Chapter Text
June 1st, 2003.
2004.
2005.
2006.
2007.
2008.
2009.
2010.
2011.
2012.
2013.
August 29th, 2013.
She found herself dreaming again. Deep in memories only the thundering footsteps of the umas could shake off. As she felt the ground shake, she started counting the days until her next gig. Two weeks. She’d need to budget for the next two weeks. Even then, she’s doing all that travel and trouble for what amounted to just a glorified consultation role. How long was she going to go on like this? Hopping between one loose coalition to another. It was for them, she girded. It was for the umas.
“How’d I do?”
A messy, sweaty uma stands panting in front of her. Even here in the more remote campuses the drive to run and the strive to be at the top never faltered. Ayume’s attention recedes from the haze of the future to the daylight shining in her trainee’s eyes. That shine behind her tangled auburn strands of hair is a fire that Ayume admired ever since day one.
“Ah… I’m sorry, Rainbow Hope. I don’t have your exact time on hand. My hand or my mind must have slipped.”
“Whaaaat? That’s not like you, trainer!”
Her eyes drift away, “You’re right, but with today being the last day of the program…”
Ayume turns back to her.
“...means we have a lot to get through before the last race with everyone today!”
“Yeah!!”
“And do you know what happened to come in today?”
“Nooooo…??!”
“Just in the nick of time???”
“You don’t meeeean???”
Ayume leans in close.
“Your dress came in today.”
But before she finishes her sentence, Rainbow Hope was already dozens of meters ahead.
“Wait up! I still have lots of notes I need to tell you!”
—
Ayume is standing outside of the post office’s women’s restroom mentally going through all the notes she needs to convey to her trainee before the day’s race. All that ample time they could have spent walking together wasted all because Rainbow Hope dashed ahead. It’s not like she could have gotten her racewear any sooner. The package was under his name anyway…
As the door creaks open, Ayume turns to the sound, ready to shower her with as many compliments as she can imagine.
But there’s only a blur and the only thing she catches is the afterimage out the door. Ayume races towards it as fast as her human legs can go, clambering through the hallways trying to remember the pathway she took. As she bursts out the front doors, she thinks, please, let her be okay while her eyes adjust to the midday sun.
There, in a small patch of field in front of the post office, is Rainbow Hope. She steps in a circle, spinning her body while letting the skirt on her dress flare out and take in the sun. Her racewear is a short white slim fitting dress, akin to a figure skating costume, threaded with a special golden thread that runs diagonally across her form. As the sunlight catches on its bands and shimmers downward, they organize into a lenticular rainbow that radiates from her. She is happy, joyous, and she is alive.
And Ayume found it beautiful. She begins to speak, but the words catch in her throat. Finally, she forces a sound out:
“You’re beautiful.”
Rainbow Hope stares.
—
After getting her ears talked off for an agonizing five minutes while they walked back to the racetrack, Rainbow Hope found relief in finally getting to sit on the bleachers. Both of them are waiting for the current team to finish doing their own little dress rehearsal so they can start their own. Hope sits with her legs bunched up to her chest while her trainer is getting some work in, clacking away on his laptop.
She always finds herself in awe watching him work. It seemed as if he could split his attention to multiple worlds at once. Right now he’s keeping an eye on the current team on the track while taking notes on her last sprint. While his notes are filled with pages of precise language with big words like ‘aerobic decoupling’ and ‘stride phase optimization,’ he has a knack of code-switching to a simpler form when explaining things to her.
“What are you writing?”
“I’m just jotting down how your pacing shifted when you hit the backstretch.”
See? Nothing like the technical notes on his laptop screen.
“Do you take notes on the other teams?”
“Just a little. Enough to make sure I’m not lagging behind the competition, and, from a more selfish standpoint, if you can find a take their trainer hasn’t seen before, that can net you a nice connection.”
“GO!” The trainer on the field shouted.
Both of them turned their focus to the umas racing on the track. It’s just a smaller team of three, and, looking at their attire, Rainbow Hope had opinions. That tacky sky blue silky scarf is definitely too long for regulations. Gosh, it nearly touched the other racers! Don’t even get her started on that frilly top the girl in second was wearing. How much speed are you losing to drag because of that? As for the one in the lead: how? Is that dress not getting tangled up in your legs? And black is a choice for this heat...
She clicks her tongue and turns toward her trainer. Surely he would have some takes of his own—
Kiyohiko Watanabe’s face is frozen towards the racers, his mouth ever slightly open. If you didn’t have as much experience with him as Rainbow Hope does, you’d think he’s just keeping a tight watch on the race, but for her, he’s not so much looking to the racers, but through them, as if he’s simultaneously trying to look at and away from them. It’s at this moment that Rainbow Hope notices the absence of any keyboard clicking and realizes something is wrong.
“Traiiiiiner-san!” She clasps her hands over his.
A hitch. A fracture in the normally smooth shifts in attention that she knows him for. Her hand is slipped under his wrist and his pulse is beating oh so fast. Before she can wonder why, he turns his face to meet hers, but it’s wrong, like he’s dragging his eyes along with his head. Those gazing eyes are locked on her, yet she has no idea what he is looking for. The emptiness terrifies her.
—
The umas breach the finish line, and Ayume returns Rainbow Hope’s address with a pep in her voice.
“Alright! Ready to go again?”
—
The celebration for the end of the program is jubilant as expected, filled with playfully jealous umas, noogies from trainer friends, and over-exaggerated cries from parting from both uma and human alike. Ayume lets herself enjoy it. After all, having your trainee get first in the last race of the camp in your first year of training is an achievement that should be commemorated. Though, she is always the one to put catching up at the end, so now she’s doing her best high-fiving every uma she comes across while going through the motions with her fellow trainers, jotting down hastily made connections and making vapid promises of following through. After catching his name from across the room one too many times, she decides to refresh. And so, catching a lull in the conversation, she slips out the front doors when she thinks no one is looking.
Ayume has made herself familiar with the domain of the campus over many moonlit walks like this one. She recalls her preferred textures and landscapes, mentally tracing the pathways around the fields near the racetracks and the twisting trails through the forests tracing the perimeter. But this one here, near the edge of a cliff face, is her favorite. She stands atop of a grassy hill. Its soft descent brings thrilling winds that come up over the downs during the summer. Beyond the drop lie glittering lights of the city below. They sparkled bright yet were distant enough that if you looked upwards and let your eyes adjust long enough, the stars still twinkled through. Tonight, Ayume thought, those stars are beautiful.
A twig snaps behind her.
“I knew I’d find you here,” a familiar voice comes from behind. Ayume turns to meet it, finding her gaze in Rainbow Hope’s amber eyes.
“Hey, Hope. If they’re worried about me, tell them ‘don’t worry I’ll be back.’ Just taking a moment to myself.”
“I’m not here for them. I’m here for you. I’ve always wondered where you get off to when you take those mysterious nighttime walks. I see why you walk so far to get here. It’s beautiful.”
“It really is isn’t it? I love the split between the city light and the star lights. That transition between the manmade and the natural is so lovely.”
“What’s your plan after all this?”
“It’s back to the application grind. Send out another hundred. See where the wind takes me. Worst case, find a private ranch that needs someone like me.”
“Have you ever thought about going to Tracen?”
“Tracen? That’s a little too rich for me.”
“But would you like to?”
“Who wouldn’t want to get into Tracen? It’d be nice, but I think for me, I have a better shot at the countryside. Besides, I don’t mind being away from the city life.”
“But do you want to?”
“I guess little childhood me wanted to, but I’ve found a nice rhythm as a ‘trainer-for-hire.’ Taking in umas for a couple of months then watching them go. It’s… to be honest… addicting… watching them grow and surge past their limits… then doing it all over again with another.” He checks his watch. It’s almost time. He backs down from the hilltop and begins to walk back, passing Rainbow Hope.
“Well, Hope. We should get back. I’m sure admin’s wondering where the hell we are for the closing ceremonies. You need to take your rightful place at the top of the podium!”
Ayume turns, looks up, and takes one last look at Rainbow Hope. The moonlight caresses her neatly in a soft halo that glows. As the light curves around her form, those golden threads instead reflect an otherworldly color that traces every change to her since they first met. She had grown so much, and Ayume wishes that long after tonight, when the wind carries her breath far beyond the grounds below, that a part of her would remain with her.
“You’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“That look… I saw it this afternoon, during training, and just now. It’s like you’re looking right through me, but you’re so desperate to look at me.”
Ayume doesn’t know what to say.
“Please… even if you’ve been holding back every other moment, can you be honest with me just this once? Just tonight.”
Hope takes a step towards her.
“Can you tell me what’s going on?”
The summer breeze blows between them both, carrying a cooler breeze on its edges this time.
Ayume steps forward.
"Rainbow Hope, I—"