulder.

  She smiled.

  “Well, hello! Welcome to the Art Club!”

  James and Suki just stared for a long moment, and then James found his mouth moving, blurting out the first thought that came into his head.

  “I didn’t think there were many Americans at this school?”

  The woman cocked her head prettily. “There are a few, but I’m German. Lieselotte Octavia Von Castling, at your service.”

  She held out a hand. Suki was the first to reach out and take it.

  “Ikari Suki,” she said. “I’m very pleased to—eep!”

  Lieselotte had slipped her fingers under Suki’s palm and brought Suki’s hand up to her lips before the startled girl could react. She stepped in, very close and said, “I’m very pleased to—what?”

  The beautiful blonde frowned in confusion. “What on earth?” she breathed softly. Her confusion lasted long enough for Suki to step away.

  “I’m sorry,” Suki said firmly. “I didn’t get a chance to introduce my boyfriend, James.”

  Lieselotte stared for a moment longer before shaking her head slightly and looking at James. “Quite,” she said. “You’re a lucky man, James.”

  She held out her hand as if James was supposed to do the same courtly kiss. She did it so smoothly and so naturally that it felt only natural to comply. James’s lips were halfway to her fingers before his brain caught up with him and he thought to question what he was doing. Several red flags had been waving at him, but it was only as he noticed the unnatural coolness of Lieselotte’s skin that this final flag broke through his denial of the conclusion his mind had already reached.

  She’s a vampire, isn’t she? I’m kissing the fingers of a Vampire.

  Momentum carried him through. If he hadn’t already committed to the gesture, he would have frozen, or screamed, or dragged Suki away. Or tried to trigger his glowing green light. He did none of these things, however. He lightly pressed his lips against her cool fingers and released her hand.

  The world didn’t end. He didn’t die.

  “Are… you a student at this school?” Suki said carefully.

  “Of course, can’t you tell from the uniform?” Lieselotte said with a playful tone. “I could hardly be a member of the Art Club if I weren’t a student, could I?”

  “This is… the Art Club, then?” James asked woodenly. His mind was racing a bit too quickly in circles to be concerned with social skills.

  “Yes, as you can see, the members are investigating the effects of dimmer light on pale fabrics.”

  Lieselotte stepped between them, grabbing each of their arms as they turned to keep facing her. James realised for the first time that Suki had lost her grip on his arm. He missed it.

  “Do you have any interest in painting?” Lieselotte asked.

  “Not really,” James said cautiously. I just came in here to get away from the crazy, he thought. I didn’t know there was going to be more of it in here.

  “I have some training,” Suki admitted, “But my interest lies more with music.”

  “A shame…” Lieselotte murmured, drawing them forward to the divan. James could see now, against his will, that the dresses that the girls were wearing, though thin, did preserve their modesty.

  “But tell me,” Lieselotte continued. “How do you feel about beauty? Because that is what this Art Club concerns itself with.”

  “Um,” James said. Suki was more eloquent.

  “Surely everyone is interested in beauty,” she said. “The differences lie in what they see as beautiful and how they pursue their vision.”

  “A fair point,” Lieselotte acknowledged. “But my point is that we need beautiful models just as much as we need painters, and either of you could fill that role.”

  She gestured at the two girls lying on the lounge. Now that it felt safe to look at them, James could see that they were both very beautiful.

  Suki’s eyes narrowed. “Life models are typically naked,” she stated. “Is that the practice here?”

  “It would be my preference, but alas, school rules forbid it,” Lieselotte said sadly. “We can go topless on male models, however.”

  She glanced slyly at James and then turned back to Suki. “Wouldn’t you like to see that magnificent torso of his… preserved forever by artistry?”

  Suki scowled. “I wouldn’t want others to see him that way,” she said. “That’s for—that’s private.”

  The blush that James had been trying to hold back finally made its appearance. He felt his heart start to thud in his chest. Lieselotte glanced over at him and licked her lips, dispelling exactly no thoughts that she was a vampire.

  “Oh, my dear,” she said to Suki. “There’s no harm in looking. Are you going to be jealous of the light? It caresses his body more gently and more thoroughly than any lover.”

  “That’s not—That’s— That’s not what light does,” Suki protested. “It’s just light, it doesn’t caress.”

  “You think so?” Lieselotte said. “Take a look at these girls, then. See how the light moves across their skin. How the shadows change and shift. You think that isn’t an act of love?”

  That would be looking a little too closely to be safe, James thought. He confined himself to looking at the girls’ faces. They had remained perfectly still throughout all this, staring at nothing with slight smiles on their faces. If they’d heard anything that had been said about them, they showed no sign of it.

  He wondered if they didn’t seem a little too still. A little too happy.

  He wasn’t looking too closely, but Suki stared at the pair. There was a silence that Lieselotte filled.

  “We don’t require a club sign-up for models, but it is quite time-consuming. It’s best to have a membership to explain the time spent. If you join another club and then spend a lot of hours here, they tend to resent it.”

  “I see,” Suki said flatly. “Thank you for showing us the club, but we really must be going now. We have many other things to see.”

  “Bye then, darlings!” Lieselotte said. To James’s surprise, she made no move to stop Suki from dragging James toward the door.

  “Leave the door open, if you don’t mind,” Lieselotte called out to them as they left. “We have many more first-years to ensnare.”

  James couldn’t get away from the room fast enough. “Over there,” he pointed, aiming Suki at a table that promised safety.

  “The PMC recruitment table?” Suki asked. “Are you sure?”

  “I’ve got a feeling,” James said, “That a club that gets armed students to patrol the school won’t even crack the top five weirdest things we see today.”

  least, because the GM was in the habit of putting them in and not drawing attention to them.