Fate/School Days — 11
"...and so we'll be accepting suggestions for the cultural festival now," Sensei concluded. Class 1-1's homeroom teacher finished her presentation and made way for the class representative to make their way to the front of the room and start polling his classmates.
Karin propped her head on her hand in boredom as the usual suggestions were made for the upcoming festival: cafés, haunted houses, plays, and the like. She glanced across the room where Koyuki was passing the time folding and combining small origami modules into a larger ball-shaped piece. She took a closer look, it appeared to be the beginnings of a buckyball. Apparently 'Yuki was anticipating a long discussion. Great.
The class had decided on doing a café, which took far less time than Karin anticipated. Unfortunately it seemed the bottleneck now was for what kind of café it should be.
"Maids!" came the first enthusiastic suggestion. There was the expected cheering from the rest of the boys, perfectly counterpointing the glares most of the girls sent towards the speaker.
"Cosplay café, then?" Class Rep summarized. He scribbled the note on the teacher's own desk, where it was duplicated on every student's screen. He lifted his head back up and looked around. "What else?"
"Stuffed animals?" asked one of the girls timidly. There was a bit of good-natured laughter at that, but the suggestion was marked down as well.
"S&M!" shouted a voice from the back.
"Vetoed," came the instant response from Sensei. The whole class erupted into laughter.
"Super Sentai!"
"That goes under cosplay, I'd think." Class Rep looked around the room again. "Any other themes? No? Let's add 'generic uniforms' to this too. Something where we can make a unique design but its not quite cosplay." The notation was marked and he leaned back from the teacher's desk. "Okay, Cosplay, Stuffed Animals, and Generic; cast your votes."
The desks' screens unlocked and soon everybody was entering their votes. After a few minutes, Class Rep displayed the results, showing cosplay had won by quite a large margin.
"Alright, so we're doing a cosplay café," he had to shout over the cheers erupting from half the room. "I think we had votes for maids and super sentai, what else?"
It was another half-hour of voting before a consensus on costumes had been reached. Suggestions from the students included: popular anime series, swimsuits (vetoed), hadaka apron (vetoed before the second syllable was even said), popular games, military uniforms, sports team uniforms (that one took a while, but was eventually vetoed because there was too much argument on whichteam), and the like.
Finally, though, it was decided to have maids (cheers) and butlers (louder cheers) serving flavored snowcones or shaved ice. Class Rep began splitting up the tasking for the room's decorations, the costume designs, food prep, budgeting, and assigning student leaders to oversee each one.
"Emiya-san?"
"Hm?" Karin lifted her head to see the Class Rep looking straight at her.
"Would you mind taking charge of the costume designs?"
"Ah, iincho..." a hand near the front shot up nervously. "That might not be such a good idea..."
"Hm? Why not, Sato-kun?" The Class Rep frowned. "Emiya-san's family runs a costume store doesn't it?"
"You... could call it that," Sato replied nervously. "It's actually a bit more... risque."
"How would you know?" a girl across the room asked suspiciously. Sato wisely chose not to answer.
"Ah?" Class Rep glanced at the teacher for permission, then brought up the webpage for Uzume's Clothing Boutique. His face suddenly flushed and he slapped at the screen to close the window. "Well..."
"It's alright," Karin said with a grin. "Kaa-chan's done plenty of stuff on the side before. I'm sure she can still help us out."
"I'll need to see your design sketches before we commit to anything," Sensei interrupted. "Let's not go too overboard with this."
"Deal," the redhead replied easily. "Although personally I don't think it would hurt to have a little service..."
The whole class struggled to ignore the sudden chuckling that came from her corner of the room.
"...Right then," Class Rep said nervously. "Moving on, food preparation... Takara-san?"
Later that evening...
"Café? That's so cliché," Keiko complained.
"What is your class doing then?" Karin asked.
Keiko grinned, "I got them to agree with a shooting gallery. We're setting up random prizes, old toys and plushies and the like. You might get our budget officer visiting yours and trying to wrangle some coupons for your place."
"Sounds fun," Sakuya said wistfully. "Our class is going to be putting on a haunted house."
The two siblings stared at her.
"...What?"
Karin leaned back in her chair. "Nothing! Just... go easy on your customers, Sakuya-chan."
The shadow user smiled. "I have no idea what you're implying~"
Koyuki entered the room then, Uzume following her.
"Yo," the adult greeted. "What's this I hear about a cosplay café?"
Karin beamed.