Chapter Text

Chapter 8: Long Road Ahead

" We are all broken — that's how the light gets in."

— Ernest Hemingway

He called his therapist at 9 AM. Not because he felt ready. Because he'd promised.

Haiseiko showed up at 8:30, before he'd even found his phone. She didn't ask if she could stay. She just put the kettle on and sat on his couch with a book she wasn't really reading.

"You don't have to sit in on it," Matsuo said.

"I'm not sitting in on it. I'm sitting in your apartment." She didn't look up. "Different thing. Go call your guy."

He took the call in his room with the door mostly closed. Dr. Yanagawa had been his therapist for three years. The session lasted an hour. Matsuo told the truth, which was harder than he expected and better than he expected.

When he came out, Haiseiko had made tea. She didn't ask how it went. Just handed him a cup and made room on the couch.

"Thanks for being here," he said.

"Where else would I be."

He showered. Ate the rice in the cooker. Put on something that wasn't the clothes he'd been wearing for three days.

Agnes was waiting outside his office when he arrived at Tracen — sitting on the bench with two coffees, lab coat over her Tracen uniform, ears forward.

"Ready?" she said.

He looked at her — at the coffee she'd brought, at the particular quality of her just being there. "Yeah," he said. "Ready."

She handed him his cup. He unlocked the office. They went in.

Neither of them said anything about the previous week beyond that single exchange. It was in the room with them — it always would be. But it didn't need to be performed.

He hadn't made it three steps down the corridor before Okino appeared.

"Nakayama-kun!" Okino fell into step beside him. "Good to see you back. It got weird without you." He handed over a container. "Special Week made too much tamagoyaki and I was told to give it to someone who looks like they need food. You qualify."

"Tell Special Week thank you."

"She knows." Okino grinned. "She's got good instincts about people."

Hana looked up when he passed the trainer's office. "Glad you're back, Nakayama-kun. Your notes from last week were thorough, by the way. I covered what I could."

"You covered my notes?"

"Someone had to." She returned to her work. "Don't make it a thing."

Tazuna found him at the track railing, stood beside him for a moment watching the session before she spoke.

"You don't have to be perfect to be here," she said. "That's not actually the job."

"I know."

"Good, we got your back, Mats-kun." She checked her clipboard and walked off.

Then Director Akikawa appeared from around a corner like she'd been waiting specifically behind it.

"NAKAYAMA-KUN!" She grabbed his arm with both hands. "Oh thank god, you're back, I was worried sick — well, I wasn't going to say anything because that's not my place but I was absolutely worried sick—" She let go and straightened up. "How are you? Actually."

"Better," he said. "Actually."

"Good! Great! Okay!" She beamed. "Because you're one of us, Nakayama-kun. Take care of yourself. That's an order from the director." She walked away already. "GET IT? DIRECTOR? DIRECTIVE?"

"I got it!" he called after her.

He stood in the corridor with tamagoyaki in one hand, coffee in the other.

Then — from somewhere down the hall — Pokke's voice, loud enough to carry through walls: "TRAINER-SAN IS BACK? WHERE?!"

He could hear feet on the floor. Fast.

Matsuo had exactly two seconds of warning before Jungle Pocket rounded the corner and crashed into him at full speed, arms wrapping around him in what could generously be called a hug and accurately be called a tackle.

"OW—"

"YOU'RE BACK!" Pokke had him in both arms, tail whipping, ears all the way up. "We thought you were dead! Well, I thought you were dead! Dantsu said you were probably just sick but I said—"

"Pokke." A calmer voice. Dantsu Flame appeared around the corner at a pace that was the precise opposite of Pokke's. She bowed slightly to Matsuo. "Welcome back, Trainer-san. We're glad you're okay."

"We were worried," Pokke continued, still not letting go. "Even Fuji-san was worried and she has a very good poker face."

"I have a very good poker face," Fuji confirmed, appearing behind them with her arms folded. "Welcome back, Pony-kun."

"Thanks." Matsuo managed to gently detach Pokke. "Thanks, guys."

"He's turning red," Pokke observed.

"Pokke," Dantsu said.

"What? He's literally turning red. That's sweet. Trainer-san, you're sweet."

"I'm not—"

"You really are," Fuji said warmly.

Matsuo stood there surrounded by all of them — tamagoyaki in one hand, coffee in the other, grass-stained affection radiating off Pokke, Dantsu's quiet nod, Fuji's arms still loosely crossed but her whole face soft.

It hit him all at once.

He had to look down at the tamagoyaki for a second so nobody would see his eyes doing something inconvenient.

Okay, he thought. Okay.

Three Weeks Out

Over the following week, everything was careful and real.

Matsuo returned to Dr. Yanagawa twice. She also started dropping by Tracen more often, which she explained as wanting to watch Agnes's training.

"You text me after every session like I'm a proud mom," Haiseiko had said. "I figured I'd just come see you."

Agnes trained. The leg was being managed.

"Third interval," he said one afternoon. "It looks good — not getting worse."

Agnes looked at the data. "Consistent with the modified load protocol."

"It's working."

"Yes." She looked up. "Thank you for not making me have this conversation in front of other people."

"It's your call."

Her tail made one slow arc. Ears in the soft forward position. "Okay," she said. "Okay."

He was getting better at noticing which kind of morning it was.

Sixteen Days Out

Agnes appeared in his office doorway at 7 PM with the expression she had when she'd decided something and wanted his input but was going to do it anyway.

"What?" he said.

"I got you something." She said it quickly, then immediately looked at the wall slightly. Her ears pressed back. Her tail went still. "It's not a significant gesture. I saw it and thought of you. That's all."

She held out a small wrapped package. Clearly a book.

He took it. Unwrapped it carefully.

Carl Sagan: Pale Blue Dot.

He looked at it. The cover: Earth, impossibly small, in a beam of sunlight.

"Agnes—"

"You told me about Cosmos," she said, still addressing the wall. "This is Sagan's follow-up. There's a chapter about a photograph of Earth from a billion miles away." Her ears were completely flat. Her tail made one nervous arc. "I thought you would like it."

"Thank you," he said simply.

Her ears came back up. Slowly. "You're welcome," she said, like she was testing whether the phrase fit.

"Sit down," he said. "I'll make tea and you can tell me about the Voyager mission."

Her ears went to full forward. "Did you know it's currently 24 billion kilometers from Earth? The farthest human-made object in existence. The signal takes 22 hours—"

"Sit down first."

She sat. She talked. He made tea and listened.

Eight Days Out — Group Training

Agnes texted Haiseiko three days before the session.

"Seiko-nee. Come train with us Thursday. Matsuo needs you there and also I want you to see what we've built. — A.W."

"I'll be there. Also you used your real initial. You're growing up, Agnes. — H"

Agnes stared at it. Then: "Don't make it weird."

"Too late. — H"

Haiseiko arrived in proper gear. Matsuo did a double-take.

"Seiko-nee? The hell you doing here?"

"Agnes asked." A shrug. "Also I wanted to watch."

"Wha— why—"

"Also, I want to see this girl that my little brother is always talking about."

"Seiko-nee, not in front of—"

"Guinea Pig-kun?" Agnes appeared beside Matsuo.

"Shut up, Seiko-nee."

She laughed. He was already glad she was here.

Tazuna had arranged the joint session — Agnes, Café, Pokke, and Dantsu running intervals while Matsuo, Fuji, and now Haiseiko maintained pace alongside them.

The idea, Matsuo had been told, was observation and support.

What it actually was: one trainer trying to keep up with four Umamusumes.

"You're slower than I expected," Haiseiko said, matching pace beside him on the warm-up lap.

"I'm pacing myself."

"You're struggling."

"No kidding."

Fuji overtook him on his other side without apparent effort. "He does this every time," she told Haiseiko. "He calls it something different."

"I can hear both of you," Matsuo said.

"We know," they said, simultaneously.

Ahead of him, Agnes was running her intervals with that clean precise efficiency. Café ran beside her. Pokke was at the front doing what she always did. Dantsu kept her own quiet rhythm.

And Matsuo, jogged along in the middle of all of it, occasionally getting lapped.

"This is humbling," he said, to no one in particular.

"This is Tuesday for them," Fuji said.

"Thanks. Really helpful."

"You're welcome."

During one of the rest intervals, Matsuo drifted toward Pokke's bench in a suspicious manner. Pokke had left her fancy insulated water bottle.

Matsuo had been planning this for a week.

He glanced around. Unscrewed the lid. Added a generous squeeze of lemon juice from a lemon energy drink that he brought.

Forty-two seconds later.

"WHAT THE HELL?"

The sound Pokke made was genuinely impressive. She pulled the bottle from her mouth and held it up like evidence at a crime scene. "WHY'S MY WATER BOTTLE TASTE LIKE LEMON?!"

Matsuo was reviewing training data with the focused attention of a man who had been doing only that.

"WHO DID THIS?!" Pokke demanded to the general vicinity. "DANTSU. WAS IT YOU?"

"It wasn't me," Dantsu said, serenely.

"Fuji-san—"

"Pokke." Fuji's voice was very composed. "Language."

"I HAVEN'T SAID ANYTHING BAD YET—"

Agnes had narrowed her eyes at Matsuo. "Guinea Pig-kun."

"Mm?"

"Your face is doing the thing."

"What thing?"

Pokke spun around. She found Matsuo's gaze. He met it with complete and absolute innocence.

The silence lasted approximately three seconds.

"YOU," Pokke said.

"Who, me? I was just—"

"THAT WAS MY GOOD BOTTLE—"

She launched herself off the bench.

Matsuo was already on his feet. "Okay — I'll replace the water, I'll replace—"

"IT'S NOT ABOUT THE WATER ANYMORE—"

Pokke was faster than him. This was the problem with training Umamusume. They were fast. Matsuo made it approximately twelve meters before she caught him by the back of the shirt, and then momentum did the rest.

They both went down in the grass.

"POKKE!" Fuji's composure was notably strained. "We don't tackle the trainer!"

"I caught him!" Pokke announced from on top of Matsuo, triumphant.

"Get off me—" Matsuo was laughing, which wasn't helping.

"APOLOGIZE."

"Okay, okay — I'm sorry about the lemon—"

"And?"

"...and it was a little bit funny."

"TRAINER-SAN."

"It was very funny. The look on your face—"

Pokke grabbed a fistful of grass and dumped it on his head.

"THERE. JUSTICE."

"That's grass—"

"THAT'S WHAT YOU GET."

She climbed off him with great dignity, straightened her racing uniform, and turned to Dantsu. "I tackled him."

"I saw," Dantsu said.

"I caught him."

"You did."

"Good. I feel better." Pokke picked up her lemon water bottle and took a deeply resigned sip. "This is really gross, Trainer-san."

"I'll buy you a new one," Matsuo said, still on the ground.

"You better."

Agnes was watching him with the expression she had when she was adding data to a file. "Comedic execution: eight out of ten. Pokke's pursuit and tackle inflated the final score."

"I'll take an eight." Matsuo sat up, picking grass out of his hair.

"Don't let it go to your head."

He looked at her. She was absolutely smiling.

"He was exactly like this as a kid," Haiseiko told Agnes, still barely holding it together. "He put salt in Gramps's tea once and spent the entire afternoon looking extremely innocent."

"Did Gramps know?" Matsuo asked, alarmed.

"Eventually." Haiseiko grinned. "He thought it was hilarious. He told me about it for two weeks."

Matsuo felt something warm and complicated move through his chest. The best kind of grief — the kind that came attached to good memories. "He would've loved today."

Haiseiko watched Agnes explain something to Pokke with full-body scientific commentary that Pokke was completely failing to follow but seemed to find strangely comforting.

"Yeah," Haiseiko said. "He really would've."

Two Days Out — Lawson

It was Pokke's idea, which everyone agreed.

Seven of them descended on the Lawson at 8 PM. Agnes, Café, Pokke, Dantsu, Fuji, Haiseiko, and Matsuo.

Pokke navigated the entire store in ninety seconds and returned with her arms full. "Okay so I got the mentaiko onigiri and also the egg mayo because I couldn't decide, and these chips Dantsu said to try, and this drink that says 'citrus and focus' which sounds fake but I want to test it—"

"Pokke." Fuji's voice carried the warm patience of long acquaintance. "Sit down and eat what you have."

They took over the back table — all seven of them.

Matsuo got his usual — two onigiri and a black coffee. Pokke noticed immediately.

"Trainer-san. It's only 8 PM."

"It's decaf."

"Is it?"

"...mostly."

"Oh my GOD—"

Agnes, without looking up from her salmon onigiri, slid a matcha milk across the table toward him.

He looked at it. Then at her.

"It's better for you," she said simply. "Drink the milk."

"Agnes—"

"Drink the milk, Guinea Pig-kun."

"Ugh, yes mom." He drank the milk. Haiseiko was quietly losing it across the table.

Agnes's tail had drifted under the table. Matsuo felt it, around his left leg.

"Okay," Haiseiko said, leaning toward Agnes. "When Matsuo first told me about you, he said you were the smartest Umamusume he'd ever met." She looked around the table — at Pokke's chaos, Dantsu's steady warmth, Café's settled expression, Fuji's fond attention, Matsuo across them with that loose grin while joking around with Pokke. "Does that still fit?"

Agnes considered it seriously. "Partially. My analytical precision is unchanged. My social protocols are still—" She watched Pokke explain something to Dantsu with large arm movements while making train sounds. "Being better."

"But you're choosing to be here."

"Yes."

"That's the part that changed." Haiseiko looked at her for a long moment. "He was right about you," she said simply.

Agnes's ears pressed back.

"Mats-kun talks about everyone he cares about." Haiseiko smiled.

Across the table, Matsuo glanced up.

"What?" he said.

"Nothing," Haiseiko and Agnes said, at the same time.

His eyes narrowed.

"I need to use the restroom," he announced, standing. "Nobody do anything suspicious while I'm gone."

"Of course not," Agnes said.

"Count me out," Pokke agreed.

"We'll be right here," Haiseiko said.

He looked between them. Then at Dantsu, who was the only one he trusted.

Dantsu gave him a very small, very calm nod.

He went to the restroom.

The moment the door closed:

"NOW," Pokke whispered.

Agnes's tail was already moving. She reached under the table, found the leg of Matsuo's chair, and pulled.

Pokke grabbed a small packet of hot sauce from her jacket pocket.

Café's eyebrow rose exactly two millimeters. "Where did you get that?"

"I came prepared."

She unscrewed the cap and emptied the whole pack to Matsuo's coffee.

Then both of them sat back.

Fuji was looking at the ceiling. Haiseiko had her hand over her mouth. Café was very focused on her tiramisu. Dantsu was looking at her phone.

Matsuo came back.

He sat down.

Or rather, he reached for his chair, found it sixty centimeters further back than expected, stumbled, grabbed the table, and eventually made it into the seat with what could be generously described as dignity.

"My chair moved," he said.

"Did it?" Agnes said.

"Chairs don't usually—" He looked at Agnes. He looked at her tail, which was back in its usual position, completely innocent. "Agnes."

"Mm?"

He picked up his coffee. Took a large, confident sip.

There was a half-second of silence.

Then he sprayed approximately half the coffee directly at Haiseiko.

The table went absolutely silent.

Haiseiko sat there. Coffee on her face. Coffee on her jacket. Coffee dripping from her chin.

"POKKE—" Matsuo started.

"I call this Experiment: saucy," Pokke announced, to the table.

"Oh shit. Seiko-nee, I'm sorry—"

"You—" Haiseiko wiped her face very slowly. "Dick—"

"I didn't know it was going to—the chair—and then the coffee—"

"You put salt in Gramps's tea," Haiseiko said, picking up her onigiri. "You lemon-bombed Pokke. And you looked very innocent every single time." She held his gaze. "Consider this karma, Mats-kun."

She threw the onigiri.

It hit him in the forehead.

"SEIKO-NEE—"

Pokke wheezed so hard she knocked into Dantsu.

"FOOD FIGHT!" Pokke shouted, grabbing a packet of chips.

"No food fight—" Dantsu started, but Pokke had already launched the chips at Matsuo, who ducked, and they hit Fuji.

Fuji looked at the chips now on her shoulder. Then at Pokke.

"Pokke," she said, very calmly.

"That was an accident—"

"I know it was." Fuji picked up a chip very deliberately and flicked it back.

It hit Agnes.

Agnes stared at it. Then at Fuji.

"You started it," Fuji said, completely serene.

"I didn't—Guinea Pig-kun deserved—"

Agnes picked up a piece of her onigiri and threw it. Fuji dodged. It hit Haiseiko again.

"AGNES—"

"Sorry, that one wasn't intentional—"

Haiseiko retaliated with a fistful of rice that had no business leaving the onigiri wrapper in the first place. It caught Pokke square across the face.

"RICE?! WHO THROWS LOOSE RICE—"

"IT WAS UNSTABLE, IT'S NOT MY FAULT—"

Pokke grabbed the nearest thing, which turned out to be Café's untouched second tiramisu.

"Pokke." Café's voice could have stopped traffic. "Put that down."

Pokke put it down. Immediately. Some instincts ran deeper than chaos.

She grabbed a stack of napkins instead, and hurled the whole thing into the air like confetti. It rained down over the table, which somehow made things worse rather, since now nobody could see what was coming.

Dantsu stood up very calmly. She looked at all of them.

"Everyone," Dantsu said quietly, "please—"

A chip hit her in the ear.

Everyone froze.

Dantsu reached up very slowly and removed the chip from her ear. She looked at it. She looked at the table.

"Who threw that?!" she said.

Everyone pointed at someone else.

An onigiri, thrown by absolutely nobody who would later admit to it, sailed clean over the table and landed with a soft, tragic plop directly in Fuji's coffee.

Fuji looked down at it. Looked up. Her expression had gone.

"Okay," Fuji said. "Everyone. Everyone stop—"

Something hit her in the shoulder. Nobody claimed that one either.

Up at the store counter, the store clerk had given up restocking and was openly watching.

Dantsu sighed, sat back down, picked up her drink, and said, "I tried."

The table erupted.

Matsuo was laughing so hard he had to put his head down on the table. He could feel tears actually forming. Pokke was making sounds that were not human words. Agnes had completely abandoned composure and was laughing the unguarded laugh, the one she didn't calculate, the one that meant she'd stopped performing being okay and was just okay.

Haiseiko was pointing at Matsuo and laughing. "YOUR FACE! When you took the sip—"

"IT TASTED LIKE ACTUAL FIRE—"

"WE KNOW, THAT'S WHY WE DID IT—"

"I THOUGHT I WAS DYING—"

"YOU ALMOST CHOKED!"

"WHO'S IDEA IT WAS TO GIVE POKKE HOT SAUCE—"

"MY IDEA—" Pokke wheezed. "A VERY DAMN GOOD ONE."

Eventually the laughter settled into something quieter, warmer. Food got reorganized. Dantsu produced a fresh stack of napkins from somewhere. Pokke restacked her snacks. The table returned to a mostly functional state.

"Okay," Pokke said, recovering. "Two days out. Real answers. How's everyone feeling?"

"Focused," Café said.

"Ready as I'll ever be," Pokke said, answering her own question first. "Dantsu?"

"Calm," Dantsu said.

"Like actually calm or 'Dantsu calm'—"

"Both," Dantsu admitted.

"Trainer-san?"

"Also both," Matsuo said.

"Seiko-san?" Pokke turned to Haiseiko with the directness she aimed at people she'd decided to include.

Haiseiko smiled — the warm, specific one. "Proud," she said. "That's what I'm feeling."

"Tachyon?" Pokke said.

Agnes held her matcha milk with both hands. "Ready," she said. "I want to know what it feels like to finish something completely." She paused. "And I want to do it with people who—"

"With us," Pokke finished, simply.

Agnes looked at her. Her tail made a slow, complete arc. "Yes," she said. "With all of you."

Pokke beamed so hard that Dantsu quietly handed her a napkin.

At some point Matsuo came back from the soft-serve machine and put a strawberry cup in front of Agnes without asking.

"Strawberry," she observed.

"You like sweet things. Don't argue with the data."

She ate it without arguing. Agnes's tail was wrapped around his leg again.

Matsuo looked around the table — Pokke showing Dantsu something on her phone, Haiseiko and Fuji talking quietly, Café half in the conversation and half quietly elsewhere in the good way — and thought: this is the part that matters. Not the result. This.

"Guinea Pig-kun," Agnes said, without looking at him.

"Yeah?"

"Thank you for being here."

"I'm not going anywhere," he said.

Her tail tightened once — just slightly.

"I know," she said.