Chapter Text
How could Bakushin so easily accept this… This utter second-ratedness– no, fourth-ratedness, even.
King Halo strummed with anxiety, preparing herself within the paddock to enter her starting gate shortly. Attempting to display a confident and collected demeanor, she plastered a mighty, snide smirk upon her features and stuck her nose up to the sky. Meanwhile, her thoughts began racing once more.
How could you just accept that you just simply couldn’t follow your dreams and desires to be a triple crowner, to be a respectable stayer, to even just be a recognized racer. How could you even begin to keep going after learning you could render yourself unable to ever walk again, let alone run, at any moment? How do you accept racing as a sprinter?
Everyone knew that all the media attention was taken by the medium and long runners– the ones doing the “actually important races”. King was well aware of it, she had even taken part of those races at the start of her Twinkle Series, enamored by the chance at fame, to put her name out there for herself. She was so sure then that she’d make her mother finally proud of her by achieving the very feat she was unable to, only to miss the first crown by steps– because she wasn’t strong enough. To then make matters worse, by being yet to win another race since then.
Now, here King was, about to race in a measly mile. What a disgrace. The daughter of one of the best stayers in Japan and here she was barely making a mile. She was beginning to wish that her trainer had just dismissed her, had just yelled at her to disappear, to just go away then and there after that 14th place finish on the grandest stage of Japan– the Derby. That she had just gone running back to her mother then, pleading at her feet to be coddled, loved, forgiven, and whispering about how arrogant and full of herself she was for even thinking she could be a racer. But no, King allowed her trainer to convince her to finish the Triple Crown, as well as two other races in between, and to run in the Arima Kinen, all of which she embarrassed herself even more embarrassingly in. She was just an embarrassment to Uma-kind. She should just–
Appearing out of seemingly thin air, Bakushin raced over to her, interrupting her thoughts.
“King Halo, right!? It’s an honor to meet you! I heard you’re a world-class racer! What is someone like you doing here?!” the girl buzzed, ecstatically shaking King’s hand and, in turn, her entire body around.
Sakura Bakushin O. The very uma who King had found herself obsessing over within her mind from the moment she heard about her and her story. Someone she had begun to consider a first-rate role model in an ultimately under-recognized and unremarkable division– which was perfect for King but so disappointing and disheartening for Bakushin, who was renowned and respected for her peerless speed but unable to truly utilize it due to the chronic pain in both her legs and the general unchanging, weak constitution of them. If someone as worthy as Bakushin was being delegated by the universe (or her undeserving trainer) to such a substandard race, surely someone like King should just give up while she was ahead.
“King..?” Bakushin quizzically asked, a slightly worried but mostly confused look gracing her round face.
King grinned proudly and began to haughtily cackle.
“Well, I am glad someone as first-rate as you can recognize someone of equal standing! I certainly grant you the right of knowing my business here at the fine Tokyo Shimbun Hai. You see, I simply am attempting to establish a first-rate reputation within all lengths of races! I’m sure someone like you can understand this wish.” King Halo hummed, lying easily as she upheld her facade.
Bakushin blinked once. Then twice. Her expression– open, warm, trusting in a way King found almost painful, that felt like it prodded at the guilt residing under her skin– softened into something like admiration.
“Wow… To think you would challenge all those distances… Bakushin is impressed!” She pumped her fist, her voice bright but not mocking. “That kind of ambition is the sign of a true racer! I wish I actually could do that!”
King nearly flinched. It would have been simpler– much, much simpler– if Bakushin had laughed at her, called her delusional, pointed out the obvious even– that King was a fool, especially for supposedly thinking “she could conquer every distance” when, in reality, she could barely conquer her own reflection. But no, King had just flat out lied to her role model, and Bakushin gazed at her like she believed it. Like she believed in her.
The worst kind of cruelty. Oh, why couldn’t Bakushin just give her more reason to give up.
King let out a sharp guffaw to cover the sudden tightness in her chest and the rush of blood covering her cheeks. “Well, naturally! Someone such as myself wouldn’t settle for mediocrity! Sprinting is simply a… a warm-up for my true debut back on the grand stages of Japan! I’ve been stumbling as of late, as you know!”
Warm-up. What a joke. Her career was a joke. Her life was a joke. She was a joke.
Bakushin, however, nodded vigorously, hands on her hips, tail swishing with unrestrained excitement.
King was practically taunting Bakushin with the girl’s own dream, all while not even wanting to do that. She was actually scum on Earth.
“That’s wonderful! I always try to run my best, y’know. Even when people tell me I shouldn't, that I can’t, that I’m risking everything each time I do so. If you want to race every distance– if that’s your dream too– I think you should Bakushin after it.”
King’s throat tightened again, more forcefully this time, as if the Three Goddesses themselves were trying to make her shut up, to stop this pathetic display.
“How,” she hissed before she could stop herself, “can you say that so easily?”
Bakushin tilted her head, a faux look of confusion with that bitter undertone of knowing hiding right behind it. King knew that the girl was well aware of what she was saying. “Hm?”
“You–” King stopped herself. She sucked in a breath as she felt her disguise, her facade, slipping, then forced her chin high. “You say such nonsense with such confidence. As if dreams do not come crumbling the moment reality catches up. You of all people should know this– we both should know this.”
Bakushin blinked, and King braced herself to be told off, to be laughed off as being a pessimist, to be pitied for being so hard on herself.
But instead, Bakushin smiled softly at her. Genuinely. A smile that felt almost too gentle to be given to someone who had just practically implied that they both should just cut their losses and accept the deck of cards that the universe had given them both. That smile cut deeper than King’s own scorn that she had been directing at herself since the start of this conversation, so deeply that King felt her impenetrable disguise being unmasked in front of her very eyes with each word Bakushin spoke.
“Because, you see, even if reality tries to catch up,” Bakushin said, grabbing King’s hands tenderly, gripping them with a grounding comfort. “I will just run faster. We can and will just run faster. We are more than our ‘destinies’.”
King’s breath hitched, eyes growing wide and watery as she caught the gleam in Bakushin’s features.
The girl continued, words bubbling out with her usual momentum, but with a clarity, an understanding, that King hadn’t expected from someone who seemed to be naively optimistic all the time. Maybe that wasn’t truly the case.
“King… even if you think you aren’t strong enough, or good enough, or you’re scared, or you think you don’t belong– you’re here. You’re still running. You made it this far. Doesn’t that mean something?”
It shouldn’t. It didn’t. King refused to let it. She was just going to go into hiding after she embarrassed herself one final time. That was her true destiny.
“Ohoho! Do not misunderstand!” King snapped back into reality and out of the soft, glowy touch of Bakushin, tossing her hair and forcing her prideful smirk wider. “Being first-rate is my destiny! I simply refuse to be anything less! Someone as first-rate as myself knows better than to think less of myself.”
Liar. A shameful, disgraceful liar.
Bakushin beamed, but it was clear she knew better.
“That’s the spirit. I like that confidence in yourself.”
“What? There is nothing to like! I did not ask–!”
But Bakushin had already grabbed her hands again with that impossible, tender enthusiasm.
“Let’s both run our best today! Even if it’s a sprint or a mile, even if it’s not where you
thought you’d be, I believe you can shine anywhere. Especially here with me.”
The gate call echoed across the paddock. King could barely hear it over the drumming of her thoughts as she felt her heart sickeningly squeeze. Bakushin could see how ashamed King was about this race. That she clearly thought this distance– let alone, this race– was something only reserved for those who didn’t have futures. And now, Bakushin surely thought King felt that way about her.
This only made her want to scream, cry, sob that Bakushin was wrong about her even more. That King Halo was a fraud. A failure. A pretender. Someone who not only couldn’t live up to her mother’s shadow, but also someone who was doomed to live in the shadows of actual first-rate racers for the rest of her days. Someone who was only good enough to receive a scornful eyeroll from outsiders and bystanders who had learned of King’s sinful, disgraceful rants about her own first-ratedness, all while barely being able to run.
But suddenly, Bakushin squeezed her hands again, smiling as if King were brilliant, dazzling, radiant. Like she was worthy of continuing this lie.
And King, with her bruised “pride” and shattered dreams, couldn’t bring herself to pull away. She was entranced by the warmth, the softness, the gentleness, in both Bakushin’s touch and her eyes. The girl looked at King like she could hang the stars that Bakushin wouldn’t be able to.
“…Fine,” she muttered. “I suppose… I will dazzle this field as only a first-rate uma such as myself can. Even if I should be doing higher, more first-rate deserving things.”
Bakushin nodded enthusiastically. “Yes! Bakushin and King Halo– bakushin bakushin!” She cheered as she grabbed King by the arm and began to bolt off, dragging the surprised uma behind her.
King spluttered, feelings flustering her entire mind. “Do not- do not group me in with your strange battle cry–!”
But she allowed Bakushin to take her towards the gates all the same.
Her thoughts were quieter.
Not calm. Never that– they never would be that until she was long finished in this hopeless and doomed endeavor.
But quieter.
And for King Halo, maybe that would be first-rate enough. Maybe that would be reason enough to keep going, regardless of how this race ended.