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King wasn’t certain when her summer turned red.
If she had to guess, she was certain that it happened the first year she had dated El. She had been younger then, still simultaneously unsure and full of herself. A little girl, dreaming of escaping from the all-encompassing shadow of her mother.
And then a brash, loud-mouthed girl as reckless as the day was long came crashing into her life. “King Halo? Un reina asesina!” she had declared with the swish of a tail. “I’ll take the crown right off your head! Face me in the ring!”
Un reina asesina. A killer queen, as King later learned.
She still wasn’t sure what inspired El to label her as such, but so it was.
Now, years later, with the peaks of their careers firmly behind them, King found that her summers were still inexplicably red.
“King? You there?”
King lowered her sunglasses and looked to her right, where El was eyeing her curiously. Eyes still as blue as the sea. “Hm? Yes, of course.”
“Bueno!” El declared with her ever-present bravado. “We can’t have you zoning out before the main event, after all!”
King smirked, parking her sunglasses atop her head. El tossed her hair, letting it cascade down over her bright yellow blouse and she re-tied her ponytail. She almost seemed to glow in the afternoon sun. If King could capture her radiance in a bottle, perhaps she’d be able to power all of Japan for a year and more. “Que? Why are you staring at me like that?”
“Oh, nothing. I’m just musing,” King said, taking her sunglasses and putting them into her purse. “Althoguh I’m reminded every day that I was right.”
“Huh?”
“You are much cuter without the mask.”
El immediately flushed red, her hand batting at her face in an automatic motion before she rapidly remembered that she wasn’t wearing it. She scoffed, ears folding down but tail still swishing. “No fair! Emotional foul!”
“Emotional foul? Are your feelings hurt?” King laughed.
El’s mask was still a crucial part of her identity. It had wedded itself to her mythos, becoming synonymous with her name. And it masked far, far more than King had ever really suspected. She had always thought that the luchadora was a bit odd, but so were the rest of the students in her generation. So was most of Tracen, for that matter.
That made finding El hiding in the alleyway by the Uma Mart sobbing all that more of a shock.
“Generalized Anxiety Disorder,” Grass Wonder had explained when King brought her back to their dorm. “It’s something El has lived with all her life.”
“Pathetic,” El had muttered, hugging her knees. “Now you know the truth. The great El Condor Pasa is nothing more than a myth. A character that I act out everyday. Because this is the real me. My mask is a crutch. Beneath it… I’m nothing.”
King listened patiently and comforted El the best she could. She apologized to Fuji Kiseki for failing to return to her room, did her punishment chores without complaining, and thought long and hard about what to do.
And, eventually, with the help of Grass and Silence Suzuka, she convinced El to enroll in therapy.
She returned to her own room defeated after that, feeling worthless that after agonizing over it, ‘try therapy’ was the only solution she could dream of.
But, years later, El stood before her, maskless.
It had certainly taken a long time to get there and it certainly wasn’t easy. El had backed out countless times, each failed attempt at going out sans mask making her feel worse and worse about her anxiety. King couldn’t blame her: El did everything in her mask, from swimming to eating to even sleeping. But she found her patience tested, and the two clashed constantly as the seasons changed.
But El, for all her flaws, was steadfast. It started small: a jog around the dorm building, a meal with King in a secluded corner of the cafeteria. Slowly, gradually, the small ventures grew longer and longer.
El still treasured her mask more than anything. She still raced with it, trained with it, made all public race-related appearances with it on and wore it around campus just to be recognized. But outside of the school, on dates with King?
The mask stayed at home.
And King couldn’t have been prouder.
“Hmph! I’ll make you eat those words,” El said, sitting down on the bench and pulling off her sneakers. She slid on her pair of roller skates, grinning widely. “Are you ready to eat my dust?”
“You won’t have it so easy this time,” King replied, sitting next to her and putting on her own pair. “I’ve been practicing with Kawakami!”
“Oho! La reina asensia!” El wiggled her ears. “Then you’ll be bringing el fuego to our fight!” She sprung up, offering a hand to King and pulling her to her feet. King slid her shoes into her drawstring bag, then El gently tugged on her hand, pulling her forwards and spinning her in a lazy circle.
King chuckled. “My, my. It seems I’ve made a first-rate lady of you after all.”
“Mmm. Or perhaps this is un acto? An elaborate ruse to throw you off guard?” El pulled King in, their faces meeting.
“You tell me, El Condor.” Their lips touched and they both pulled away laughing.
The waves crashed on the beach behind them. Other Umamusume ran along the beach, tugging tires and playing in the ocean and relaxing in the sun. Nobody looked at them, or paid them any mind. Nobody recognized that they stood beside the great El Condor Pasa or the triumphant King Halo.
They were just more faces in a crowd. And King loved it that way. Together, they stood beneath a small clocktower at the corner of the sidewalk. “El mismo!” El declared. “We race down the stretch to the dirt road, then sprint to the boba stand!”
“Very well.” King put on her helmet, clipping on the ear protectors and tightening the straps.
“Listo, mi rey?”
King smirked. “Siempre.”
El laughed at King’s Spanish. “Bueno! On the five!”
They locked eyes on the clock, watching as the hands ticked forwards. Seagulls cawed overhead. Clouds drifted lazily through the sky. Children laughed as they ran along the beachside.
The small hand budged, and King and El took off.
The wind ripped through her hair, and the ever-familiar sense of competition-fueled adrenaline rushed through her body.
El slipped in ahead of her, as she usually did. This was fine: El enjoyed blowing kisses over her shoulder at King to try and throw her off. It only made it all the more sweeter when King overtook her.
King remembered each and every race they had. It had started on the track, of course, but as time wore on it progressed to other forms as well. El had a knack for finding new and exciting things to try, and her damned silver tongue always seemed to coax King into them.
It was truly a miracle how El had managed to draw King from her shell.
It had been no secret that King was… a bit much in her earlier years. Rumors flew quickly amongst the juniors, and King couldn’t help but hear what some of her classmates said about her. Egotistical. Full of herself. A bit of a headcase. A lot of a headcase. Her mother’s daughter.
The barbs stung, but she refused to bend to them. She pushed harder and harder, certain that her faith in herself would be enough. Even when the defeats piled up. Even when her trainer begged her to reconsider. Even when her own mother openly mocked her.
That had proven to be the final straw, and that was when Tracen learned that King had a temper.
King didn’t remember too many details, but she did remember Seiun Sky making an innocuous joke at her expense. King remembered seeing red: not the warm and inviting one that stemmed from El, but a vibrant violent shade that made her taste blood.
She didn’t remember what she said but she knew it was awful. She knew everyone in the cafeteria was staring at them as Sky looked up at her from the ground, terrified. She remembered whirling around to the face the rest of their table: Special Week hiding behind Suzuka, Grass staring at her in a freezing cold anger, Tsurumaru holding up her hands trying to calm her down…
And El, who somehow managed to look nothing more than focused.
She remembered Suzuka staring her down and saying “I think you should leave.”
So King did. She stormed out of the cafeteria and out of the main building. She ran down the side path as the tears started to flow, months of anger and frustration finally boiling over. Emotions poured out of her like an overflowing glass. It was harder and harder to see through the tears.
She remembered passing the main gate, reaching the street that ran across the academy.
That was when El tackled her.
They came crashing down on the sidewalk, and King remembered landing particularly hard on her left wrist. She remembered hearing the blare of a truck horn and the screeching of brakes as a massive truck skidded to a halt just before the sidewalk.
El later apologized profusely for spraining King’s wrist like that, and ever since insisted that the tackle wasn’t necessary, that the truck had stopped in time. But in that moment, all King could see was the fear in El’s eyes as she shook King, asking if she was okay.
That was the first time King had realized she had hurt someone else.
And she swore to never go that far again.
That violent shade of red lurked in the corner of her vision sometimes. Even then, in their innocent race, she could feel the burning desire of competition welling beneath her.
She was sure that El could feel it too. “Come on, then,” El shouted. “You slowing down now?”
“Not a chance. I’m waiting for you to fall down again!”
“That was one time!”
King laughed, letting El draw a little farther ahead of her. Her arms and legs swung in harmony, pushing off from one foot to the other as she glided along the sidewalk. It was such a strange and unique sensation, one that was like running but unique in its own sense.
Something she never would have done without El suggesting it.
She watched as El pushed on just ahead of her, bag drawn tightly against her body as her long ponytail flapped in the wind. With a wry grin, King poured on the speed and drew even with her.
King had been called many things over the years. And as high as she tried to hold her head above the water, it was hard to swim with weights dragging her down. Broken Halo. Third-Rate Girl. The Crownless King.
It was almost enough to make her give up. And she nearly did after her dreadful finish at the Derby. She had cried and screamed and tore off her gloves and cleats, strewing them across the dressing room. She stormed out into the hall and wandered the depths of the stadium, ignoring the vibrations of her phone as her trainer desperately called her over and over again.
Eventually she fell to the floor, back against the wall and hugging her knees and wishing to the Goddesses that she wasn’t her mother’s daughter. That was how El found her.
For a moment they stared at each other and neither of them spoke. El slowly sat down next to her as King continued to shake and sob. Then, El quietly undid her mask and offered it to King. “I tell the press it makes me stronger,” she said. “I say that with the mask, I’m unstoppable. But that’s just a lie. The mask is is so that nobody else sees my fear. So nobody else knows how scared I am.”
King stared at it.
“Maybe it’ll help you? Just for tonight.” El smiled softly. “I know you hate it when others see you cry.”
“I…”
King took it in her hands and ran its fabric through her fingers.
“Thank you,” was all she could muster.
El glanced over her shoulder and winked at King. “So! The Killer Queen arrives after all!”
“Watch your feathers, bird!” King said, letting loose her signature laugh as she raced past El.
El didn’t take that lying down, speeding up immediately to stay right on King’s tail. They flew onwards faster and faster, towards the end of the sidewalk. Just as they reached it, King skidded to a halt, sliding smoothly onto the empty bench nearby as she hurriedly undid her skates.
She swapped the rollerskates with her sneakers, undid her helmet and clipped it to the side of her bag, and slung it over her shoulder. El had arrived a half second after her and was doing the same. The two rose and began running at the same time down the winding dirt path ahead of them.
“Tch! You’re slowing down, El!”
“Que?! You calling me old?”
“Ohoho!”
They moved in tandem, cleats slamming into the dirt as they ran and laughed.
To most, it was easy to say that El had always been this way. But King knew different. She knew how much El had grown since her defeat at the Prix de la Arc. She had watched as El shattered like a dropped glass plate. She had watched as El slowly tried to get up again.
It was slow. Frustrating. Painstaking for the both of them. A journey full of ups and downs like a rollercoaster.
But El didn’t give up, so King couldn’t either.
And somehow, together, they made it. And the nights spent crying and shouting became slow and easy mornings, waking up in each other’s embrace. Each second a brick that built up a house.
“Last stretch! Are you ready?”
“What do you think?”
The two ran faster and faster as a tiny refreshment stand appeared in front of them. Their steps pounded in the dirt as powerfully and heavily as they did years ago. If King closed her eyes, she could hear the announcer shouting over the din of the crowd. She could feel the distant pressure of the pack behind her, hungrily marking her as they drew closer and closer.
But there was no announcer here, no packed stadium there to cheer her on or curse her. No other racers vying for her position. Only herself and El.
And that was all that mattered.
They crossed the front of the stand together, lungs burning and breaths heavy. Immediately King’s hands dropped to her knees as she panted heavily, the adrenaline slowly burning off to let the fatigue sit in. “Ha… Ah… Whew!”
“That was a good one,” El said, digging into her bag for her water. “You’re getting better, mi rey!”
“Mm, I warned you, didn’t I?” King said with a smirk, wiping her brow with a towel. “Shall we call that a tie?”
“Si, si. Another tie,” El said, collapsing onto a nearby bench. King did the same and leaned her head against El’s shoulder. “So,” El said, patting her head. “What should our next race be, mi rey?”
“How about a break?” King asked, staring up at the light-orange sky as the sun began to dip into the ocean. “This is nice.”
“Bueno. A break it is.”
They sat there in silence, watching the sunset together. Seagulls flew idly overhead. The wind blew through their hair. The voices and laughter of others rose and fell like waves from the beaches nearby.
King lifted her head, losing herself in El’s brilliant blue eyes. “El?”
“Hm?”
“I love you.”
“Ah! Te amo también, mi rey.”
Their lips met, and they stayed there until the sun had fully set.