Having kissed the rest of the lunch break away, Sam’s lips finally part mine.

“I think we should head back to class, I have basketball training soon. When does your class end?”

“At 4 I think.” I sigh, still a bit out of breath. “We just have drawing class in the afternoon.”

“Oh, should be around the same time then. Should I come and pick you up?”

“If you want to.” I give her a kiss on her cheek.

“Definitely.” She smiles and kisses me on the lips one more time. “But we really should go now. I kissed you for too long.”

“Hehe. Maybe. But I liked it though.”

“Me too.”

I hug my girlfriend goodbye and we both make our way towards our respective classrooms. I encounter Hailey and Carol on the staircase. Both of them immediately start smirking when they see me.

“W-what’s wrong?” I stutter.

“Oh nothing, it just appears you were having a bit of fun with your girlfriend.” Carol giggles.

“What do you mean?” I can feel my face start to turn red.

“You just got a bit of Americain preparé on your cheek, that’s all.” Hailey smiles.

“Wha- Really?”

Hailey takes out a paper towel and gently wipes it off my cheek. “There you go.”

“Thanks Hailey.” I continue walking on but I notice Hailey and Carol don’t follow me. “Aren’t you coming to class?”

“We are but the prof told us to wait here, we ran into her and she said to not bother to come to the classroom. Apparently we are doing some kind of art excursion.”

“Did she say where we are going?”

“No, she said it was a secret.”

“Oh, interesting.”

“I know right.” Carol excitedly agrees.

“Alright class, follow me.” After a couple of minutes of waiting the art professor finally passes us again so we can start following her too. “Today we are going to do some action drawing.”

“Oh no, I’m so bad at that.” Hailey whispers.

“It’ll be fine, Hails.” Carol pats her friend on the back. “I’m intrigued about where we are going to do that though. Maybe the robotics labs?”

“That would be cool! I’ve never been there before!”

“I’ve only seen it once when I was here on orientation day.” Hailey comments. “I was deciding between doing art or robotics.”

“What made you choose art in the end?”

“Good question. I can’t really put it into words. Just a gut feeling maybe?” Hailey shrugs.

“It was fate, Amicia, fate! Otherwise she would’ve never met me!”

“You are the only reason I regret my decision.” Hailey sighs, but it was clearly in jest.

“Just admit it, you can’t live without me anymore.”

“Amicia, please tell me she is going to calm down when she becomes a cat girl.”

“Can’t say that, sorry. All cat girls are different, you see.”

“I haven’t. Decided. Yeeeet!” Carol protests.

The entire group, including Carol, starts laughing, which did pull the attention of some other students.

“Maybe we should keep quiet.” Hailey says with a hushed voice, trying to contain her laughter.

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“This is not the way to the robotics lab.” Carol remarks while we are getting suspiciously close to the gymnasium. “Don’t tell me…”

“Today we are observing our basketball team in action.” The professor proudly proclaims in front of the class, us seated on the spectator benches next to the court. The basketball team is lined up on the court as they get a similar talk from their coach. There were 4 people in this room paying a bit less attention to the teacher as they should, Me, Sam, Max and Carol.

“Why… I’m not going to be able to concentrate.” Carol puts her head in her hands.

Meanwhile Hailey is trying her very best not to start laughing at Carol and the blushy mess that I was being.

When I looked at Sam I could see she wasn’t doing much better, the only one being somewhat confident with the situation was Max.

But luckily, after a couple of minutes of trying to calm ourselves, we manage to regain our composure. The basketball team starts their practice game, leaving us with the task of making some action sketches. And sketch we did, by the halfway mark of the lesson, I’d already accrued almost ten sketches, which impressed the professor.

“Wow, good work there Amicia.” She picks up the sketches and starts looking through them. “Very good technique. Marvelously done.”

“Th-thanks.” Luckily she didn’t comment on why I’d almost only drawn Sam.

The focus of Carol’s drawings was also pretty clear, with Max being portrayed on the forefront. Haileys sketches had a completely different approach to them. In the couple of drawings she managed to make she viewed the game as a whole, often portraying game situations with multiple players in different poses and positions.

“This isn’t bad at all, Hailey.” I pick up one of her sketches and study it closer.

“You think so?” She smiles. “I’m just not really convinced of that. Here, look at this one for example.” She picks up another paper and shows it to me. “What I wanted to draw is completely different from what it ended up as. And that annoys me.”

“I don’t know, I still think it’s really good.”

“She’s just too much of a perfectionist at times.” Carol says without looking up from her latest sketch.

“That might be true.” Hailey smiles and gets back to work so I decide to do the same.

The coach of the basketball team blows her whistle, signalling the end of the class.

“Alright class, that’s it for today. I saw a lot of you make a lot of progress which I’m very happy with.” Our professor addresses us while the basketball team starts cleaning up their equipment. “Next lesson we’ll try to incorporate what we learned today in some other art styles.” And with that the professor leaves together with most of the class. Leaving me, Hailey and Carol behind. Having finished their cleanup, Max and Sam walk over to us.

“So, that was quite the surprise, hey.” Max laughs.

“Yeah, it really was.” Sam nods and then looks over to the sketches next to me. “Can I see them, Ami?”

“Mhmm.” I give a blushy nod.

“Oh wow, nice!” Max looks over Sam’s shoulder. “I see the extra effort Sam was putting in really paid off.”

“W-wha…” Sam’s face shot red.

“She generally isn’t that zealous during training, you know.” Max gives me a wink.

“L-like you weren’t trying to show off! What was up with that crazy spin?”

“This one?” Carol shows one of her drawings.

“Exactly!” Sam calls out. “Oh, nice drawing by the way.”

“Thanks.”

“Cool!” Max takes a closer look at Carol’s drawings as well. Making her blush too. “I’m not going to lie, of course I was showing off as well. Needed to give them something to look at, you know.”

“As long as you don’t do it in an actual game.” Sam gives Max a flick of her finger.

“Ouch.”

“And how did your drawing go, Hailey?” Sam asks.

“Oh, the fifth wheel also gets attention?”

“Sorry, Hailey…”

“Don’t worry, I was joking.” She pets my head. “The drawing went okayish I guess.” She hands her stack of drawings over to Sam too.

“These are very different to those of Ami and Carol…” Sam attentively looks them over. “But I do think they are really nice. Could I take some pictures to show this to the others?”

“Yeah, these are very good team drawings.” Max vehemently agrees.

“Ah… Sure… I don’t think they are that good but go ahead…”

“What are you talking about, these are fantastic.” Sam takes a couple of pictures with her phone. “You should’ve more confidence in yourself.”

“Yeah, you aren’t the only one who says that.” She looks at me and Carol. “But I definitely appreciate the compliments.”

“Could I send the reactions of the rest of the team to you too?”

“Sure thing.”

“Alright.” Sam puts her phone away and taps Max on the shoulder. “We should probably take a shower first and get dressed. Will you all wait here for us?”

“Hmm. It’s sunny outside right now so…” Carol proposes. “If that’s good with Ami and Hailey of course.”

“Definitely.” I reply. “I love the sun as long as it’s not too hot.”

Hailey agrees as well. “Yeah, let's wait outside then.”

“‘Kay, see you in a bit.” Sam gives me a quick kiss and then leaves together with Max so we can make our way outside.

We find a nice place to sit outside and wait there for Sam and Max to rejoin us. The birds are chirping around us. The warm glow of the sun makes me want to stretch and lay down somewhere.

Without saying anything Hailey gently pulls me down on her lap.

“No! I wanted to do that.” Carol calls out.

“Was it that obvious?”

“I just know how to read a cat’s body language.” Hailey smiles, letting Carol finish her little tantrum.

“Hehe.”

“Next time it’s my turn!”

“To be the lapcat?” I tease Carol.

“That’s not what I meant!” Her pouting makes me and Hailey giggle and after a while even Carol started to giggle as well.

-Being a lapcat is pretty nice.-