College Fresh Meat - Part II
Part II - Who's Your Mentor? The cafeteria didn't smell like food, as Kai had stupidly told the wolf who escorted him here. Instead, it smelt of lemon-scented disinfectant spray, which didn't seem to faze any of the freshmen--except for Kai. The smell of the wolf's faint musk that was stuck in Kai's nose had been blanketed by the lemony odour, making Kai forget about his encounter for a while. He wanted to make some friends on the first day of school."I should just greet myself," Kai suggested, not needing to mind his volume over the cacophony of laughter and squeals from the students. Kai began exploring the cafeteria, squeezing through pockets of freshmen huddled together with their friends. Every table in the cafeteria had at least two people seated there, no coupling paired with the same species. Everyone seemed to get along fine with each other. That, or everyone came from the same high school but him. Panning around the room a couple of more times, Kai spotted another wolf. It didn't look like Jordan--not even close to that hunky Canis lupus from this morning. The wolf kept disappearing behind heads of students passing in front of Kai, forcing him to tiptoe several times. The wolf was alone, he noticed, sitting at a far table. No one was near him. Or he wasn't near anyone. Without thinking, Kai nudged through the crowd of squealing girls, hugging his puffy white-tipped tail in front of him to avoid getting it snagged on other students' backpack zippers. Kai tripped over a female squirrel's stiletto heel as he burst through the crowd of freshmen, hearing the squirrel scoff at his lack of an apology and continuing her disembodied conversation with her otter friend."Hi there," Kai said with a small unexpected squeak, clearing his throat shortly after.The wolf didn't speak. He only waved at him and gave him a quick, with-no-eyes smile.Go on, Kai gestured in his mind. "Um," he continued, "may I sit here?"The wolf nodded. Kai swung his backpack in front of him and pulled out the only other chair next to the wolf. As Kai leaned his backpack on the back legs of the chair, he could see the wolf's eyes staring at the chair that Kai was about to sit in.Maybe he's shy, Kai thought. And he seemed right. There wasn't a sound from the wolf since Kai spoke to him. Plopping down with a slow groan, Kai looked up at the wolf. He caught a quick jerk of the wolf's head, his eyes now looking toward the crowd of the blathering sound of students. The wolf was definitely a shy guy, Kai assured himself.Feeling his ears twitch from the awkward first impression, Kai began to speak.
"So, you're a freshman, too?"The wolf nodded."That's cool," Kai said, looking into the wolf's eyes, which were looking down at his lap.Kai gave a distinct five-second pause, just in case the wolf might say something. But he didn't."Do you live near the college?" Kai forced out, trying to keep a natural, interested tone to his questions.The wolf only nodded.Kai continued to speak. "How do you like the campus? It's pretty big, huh?"The wolf nodded again."You don't want to get lost here, y'know?" Kai said, abusing a chuckle.The wolf only smiled, still looking down.Kai leered at the wolf's faint grin as he exhaled silently but forcefully, making his nostrils flare. Before Kai could think of another question, he heard a female voice over a speaker coming from the front of the cafeteria, behind the cluster of students."Okay, freshmen," the voice said, "let's all have a seat, please." Before Kai's ears could realise, the students he fought through a few minutes ago parted and obediently glided into seats around the cafeteria. The building suddenly felt bigger, now that there weren't a hundred standing people. The female speaker was revealed to be a very robust bunny. The polo shirt that Kai saw the big-boobed bunny wearing reminded him of Jordan again. Only Jordan had big pecs."Thank you for enrolling to this brand-new school," the bunny said with a giggle. "But first, let's all give ourselves a round of applause for making it past high school!" Even before the bunny could finish "high school", a roar of whistles and screaming rattled Kai's ears, the students clapping and jumping up from their seats. Yeah, way to pass the easiest part of your life, Kai insulted to himself. He always thought that high school was a necessity, something you just had to finish to become an adult. But he was happy to be in college, so he joined in for the last couple of claps.The bunny spoke again. "Now, as freshmen, you all get to choose a mentor who can help you get started on your first-year experience here." As if rehearsed, Kai, and the rest of the cafeteria, saw a group of red-shirt-wearing people enter from the cafeteria's other door, catercorner the door that Kai was let in. Kai counted seven mentors passing through the doorway. The only mentor Kai's eyes locked on was the wolf with the bulging chest, who was flexing as he walked into the cafeteria. Kai heard the stiletto-wearing squirrel squeal and moan, "Look at that guy, Megan," to her otter friend,
apparently named Megan, hearing them both squeal at a frequency that made Kai grit his teeth. Kai suddenly realised that he was checking him out just as much as the two girls, if not more than anyone in the cafeteria. Must've been cold outside, Kai thought, admiring the wolf's visibly erect nipples poking at the polo shirt as if he were the only person who could see them. They were like staring at him. Kai tried his best to ignore the nipples, the chest, the wolf he only got nods from, and just listened to Miss Bunny Boobs speak. The orientation lasted with each mentor introducing themselves, what year they were and their studies, which revealed to Kai that Jordan was a junior doing computer engineering. When the last mentor spoke, Miss Boobies got back on the microphone."All right. How about that!" the bunny said with a giddy clap. "Now," she began again, "I want you all to come up to the table over here and sign your name under the mentor's name of your choice. You'll be placed in groups based on who you're with." The bunny then placed the microphone down and sat at the registration table and began the sign-in process. Whilst Miss Bouncy Bits called tables to come up and register, Kai remembered the wolf sitting with him.He turned back around and looked at the wolf. "So, who are you gonna choose?"The wolf shrugged quickly, looking up at Kai for a second before glancing out to the table with a line of students signing their names.Kai spurt out, "By the way, I'm Kai." He brought his paw above and over the table to offer a handshake. The wolf peered at the extended paw. Before Kai gave up and dropped his hand, he saw the wolf lift his own paw and cup Kai's. Without Kai's movement, there would have been no handshake but an awkward grab of paws. The wolf gave no effort to grip, let alone bob his arm like a regular handshake does. After a few awkward bobs, Kai slowly released the wolf's paw, placing it down at his lap, watching the wolf do the same, but faster.What's this guy's problem? Kai could only ponder. I gave you my name. Where's yours, weirdo? As their table and a few others were called, Kai and the wolf rose from their seats, shouldered their backpacks and separated to go to the sign-in table. Kai wanted to stick with the wolf to know which mentor he'd go with, even though the wolf never spoke to him anyway. Kai approached the table, a few queues behind, where he heard a familiar deep voice erupt into his ears."Hey, you," Kai heard. He looked around the few people in front of him, seeing Jordan staring right at him."Kai, right?" Jordan asked as he raised a finger to point at him
lazily.Kai nodded."Yeah," Jordan said slowly. "C'mon, bro." The bulky wolf patted his chest and nodded his head and winked, then gesturing his thumbs toward himself, at the erect nipples that he seemed not to notice at all. Kai only smiled, focusing all of his vision on the back of the student in front of him to keep the blood flowing to the correct head. The student then moved to the next registration clipboard, revealing to Kai the wolf who never speaks, leaning on the table with a pen tapping the clipboard in front of him. The student was done before the wolf, and Miss Busty Boobs gestured Kai to the open clipboard. Kai slowly approached the table, finally admiring the bunny and her bazookas up-close, and picked up the pen next to the clipboard. The only name Kai saw was "Jordan". Just before he was going to write the first letter of his name, Kai glanced at the wolf only an arm away from him. He looked at which name the wolf scrawled his messy signature under, too messy to make out a name to call the wolf.Pick a ChoiceA) Kai followed his head and signed his name under "Jordan McDowell". The wolf wouldn't have spoken to him anyway, Kai thought, so there was no point on bothering him any longer.B) Kai looked at the name of the mentor under which the shy wolf signed. Despite Jordan standing behind Miss Bouncy Bits in front of him, Kai copied the silent wolf's choice and signed his name under the same mentor.