Chapter Text
Fenri wouldn’t call himself uncomfortable with his lot in life.
Being a trainer at Tracen Academy wasn’t bad. In fact, it was quite the opposite. For the son of small, local uma racetrack owners, it was about as close as he could come to actually racing, to tasting the thrill of the wind past his ears.
But despite how he’d struck gold with Agnes Tachyon, finding a friend (at least, he thought that he’d graduated to being a guinea pig and friend by now) and living the dream of training a winner, he still couldn’t help but yearn.
At first he’d thought that it was just the hangover of Tachyon’s career transitioning into the Dream league, but even after picking up another trainee in the form of Nice Nature to complement Manhattan Cafe, the success that they had found hardly stifled the growing void within his chest.
It was a gnawing desire that he’d had all his life ever since he’d first set foot on the turf and had seen them run. Something stirred in him then. The insanity that all of the Tracen trainers shared had started gnawing at him then, or so he thought.
The trainer of Team Spica, Rigil, or any of the other teams looked like they belonged. They had found their calling and could spend every second of every day watching their Umas run. Fenri could too.
Couldn’t he?
Watching from the sidelines was good enough. Had to be good enough.
“Ugh…” He rolled over in his bed, staring blearily at the alarm clock on his bedside table. 1 AM. Again.
Sleep was a friend that had gone on an exchange program and had swapped out with despair, and all Fenri could do was watch the clock tick over to 1:01.
This was madness. What more could he need? He wasn’t an umamusume. This was all that he had. He rolled over again, shutting his eyes tight as if the very concept of time passing was offensive.
In the morning he would wake up, walk to his office, and get started for the day. That was what he’d done for the last three years, and what he would be doing for the rest of his life.
He loved it.
He wanted more.
Not for the first time, he whispered a silent prayer to the three goddesses that in his next life he would be born to run.
—
“Yo, Fenri? Fenri!”
The trainer was drawn out of his thoughts by a concerned Nice Nature waving a hand in front of his face. He blinked owlishly for a moment before snapping to attention and straightening his thin-brimmed glasses. His tablet - which he must have accidentally locked - laid dormant in his hands. He wondered where Tachyon was. Maybe with Jungle Pocket?
“Ah, sorry, I didn’t get much sleep…” As always, he told the truth, much to Nice Nature’s chagrin. This wasn’t the first strategy and training meeting that he’d been not all there for.
“Again? Need a coffee?” She crossed her arms and tipped her head towards Manhattan Cafe, who already looked halfway to getting some of the energy juice herself.
“That wouldn’t be so bad, actually… After we finish up here,” Fenri corrected quickly, staring at the shut-off tablet in his hands and catching a glimpse of his reflection.
If you were to ask him, he looked on the milder side of unkempt. His shirt collar was mildly wrinkled and his auburn hair still had a few cowlicks and curls from the hurried morning combing he’d attempted to give it. His hairstyle was otherwise haphazard. Something that looked dangerously similar to Tachyon when he didn’t get to comb it.
Serves him right for skipping three of his five alarms.
Still, he rationalized that it was approaching fine for anything that didn’t involve the press. Even if his bangs were kissing the tips of his eyebrows and he’d had to fight to at least curl them slightly away from his forehead. Hopefully the dark bags beneath his eyes weren’t too obvious.
As always, though, his appearance made him wince and turn his gaze elsewhere - only to flinch when Manhattan had silently slid beside him with a steaming cup of coffee.
She handed it to him with a light crease of her brow before sliding back into her seat. He nodded appreciatively.
He took a sip and got a face full of steam that fogged up his glasses. Just one of those days, huh? Nice Nature chuckled while he awkwardly swiped it across one of his sleeves. There was the lightest bit of a flush across his cheeks as he flicked his tablet back on.
There was a rough diagram of the Arima Kinen track and a few markers that he’d painstakingly positioned. He’d had a whole explanation prepared and everything, but it took a few more seconds to reorganize his thoughts. Just get through this and then he could help them train. It’d be fine after that. Surely.
He sighed, taking out his pen and getting to work.
“So, as I was saying, I think your spurt from last race was good,” he said with a circle around the N.N. on the track. His voice fell into that analytical tone that he used - suspiciously similar to Mihono Bourbon - when he was treading through diagrams and strategy. “But we need to work on your positioning. You spent too much energy having to get around the pack and couldn’t challenge McQueen.”
Nice Nature nodded, playing with one of the buttons on her coat. “So I… could have won? I was so tired at the end…”
“Definitely.” At least there was one thing Fenri was sure about. He drew a line across the track, right about where Nice Nature tended to start her spurt. “With a better strategy and a little more stamina,” he couldn’t help but gesture at his coffee with a joke in his eyes, “You’d be giving McQueen a run for her money.”
“That’s-” As always, any compliment that he gave Nice Nature was tough to receive. “Well, if you want me to drink a little more coffee before my races, then maybe, but are you sure? A side character like me?”
“Always!” Fenri pumped a fist and drew a line straight from the start of her spurt to the finish line. “McQueen and Teio are good, but they’re not invincible. As long as we keep improving, bronze will turn to gold.”
Nice Nature gave him a wry smile while Cafe peered curiously at his work. It was already a hard to parse for someone that hadn’t watched him draw every line in order.
“I think that instead of positioning middle of the pack, we should work on finding the gaps that you can use your power to slip through. Inner or outer, you’re at your best when you’ve got clear grass ahead, so…” He scrolled down to the detailed training notes, lines of reps and planned regimens that she’d long grown accustomed to by now. “We can do some video and strength training before moving onto longer distance running to get you some more energy at the end.”
Nice Nature nodded along, though she was still clearly skeptical. “Teio has a lot of stamina…”
“And so will you.” Fenri smiled at her, the boundless belief that had carried Tachyon through an injury and Nature and Manhattan through their debuts and beyond on full display. “I’m ready to see the side character show the protagonist what it’s all about!”
He hadn’t expected Nice Nature to find that amusing, so he couldn’t help but cheer inwardly when she agreed with a half smile. “Fine, fine. I’ll give it my best try, okay?”
“And your best will be amazing.” He turned to Cafe, flipping to another page in his virtual workbook and getting into the groove. “Now, for Cafe… You won, so there’s not too much to say, but I think there’s some improvements we can make to your form so that you can catch up to your friend.”
Manhattan Cafe perked up. “…Okay.”
“So, I noticed that out of your starts, you tend to…”
—
Training time was always when Fenri felt at his best. Now that the night (and morning) blues were dashed away with Manhattan’s bitter mind cleansing coffee and he was out on the track with his trainees, he really should be feeling better. After all, he was out on the track!
Should be feeling better.
There it was again, the specter on his mind. Even when he was right where he wanted to be, watching his trainees working tirelessly to reach their potential, there was still something missing.
He was helping them with every atom of his being yet there was an itch deep on his heart that yearned to be scratched.
Thank the goddesses that he was wearing slacks lest he get any ideas of trying.
He let out another soul-deep sigh and turned his attention back to Nice Nature and Manhattan Cafe, watching their running form with pride and something else mixing into his mind.
“Guinea pig!” A familiar voice snapped him back to reality and nearly made him drop his tablet. Well, now he knew where Tachyon was. Right beside him, appearing as if a ghost visiting their favourite haunt. “Did Cafe make you drink her coffee again? Is that why your emotional state is at least three points lower than usual?”
“Tachyon.” He couldn’t help but be amused as he turned, fixing her wild appraising eyes with a soft gaze of his own. “She didn’t make me. I just drink it because it wakes me up.”
She tsked, crossing her arms haughtily. “There are much better ways of getting energy that aren’t drinking that sickly brew! I have a new set of tea leaves cross-bred to have double the caffeine and only a mild chance of side effects!”
“I’ll try it later,” Fenri promised, already sensing the request that she’d left unsaid. “I’m pretty awake now.”
Tachyon shook her head as if he’d said something foolish. “The bags beneath your eyes have grown by a centimeter. Even if caffeine keeps your energy at normal levels, what could be preventing my dear guinea pig from getting his beauty sleep? Thinking about the next scientific breakthrough by yours truly?”
“No, not really.” Nice Nature started another set of reps while Manhattan Cafe got to work practicing her starts. Fenri was still where he always was. Watching.
There was a beat of silence filled by Tachyon’s expectant stare. Clearly, even if it was just out of scientific curiosity, she was waiting for him to continue. To elaborate.
Fenri wasn’t exactly one to share his own struggles with his trainees. Heck, with Tachyon there had barely been any time to even think about himself between working tirelessly on her recovery and training after her injury. Why would his own problems matter when his trainee was teetering on the brink of forced retirement with every race she ran?
He was silent for another moment longer. Tachyon crossed her arms and peered at him, her feral eyes coating every inch of his face with observance. “My dearest guinea pig seems healthy enough… Not a scratch out of place, aside from those bloodshot eyes.”
Like she was one to talk about getting enough sleep. Fenri couldn’t help but let out an amused snort. “I’m being kept up thinking about all of the dream league races you’re about to dominate.”
“Hah! As if you needed to worry about me…” She replied with a laugh of her own, a pair of hands feeling up one of his arms. Fenri wasn’t entirely sure what conclusions his arms would give her. “So it isn’t a physical affliction…”
It had taken three years, but Fenri had learned the ‘tells’ in Tachyon’s behaviour. Sure, aside from the reckless experimentation and near inability to act properly without anything other than a scientific paper, she was actually pretty darn thoughtful. She worked near tirelessly to study umamusume for the sake of improving their entire species, and now she was trying to figure out what was afflicting him.
“What, dear trainer, has been keeping you awake? Be honest, otherwise you’d be ruining your streak of providing the perfect data…” Even if she leaned in to a degree that would be uncomfortable for anyone other than her trainer, Fenri was hardly fazed by that.
Maybe it was the fatigue - or perhaps the threat of some experiment to extract the truth out of him, but he replied honestly. “Do you ever wonder what it’d be like to be born in a different body?”
Tachyon blinked at him for a moment, digesting the answer. Had she been expecting something different? She was probably just surprised that he didn’t dodge the question.
They really were friends, then. Fenri couldn’t imagine the Tachyon two years ago thinking this hard about anybody or anything unrelated to her research.
“Why, of course! Were I born in a body without profound flaws, just think of the research time I could have spent on amplifying my speed…” She seemed to salivate at the thought.
“Right.” Fenri nodded, adjusting the tablet in his hands and awkwardly tucking it under the arm that Tachyon wasn’t busy examining. There was a pause while he watched the practicing umamusume with no small amount of longing. “I guess I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately. It’d be nice to be able to run like you do.”
“Like I do?” Tachyon seemed mildly impressed, her groping hands pausing. “And not Tokai Teio or Mejiro McQueen? My guinea pig’s taste is impeccable!”
“Like all umamusume do,” Fenri corrected. He tried to play his earnest words off with a light laugh. “Don’t get me wrong, being a trainer is the best thing I could’ve asked for. It’s not like I was good enough to run the non-uma track meets, anyways…”
“Yet it still keeps you awake at night.” Tachyon had the uncanny ability to cut past the fluff of his words almost all of the time, and her eyes held a spark of something. Untapped curiosity combined with the joy of learning something new about her favourite guinea pig. “Your heart rate has increased, Fenri.”
Of course it did. “Has it?”
“Yes, it has, meaning your anxiety levels have increased…” There was a distinctly knowing drawl to her words, something he had once found a little terrifying. Now, though, it was pleasant in a strange way. Tachyon had the uncanny ability to see right through him and to probe and force him to actually talk. “And it only increased while you were talking about your inability to run…”
Her words bristled against a gaping hole in his heart that even Fenri hadn’t been able to put into words. He still wasn’t able to, but his eyes must have silently begging for the genius in front of him to say the words that he wouldn’t - couldn’t - say.
“Fenri.” Her eyes were strikingly serious even if her words were relatively light. “Come by my lab after training.”
“What?” All he could do was blink, surprised - or disappointed that she hadn’t had anything more to say. “I guess I could, but-”
“Good.” Tachyon let his arm go, where it fell limply to his side. “I have an experiment that you’ll be very interested in.”
And with that, she gave him a wave and turned on her heel to walk back to the dorms.
All he could do was turn back to his two trainees and hope that the pit he was falling into wouldn’t take his observational skills with it.
—
Fenri had asked Tachyon how she would describe her lab, once. Cramped was what he was expecting. Cozy if he was delusional.
She had told him it was purpose built and left it at that. A strange way of describing it, especially since this room had almost certainly been an abandoned classroom that Director Akikawa allowed Tachyon to use. It had turned into something else after three years of training, designated as the standard place for Fenri and his trainees to hang around when they had nothing better to do (and were willing to politely decline a few experiments from Tachyon).
As of now, the temporary state of cleanliness that the lab had taken on around Jungle Pocket’s turn winning the Japan Cup had been overtaken by a cyclone of research papers and experimental tableaus.
It was nothing that he wasn’t used to navigating, especially after having to shimmy through boxes and boxes of research during that particularly tough time for Tachyon. At this evening hour, both Nice Nature and Manhattan had already finished training and headed back to their dorms, leaving Fenri to honour Tachyon’s request and drop by the lab.
The scientist was sitting as she always was, knees to her chest and feet on an office chair with a posture that could not possibly be good for her health. As usual, she was typing away at some report, charts pulled up on the monitors that flanked a half full white document.
He gave her a moment to finish typing, then examine a graph, then to get started on typing something else before he cleared his throat.
“Ah, Fenri, I was wondering when you’d speak up!” Almost immediately, she swiveled in her chair to face him, her research forgotten as if it were nothing. She stood with a yawn, her lab coat swirling a few discarded pieces of scratch paper - and was that a doodle of Jungle Pocket?
For his own safety, he decided not to point it out. “U-uh, yeah. You said that you had an experiment for me?”
Tachyon smirked at him, and he never felt more like a test subject in these moments. “Good, the sleep deprivation hasn’t affected your memory! I’ve made a few assumptions about my dear guinea pig,” she began, poking around some of her glassware before picking out a test tube with a strange pink glowing substance. “I’m ninety-five percent certain that they’re correct, in which case this experiment would be perfect, but…”
She swirled the pink gloop around in the tube, lazily twirling the glass as if it was nothing terribly important. “Do you want to be an umamusume?”
For the second time that day, Fenri was rendered speechless. “Wh-what? Me?” He pointed at himself even though the lab was absent of any other soul.
Tachyon shrugged, stalking closer and brandishing the test tube as an evil doctor might. “Who else?”
“I-I mean, when I was younger, sure,” Fenri admitted, backing up a step and finding a table right behind him. He bumped into it unceremoniously, clinking some saucers and coffee cups. His words were automatic, even though they tasted wrong coming off of his tongue. “But I grew out of it.”
A tsk. “Trainer, Trainer…” Then a laugh. “Your evidence doesn’t hold up to the eye of scientific scrutiny! Do you think that your forlorn looks and increased levels of heartache whenever you watched us train could escape my notice?”
“Huh-”
“You are my guinea pig, and it is my responsibility to know everything about you, so of course it was obvious that you would want to reach the peak of performance, even if it was impossible.” She twirled in place and the liquid came dangerously close to spilling out and staining her coat a bright pink. “But, I originally hypothesized that it was as you said. A passing fancy! A step on the road to maturity!”
He didn’t even get a chance to be offended before Tachyon continued.
“It has become clear that I was wrong. Not only has it not passed, but it never faded! A true endless thirst for knowledge that rivals my own!” She pressed forward against Fenri’s awkward glances, manic in that controlled way that only she could manage.
“But…” He was about to say something to the effect of ‘I’m not like that’ before Tachyon interrupted him with a brush of one of her oversized sleeves.
“Tell me, Fenri… When you look in the mirror do you see yourself or what you wish you were? Do you bemoan what the goddesses did not bless you with?” Her eyes were downright piercing and her words even more so, stabbing deep within him in a way that was uncomfortable and soul-bearing.
“I…” The first thought in his mind was ‘how did she know?’ The second was one of instinctive denial. The words cut so sharply. Too sharply, and the last thing he ever wanted to do was start bleeding in front of someone else.
“You’re not the first,” she continued, pulling back ever so slightly to explain. “I didn’t know this before I met you, but there is a treasure trove of research and anecdotes that very closely mirror the behaviour that I have observed from you!”
“T-Tachyon.” Fenri had to put a stop to this, right? This was ridiculous, even if he could feel something turning inside and twisting his sensibilities in such a cruel, hopeful way. “I don’t… I haven’t thought about that, whatever you’re suggesting.”
He was stalling and they both knew it. The longer that he didn’t acknowledge the pain in his chest, the longer that he didn’t have to think about whatever terrifying future that laid ahead of him if he admitted it.
“I… don’t.”
For a long second, Tachyon’s smug grin wilted slightly enough that he dared to believe that he had convinced her.
“Fenri. Don’t lie to me.”
Her eyes were intense. Too intense, like they were trying to reach inside and yank the truth out of him with a stare alone.
It worked, because something inside of him cracked. A dam, maybe, the one blocking all the words that had been buried inside of his heart.
“A… little.” It started slow, a trickle of words before he continued. “I… goddesses, I wish they had chosen me, okay? Ever since I was young I wanted to run, but…” He gestured weakly at his legs, then himself. “I just… figured that it’d pass. Eventually.”
This was the first time that Tachyon didn’t seem too pleased to be correct. Or maybe it was the way that he spoke, quiet and plaintive and in complete contrast to his usual sturdy - if a little tired - voice.
“It was supposed to be a fantasy, like how we all want to be astronauts or superheroes when we’re young, but it… It never stopped! I became a trainer, then trained one of the best umas of my generation and it never stopped!” His voice had risen to an uncomfortable register but his tongue refused to take a break. “What am I supposed to do?! I’m me! Not an uma, not extraordinary, not built to run, just me!”
It sounded like whining to his ears, but he was already on a roll. Tachyon didn’t seem outwardly annoyed by it either. If Fenri were being delusional, he might even consider the look she was giving him sympathetic.
Maybe that was partly because he could feel tears pricking at the corners of his eyes.
“The Trainer that helps out all the time, spends all of his free time drawing up race strategies, training plans, and wishes that he could run them himself! That’s me!” His voice broke, leaving a beat of silence between the two. Tachyon looked stunned.
A beat of silence passed.
“And being me… sucks.” The final admission came out with a whimper.
To that, even Tachyon took a long moment to formulate a reply. It was another moment for shame, embarrassment, and everything in between to mix into a horrible cocktail within his stomach.
“…Fenri.” Her words were careful. Spoken like he truly was a guinea pig that would scamper away. “If I told you that I had a solution, what would you do?”
“Impossible.” He laughed bitterly, swiping his sleeves across his moist eyes. “You’re good, Tachyon, but you’re not a goddess.”
A sigh. “I’ll repeat my question, Fenri. What would you do?”
The answer was easy. He barely even had to think. “I’d take it in a heartbeat.”
She looked down at the test tube in her hand, still just as light and luminous as it had been the moment he’d entered the lab.
“I have created the ultimate experiment,” she said. “And eliminated the possibility of most side effects, but you should know. Every experiment you have tested for me has been reversible. A good test subject should always be at the baseline.”
“Tachyon…” His voice lifted, something like hope creeping into it. What was she saying?
“But.” She lifted the glass one more time, holding it between them as if it were a holy grail. “I have striven to chase the boundary of potential for umamusume, and this lies at its furthest point. There will be no turning back if it works.”
All he could do was stare. Stare at the world of possibility in the cloudy pink. Futures assaulted him with every thought.
“It will be my magnum opus and it will never be repeated,” Tachyon continued, and even she was nearly crushed by the monumental weight of the future. Even she was forced to consider just what box was being opened between the two of them. “This miracle of science only needs to happen once. I have already destroyed all of my notes that led to the creation of this antidote, lest a foolish scientist try to recreate it.”
“What… does it do?” Fenri already knew, but he had to hear it from her mouth.
“It will change you. Physically. I sequenced a sample of your DNA and crafted a cocktail of genome altering organic compounds that would - in theory - turn your dreams into reality.” Her voice was serious. “Fenri. It’s up to you. This experiment would be permanent. A study to last a lifetime.”
He didn’t have the emotional capacity to even question where she’d gotten his DNA from. Instead, he took the vial from Tachyon and held it delicately in his hand. “And all I’d need to do is drink this.”
She nodded.
It was far too light and only warmed by the heat from Tachyon’s hand. There was barely anything extraordinary about it and yet it had the capacity to work a miracle. There was no lid. Nothing stopping him from tipping it back and changing himself.
So here it was he stood at the crossroads of life. Was this the stairway up to his dreams or the very edge of an endless abyss that he was about to plunge himself headfirst?
Maybe it was both.
Either way, he was about to find out.
He put the test tube to his lips and downed it all.