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The common room smelled like chamomile tea and the faint traces of the lavender diffuser Mejiro McQueen kept insisting “promotes proper rest and refined sensibilities.” The late afternoon sun slanted through the tall windows, painting beautiful golden bars across the tea table where McQueen sat with perfect posture, both hands wrapped around her favorite porcelain cup. Steam curling up in spirals as she stared into the drink like it might offer some good life advice.
Retirement...
That particular word has been making its way into her thoughts more often than she'd like to admit lately. Not like she was anywhere near done racing, she still had years of elegant strides and first place finishes ahead—but since the mejiro name came with certain expectations...still, she would be fine. Financially, socially and historically. The family state had wings she hasn't even visited yet! She could spend the rest of her days arranging flowers, hosting tea ceremonies with her friends, perhaps managing one of the family’s subsidiary companies from a distance...
And yet.
That felt...somewhat hollow. Like wearing someone else's perfectly tailored dress. Beautiful on the hanger, slightly suffocating once buttoned.
She sighed—soft, aristocratic—and brought the cup to her lips...
The door burst open with the subtlety of a cannon shot.
"QUEENIE!"
McQueen doesn't even flinch anymore. She simply sets the cup down with a gentle *clink* before the inevitable collision could spill the tea across her skirt.
Gold Ship launched herself across the room in a blur—ears perked, tail whipping, grin wide enough to show every single tooth. She was mid-leap, clearly intending to get McQueen with a full-body tackle-hug that would end with both of them in a giggling (just gold ship, really. McQueen would be too busy being out of breath to giggle) heap on the floor.
McQueen raised one hand like a Stop sign. “Gold Ship.”
The airborne menace froze in midair for half a second—physics apparently taking a coffee break—then dropped onto the cushion opposite to McQueen instead of crashing into her. She blinked once. Twice. Then tilted her head like a curious seabird. “…You okay, Queenie? You look like someone just told you the last slice of cake in the world got eaten.”
With a sigh, McQueen smoothed an invisible wrinkle from her skirt, composed, elegant...internally screaming JUST a little. “I was merely… contemplating the future.” She paused, then—because why not test the waters with the one umamusume least likely to give a serious answer?—added, “If i may ask, gold ship, what do you plan to do after you retire?”
She braced for it. The explosion of “Who caaaares?! Future’s boring! Let’s eat yakisoba and prank the others right nooow!” or “Retirement? Pfft, I’ll just keep dropkicking people until I’m 90, easy!” Something loud, undoubtedly Gold ship, and Something hopefully, reassuringly *present-focused*. Something that would make McQueen feel less like the only one in the room who hadn’t figured out how to move beyond racing.
Gold Ship blinked again. Then—slowly, almost dramatically so—she sat down. Legs resting on the table. Tail curling around her hip while a hand stroked it like a villain would with a cat in those old cartoons.
She reached across the table without asking, plucked McQueen’s teacup right out of her hands, and took a loooon sip....McQueen’s eye twitched. Just once. Gold Ship smacked her lips. “Meh, needs more honey. Anyway, Okay!”
She set the cup down and opened her mouth. “I’m gonna buy the old building back home. The one with the crooked roof and the killer view of the open water. Pop’s been eyeing it for years but he says it’s ‘too much work for old bones.’ so i’ll fix it up, Keep the wood salty and beat-up, with a BIG open kitchen so people can watch me grill! counter seats for the regulars aaand couple tables outside for when the wind isn’t trying to murder everyone~”
McQueen stared, blinking owlishly. But Gold Ship kept going, gesturing with both hands now, eyes bright.
“Menu’s whatever came off the boats that morning. Grilled saba with yuzu kosho that’ll make your tongue cry happy tears. Whole fried squid, tentacles still curling. Miso so thick you gotta chew it. Onigiri the size of your fist—umeboshi, salmon roe, whatever~ Nothing tiny and pretty, but Real food!"
She leaned forward, elbows on the table, completely ignoring etiquette (not that it would apply to an existence like her.)
“After closing, me and Trainer’ll sit on the back steps. Drink the cheap beer that tastes like aluminum because it’s been in the cooler since last summer, then i'll lean on him and he’ll whine about my weight so I’ll just elbow him, the usual. Then the kids’ll come running—four, maybe five! Loud, covered in fish guts half the time because they’ve been ‘helping Grandpa’ fillet the catch~ They’ll smell like the sea and soy sauce, then one of ’em will climb their dad like a tree while the others fight over who gets to sit in his lap first. He’ll pretend to be annoyed but really he won’t be.”
McQueen’s mouth had opened at some point. It stayed open. Gold Ship didn’t notice. She was in full flow now, tail swishing happily.
“I want them to grow up loud and messy and happy! Running around the restaurant stealing tempura shrimp, getting yelled at for tracking sand everywhere, learning to cast nets from pops and fillet from me and do stupid math from their dad so they know how to scam tourists~ And at night—after the last customer leaves and the kitchen’s clean—we’ll sit there together. Trainer and me, listening to the waves, smelling like grill smoke and salt. And it’ll be… ours.”
She finally looked up. Grinned. Wide and sunny and utterly unselfconscious. “So yeah! That’s the plan.”
Silence. Actual, stunned silence.
McQueen blinked once. Slowly. Gold Ship tilted her head again. “…What? Too boring? I could add fireworks. Or a mechanical bull. Or—”
“No,” McQueen said faintly. “No. It’s… not boring.” She stared at the other umamusume. The chaotic, dropkick-happy, snack-stealing, rule-ignoring disaster who apparently had a five-year business plan, a family vision board, *and* had already mentally assigned domestic seating arrangements...
McQueen felt something hot and ridiculous prickle behind her eyes. “You…” She cleared her throat. Regained composure through sheer force of Mejiro willpower. “…have thought this through.”
Gold Ship shrugged. Stole another sip of tea. “Duh. Been thinking about it since I was, like, twelve. Just didn’t have the Trainer part figured out ’til a couple years ago.” She grinned wider. “He tanks dropkicks so he’s perfect for the drunk-fisherman shift.”
McQueen pressed her fingertips to her temples. “I was expecting you to say something about living in the moment. Eating cake. Not worrying about tomorrow...”
Gold Ship snorted so hard tea almost came out her nose. “Queeeenie. I *do* live in the moment! I eat yakisoba, I terrorize people, i dropkick my favorite human on the daily~ But that doesn’t mean I can’t also want a tomorrow that’s got grilled fish and sticky kid hands and him grumbling about inventory while I kiss fish oil off his cheek.”
She leaned across the table suddenly, serious for once. “You’ll figure yours out too. You always do. Probably something super classy. Tea house. Flower arranging. Adopting every sad puppy in a fifty-mile radius. Whatever. Just… don’t overthink it ’til you forget to enjoy the part where you’re still running.”
McQueen exhaled. Long. Slow. Something tight in her chest loosened just a fraction. “…You drank all my tea.”
Gold Ship looked down at the empty cup. blinking. “…Oops...consider it the cost for the storytelling”
A beat. Then McQueen—prim, perfect, unflappable Mejiro McQueen—reached over, took the cup back, as well as another one, and poured them both fresh from the pot with the grace of someone who had just been emotionally body-slammed by her most chaotic friend. “Next time,” she said, voice only slightly unsteady, “ask before you steal.”
Gold Ship beamed. “Deal. Now c’mon. Let’s go terrorize the vending machine. My treat. I owe you tea.” McQueen sighed...but she stood up anyway.
And when Gold Ship immediately hooked an arm through hers—loud, warm, alive—McQueen didn’t pull away.
For once… she didn’t mind the mess.