Chapter Text
Yosuke Aikawa stood in the middle of the dirt practice track, his breath turning to plumes of steam in the frigid morning air. The sun was little more than a blurry ball of ashy-yellow peeking out over the low mountains to the east, the gray and cloudy sky hindering its ability to ward off an ounce of the cold. Gritting his teeth, he resisted a violent shiver attempting to course through his body as the bitter weather ebbed through the down of his coat. His feet throbbed from lack of use and stamping his boots in the snow gathering around him did little to warm them up. He gripped the rough octagonal shape of the stopwatch in his palm, tensing slightly as he stared down the ashen haired umamusume who had just appeared around the curve of the track fence. Her form streaked towards him on the rime encrusted track.
"Come on Nili! You're faster than this!" he bellowed, the echo of his voice dying quickly in the snow. She was maybe a hundred meters away, far enough that he couldn't make out details, but didn’t need much to know that she was glowering at him. He grinned, huge and smug. "I know you can move those legs faster!!"
The umamusume ducked her head down and leaned into the sprint, charging forward. Her legs pounded her cleats deep into the grit underfoot, her arms swinging wildly as she grew closer and closer to him. He straightened his spine slightly, giving himself a few more centimeters in height as he locked his eyes on the sparkling charm on her ear, watching it whip side to side. Maybe thirty-four kilometers an hour? No—closer to forty. He could feel the steady beat of her powerful strides as she approached, a rhythmic ta-tum-ta-tum-ta-tum, the noise crescendoing as she cut through the still winter air around him.
He hit the stop button on the watch as she hurtled past him in a flash of white and green. He looked down at the small grey display: 1:22.6. He closed one eye as he tried to crunch the value into an average meter per second, but he only got so far as to change the time into total seconds. Eighty-two. "Good job! Lets end there today," he said, turning to face her.
Fernili had stopped a few meters away. A smattering of footprints in the snow led up to where she stood, bent forward, hands braced on her knees, back heaving as she fought to take in laboured breaths. "I told—told you—to stop—" she forced out between gulps of air.
He walked over to her, holding out a water bottle he produced from within one of the big pockets of his coat. "Sorry, didn't catch that," he said casually.
She swiped the plastic bottle out of his hands, the dark orange of her irises smoldering as she glared at him. Her teeth gnashed at the little pull-stopper on the bottle, as she mumbled around the obstruction and heavy breaths, "I told you—to stop calling—me that." She tightened her grip on the bottle sending out a stream of water, which she swallowed greedily.
Yosuke ignored her and checked the time on the watch again before slipping his hands into his pockets to try and thaw his numbed fingers. "How'd that feel?"
She gasped, pulling the bottle away from her face. "Running in the cold? Or running on frozen dirt? Awful. Why? You wanna try?" She wiped sweat from her brow with the sleeve of her tracksuit, an ensemble of forest green broken up by a chunky white stripe running across her shoulders and down over her elbows.
"Come on Fern, gimme me something to go on here," Yosuke complained.
Fernili sighed dramatically. "Fiiiiine. The track sucks and the snow makes it even harder to get a good grip. Really gotta dig my feet in to keep my balance. Plus I have to pick my feet up higher to clear the snow on the track. Makes it hard to get up'ta speed, let alone maintain it."
Yosuke felt a smile break out on his lips. "Excellent."
Crinkling her nose at him, she asked, "What're you grinning about?"
"If you can manage this time," he flashed the stop watch at her, "with these conditions we're right on course with your training."
She eyed the watch, then dragged her glare back up to his face. "Cool, can I have my glasses?" she sniffed in the cold.
"Oh shit, sorry," he said while fumbling in the pockets of his coat. The watch slipped from his fingers into the lightly packed snow on the track. "Damn it, I should still have them here somewhere."
Fernili bent over to retrieve the watch, brushing it clear of ice. She held the device away from her face, squinting tightly at the display. "You're buying the next pair if you break those," she sneered.
Yosuke felt his fingers touch the thin arms in his breast pocket as he patted his chest down. "Well, it's a good thing I didn't!" he boasted. Pulling them out, he unfolded the arms and brought the lenses close to his mouth to fog them up with hot breath, before gently cleaning their surfaces with his sleeve. He held the glasses up to the light to check for any remaining smudges, and then passed them over to her with a satisfied smile.
She sniffed again and pushed the wire-rim frames up her nose. "Thanks, loser."
Yosuke bit back a reply that would get him in trouble with the school's admin. Instead replying with, "I think you mean thanks trainer.”
"You get to be called ‘trainer’ if I win a race." She looked at the watch, cocked her head and clicked her tongue.
"Not bad 'eh?"
She paused, rolling her bottom lip between her teeth. Her eyes shifted from the watch to fixate on something in the distance, like she was contemplating a particularly difficult test question.
A moment later she tossed the watch back at him, "S'fine I guess. Could be better."
Yosuke sighed, Fern had a bad habit of making things out to be either not good enough or too much of a challenge. But to her credit, it was hard to see shades of grey when you're still in high school. Tilting his head he looked up at the slate coloured sky, trying to spot any breaks in the still mass of clouds. The flakes descending from above were starting to grow fat, gathering in large clumps around them. Beckoning with his arm he turned away from the girl. "Come on, let's get somewhere warm before classes start," he mumbled, shoving his hands back into his pockets.
Fernili jogged slightly to catch up, matching his pace, their feet crunching noisily in the snow. He eyed her as they walked, watching her tall ears flick away the falling snowflakes. She met his glance as she took another swig from the water bottle. She was nearly twenty centimeters shorter than him, with long silvery hair pulled into a low ponytail. Her facial features were sharp, like her face had been molded by her biting, sarcastic personality. The two of them had been training together for nearly seven months. When they had started she had been this quiet, willowy pile of teenage bird bones who was more interested in her grades than running, but she had gradually morphed into a lithe, tightly wound athlete whose intellect gave her a frightening leg up in just about anything she tried. In that time she had also revealed herself to be more than happy to tell you exactly how stupid you were whenever the opportunity arose. He had come to savour their verbal bouts as well as her company, and even if he knew that she would be hard pressed to admit it; she seemed to like being on his team. He was confident that she wouldn’t be trying this hard to improve if she felt anything different.
The two of them arrived at a stout, one story brick outbuilding. The main building of the school was laid out behind them across a small concrete courtyard. The school had been built in the early nineties when the Iwate Racing Association and the URA had petitioned the local government to invest in their growing population of umamusume. But the renewal project had not done much to improve the area's output of star racers. Morioka's very own branch of Tracen Academy wasn't much to write about either, and the regional races hosted here attracting little media buzz. At least the single G1 race hosted at the local racecourse was a moderately large event.
Yosuke gripped the aluminum sliding door and pulled it open, warm air rushing out to greet him as he did. He stepped to the side, bowing slightly with an arm bent before him. "Mi'lady," he said with an exaggerated flourish.
She fixed him with a dull glare. "You're such a—" she sighed. Much to Yosuke's satisfaction she still stepped first into the warmly lit room, purposefully scuffing one of her cleats against the side of his shoe as she did.
Their training room was decently sized—at least compared to closets they had worked in straight out of college—and had served them well as a home base for their tiny team to plan and prepare. The walls were covered with a bright, tawny wood paneling that made the space feel cosier than one would expect under the harsh fluorescent lights overhead. They had a kitchenette, some lockers, a pair of whiteboards, a small folding table in the middle, a cot crammed in the corner, and a chunky flat-screen TV mounted on the wall. It wasn't much, but it was theirs.
Closing the door behind him, Yosuke shook his coat and stomped the snow from his boots, feeling rather like a dog as he did so. "Can you start the kettle Fern? Gonna need something to warm these old bones o'mine." She rolled her eyes at him, but walked over to the tiny stovetop, her shoes clinking against the concrete floor.
"How'd it go out there?" asked a quiet, tenor pitched voice from the direction of the cot.
Yosuke’s head snapped in surprise toward the direction of the interloper. A mousy looking man with shaggy black hair, sulked in the shadows. He sat cross-legged atop the cot, a laptop balanced between his knees, cocking a curious eyebrow at Yosuke, his dark-brown eyes wide. The glare of the laptop washed out his features, making his already tired expression more pallid, deepening the grey circles ringing his eyes. The man had worn an inscrutably world-weary expression since they met in high school, but Yosuke had always thought it made him look blissfully unassuming, not miserable or unkempt.
“Good! She hit eighty-two point six.” Yosuke said. He discarded his puffy jacket across the back of one of the chairs at the table in the middle of the room and threw himself heavily into another. “When’d you get in?”
Turning his attention back to the laptop, Misao started typing “Not that long ago. Couldn’t sleep and I got bored of rotting in bed. What distance did you pick?” he asked, clearly wanting to talk about work more than his morning.
“Twelve-hundred meters. Conditions were probably… okay? It started snowing in ernest while she was coming around the final corner.” Yosuke ticked off all the properties that he knew his colleague was looking for.
Misao paused and considered what Yosuke had said. “Stellar work Fern. Just over fourteen meters per second, that’s nearly competitive enough for the Seiran Sho,” Misao said through a small smile. “How’d it feel? Gonna tell your parents?”
Misao and Yosuke both turned toward Fernili who was standing in front of the kitchenette.
She stood eerily still. Absent any awareness that Misao had directed a question her way.
A raspy thrumming sound emanated from where she stood. At first, Yosuke thought it was just the kettle starting to heat up, but his attention was drawn downward he realised that it was the sound of her tail switching back and forth against her pants with vague agitation. Cutting his gaze up to her ears, he found them drooped to the sides.
Yosuke had to punt the urge to throw something at her into the overflowing part of his mind where he stored all of his intrusive thoughts. Rather, as he heard his friend starting to reiterate the question again, Yosuke leapt in to say, "Fern! You're gonna be late."
Fernili's ears snapped to attention and the tension in her hand gripping the handle of the kettle eased.
"Uh—what?" she muttered dumbly.
"Get going,” he nodded toward the door, “you're not gonna have time to change before class," he said.
She turned to look at him. “Oh, uh right.” She kicked off her running shoes and swiftly stashed them into the cubby by the door. “We don’t have practice after school today cause of tryouts, yeah?” she spoke hastily as she slipped her normal sneakers on.
Yosuke leaned back in his chair. “Yup!”
“Okay cool.” She grabbed her bag and slipped out of the room without another word, leaving only a gust of cold air in her wake.
Yosuke watched the door slid shut before he shifted in his seat to look back at his friend.
"I just thought her times were good..." Misao mumbled dejectedly to his laptop.
✧ᘯ✧
Misao and Yosuke spent the rest of their morning discussing Fernili’s results and the continued plans for her training over the next few weeks. Misao had adjusted some of her meal planning without telling Yosuke, which had sparked a brief argument between them as he started to consider how that might affect her energy levels. Misao had candidly made Yosuke aware that making unexpected revisions to his regimen pissed him off, but he had found little desire to work on the habit. After lunch they started poring over the profiles of the umamusume who were planning on running in the tryouts later that day. Only seven students had registered. Given that the programs offered by the academy weren't all based around racing this wasn't much of a surprise, they weren't a racing first branch anyhow. But the small number of potential hopefuls was, in some part, a relief to the two friends—it was simply less work they had to do.
Misao was shuffling through an array of papers set between them on the table. Yosuke found it amusing to watch his friend's incessant need to brush his bangs out of his eyes. He'd encouraged him to try something different with his hair, but had failed to mention the upkeep it might require.
Picking up one of the documents, Yosuke scanned over the lines of information on one of the day's runners, but the statistics just blurred together as his mind drifted away from the tiny room and the cold that threatened to creep in from outside.
Fernili's time today had proven to him that she had the talent to carry herself, and them, to potentially limitless success. It would still take some time, but if she could show her stuff at an exhibition race next spring she was more than on track to earn a spot in the Hakodate Junior Stakes. Hell, if she could place in the stakes, then she could enter into the Mercury Cup or even the Mile Championship. And then they could recruit more trainees, maybe even revitalise racing at the Morioka racecourse, and then—
Yosuke shook himself and took a slow, measured breath; attempting to free himself of the swelling of his dreams. These big, lofty goals had a bad habit of piling up in his brain till the crushing reality of the work required to reach them smothered his confidence.
He wanted a beer—but drinking on campus wasn't exactly something the school found acceptable. That hadn't stopped anyone from stashing a few cans behind the sports drinks in their fridge.
"Hey, what do you think of her?" Misao slid a profile across the table toward Yosuke.
Pulling it closer, he scanned the document then glanced at the little picture clipped to the corner of the page. A medium built umamusume with cropped chestnut hair, stubby ears, and easy going features, grinned widely up at him. She gave him the impression of an uma who could charm an entire room if you gave her the time and space to practice. Plus, her record was excellent for a pre-maiden runner.
But something in Yosuke's gut curdled his initial impression of her charismatic appearance. Frowning, he said, "Maybe... we'll see how she runs." He wanted to say something else, but it felt uncharitable to the young girl's obvious efforts.
Misao countered quickly, reaching out to tap on her latest time for thirteen-hundred meters with the pen he'd been chewing on. "But her current times are stellar for a rookie."
"That's what I'm worried about. All the other trainers will have seen this too, and compared to the other girls today, " he grabbed a random profile off the table and skimmed over the umamusume's stats to confirm his suspicions, "She’s really gonna stand out against this. I don't wanna fight for a chance just to speak with her, and we both know our pitch ain't gonna stand out in a crowd. Seems like a waste to throw our hat in the ring, only to get ignored."
He glanced at the picture clipped to the document he had used to prove his point. A charming young girl with huge red curls and a fancy white ribbon tied around her right ear smiled up at him with a dopey grin. Yosuke felt a pang of guilt stab at his chest, but another review of her times allowed him to ultimately forgive himself. Not everyone who tried out was built to win, that was just the nature of the sport.
"Then how about her?" Misao held out another page.
Taking it and scanning quickly, Yosuke picked apart the document and the picture of the blonde uma attached to it. He sighed as the paper nonchalantly slipped from his hand, the document fluttering back onto the table. "Same thing dude."
"They’ve both got a lot of potential."
Yosuke shrugged, attempting to force his limbs to look casual and relaxed. "Look, I have a pretty good idea on how things are gonna go today.”
Misao leveled a flat gaze at him, one eyebrow arched incredulously.
“Assuming they're both in the same match,” he leaned back in his chair and held up two fingers, "first, they're gonna fight like hell to take the lead and it's gonna look spectacular. Second, their match'll pull in the attention of the other teams, and given the low number of trainees this time both runners'll be getting offers left and right."
Misao frowned and ran his fingers through his hair, parting his bangs like curtains. He hunch forward over the documents on the table, his face tight as he chewed on the end of his pen.
He reached out and pulled the redhead’s profile Yosuke had abandoned close, and started studying its contents.
The corners of Yosuke's lips quirked. He liked teasing Misao. It had always been ridiculously easy to egg him on, and he found that his friend’s attempts at brooding always looked more coy than irritated.
"Her stats are good. Times for the eight-hundred meter dash show improvements with each attempt. Her last time was sixty-seven point three seconds, versus her previous time of seventy-one point—
"Huh." Yosuke did not mean to chuckle as he spoke but it just kind of happened.
His friend fixed him with a deadpan stare, his sepia toned irises dull, the slight down turn of his eyes making him look exceptionally bored.
"Fine... did any of them catch your eye?"
"On paper, sure."
"But..." Misao let the work fall out of his mouth, leaden and lugubrious.
Yosuke tensed his shoulders and tried to stretch them over the back of his chair. He couldn't help grinning to himself, Misao always took this stuff way too seriously. "We're the new kids 'round here. Let the seniors take some of the glory while they can. It was sheer luck that Fern decided to sign with us, so I don’t think it makes sense to spread ourselves too thin with more trainees."
Misao scoffed and spun his pen around his thumb. "She signed on because you called her out on throwing her tryout race."
Yosuke rolled his eyes. "It was still luck man. Let's just see how everyone runs today..."
"Fine, fine." his friend muttered as he began gathering the profiles spread across the table into a single pile. "Same terms as last time?"
"One renege each." Yosuke grinned as he grabbed his big overcoat and started preparing to venture back out into the cold. "Hell, maybe we'll find a diamond in the rough."
✧ᘯ✧
The morning's snow flurry had stopped and the sun was now high in the sky, but with it still tucked behind a sheet of gray the miserable cold from that morning had gotten trapped between the mountains around the school. Yosuke sat at the top of the metal bleachers that lined the side of the dirt track with the goal post in front of him, a pair of binoculars sat in his lap. He could feel his joints creaking like old wood in the cold as he rubbed his hands together, cursing at himself for forgetting his gloves for the second time that day.
"Fuuuuuck it's cold." He cupped his hands around his mouth and huffed hot air over his fingers.
Picking up the binoculars he brought them up to his face. "They've gotta be starting soon." He scanned the opposite end of the track, gently adjusting the focus to get a clear view of the starting gate. The gate was built to fit six runners, but only four stalls were loaded. Scanning each one he spotted a runner in stall one, two—three was empty, having been damaged last summer during a gate loading test—four, and five. He was able to make out the blonde girl Misao had mentioned earlier under the large number two. She was rolling her neck and shoulders, and even in the face of the bitter cold her stance was easygoing and free of tension. He was struck by how comfortable she appeared on the track. Something in the way she set her sights ahead gave him the immediate sense that she was confident in her ability to win.
He couldn't help himself from liking her clear self-assuredness.
The other umamusume that Misao had pointed out, the one with chestnut hair, was not crouched in either of the remaining stalls. He clicked his tongue distastefully. He'd made such a hasty and confident guess on who was going to be running in each heat today that Misao was unlikely to let him live it down for being wrong. In lieu of any stiff competition, stalls one, four, and five lacked anything notable to him. He locked his attention onto stall two, ignoring the caustic sting of guilt eating away at the back of his throat like stomach acid after a night of drinking.
"Anyone good?"
The tension in his focus snapped. Pulling the binoculars away from his eyes he looked to his right. Fernili was standing one row down from where he currently sat. She had wrapped her hair up into a tight, messy bun that hung lopsided on the back of her head. Her shoulders were tight and the collar of her jacket was zipped up as far as it could go. She was back in her tracksuit, although Yosuke couldn't be certain if she had changed out of her uniform after school or had simply refused to change after their morning run. Given her mood back in the clubhouse, he felt that the latter was more likely.
"Sticking around to see how the newbies do?" he asked.
She clambered up the metal steps to sit next to him, speaking in a supremely doleful tone, "Just curious about the process."
He passed the binoculars to her. “Any of your friends down there?”
She scanned the field. Yosuke had never heard her talk about any of her classmates, and every time either trainer brought up the concept of her hanging out with anyone outside of school or training she simply offered a curt excuse for avoiding social gatherings.
"Where's the nerd?" she said flatly.
He rolled his eyes and chose to ignore both her comment about his colleague and her dodging his question. He pointed towards the other side of the track a fair distance ahead of the starting gate. "Down by that furlong post."
She followed his finger with the binoculars. "What's he doing down there?"
"Running the watch."
"And?"
"Getting a different angle on the runners," he said with an air of overplayed conspiracy.
Fernili passed the binoculars back to him. "Seems like an unfair advantage."
"We’ll take whatever we can get. Most of the other trainers wanna see the races from afar so they're happy to let someone else mark time. Anyway, the academy said they were cool with us both being co-trainers so take it up with them."
He looked through the binoculars just as all four runners tensed and lowered their stances, their eyes now level with the doors of their respective stalls. A moment later the gates snapped open, the clack echoing crisply across the snow covered field.
Blondie—he really should have tried to learn their names—charged swiftly forward leaving her competition fighting through a cloud of snow she left in her wake. Eight-hundred meters to prove her talent, and given her acceleration, Yosuke had little doubt that she would handily beat the expected sixty second trial time. But despite her clean start the rest of her running was all over the place. She was leaning too far forward, her vision clearly locked onto the track just ahead of where her feet would take her—almost like she was expecting a hazard to materialise in her way. This caused her to drift wildly between lanes. But her core was clearly strong and she didn’t topple over, continuing to charge forward.
Each runner eventually sprinted past Misao, concluding the race. Yosuke observed him as he called out the times as they hurtled past him. Then he turned to face Yosuke and put his own pair of binoculars up to his face. The pair had adopted some rudimentary sign language in getting numbers to one another across long distances. Misao signed a five, three, and six. Meaning fifty-three point six seconds had been the best time out of the group. Blondie hadn't set any records, but it was still something to be proud of. Misao signed out the remaining times, but Yosuke stopped paying attention. Then both of them held up their hands, their index fingers extended to start voting on who, if any, they wanted to approach about a contract. Starting with number one, both friends would hold up the sign matching the stall number, if either one put their hand down then they weren’t in agreement and would not extend an offer to that applicant. However, they both had one veto each that could be used to overrule a single ‘no’ vote per tryout. They had only been at the academy long enough to see three tryout events, so that particular portion of their system had yet to be tested. When Yosuke had explained this all to Fernili she had immediately asked if anyone had gotten blackballed during her tryout, which she was a little too giddy to hear about. However, her delight had turned mysteriously sour at the news that the two friends had voted unanimously to ask her to sign onto the team, putting her in a funk that took nearly a week for her to crawl out of.
The two friends ticked through all of the available brackets, but no agreements or vetoes occurred.
With the first four runners out of the way the event moved onto the remaining three participants. Peering down the lenses of binoculars, Yosuke watched as the new batch of racers loaded into stalls one, two, and four. He could barely make out the details of the runner in bracket one, but the shock of wild red hair bouncing nervously above the gate doors told him that she was the umamusume that he had used as a scapegoat earlier. Standing in the bracket next to her was the girl with chestnut hair and a charming smile Misao had presented to Yosuke first. She was taller than he had expected, her head easily clearing the gate. She bounced on her toes, shaking her arms like she was flicking her limbs free of water. Something in the way her ears kept twitching gave Yosuke the impression that she was nervous. Probably just nerves after seeing the performance of her most obvious rival in the blonde girl.
As he tried to pick apart the obvious star of the match, Yosuke caught the glint of something dark and shiny that forced his line of vision towards it like a piece of magnetic jet. Loading into bracket four was an umamusume he could've sworn was wearing stilts. As an unusually tall man, Yosuke was used to standing at least a head or two above most folks he dealt with in daily life, but the obsidian haired uma looked like she could stand even with his nose, if he factored in her ears she might have been taller than him. She was unassuming, but the length of her stride belied something taut and powerful.
She lowered herself into her starting position, but nothing in her face or shoulders informed Yosuke that she was even the slightest bit tense. Instead the air itself hung still for half a second just before the gates snapped open with another resounding Clack!
A blur of reddish brown flashed in the corner of Yosuke's limited cone of vision as the uma in bracket two started her run, but Yosuke was unable to track her. Instead he was locked onto bracket four—where the black hair girl only started her run after a full three second pause. When she did start to move, the sheer force she applied to her legs as she burst from the gate was enough to carry her over the first sixty meters and to catch up with the girl in first place in an instant. This must have surprised the other contender as she ducked her head and drove herself to speed up. Flicking his attention to the runner out of bracket one, Yosuke was surprised to see that the red haired umamusume was only just leaving the gate. It almost looked to him like she was scared of the gate opening, her face set in an uncomfortable grimace as her feet scrabbled in the snow and ice till she found enough purchase to begin an uneasy sprint.
Feeling fully confident that he didn't need to focus on her any more, Yosuke swung the binoculars toward the two blitzing past another furlong post. The girl with black hair had easily caught up to the other and was now neck and neck with her, the two locked into a fierce battle for first place.
However, as they reached the midpoint between the gate and the post Misao stood under, Yosuke watched number two do something incredible. Lifting her head and straightening out her back, her stride instantly morphed seamlessly from a snappy, tightly timed sprint to an elongated, languid run. This appeared to do two things: it allowed the chestnut haired competitor to peel ahead, forming a significant gap between them. The other, was effectively giving the other umamusume time to catch up to her.
Yosuke nearly dropped his binoculars. "What the—" he whispered to himself and leaned forward, ignoring the numbness in his legs and trying to burn the way she moved into his memory.
Once number one and four were nearly aligned, the black haired uma's style changed again, she leaned forward again, her legs no longer extended to their full length, and she started beating her legs into the track in a choppy, almost stuttering pattern.
Yosuke continued to watch her. Mesmerised by the absurdity of her actions. With the delayed start and this, her time was going to suffer immensely—
Then he understood what she was doing: She was matching number one perfectly.
Shifting his gaze as the pair flickered passed another post, he glanced at the redhead. She was panting hard, her legs were driving hard into the snow, sending up small flurries behind her. Her eyes were locked on the ground ahead of her, like she was fighting her own body to put one foot in front of the other. He could just make out the pained look of exertion on her face. It did not seem like she was having a good time, but it was clear she was giving it her all. Yosuke couldn't stop a dismayed breath from fall out of him. It was always encouraging to see runners giving it their all, but at this stage, if she was struggling this much to cover eight-hundred meters her dreams of running in any open race, let alone a graded one, were unlikely to come to fruition.
The same could not be said for number four. She maintained the pace set by her opponent, her breathing was even, her form barely wavering as she plowed through the snow. Yosuke wasn't sure but it hardly looked like she was even winded. Why had she changed so drastically to match her opponent? Given the speed she'd set at the beginning of the race she might've crossed the finish line by now. What game was she playing?
The pair careened past another post, entering the lone curve of the match, just as number two entered the final stretch. The red haired girl listed to the side, pulling away from the inside rail toward the middle of the track. Her black haired shadow responded by slowing her sprint slightly to allow the other umamusume to take the spot in front of her.
As they neared Misao, number one pulled ahead slightly, and number four let her, slowing again as the distance between the two grew to half a length. Yosuke zoomed in on his friend as the chestnut hair umamusume darted past him. He paused on that spot and waited a series of excruciating seconds till the final pair sprinted by. The taller of the two girls had managed to eke forward by a nose, crossing the final furlong post just ahead of her opponent.
Adjusting the focus on his binoculars, Yosuke's attention was willfully glued to the black haired Umamusume as she slowed to a dignified trot that eased into a seamless stop. Long trails of steam poured from her as she smiled widely at her opponent, who was on her knees a few paces away trembling as she fought to catch her breath.
"That was really weird right?" mused Fernili. "Like it went okay. Post three looked like she was gonna put up a good fight with the girl in two, but then just... gave up half way. Number one though seemed to be having a rough time."
Yosuke pulled the binoculars away from his face. "Yeah..."
He stroked his cheek, feeling the sharp prickle of stubble against his finger tips, as he continued to turn the events of the match over in his mind. The actions made by the other two racers made complete sense, but the choices of the girl in post four were a complete mystery to him. At least not if she was trying to win or get the best time. The fluidity of her movements and the power in her stride told him she could have handily won the race. Struck with an idea, he glanced at the ashen haired girl with beside him. "Fern, do you know a girl with long black hair, white star on her bangs?"
"Uhhh really tall?" He nodded. "Nope. Seen her around though. Think she's a year behind me."
Yosuke grunted in reply. He didn't detect anything untoward in her reply so he left that train of thought to the side.
Putting the binoculars back to his face he watched Misao finish announcing times to the trainees. His friend then turned to face him, his own pair of binoculars covering his eyes. Yosuke gave a thumbs up to let him know that he was watching. Misao signed the time for the first girl to cross the finish line: fifty-three point one. But Yosuke didn't care about her time, he was on the edge of his seat waiting for the second place time. Misao held a closed fist up next to his head, then deliberately stuck out a thumb before turning his wrist so the back of his hand faced Yosuke and his thumb pointed upwards and fanned out each finger. Lastly he put his palm toward Yosuke and stuck out his index and middle finger. Five, nine, two. Fifty-nine point two.
8 milliseconds more would have basically disqualified them both.
Factoring in the snow and her delayed start, the black haired uma had run the dash in closer to fifty-five seconds. Taking into account her bewildering decision to slow down, she was likely the fastest runner in today’s event.
She was clearly better than the time she had run. So why had she performed like this?
Yosuke huffed and scratched the unexplainable from his mind. Misao was waiting, holding his hand out in front of him, his index finger sticking up. Yosuke mimicked the motion. They held it for a moment then Yosuke curled his finger into a closed fist, casting his vote for the runner in stall one. No. She had tried her best, but given how hard she had struggled it didn't seem reasonable to invest in her. Misao however kept his finger up. Yosuke felt his brow crease at this. What had Misao seen that he had missed? His co-workers' next action surprised him further: he turned his hand so the back was facing Yosuke and balled his fingers into a tight fist.
He was vetoing Yosuke's vote.
Yosuke blinked.
He wanted to argue, but they had a deal. One veto each.
They proceeded to hold up two fingers. The trainee in stall two. Yosuke thought back on her stats and her time, but a quick glance at where she stood on the track, now surrounded by two of the other trainers, he considered her a lost cause. After a beat both men lowered their fingers in a unanimous 'no' vote for the runner with chestnut hair. Maybe Fernili would enjoy knowing that she had also been blackballed.
They then moved onto the runner in stall four. Yosuke was desperate to know if his companion had seen the same brilliance—even it's more bewildering parts—in her performance. They each held up their fingers... and Yosuke's heart sank as he watched Misao's fingers curl into the shape of his vote.
No.
Yosuke reeled at this. Misao was going to put his chips on the girl who was still trying to catch her breath after an eight-hundred meter dash, but was gonna pass up on the trainee who had practically worked alchemy on the track? Had he missed her entirely? Sure, she had only won at the last second, but her performance over the entire run had left Yosuke marveling over her prowess and control.
Yosuke continued to hold up his two fingers, as he dragged his gaze over to black haired umamusume. She was offering her water bottle to the red-haired girl, whose face was still pink with exertion. No one else was paying any attention to how she had run. Yosuke knew that he had to at least try to get her on his team, she was another untapped well, and if there was one thing he was confident of—he had a nose for unseen potential.
So he folded his two fingers down into a tight fist and turned it around to mirror Misao's earlier motion. He held it out defiantly. It was his turn to veto.
He watched Misao let his binoculars slip from his hands to dangle from the strap around his neck. The other man threw his hands up to magnify his confusion at Yosuke’s decision. Yosuke grinned, they were probably going to butt heads over this, but he was certain that he was onto something.
Taking the binoculars from his face, Yosuke stood, rolling his shoulders to warm his muscles now stiff with cold. Fernili stood with him, when he looked over at her, her face was layered in a look of befuddlement and exasperation.
"The fuck was that?" she said with obvious derision.
"Language," he growled. She sneered at him defiantly, daring him to do something about her choice of words. He had no idea where the young, bookish umamusume stored all of her miscreant attitude, but he didn't want to fight this particular battle today—so again he ignored her.
Throwing the strap of his binoculars around his neck he freed up his hands to start popping his knuckles, attempting to bring feeling back to his now frozen fingers. He then cupped his hands over his mouth to warm them with a hot breath. "Wanna go see if you’re gonna get two new teammates?"
She raised a thin eyebrow at him. "Seriously?"
He might have been imagining it, but the brooding aura around her shoulders seemed to lift a little.
"Come on, let's at least go introduce ourselves." He waved her onward as he started to walk down the bleachers.
"What if I give 'em reasons not to?" she quipped.
"If you try, I'm gonna sit on you," he grumbled as they crunched over the snow encrusted field towards his friend.
Fern snorted. “Alright then, what if I decide to quit if they take the contract?” she tossed back at him.
Yosuke couldn’t help but smirk at the idea. “Then I’ll sit on you harder.”
