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The first time King Halo runs the Japanese Derby, things turn out… acceptably.
Her heart is pounding in her throat before she even steps out on the track. Standing parallel to her trainer, facing away from the mirror, it might be because things have already fallen out of her control – the weather has devolved into an unprecedented thunderstorm, ferocious streaks of lightning to match the thunder of the Derby crowd.
Special Week is delivering her pre-race interview over the booming loudspeaker, always a picture of excellence, the textbook fan favourite. Her proclamation of greatness shakes the very foundations of the racecourse. With that trademark smile, contagious in all the worst ways, she announces her heartfelt intention to become the best in Japan. For her moms.
She’s the kind of protagonist you’d want to root for. She’s the embodiment of humility.
It makes King feel sick to her stomach. It always has.
But it never hurts enough to tear these opportunities away, not when everything she’s ever wanted is on the line once more. The Satsuki Sho had been so close she could practically feel the grass of the victor’s circle underneath her cleats, and although in the moment she’d been able to step back and congratulate Seiun Sky’s impressive effort, the thought had been unshakeable. One more step, or just a little faster, and what would have been the outcome?
This is another longstanding Classics dream, one she’d been repeatedly told she’d never realise. Not just that, but the Derby: the centrepiece of the Triple Crown tour. This is another chance to prove that she’s as capable as she claims.
This time around, she has to believe it’s hers. Every good king needs a crown. To wear the most decorated would be an honour.
Fanfare. Once in a lifetime. Special Week is here now, her purple racewear glinting with regal assertion and effortlessly framing her figure. Her appearance is tailored to pristine perfection. However, the confidence that should imply is nowhere to be found – she shuffles up on King’s left, letting out a shuddering breath as the gate is closed behind her. Her purple eyes, usually shimmering with foolish naivety, are intent on avoiding the track. She instead fixates on the rusting bolts in the frame like they’re the only things keeping her tethered to the ground.
King can’t understand why she’s so nervous. Granted, she’d been the favourite at the Satsuki Sho, too, and failed to deliver on that promise, but her run had been impressive all the same. And in her speech, she’d spoken with genuine conviction, so what could have possibly changed in the minutes since?
In that brief moment, they almost seem as though they’re on the same standing. Through the iron bars, King wants to reach out to her, to say anything to ease her.
…but then, the blind would only be leading the blind. So she keeps her mouth firmly shut.
The sudden clatter of gates bursting open interrupts her train of thought, and then she’s running on a late start, the syncopated rhythm of her cleats driving into heavy ground. Rain, like an onslaught of artillery fire, thunders against her ears; the similar thunder of the pack is deafening as it surges forward and falls into place. King takes her usual position at the back, playing to the strategy she’d discussed with her trainer. Don’t let the crowd distract you. Save your stamina for the last spurt. Simple, sophisticated habits woven into her racing style, the very fabric of her being. Without refinement, what else does she have?
The last, and arguably most important piece of advice: Breathe, King.
Gritting her teeth, she hastily douses the flames threatening to spill over in her heart and marks the first corner, allowing a couple of racers to overtake her on the bend. She’s dead last now, positioned conveniently behind the person she wanted to avoid at all costs: Special Week’s satin tail and decisive strides obscure any clear path.
Second corner. Halfway home. Leading the pack is the star of the Satsuki Sho, Seiun Sky, some lengths in front of the second-place runner. She flashes a cocky smirk over her shoulder, daring them all to close the distance. Evidently, she’s trying to catch out the weak-willed ones, to bait them into starting their spurts. It’s basic trickery that isn’t going to fool King – instead, she lies in wait, conserving her energy like she’d been instructed.
Or at least that’s what she has to make everyone think. In actuality, she’s blocked. She has no idea where to go, flanked on every side imaginable by people with the same dream and the same drive to achieve it. The thick crack of their cleats is overwhelming, a roar in the back of her mind blocking any rational thoughts, and she’s staring at the ground in a futile attempt to will the solution into existence when suddenly, they’re at the final corner.
The group breaks apart at once, a wrought-iron sledgehammer against brittle glass, the shards scattering in all directions. Special Week exhales, then bursts into high gear, soaring like a shooting star towards a wildly grinning Seiun Sky, who accelerates in turn. The real race begins down the homestretch. The crowd is raucously cheering their names, hoping their support will propel their racer of choice that one step further, that little bit faster.
King remains stifled at the back of the pack. Her throat is hoarse. The heavy turf anchors her legs, the sodden ground almost dragging her down, and the pressure pounds insistently at her fatigued muscles. But in that moment, when the odds are stacked against her, she finds a brief opening on the inside rail. Pushes off from the turf. Her tenacious brown eyes, blazing with indignation, are dead set on first-place.
There’s whispers in the back of her mind, sounding suspiciously familiar. And yet, she won’t let them take this, too; she screams to drown them out, surging forward with every drop of strength she has left. She wants this. Nobody here could ever understand just how much she wants this, craves it like a substance, feeds off of the attention and the praise.
And yet, despite everything, her efforts are futile, because it’s too late. Her gloved hand reaches out, clutching hopelessly at that star-studded entourage.
She isn’t fast enough to close the gap.
Special Week is victorious by an astounding margin of five lengths.
The crowd explodes into a cacophony of celebration, exhilarated shouts of the victor’s name carried across the wind. King gradually comes to a halt at the finish line, silent.
She’s happy for her. Really, she is. In the near distance, she sees her walk off with Seiun Sky, her sportsmanlike second place, and watches them embrace each other in tearful celebration. For a brief moment, King considers following them. She decides not to.
Because this is Special Week’s moment, her time to shine like the star she truly is— the optimistic Derby dreamer, wanting nothing more than to express her gratitude to her family. The kind of protagonist you’d want to root for. The embodiment of humility, authenticity, victory in the face of fear. Deserving of the people’s love.
King Halo places 6th, just out of reach of the coveted podium. And it’s acceptable. It has to be.
So why does her chest continue to ache so incessantly?
The sky is a thunderous grey as she trudges out of the racecourse an hour later, although the rain has slowed to a gentle, mocking hum against the tin roof of her trainer’s minivan. Shivering in the back despite the empty shotgun seat, she clutches at her hoodie, and it’s indiscernible if the cold is to blame or the relentless pounding of her heart. Her trainer is saying things, but they aren’t talking. She can’t listen to them. She can’t do anything except repeat her mother’s words as they came over the phone in the dressing room, verbatim, over and over. In the very same voice she’d been hearing throughout the race:
It’s been a good while since I’ve seen someone capture the hearts of the crowd with their running like Special Week.
It’s difficult to get to sleep that night.
☆
The second time King Halo runs the Japanese Derby, she lets her nerves get the better of her.
The next day, her eyes flicker to the unwelcome humidity of another summer morning, light creeping through the imperfections in the drawn curtains. Sweat slicks back her bangs, a testament to her battle with the restless twilight. The covers are bunched up in her hands the same way she’d been grasping them to combat her avaricious tears. And yet, despite everything, there’s a tranquil air about her surroundings. Last night’s storm has slowed to a careful downpour. There’s a faint breeze drifting through her open window.
She could have sworn she’d closed it before getting into bed. In fact, she’d closed it before she left to meet her trainer for yesterday’s preparations. But it’s nice like this. It makes the room a little less stuffy, and strangely enough, she could almost drift off again—
The shrill ring of her alarm clock cuts through the silence.
Had she even set it? If so, winding back the dial must have slipped her memory, or perhaps she’s been waking up so early for training that the mundane action has integrated itself into her subconscious routine. Either way, the noise is irritating, grating at the deepest recesses of her skull. She envies Urara, who remains passed out in the bed on the other side of the room. That girl can sleep through anything.
King isn’t so lucky. She groans, nursing her head as she rolls to disengage the alarm. Once it halts its assault on her eardrums, she reaches for her phone, by the clock’s side on the oaken bedside table.
And when the screen turns on, the date reads June 7th.
Which… can’t be correct. Because yesterday was the 7th.
At first, King brushes it off as some kind of glitch, a second-rate satellite or technological disturbance. After laughing under her breath at the frankly preposterous idea of it, she throws back the covers and moves to open up her closet, producing a tidy black blouse and one of her favourite denim skirts. She gets dressed and brushes her teeth. She might go down to the shopping district today.
She opts not to turn on the lights, so things stay nice and dim for her roommate. She even retrieves the girl’s stuffed carrot from where it lies forgotten on the floor and nestles it in her arms once more.
Then, in an attempt to reassure herself (not that anything was wrong in the first place), she makes her way over to her calendar and flicks briskly through the pages. It’s a subconscious routine. It’s something she does every morning, checking off the dates as they pass. She remembers doing it. A single neat tick in purple marker.
But today, the 7th is clean. Somehow, inconceivably, the 7th is immaculate, aside from a single harrowing word above it in bold lettering.
Derby
Almost as if on cue, King’s phone rings. She snaps around, breathing shallow and irregular, to find what she’d been dreading – her trainer’s contact details in a blinding flash of white light, throwing off the comfortable balance in the room, throwing off her thinly veiled composure. Urara remains fast asleep.
They’d called yesterday morning, too. Meaning this must be some kind of horrific nightmare brought on by her insomnia; that, or she’d forgotten to cross it off, and this is all just one big, unsettling coincidence. She must have just… forgotten to cross it off, right?
She picks up the call with an incredulous chuckle. She puts it down five minutes later and her hands just won’t stop shaking.
The storm picks up again whilst they’re driving down to Tokyo Racecourse.
In the waiting room, her trainer asks what’s troubling her, but a steadily coagulating sense of dread chokes out any responses. They don’t understand. In a way, neither does King, because everything thus far has played out exactly the way she’d expected it to. Special Week’s awe-inspiring speech resonates through the walls in a hauntingly identical manner, a precursor to what King can only assume is her certain victory.
There is one difference, however: surely she has the potential to change her fate.
And as much as she’s terrified by the possibility that she’ll wake up and remain insignificant, the mere prospect of redemption is enough to make her want to try.
Her strides onto the sodden grass feel decidedly less confident than they did the day before, but she laughs all the same when the camera is pointed her way, making the most of her screen time with a well-placed grin and her signature pose. Odds say she’s the second favourite. She was the second favourite yesterday, too, and if anything, she should be grateful she hasn’t dropped down after the second-rate performance she’d given.
She knows she can’t repeat her mistakes. She can’t get caught at the back of the pack, and she can’t leave her final dash too late or she’ll get outpaced, and she absolutely can’t lose to Special Week again. It’s important to keep an eye on her other competitors, of course, but Special Week is undoubtedly the one to beat.
Five lengths. That figure twitches uncomfortably in the back of King’s mind, joining the ranks of the relentless voices she just can’t seem to shake off.
Special Week is as nervous in the starting gate as she had been the first time around, her tail thrashing with apprehension. King bites back any words of reassurance that rise in her throat, rather than letting them linger between the bars – it’s unbearable to cast her… rival? friend?... aside so harshly, but worrying about her feelings rather than her strategy may have contributed to her lack of focus the first time around.
How had she run? Now that she thinks about it, King can remember the way she’d settled further ahead in the pack, taking the opening thousand metres at a far faster pace. It could be beneficial for King to mirror that speed. Difficult, considering the fact she’s a little less sturdy, but she has one weapon in her disposal that Special Week’s stamina simply can’t compare to – relentless determination. If she simply refuses to lose, she knows she can achieve anything. Even closing those… those five lengths.
Completely absorbed by the concept, King remains oblivious to the gate's sudden opening. That critical moment is all it takes for her to be running on another late start, and the second she drives her foot into the heavy turf, her cleats sink up to the heel. Before her, the thunderous grey sky lies in wait, like a predator poised to catch its prey. The rain slams against her like artillery fire. The pack slips further away every second she relishes in hesitancy, quite the contrary to the perfect, first-rate scenario she’d drawn out in her mind.
Any form of rational plan is promptly replaced with the persistent image of Special Week reaching the finish line before her.
With a gut-wrenching roar, she runs as fast as she can.
Seventeen racers. King blinks and she’s spurted past the entire pack, suddenly bearing witness to a view like no other – the boundless horizon stretches ahead, and the sun sits so tantalisingly above it, illuminating the rain with intermittent flashes of iridescent colour. It can’t completely break out of the storm, restrained by industrial cloud cover. And yet, its light still shines, slicing through the hazy air with an almost tangible force.
The grass is being tossed to and fro by the relentless gale, but in that moment, it opens up one resolute path to the future. Nobody stands sentinel between her and her destiny.
The first corner. The first time, in as long as King can remember, that she’s been leading the group.
It’s euphoric. It’s something that could only happen in her sleep, so much so that she fears her alarm clock will drag her back to reality at any second. Don’t let the crowd distract you. Save your stamina for the last spurt. But it all sounds redundant now that she’s seen the resplendence of the skyline – maybe she can change her future, in whichever universe this may be, with the sheer will of her mind.
Breathe, King. That piece of advice still makes sense to follow, at least, and the air entering her lungs is the most rejuvenating it’s ever felt. A brief glimpse over her shoulder reveals Seiun Sky, a length or two behind, and as with Special Week’s nerves in the starting gate it’s difficult to understand why her eyes are so wide. Why she looks so terrified.
This is the true might of a king. Had she not been expecting it?
Second corner. Halfway home. The strain is, admittedly, starting to get to King now, and whatever trancelike adrenaline or suspension of disbelief that had been propelling her forward moments before is fading. Every muscle twitches with the exertion of those first thousand metres. Her consciousness flicks between the contrasting states of dream and nightmare, because this is starting to feel real again.
This is an uncomfortable conversation with her trainer about whether or not she’s okay, in which she’ll pretend that she got any sleep at all last night or lie about what her mother had said to her over the phone. This is like Special Week is an encroaching shadow, and if she keeps her eyes on that horizon for any longer, the sun will disappear back behind those clouds, and the darkness will consume her.
King frantically turns around to check the moment the thought occurs to her, almost pulling a muscle in the process. Seiun Sky is gaining on her. And then, sure enough, stalking closer at an exponentially increasing pace is the real danger. The supreme commander of the field, even if she herself hadn’t been aware of it.
No. No, this… this can’t be happening, not again—!!
Her throat is hoarse. She screams anyway, and it’s ironic how she disregards everything that people tell her to do. It’s truly poetic how every single time, her stubborn nature leads to her downfall. How she’s always self-absorbed and conceited and just… wrong.
Seiun Sky passes first. Then, Special Week, who doesn’t even spare her a glance as she bursts around the third corner with inhuman strength.
The race is over by the third corner. King Halo places 14th.
The crowd, once again, roars in jubilation as they celebrate their rightful champion. The interviewers hail her as the best in all of Japan. She’s surely made her mom proud, who’ll be waiting to praise and cherish her beloved daughter, probably watching from the stands like any good parent would. Seiun Sky walks over to her. King doesn’t even consider walking over there too.
Because whilst Special Week can revel and bask in the light her victory has cast upon her, the rest of them are thrust into the shadows of insignificance. And King has become acquainted with the way in which they envelop her, unrelenting, as if the darkness means she doesn’t have to keep doing this.
The same twenty words, in the same disapproving tone:
It’s been a while since I’ve seen someone capture the hearts of the crowd with their running like Special Week—
King ends the call and throws the phone across the room with a strained cry. Terrified to glimpse her reflection in the mirror on the dressing table, she sobs in the corner until her trainer knocks on the door, and then she straightens out her dress and goes home like nothing happened.
She doesn’t wake up, like she’d been thinking she would during the race. She lies in bed, painfully conscious, and stares at the ceiling until morning breaks.
☆
The third time King Halo runs the Japanese Derby, there’s one single thing on her mind.
The alarm goes off regardless. Even after hours of gazing blankly at various walls, watching Urara sleep and selfishly wishing to be in her place, it goes off. She didn’t set it. She ticked off the day on the calendar fourteen times with that ridiculous purple marker until you couldn’t see the number underneath the ink. But now, inexplicably, it's clean.
She doesn’t bother pretending that things are normal anymore, at least not whilst she’s alone. She dutifully turns the clock off, grabs her racewear and leaves the dorm before her trainer even has the opportunity to call her. She’s halfway to their office before there’s any mention of the Derby.
And then, like some kind of twisted joke, she’s in the same starting gate, in the same racewear that doesn’t quite seem to fit anymore. Special Week is hyperventilating to her left in the same irksome manner as she was before, and the grudge King just can’t seem to let go of has morphed into something uglier, an iron fist, choking out both of them in her mind. She’s hyperventilating as well this time around, yet nobody seems to notice her. And Special Week’s eyes can drop a second later into that same concentrated stare, and King tries to mimic her actions but her eyes are thick with exhaustion and the indistinct weight of something so much bigger than she can shoulder, and she’s completely aware she should be surveying the conditions of the track.
Had the resounding clang of the alarm greeted her this morning, too? Does she know that they’ve been here twice before, that the race was hers for the taking, that nobody had even held a candle to her shimmering stardom?
Do things have to play out in the same manner once more?
King is terrified. King can’t, won’t face that humiliation again. King is blinded by the spark blazing in Special Week’s soul, the motivation and the drive and the unmanufactured pride, and she wonders if she burns in the same way. Beneath the surface. Is there anything else? Was there ever, or was compassion only something she learned out of necessity?
The gates. She falls into step with the others, late once more, her heart hammering against her ribs.
As if solely to torture her fatigued body and mind, everything remains exactly the same. She can’t focus on anything else: it’s only her cleats digging up the waterlogged grass, the dreadful grey sky, and the rain. The slippery inside rail, Special Week unintentionally cutting off every reasonable route forward, and an encroaching group of competitors that are, quite simply, faster than her. She’ll never break out of the pack at this rate, as proven by her first attempt. And yet, taking up the front position is out of the question, because she doesn’t have enough stamina to sustain it. She’d learnt that last time.
Does she know just how much of a nuisance she’s being? Does she know just how much effort it took to stand on this stage in the first place, to find the strength when nobody was there to give it to her—
Breathe, King.
The air physically burns as it enters her lungs, bile and acid and hate and venom that she wishes more than anything wasn’t targeted at the sweet girl before her.
All three times, her trainer had spoken with the same tone, same cadence, same vaguely masked concern sunk deep into their irises as they’d stood parallel in the break room. And it’s almost as if it’s not just King performing anymore; it’s almost as if she’s unintentionally roped some co-stars into this sequenced routine, these subconscious habits.
That was never what this was about. She’s trying to breathe, and she’s trying not to be vindictive towards people who are supposed to be her friends, and she’s trying to scrape out whatever ‘genuine’ parts of her still exist so that she can be the selfless heroine the crowd is so desperate to see.
She can’t pretend that she’s succeeding any longer. She wants— no, needs, to prove it through her victory.
King speeds up at the third corner, pushing aside any painful memories of what had happened there the previous day. Raindrops do everything in their power to hold her back, crashing into her body and her less-than-pristine racewear, but no matter how many of them land in her eyes or fall from them she bats them away with her gloves and continues to defy whichever path fate has attempted to carve. She tears her cleats from the mud’s vice grip, ignoring the concerned glances of the surrounding racers. There’s no way to cut through. She’s blocked from every angle.
Or so it seems, but King ducks through a particularly tight gap she hadn’t noticed the first time around.
Suddenly, there’s Seiun Sky. And the image of her defeat at the Satsuki Sho comes rushing back with a vengeance, but that’s not what, or who King is so fixated on; ahead of her, smile dripping with authentic confidence that hadn’t been present before the race, about to break into that unbeatable surge to realise her lifelong dream, is Special Week. Five lengths. King knows she has to make up five lengths.
The fourth corner approaches at breakneck speed. Then it’s the final straight. She’s in third, and then she passes Seiun Sky and doesn’t bother to look back at her face or even care what she thinks at all and then she’s in second and Special Week is sprinting, and Special Week is putting that distance between them and she has to go faster. She screams once more, a sickening, ugly thing that rips from the very depths of her chest. She forces her legs to kick harder, forces her lungs to keep pumping, forces herself to keep moving no matter what.
Five lengths drop to four, then three, then two, and then Special Week finally, finally, lays her eyes on King as they run side by side. Except the shimmering spark in her eyes morphs into a repulsive terror, the lurching feeling of her lifelong dream slipping out of her grasp.
Special Week reaches out to capture it once more, but it’s too late.
King Halo is the first to cross the finish line.
Everything is silent at first, aside from laboured breaths and the insistent pulse in her ears. She hardly believes it until she looks at the tote board, but sure enough, there it is. Not five lengths, but a half. A reversal of fate.
And the racecourse explodes once more, but this time the name carried across the wind is as she’d fantasised nightly since childhood – King Halo, King Halo, King Halo. It hits just the way she’d expected it to, recognition going straight to her head, and she’s laughing as if it’s the only thing that’ll keep her grounded.
Officials sprint over to her, draping the Derby sash over her shoulders in a way that feels befitting of royalty. Someone leads her to the victor’s circle, and the grass is viridian and glistening with raindrops like lustrous emeralds. Microphones are thrust at her from every direction, and she can hardly keep up with the rate at which people are trying to ask questions. They all blend together—
Is this the revenge you feel you deserved after the Satsuki Sho? Do you plan to claim victory in the final race of the Triple Crown tour? Would your mother be proud?
Of course, King answers proudly, to nobody in particular. Then someone asks her for a photo, which is only to be expected now that she’s proven she’s first-rate, and she turns to pose, but before the flash, she catches a glimpse of a racer still on the track.
It’s Special Week, keeled over the railing, tears streaming from her eyes.
The world momentarily freezes.
It’s impossible to know what to think, to know what to feel at the sight of it. King has been in that position countless times and is well aware that the crush of defeat is like no other. She can only imagine the thoughts going through Special Week’s mind. One more step. Just that little bit further, and what would have been the outcome?
Special Week is the kind of girl whom it’s easy to feel sympathetic towards. She’s humble, genuine, and likely hates herself for this moment of weakness just as much as King hates her for being able to stand there and pretend nobody cares about her.
But that’s exactly it. At least there are people on her side.
She’d been desperately trying to push down any memories of the alarm clock, forget it ever happened so she could bask in her victory. So it could feel like this was the single existing ending, and that there was never the possibility of any other outcome. Play up your persona. That way, people won’t be able to tell that this wasn’t supposed to happen.
Thinking about Special Week now would send all of that up in flames. Showing any kind of fragility, any manner of concern, would make people start to whisper again, surely. A good king defends their throne. A good king has no questions about their right to authority.
It’s selfish. It’s conceited. But King Halo avoids looking at her any longer, hurrying away from the cameras.
Things are quiet in the tunnel. The concrete walls and dim floodlights leave little room for self-doubt or pity, and King takes great solace in knowing there’s only one route back to her waiting room. Her trainer trails behind her, evidently thrown by her earlier stunt, but they’d still helped to divert the press’s attention. A victory is a victory. King can be sure that they’re reeling at the success – it had been their dream to win a G1 just as much as it’d been hers. It had been the dream of every other girl on that track, and yet…
The phone rings before she has a chance to ponder that any further. King excitedly fishes the device from her pocket, slamming her finger against the accept button in record time, expecting to receive the praise she deserves.
It’s been a while since I’ve seen someone capture the hearts of the crowd with their running like Special Week.
Her face falls, but she can’t exactly say she’s surprised.
You get used to it after a while. So when the alarm clock goes off the next morning, she flinches, only to remember she set it for training.
It’s the 8th of June.
It’s over.