Chapter Text
Dantsu Flame had been following Pocket for as long as she enter Tracen.
Not in a creepy way—or at least, she hoped it didn't come across that way. It was more that their paths kept intersecting, kept aligning, like the universe had decided they were supposed to run the same race. Literally.
They had joined Tracen together, two among a sea of hopefuls with dreams too big for their bodies. But where Pocket had exploded onto the scene—flashy, undeniable, a supernova demanding attention—Dantsu had simply... existed. Quietly. Consistently. Always there, always watching.
The first time she really noticed Pocket was during a preliminary race in their first month. Pocket had won, But it wasn't the victory that stuck with Dantsu. It was what happened after. Pocket had crossed the finish line, gasping for air, and the first thing she did was turn around. Not to wave at the crowd. Not to soak in the applause. She turned to look for the girl who came in second. She found Dantsu bent over, hands on her knees, and she grinned—this huge, unfiltered, genuine grin—and shouted: "Hey! You almost had me at the final stretch! That was amazing!"
Dantsu had blinked, confused. Almost? She'd been a full three lengths behind. But Pocket was already jogging over, extending a hand, pulling her up like they were teammates instead of rivals.
What kind of person does that?
From that day on, Dantsu found herself noticing Pocket everywhere. The way she laughed too loud in the dining hall. The way she fell asleep during study sessions, drooling on her textbooks. The way she trained like every race was her last, pushing herself until her legs gave out and someone had to drag her to the infirmary.
And somewhere along the way, noticing became watching. Watching became caring. Caring became... something else.
Something Dantsu refused to name.
The first real crack in Dantsu's carefully constructed walls happened three weeks before that afternoon in Pocket's room.
It was a Thursday evening, and Dantsu had been in the library, buried in strategy notes, when her phone buzzed. A message from Pocket.
"help. im dying."
Dantsu's heart lurched. She was typing "where are you? are you okay?" when a second message came through.
"math is killing me. send help. or snacks. both."
Relief flooded through her, followed immediately by warmth. Pocket had reached out to her. Not Tachyon, not any of the other girls she trained with. Her.
"Where are you?" Dantsu typed back.
"study room 3. been here 3 hours. brain is soup."
Dantsu smiled. She gathered her things, stopped by the vending machine for two chocolate bars and a bottle of Pocket's favorite strawberry milk, and made her way to study room 3.
When she opened the door, she found Pocket sprawled across a table covered in textbooks and scattered papers, her face pressed against an open notebook. She looked up when the door opened, and her entire face transformed when she saw who it was.
"Dantsu!" She sat up so fast she nearly knocked over a stack of books. "You came!"
"You said you were dying," Dantsu said, holding up the snacks. "I brought reinforcements."
Pocket's eyes lit up. "Strawberry milk? You're an actual angel. Like, a real one. I'm not even joking."
Dantsu felt her cheeks warm as she sat down across from Pocket. "What are you struggling with?"
"Everything." Pocket gestured dramatically at the chaos around her. "But mostly this." She pushed a textbook toward Dantsu, pages covered in Pocket's messy handwriting. "I've read this chapter four times and I still don't get it. Tachyon tried to explain it to me yesterday, but she talks so fast and uses all these big words and I just... my brain stops working when she looks at me."
The last part was said quietly, almost to herself. But Dantsu heard it.
She ignored the familiar twist in her chest and pulled the textbook closer. "Okay, let's go through it together. Show me where you get stuck."
For the next hour, they worked through the material. Dantsu explained things patiently, drawing diagrams in the margins, coming up with silly mnemonics to help Pocket remember formulas. Pocket listened, asked questions, made jokes when she got frustrated. At some point, she'd moved her chair closer to Dantsu's so she could see the notebook better, and now their shoulders were almost touching.
"—and then you take that number and multiply it by—" Dantsu stopped mid-sentence when she felt something shift beside her. She looked over.
Pocket was looking back.
Not with the usual frantic energy, not bouncing or fidgeting or reaching for chocolate. Just... looking. Her head hadn't dropped onto Dantsu's shoulder this time. She was simply there, inches away, her eyes tracing something on Dantsu's face like she was reading a book she didn't want to put down.
Dantsu forgot how to breathe.
Neither of them moved. Pocket's hand was still resting on the table between them, but it slowly turned, palm up. An invitation. Dantsu's fingers found their way there without permission from her brain.
One second passed. Two. Five.
Pocket's eyes were Yellow. Dantsu had always known this in the way you know things about people you see every day, but she hadn't known they had brown flecks in sunlight. She hadn't known they could go soft like this, like melting chocolate, like the way Pocket said "one more time" when Dantsu offered to re-explain something.
Ten seconds. Fifteen.
The room was doing that thing where it disappears at the edges. There was only Pocket's face, close enough that Dantsu could feel the warmth radiating from her skin. Close enough to count the tiny freckles dusted across her nose that she'd never noticed before. Close enough to see the exact moment Pocket's lips parted slightly, a tiny intake of breath.
Twenty seconds.
Pocket's thumb moved. Just once, a slow stroke across Dantsu's knuckles.
Twenty-five. Thirty.
Neither of them blinked. The air between them felt thick, charged, like the moment before a storm breaks. Dantsu's heart was trying to escape her chest. She didn't care. She couldn't care. Not when Pocket was looking at her like that—like she was the answer to a question Pocket hadn't known she was asking.
Forty seconds.
Something shifted in Pocket's expression. A flicker of recognition, maybe. Or discovery. Her eyes dropped to Dantsu's lips for less than a heartbeat, then back up. A question.
Fifty seconds.
Dantsu gave the smallest nod she'd ever given. She wasn't sure what she was agreeing to. Everything. Anything.
Fifty-five seconds.
Pocket leaned in. Just a fraction. Just enough that their noses were almost touching, that their breath mingled in the space between.
Sixty seconds.
"Dantsu," Pocket whispered. Just her name. But the way she said it—like it was precious, like it was fragile, like it was the only word that mattered—
The door slammed open.
"OKAY I'M BACK SUZUKA-SAN—" Special week froze in the doorway, taking in the scene: two girls inches apart, hands intertwined, eyes wide and guilty. "Oh. Oh! I—im sorry- the wrong r-room, um.. I'm gonna—" She backed out slowly, pulling the door closed with a click.
The spell broke.
Pocket pulled back, but only a little. Her cheeks were pink. Her smile was small and real and nothing like her usual grin.
"So," she said, her voice a little rough. "That happened."
Dantsu swallowed. "It did."
"Was that—I mean, did you—" Pocket huffed a laugh, rubbing the back of her neck. "I'm usually better with words. I'm a genius, remember? We're geniuses."
Dantsu squeezed her hand, still tangled with hers. "You are."
Pocket looked at their joined hands, then back at Dantsu's face. The gold flecks in her eyes caught the light again. "So do we keep studying?"
Dantsu nodded. Her heart was still racing. Her shoulder didn't ache at all.
"Okay." Pocket picked up her pencil with her free hand. She didn't let go of Dantsu's other one. "So—that number. Multiply it by what?"
Dantsu told her. And they studied. And Pocket's hand stayed in hers the whole time.
Every bit of it was worth it.
Days after. The afternoon arrived without warning, seeping through the slightly open window like a secret spring had been keeping for weeks.
Dantsu didn't exactly remember how she'd ended up in Pocket's room. Maybe it started with a casual comment in the dining hall, or with that look Pocket gave her after training—the one that said stay without using words. What she knew was that she was here now, sitting on the wooden floor, her back against the bed and her legs stretched out toward the center of the room.
Pocket was beside her, in the same position, arms behind her head and eyes half-closed. She wore a white sports top and gray shorts that showed off her legs, tanned from hours of training under the sun. Dantsu, without meaning to, had accidentally matched her: black top, blue shorts. Like a reflection. Like her body knew things her mind refused to accept.
"My eyes are itchy," Pocket said suddenly, rubbing them with the back of her hand. "It's this time of year, right? The cherry blossoms. Pollen everywhere."
Dantsu smiled, that same smile she always wore.
"You want me to close the window?"
"Nah, it's fine. The air feels nice. Screw the allergies."
Pocket shifted slightly to point at the window. The wind moved the thin curtain, a nearly transparent white fabric that let in the soft, golden, pinkish light. The room seemed to float in that atmosphere. Dust particles danced in the sunbeams like tiny stars.
"Look at that," Pocket said, her voice lower now, more intimate. "Looks like a movie, doesn't it?"
Dantsu looked. But she wasn't looking at the light. She was looking at Pocket's profile, illuminated from behind, the edges of her hair glowing as if someone had painted them with gold. The curve of her cheek. The shape of her slightly parted lips.
"Yeah," she whispered. "Like a movie."
Pocket turned her head, and their eyes met. For an instant, just one instant, Dantsu felt the world stop. Like there was no Tracen, no races, no one else. Just the two of them and that spring light wrapping everything in its glow.
"You know what?" Pocket said, breaking the spell without knowing she was breaking it. "I like talking to you, Dantsu. You're one of the few people I can actually relax around. Someone I don't have to compete with all the time."
Dantsu felt a warmth in her chest. Small. Fragile. But real.
"I like talking to you too."
"Even though we're rivals," Pocket laughed, and the comment came without malice, just a simple fact. "Hey, does it ever bother you? You're always following me everywhere, and sometimes I feel like I'm dragging you into stuff without meaning to."
The question shouldn't have hurt. Dantsu had learned long ago not to take things as offenses when they came from Pocket. Because Pocket never hurt her on purpose. Pocket just said what she thought, with that brutal honesty of someone who'd never learned to hold anything back.
"It doesn't bother me," she replied. "I like being with you all. I like seeing how far I can go. And if that means being behind people like you, then that's okay. You push me to be better."
Pocket looked at her differently.
"You're weird, Dantsu."
"Huh? Me? Why?"
"Because you could hate me. You could envy me. But you don't. You're always there, smiling. Always with those little things you leave on my desk in class, or when I find notes I never wrote, like magic."
Dantsu felt her heart escape her chest and her cheeks flush. She knew? Since when? Had she always known?
"I... I don't know what you're talking about," she lied, her voice coming out higher than usual.
Pocket laughed. But it wasn't a mocking laugh. It was warm, grateful.
"It's okay. You don't have to say anything."
And then, without warning, Pocket moved her legs and placed them over Dantsu's. Like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like their bodies had permission to touch without asking.
Dantsu froze. She could feel the weight of Pocket's legs on hers, the warmth of her skin through the thin fabric of their shorts. It was too much. It was everything.
"Oh, look," Pocket said, pulling her phone from somewhere among the blankets. "Did you see what Jordan posted today?"
She shifted slightly, propping herself up on one elbow, and brought the phone closer so Dantsu could see. Dantsu had to lean in too. Their faces were inches apart. She could feel Pocket's breath, mixed with that scent of hers—sun and grass and something else, something indefinable that was just Pocket.
The screen showed a photo of Jordan showing off her nails with a grin. But Dantsu wasn't seeing the photo. She was seeing Pocket's eyes, so close. Her lashes. The tiny freckles on the bridge of her nose that no one else noticed.
"Amazing, right?" Pocket was saying. "I never thought she'd take that kind of thing so seriously, but seeing her like this makes me want to try something on my own nails! I think it could improve my..."
Dantsu wasn't listening to the words. She was listening to her voice. The background music of all her days.
And then, without knowing how, without knowing who moved first, their faces were closer. Much closer. So close Dantsu could see her own reflection in Pocket's eyes. So close she could feel the warmth radiating from her lips.
One more centimeter, she thought. Just one.
But Pocket pulled back. She laughed. That easy, light laugh of hers.
"Whoa, that was weird, right?" she said, her voice carrying none of the tension Dantsu felt coursing through her body. "Sorry, I got carried away and made you uncomfortable. I just thought you'd see the picture better and I—"
Dantsu blinked. Her heart was beating so hard she was sure Pocket could hear it.
"No!" she managed to articulate through her stammer. "You didn't make me uncomfortable."
"You sure?" Pocket was already looking at her phone again, swiping through the screen. "Sometimes I'm too intense, everyone tells me that. Tachyon always says I don't respect personal space, but that's just how I am, you know? If I want to be close, I'm close. I don't know how to measure those things..."
Tachyon.
The name dropped like a stone into a still pond. Dantsu felt the ripples spreading through her entire body.
"Speaking of Tachyon," Pocket continued, and her voice shifted slightly, becoming softer, more vulnerable. "Do you think she likes me?"
The question was so direct, so unfiltered, that Dantsu didn't know how to respond.
"I... I don't know."
"It's just... sometimes I look at her and I feel like I'm going to die, you know? Like my heart is going to burst out of my chest. But she never looks at me. She's always with her notebook, her experiments, Cafe."
Cafe.
Another name. Another stone.
"I think she looks at Cafe," Dantsu said, her voice sounding strange even to herself. "Tachyon looks at Cafe."
"You think so?" Pocket sat up fully, propping herself on her hands. "You think she likes Cafe?"
Dantsu looked at her. She saw the worry on her face. Her ears flat against her head. The insecurity. The hope. And she understood something she'd only intuited until now.
Pocket looked at Tachyon the same way she looked at Pocket. With that mixture of admiration and desire and fear. With that certainty that she'd never be loved back. With that love that expects nothing but gives everything.
"I don't know," she answered, and it was true. "But if she does look at her, I'd understand why."
"Why?"
"Cafe is... calm. Kind. She always worries about others even when they don't ask. Sometimes people like that attract those who can't stop moving."
Pocket looked at her. For a second, just one second, her eyes weren't searching for Tachyon. They were searching for Dantsu.
"Like you," she said.
Dantsu felt the world stop again.
"L-like me?"
"You're calm. Really kind. And I... I can't stop moving. But when I'm with you, I don't know, it's like I can. Like I don't need any of that."
The words hung in the air. The afternoon light kept streaming in, golden, pink, impossibly beautiful. The curtains kept moving with the wind. Everything stayed the same.
But Dantsu knew nothing was the same.
Because Pocket had just said something that could mean everything or nothing. And Dantsu, who had spent months reading every gesture of Pocket's, every look, every word, didn't know how to interpret this one.
"That's nice," she said finally, because it was the only thing she could say.
Pocket smiled. That huge smile that lit up entire rooms.
"You're my favorite person, Dantsu. Did you know that?"
Don't say that, Dantsu wanted to scream. Don't say that if you don't mean it. Don't say that if you're going to look at someone else afterward.
But she didn't say it. She smiled. Spring always smiled.
"You're my favorite person too."
And it was true. And it hurt. And it was beautiful. All at the same time.
Hours passed. They talked about everything and nothing. About races and dreams.
At some point, Pocket fell asleep. Just like that. With her head resting on Dantsu's shoulder and her phone still in her hand.
Dantsu didn't move.
She watched the light change, passing from gold to pink, from pink to orange, from orange to the blue of dusk. She watched the curtain dance with the wind. She watched Pocket sleep.
And she thought.
She thought about how easy it would be to stay here forever. How easy it would be to believe this moment meant something. How easy it would be to forget that when Pocket woke up, her eyes would search for Tachyon again.
She thought about Cafe. About her hands holding a coffee cup. About her silence. About her gaze.
She thought about the circle. About how they all looked at someone who looked at someone else. About how none of them were loved back. About how they all kept looking anyway.
This is love, she thought. This is what no one tells you. That it hurts. That it doesn't make sense. That you stay even though you know there's no future.
But she also thought: And still. Still, it's worth it.
Because this moment, this light, this weight of Pocket on her shoulder, this scent of spring and sweat and life... no one could take this from her. Even if it didn't mean what she wanted it to mean. Even if Pocket never knew. Even if it all ended tomorrow.
This was hers.
And no one could take it away.
When Pocket woke up, it was already night.
"Did I fall asleep?" she asked, her voice groggy. "How long?"
"A couple of hours," Dantsu replied with a light smile.
"And you stayed still that whole time? Doesn't your shoulder hurt?"
Dantsu shrugged.
"I didn't move because I didn't want to wake you."
Pocket looked at her. That look again. The one she couldn't decipher.
"You're too good, Dantsu. Someone will be lucky to have you!."
You, Dantsu wanted to say. You. Please, you.
But instead, she smiled.
"Someday."
Pocket nodded, as if the answer satisfied her. She stretched, yawned, and suddenly she was the usual Pocket again: loud, intense, unstoppable.
"Well, I'm starving. Want to go to dinner? It's curry night, right? Thursday curry is the best."
Dantsu stood up, stretching her numb legs.
"Let's go."
They left the room. Walked down the hall. Pocket talked nonstop about curry and Tachyon and curry again.
Dantsu listened. Smiled. Nodded.
But in her head, the image of the afternoon remained alive. The light. The curtains. The weight of Pocket on her shoulder. The closeness of her lips.
That was real, she thought. That happened.
And even if it meant nothing to Pocket, to her it meant everything.
And sometimes, she thought as they descended the stairs toward the dining hall, sometimes that had to be enough.