Chapter Text
Opus was as alike to her namesake as a sardine was to a shark. She was definitely a work of some kind – a piece of work? A work in progress? Far from a proper opus, in any case.
Her eyes trailed to the window-side of the classroom. She sat somewhere in the middle, so the view of the outside wasn’t as clear as she desired, and she had to be subtle about it, unless she wanted to be branded as a weirdo. Even so her gaze drifted past the window to the scene outside: Leaves of an elm swaying in a gentle breeze, whose branches framed an empty track field. A normal track field, but nonetheless one she imagined herself blazing through. The wind would swipe at her face, sending her hair flailing about, and the petrichor lingering–
“...Opus. Opus.”
“Sorry. Here.”
Her homeroom teacher paused for a moment, settling on her, eyebrow raised. She suddenly felt the urge to stop slouching in her seat. Perhaps she’d even sit straight. “I was under the impression that umamusume could hear better than others,” he huffed, “Do you intend to keep surprising us today, Ms. Opus?”
She felt her ear twitch. “Not particularly.”
He let out a grunt of approval and returned to the rollcall. When he looked away, she relaxed once more in her seat, mulling over the fact that even if that was her intent, announcing it would defeat the purpose.
Daiki Yabe. Suzuka Mei. Makino Umaya. Every spoken name was as sharp as a razor’s edge. When rollcall ended, the scratching of chalk against the board was the same way; it was like she could hear each grain rubbing off on the enamel, every scratch, every stroke, crisp. Her homeroom teacher wasn’t wrong. She could hear just fine. She just wouldn’t – couldn’t – listen. Before long she found herself affixed to the scenery beyond the window again, admiring the invisible breeze, daydreaming the scent from the first rain after a dry spell, wishing she could teeter past the veil and into that barren, sprawling track. After all, Opus was an umamusume.
And umamusume were born to run.
…
Once school ended, Opus found herself scrolling through Umastagram reels as she walked. She knew these roads better than the back of her hand, weaving through storefronts and parked trucks, around chattering passersby along the ever-thinning sidewalks, occasionally dipping between alleys connecting one street to another. Just like class, every video she scrolled through was noise. All different kinds of noise, like a clip from a movie or some variant of the newest rot, but noise nonetheless. Until it wasn’t.
She stopped mid-pace. It wasn’t another video she scrolled to, but an ad. It was nothing special either. No music, no voice-over. Just a flat image of some school’s grounds with the phrase: Have you got what it takes to be an Umapyoi Legend? On the bottom. And yet, she instantly recognized what it was. Hell, any umamusume worth their salt would’ve recognized what it was – or rather, where.
As if they need to advertise. Opus stowed her phone away in her bag, scowling. Everyone dreamt of getting into Tracen Academy. You can go in as an umamusume, but you don’t leave as one – you leave as a legend. And that went for everyone, regardless of winning or losing. She grimaced with sardonic amusement. That went especially for the losers; only the gods knew how old Haru Urara was now, but Opus still heard snippets on “The Shining Star of Losers Everywhere” here and there, even to this day. She looked down at her skirt, which trailed just past the knee. Everyone dreamt of getting in, but not everyone did. And with these legs? Yeah, right.
“Opus!” A voice called out, bright, energetic – and loud. She jolted upright. “Opus? Is that you?”
She whirled about in confusion, and it was only then that she realized she stood at the crest of a bridge, overlooking a river flowing so lazily that it was almost still. For a second, she thought she imagined it. And then it called again. “Ooooooopus! Hi!”
Flustered, Opus scrambled towards the source. Another umamusume awaited her at the foot of the bridge. Her school uniform drooped slightly off her shoulder as she leaned against the post, and as Opus drew nearer and nearer, her sly grin grew wider with amusement. Cat-eyed and unapologetically annoying as ever, it would seem. “Can you shut up please!” Opus hissed, emphasizing each word with a step. “You’re so unbearably loud!”
“Hm? Me?” the umamusume said. “I don’t know what YOU COULD POSSIBLY BE TALKING about.”
She said that last part with a raised voice, causing a few people passing by to glance at them. Opus clasped her hand over the umamusume’s. Wincing an awkward smile to the people looking over, along with a weird sort of wave, Opus turned back towards the umamusume before her once the passersby continued along. She glared daggers towards her. Even with her mouth covered, Opus could tell she was trying hard not to burst into laughter. “Hilarious,” Opus said. “Maybe comedy is more of your forte than racing, yeah?”
“Jack of all trades, master of all.” The girl said, her voice muffled.
“It stops being funny after a while. Doing it every time–”
“Well, it’s not like you always hear me anyways,” she said, removing Opus’s hand from her mouth. “Always with those headphones and whatnot. I’m surprised you heard me the first time I called, actually.”
Opus took a step back, sighing in exasperation. Teal Baron bounced off the bridgepost and stood face to face with her in kind, still grinning. Like herself, Teal had black hair, but that was where the similarities ended. She stood almost half a head taller than Opus and had skin much fairer. Everything she did had some sort of fine motion to it – well, perhaps not ‘fine.’ ‘Bold’ was more like it. From how she walked to how she dressed to even how she stood, Teal Baron was unabashedly herself. Unabashedly brazen. And more often than not, annoying, too.
“Whatever the case is, we should get going.” Opus gestured towards the bridge. “Club starts soon. Wouldn’t want to miss a scrim, would you?”
Teal Baron made a noise in agreement, and before long, they both set off. It was getting late in the afternoon, but not too late – just at the precipice before the sun sunk in the distance, just before the dragonflies and the cicadas decided to start their incessant tune. Asagaya summers, even after midday, were unbearable. The humidity in the air made it a point to cling to the skin and seep into the lungs, while the heat steamed you from the inside and out like a living shumai. Needless to say, Opus hated it. And Teal Baron knew she hated it. And when Teal Baron knew Opus hated something… well. There was a reason they never talked about the Tuesday Tabasco incident. Opus shuddered as the memory poked out from oblivion, slight as it was.
As they continued, the more dilapidated outskirts of town gradually began to melt away until nothing was left but a single, winding road burrowing through a sea of trees. After a while, with Teal Baron almost missing it, they took another turn into the trees, following a path barren of grass from all the years it’d been beaten down. Teal kept chattering the entire time, but she always did that. And to be honest? When she wasn’t prodding at her, Opus enjoyed it. Nature was only so nice; when the canopy started to block out the sky, and when the bugs and birds and everything else became loud, then suddenly silent, it never failed to creep her out.
Finally, they arrived at a clearing in the trees. Crudely carved out from the forest was a flat, unmaintained racetrack that stretched between both corners of her vision. In the distance there was an abandoned building of some sorts, the wood fallen in some places, rotting in others. It could’ve been an old gymnasium, maybe even a school, judging by the shape of it, but it was hard to tell. Especially with how ramshackle it was. Opus didn’t really mind, though. She’d been here so many times that the place’d practically become a second home for her. And at times, been more homely than her actual one.
Teal Baron dropped her schoolbag to her feet once everything came into view, raising her hands to the sky in a long-winded stretch, letting out a noise not dissimilar to a purr. Opus left her behind, heading towards the building. As far as she was concerned, they were already late.
Camping out near the front of the building was a group of runners – six umamusume and a person – dressed in different colored tracksuits, stained all over with dust, dirt, and drenched in sweat at the collar. They were all heaving, gulping down water as if they’d just trekked through a desert. One of them noticed Opus between swigs, making a sloppy gesture with her free hand in greeting. “Opus,” she gasped out just before taking another sip. “Finally decided to show up today, huh?”
“I got delayed.” Opus motioned slightly towards Teal Baron, who sauntered up to her side, resting her arm upon Opus’s shoulder.
“Yo, Willow!”
“Baron,” Willow returned, giving a slight nod. “This plan was a collaboration, then? To wait ‘til we’ve worn ourselves out while you two are in top shape?”
“Hardly!” Opus shifted, causing Teal Baron to drop her arm from her shoulder. “I’d never agree to something like that! This one just had to be a nuisance. I would’ve gotten here way earlier if she hadn’t–”
Willow stopped her mid sentence, shaking her head. Under all that sweat and soaked hair, was that a smile? “Relax, Opus. I’m only screwing ‘round with you. Skipping training and coming only for the race is more of a Baron move, if anything.” She glanced over at Teal Baron, who looked away, sheepish.
“Wouldn’t change much, though!” Piped up a smaller umamusume from near the back, shooting Opus a wry smirk. “I’d still leave you in the dust any day!”
A twinge of annoyance shot through Opus. She smiled back spitefully, trying not to let the provocation show on her face. She failed. “The only thing you leave in the dust is your brain,” she said. “Rushing and rushing and rushing. Even Maemi left you behind past the second corner!”
“Hey,” Maemi chimed from the back, her voice dry and raspy, despite the gulps of water. She was lying down flat on her back when Opus arrived, but raised it slightly the moment she was mentioned. Maemi was the only person in the group who wasn’t an umamusume – just a regular person – and yet, she still insisted on running races with them. “I’m pretty fast for a normal gal, y’know?”
“Maybe,” Opus said. “Or maybe, for an umamusume, Particle Bomb’s just slow as hell.” Opus shot a look at her. A muscle on Particle Bomb’s face twitched, but her smirk only grew wider, as if the challenge lit a fuse behind her eyes.
“Talk all you want, but you won’t try me in a sprint, will you, Opus?” Particle Bomb jeered between grit teeth. “Afraid you’ll be left behind?”
“Not my fault you can’t handle anything past a thousand meters.”
“What’d you say?!”
The dead silence that erupted from their glares bore the weight of Fuji. The other members in the group could practically see sparks flying between the two of them. Maemi shook her head before resting it back on the ground. Even Teal Baron chose not to interject, but only to snort and enjoy the spectacle. Eventually, Willow had to be the one to break the tension.
“You two really are something else!” She said. “Just shut up and settle it on the track, yeah? Words only amount to so much.”
“Aw, come on Rocky!” Whined Particle Bomb. “That’s not fair, you said today was a medium day!”
“True,” Willow said. “But d’you really think you’d grow as a runner by running sprint after sprint, and only sprints?”
“Sakura Bakushin O ran sprint after sprint after sprint! And she’s awesome!”
“Sakura Bakushin O couldn’t run half the Satsuki Sho without runnin’ out of steam. Watch it yourself.” Willow took another sip of water. “And it’s Rock Willow to you.”
Sulking, Particle Bomb retreated, though not before making some jabs at the race (“Satsuki Sho… The Sprinters Stakes’re much cooler… Stupid Satsuki Sho…”). Rock Willow turned back to the two of them, Opus and Teal Baron. “Both of you should go get changed, we’ll only be lounging around for a little while longer.”
Opus nodded before making her way towards the building, but Teal Baron hadn’t even waited before Rock Willow finished before swinging the door wide open. Opus scowled. The idiot hadn’t even taken her tracksuit in.
…
Once they both went inside, Opus tossed Baron’s tracksuit over after retrieving it from her bag. Even though they hadn’t even ran yet, Baron’s was marred with scratches and dirt all over – but at least it fit. Opus couldn’t say the same about hers. The only good thing about it was that it was clean. It was loose in the places it shouldn’t be: the cuffs drooped past her fingers if she didn’t roll up the sleeves, it scrunched together just before the ankles, and was far too airy around the chest (but Opus supposed that was less a problem with the suit, and more a problem with her).
Save for the muffled pieces of chatter coming from outside, it was rather quiet in the building. Though from the outside the original building’s purpose could’ve been ambiguous, from the inside, it resembled an empty school gym. Then again, school gyms resembled normal gyms, so it could’ve been one of those just as easily. A normal gym… plus the ripped floorboards, collapsed railings and flimsily-hanging basketball hoops; minus a stage curtain, some lights, and half the roof.
“The Satsuki Sho, huh?” Teal Baron remarked. She was to her left, throwing her tracksuit on and stuffing her school clothes in her bag. “Think I got a chance? Of running it, anyway.”
“If you set your mind to it, maybe. Winning’s a different story.” Opus said, folding her her own.
Teal Baron huffed cynically. “Don’t give me that cheek, Opus! I’m askin’ for real, be for real.”
“Baron, we don’t even have trainers.”
“Not yet we don’t. But we’ve got each other! For how long at this point– six years?”
“Seven,” Opus said. “Seven years.”
“Seven years! Seven years we’ve known each other, seven years I’ve known you. And Willow, Bomb, Maemi, the rest. We train each other, don’t we?”
Opus shook her head. “I’m not saying we don’t. But we can’t even run in the Opens here without a trainer – can’t even debut, can we?”
Opus heard a grumble and a pompf as Teal Baron plopped herself down on the gym floor, sending dust flying everywhere. She leaned her head against the wall, looking wistfully up, past the falling foundations, past the roof, into the stars. “Guess so.”
“Mm.” Opus finished folding her school clothes and put them away. She was tempted to continue on – about how the Twinkle Series was a pipe dream, how they hadn’t even run in a regional race yet, and how running in any Triple Crown race was farther out of reach than the sun in the sky – but she stopped herself before she did.
“Well how about this,” Baron began. “How about Willow? Her times’ve been getting better and better, no matter the distance! I’d say she’s got a pretty good chance of getting scouted. Any day now.”
It was true. Willow, out of all of them, was the only one with enough prowess to possibly earn a glance from a trainer. But even so, Opus had her doubts. “That’d be–”
“Hella awesome!”
“I was going to say unlikely,” Opus said. “No one but ourselves sees our times, much less our running.”
This time it was Baron’s turn to say, “Mm.” Opus sat down next to her. Baron’s gaze was still affixed to the stars, but Opus couldn’t bring herself to follow. Hers was focused more on the rubble. “You’re such a cynic. A cynical Sally.” Baron chuckled a bit. “A Cynical Suzuka.”
“I’m not. I’m just being realistic.”
“It’d be good if you weren’t. Not all the time, anyway.”
“And what? Be like you?”
“Precisely!”
Opus rolled her eyes. They sat in silence. And yet, something gnawed away at Opus. It wasn’t necessarily a burning question, just a wayward curiosity. She didn’t even know if it’d be right to ask. But she asked anyway.
“What about me? Think I got a chance?” Opus said.
“You? Hell nah.”
There it was. She should’ve known the answer before Baron said it. They were only–
“Nah, you have no idea how to pace yourself, not at all. Not in a medium, anyway. Maybe in the Kikuka Sho you’d have a chance.” Baron flashed a grin at Opus, much to her surprise.
“I was asking sincerely.”
“And I was answering for real,” Baron said. “But seriously! Your times’re hella good, girl! You’ve just got no spine. Always hanging around the back, never moving up, not even past the final corner.”
Irritation twanged through Opus. “And what’s wrong with being an end closer?”
“Nothing’s wrong bein’ an end closer. It’s just you.” And before Opus could press her further on what she meant by that, they were interrupted by a knock on the front door. It was Willow calling for the both of them. Evidently, the rest of the girls were ready to race.
Teal Baron was the first to rise from her seat. There was a gleam in her eyes, glinting with the twinkle from the stars above. It licked at Opus’s heart, almost spreading to hers, and for a moment caused her to shudder with anticipation. Baron extended her hand out towards Opus and she took it. “Better shape up. Or Particle might actually leave you in the dust this time!”
“Not in a hundred years.”
“If not Particle, then me. How ‘bout that?”
Opus grinned. It was gross, with the echoes of a challenge dripping from corner to corner. “Not in a million years.”
…
The sun, tempering its flares with the darkening sky, blazed across the rims and rust of the starting gate. Some of the other umamusume, who were too tired to run a race in their current state, volunteered to roll the starting gates off the track after they opened (and also to provide audience to Maemi’s commentary). As an unofficial rule, the first to enter the gate was the winner of the previous race. They called it the “Winner’s Rule–” but at this point, since the winner always happened to be a certain somebody, they called it “Willow’s Rule” instead. Sometimes Maemi would joke “Willow’s rule remains eternal!” which never failed to ignite something in the rest of the umamusume. Even in Opus.
Opus glanced over to her left. She was put on the innermost bracket, bracket one, but hadn’t entered yet. Rather, she looked over at Willow, who stood just outside of her own gate. Willow took a deep breath in, let it out, took another, and let it out again. With each one she seemed to become lighter on her feet, more supple, lithe like a blade of grass bending with the wind.
It was a ritual at this point, not just for her, but for the rest of the group to wait and see as well. Each breath of fresh air for Willow was a beating drum for the others in the race, the air becoming more rife with focus with every strike. When she first joined Asagaya Underground, Opus was intimidated at the sight of the pre-race Willow. There was a feeling that, if she interrupted, or entered the gate beforehand, she’d stumble all over herself. But now it was just a signal of the start of another race. Nothing the URA would ever recognize, yet a fanfare all the same.
When Rock Willow’s meditation ended, she was a notched arrow, a loaded bullet. Tensed with focus, as if she hadn’t spent the last minute winding down with serene calm. She was in bracket four. And yet, Opus could see the fire she left behind in her wake as she entered her gate. Fire at her heels, in her heart, burning the soul. Teal Baron followed. Then Particle Bomb, then Accel Torc, Milieu Fragrance, and finally, Opus.
“Testing… Testing– ah.” Maemi said, suddenly cut off by an outcry of megaphone feedback. She fiddled around for a second before announcing: “Sun’s going down at Asagaya Underground! We’re using the full track today, ‘bout 2000-or-so meters! Shitty condition as always, but who gives a damn? Not these racers! Not these umamusume!
First favorite to win is Rock Willow, undefeated for… how long was it again?” Opus rolled her eyes as Maemi whispered down to the other umamusume. The mock-commentary did make her chortle a bit, but at the same time, made her a bit restless. “Seven wins… I think! That’s pretty good!”
“Hurry up, Maemi!” Particle Bomb called from two gates down.
“Then don’t interrupt!” Maemi said. “Anywho, second favorite is… I don’t know! Teal Baron came in second last week, though, so she’s probably got a solid shot! Third’s up in the air, though. Can’t really comment on that.” She took a deep gasp of air in. Opus braced herself. “THE RUNNERS ARE ALL LINED UP AT THE GATE, RARING TO GO!”
Ka-chunk!
“AND THEY’RE OFF!”
As the gates flung open with a rusty whine, Opus sent the dirt flying as she kicked off the ground. The air blasted in her face as she took off – she felt it sift through her tail, blowing out the loose parts of her clothes – but she paid it almost no mind. Each step she took she took as if impaling the earth with the heel of her foot, and she ran with the ferocity to match.
Immediately to her left, Milieu and Accel moved up ahead of her, and from the corner of her eye, she saw Particle Bomb surged to the front of the group with complete reckless abandon. As expected.
“Right from the gate open, Particle Bomb tears through the group and takes the first spot as we move into the first corner! Milieu Fragrance and Accel Torc make up the first pack, Teal Baron following immediately behind!” Almost as if on cue, Teal Baron moved up from behind her on the outside. Her strides were huge and sweeping, taunting Opus with a smirk as she rushed past her. Opus gnashed her teeth, her instincts screaming at her to chase. It took all she had to hold herself back. Not the time. Not the time.
“Now, we’re entering the first straightaway of the track! The racers not only have to mind their step, but they’ve gotta hold their strength ‘til the end of this uphill!” Maemi called. Opus thought she saw Particle Bomb slow down for the most minute second, but to her surprise, Particle Bomb only accelerated through the entirety of the uphill, vastly widening the gap between her and the first pack. Again her gut told her to go, but her mind told her to play it cool. She had to save her energy if she wanted to win. She had to stick to the end – and, on the last spurt, where it all came down to the line, explode. “Woah! Looks like Particle Bomb’s already making her move! This early in the race, too?! Is she crazy?!”
They were nearly at the halfway point now. She could tell because the gap between Particle Bomb and the first pack, led by Accel now, shrunk until the former fell behind them both. Even Teal Baron managed to blink right past her.
As they rounded towards the second corner, straight ahead, Teal Baron put on a sudden burst of speed, sending dust flying from behind her as she usurped the lead from Accel. Accel didn’t take this lightly. It was Baron, then Accel, then Baron again, then Accel again, each one overtaking the other in the heat between milliseconds. Milieu was catching up, too, eventually passing by Particle Bomb, until Particle Bomb was only a few lengths away from Opus. The full view of the field, from the horizon’s end to the lengthposts to her side, rushed the rhythm playing in her heart to a frightening pace. She knew the time to make her move was coming.
From here!
Opus planted her foot deep into the ground as they left the second corner and entered the third, suddenly taking off with a surge of energy. “What’s this?! Opus makes her move! Opus makes her move!” Her strides lengthened almost twofold as the gaps between each strike on the dirt shrunk. Her lungs could hardly keep up as she ran, each breath she took scraping against her windpipe, leaving her body as a desperate plea for air. And yet she didn’t stop. She couldn’t. Particle Bomb became a blur to the side as Opus passed her, then Milieu Fragrance, the lengths between her and the leaders shrinking with each fragment in time. Six lengths. Five lengths. Three lengths. She could do it! She just had to–
…
Something was off.
Opus faltered for only a mere fraction of a moment. And yet, in that moment, in that blind minutia, a shadow clawed at her heels as she felt a rumbling, the very ground beneath her being shook, from behind. Distracted, Opus whirled her head around, but it was far too late. All she saw was Rock Willow’s afterimage.
“AND THERE IT IS! ROCK WILLOW EXPLODES PAST OPUS IN A SHEER DISPLAY OF POWER!”
And in that second she lost it all. That focus, her footing, her speed, her stride. She was being forced more and more towards the inside without an avenue to move. Not one. Suddenly she wasn’t at Asagaya Underground anymore. She was blazing down a track, much smaller, a far weaker girl; another closed in from her left, forcing her more towards the inside; and then she was tumbling, falling, losing it all for the first time all over again. It was all she could do to snap back to reality, but by the time she affixed her gaze towards the finish, it remained far out of view. Even as she crossed the line.
She slowed to a jogging pace as Maemi, ecstatic, declared Rock Willow’s eighth consecutive win in a row. All the others – Baron, Bomb, Accel and Milieu – were hunched over, lying down, desperate for air. Not Willow. Willow stood tall, the pearls of sweat pooling on her forehead twinkling with the encroaching night. Opus dropped to her knees. She wanted to clench her fist, scrunch up the dirt and pound the ground, but she didn’t. She only smiled meekly as she always did. For with a star like that on the field, how could she possibly contend? What could Opus do but make that star shine brighter?
…
5th.
Willow’s victory wasn’t a complete domination over the others. Baron looked like she had a shot of taking over for a second, but Willow’s lead widened by a length, then two, then three, eventually beating out the former by five at the end of it all. The only person Opus placed higher than was Particle Bomb, but she attributed that more to circumstance rather than her own merit.
They ran a few more races after that, with Opus swapping out for the other two umamusume before her. Rock Willow sat out too. Rather than sit next to Maemi and Opus, however, she stood farther away from the middle of the turf and more towards the edge of the track, arms crossed as she eyed all of the other runners. Opus couldn’t help but wonder what was going on in that head of hers – was she profiling them all? Silently criticizing their running? Or was she really, truly, just watching?
Once the mock races finally finished for the day, the sun had already fallen far below the horizon line. All of them hung back into the night, preparing for the “winning live,” which was really just an all-out karaoke party until midnight. All of them except for Opus. She left with Teal Baron, changing back into her school clothes, sifting their way through the forest with phone flashlights, until they separated once they made it back to the main road.
The night was silent. Opus checked her phone: almost a quarter to seven. She paced past the bridge, past the lamplit streets with their izakaya and restaurants, but no matter how far she walked, she couldn’t get her mind off the race. It wasn’t like she never won. But when she lost, she lost humiliatingly. Her head hung low for a second and her eyes drifted to her legs. There was a fall, a fracture, a scream, and red. She winced – and then the Asagaya streets came surging back.
She’d long made her way past the shopping districts, turning into the suburbs and arriving at her home. It was an unassuming place, lying on the corner of a 3-way intersection, all sides fenced out by stone, save for the entrance. Opus wiped off the dust from her shoulder, careful to look clean, and headed inside.
“I’m baaaack.” Deadpan, Opus dropped her shoes off by the front steps. A familiar smell, heavy with spices and fat, wafted through the air and smacked her like a truck. Tail flicking, she hurried past the hallway and turned into the kitchen, where she saw her father there, a large pot on the stove, admiring his own handiwork. He hadn’t even noticed her come in. Opus stalked over, silent, the sounds of her entrance hidden by the popping and hissing of stewing meat. And just when she was about to give him a shock–
“Welcome back.” her father said. He jerked his head around to her, foggy glasses gleaming, and gave Opus a grave look – all before it melted into a warm smile. He was dressed in a t-shirt – whether it was his Top Gun: Maverick one or his 31st Miku Expo one, she didn’t know, since it was covered by a stained apron – and shorts, walking around in a pair of house sandals. Opus snorted in mild amusement. In truth, his ridiculous evening look almost exacted an actual laugh from her, but she managed to keep a straight face. He set aside the ladle he held, turning towards Opus, and said, “How was your day? How was cram school?”
“Alright,” she said. “I keep telling you guys that I don’t need it, though.”
“Anak, don’t give me that,” her father said. “You should know that almost all the students I teach went to cram school. And if they didn’t, well, they wouldn’t have gotten into Todai.” He winked at her. “Y’know, I’m not saying I could pull some strings in admissions, but if you’re still eyeing Todai for university–”
Opus shook her head in distaste. Her dad got the message, but his concession felt more of a matter of course rather than true acceptance. “Mom’s still at the office?”
“Mm. Looks like more overtime.” Her father clicked her tongue. “And I thought it was bad in the States. Didn’t realize it could get any worse.”
She nodded, turning away to the end of the hallway, starting towards the stairs. “You’re not hungry?” Her father sounded surprised.
Opus was already halfway up the stairs before she responded with a lie, telling her father that she grabbed a sandwich from FamilyMart on the way back. As much as the caldereta on the stove tempted her, she elected against eating. Food wasn’t going to help her run faster.
She turned into the hallway from the stairs. There were a few rooms lined on each side, but only about three of them were actually used. One was hers, of course. The other, her parents. The last was her mother’s studio where Opus herself hardly entered; the last time she did, her mother was on crunch time trying to meet a deadline for some comic she was drawing.
Her room was a mess. Nothing new there – with how little time she spent in it, she figured that leaving a few clothes strewn about across a chair or table corner or whatever couldn’t do any harm. Same with the unmade bed, the half-opened notebooks on the table at the corner, etc, etc. Maybe she’d get some heat about the fan she left on overhead, but she figured that wouldn’t come until the electricity bill did. And besides; it was hot. If she didn’t leave it on, she figured her room would feel like a sauna the moment she stepped inside.
Once she took her dirty tracksuit out of her schoolbag, she tossed it across the room into a laundry hamper near the closet as she fell back on her bed. Her eyes went to the fan on the top of the ceiling, whirling round and round, round and round. It was like her. Round and round she went on that old track, repeating the same old motions, training, racing, coming in last, coming in first if she was lucky. The old legends were never like that. Narita Taishin, Zenyatta, Secretariat – even Nice Nature, the Bronze Collector, was always a consistent face in the top 3. Opus was a consistent loser.
She was always told that she shouldn’t be envious. That, rather than desire for what another person might have, it was better to be grateful for what was hers. But Rock Willow’s running still lingered in her head. The way the ground seemed to shake at the moment she made that final burst of speed, the intensity of her running, the width of each stride; and it wasn’t just her. Baron, Accel, Milieu, Particle, even Maemi. When they ran, they ran. Opus always fell short. And, as she drifted off to sleep, she wondered what it would take to run like they did. To run in a way that only dreamers could.