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Why did I have to go through this just because I was a woman?
I kept repeating that thought in my head in words not so different from a line some anime heroine had once said. I hadn't chosen my sex for myself. I understood, intellectually, that this was simply the fate of being born a human female, something inevitable. But understanding that in theory didn't make it any easier to endure.
The heat churning deep in my belly, the leaden heaviness in my hips, the dull ache at the roots of my thighs. I had lived through this pain over and over, and yet today it felt especially cruel. My hormones were a wreck, and my body was already frayed from days of overtime. Normally I shifted the timing with pills and got through it, but this time it had come much earlier than planned.
"Oww..."
That thick, unpleasant sensation. I wanted to go home right now and crawl into bed. But I still had a job to do. As someone entrusted with the bodies and minds of the Uma Musume striving for the top at Tracen Academy, I had no right to use my own condition as an excuse. I told myself that and dragged my heavy body out toward the training course.
Unhappiness always seems to come in bunches. For some reason, this day of all days had summerlike temperatures despite still being April. That kind of thing was common enough around Kanto, but even so, I was sick of my own bad luck.
By late morning the temperature had already passed twenty-five degrees Celsius, and the damp spring air clung to me little by little. Just standing there made my whole body feel heavy. I didn't even have the spare energy to wipe away the sweat gathering on my forehead.
(The girls who serve the King told me I ought to rest, but it's not like I'm actually sick...)
This wasn't an illness. And precisely because it wasn't, it was too easily dismissed as a reason to rest. Everyone experienced it differently, and that made it something people overlooked. And as an older adult, telling girls their age about the specifics of it felt embarrassingly improper. All I could do was laugh and wave it off when the girls asked.
"Orfevre, let's do one more lap."
The words came out, but my voice was hoarser than I expected. Orfevre glanced at me once and took her place at the starting line. She said nothing. She only fixed those bicolored-tourmaline eyes on me, steadily and without wavering. Her presence was imposing enough to make me feel small. Proud, noble, regal enough to embody a king herself—seeing her like that gave me a strange sense of reassurance. As long as she stayed herself, I felt I would somehow be able to keep going too.
But I would soon learn that was nothing more than wishful thinking.
The training looked fine on the surface. Orfevre ran each split without a single complaint—more precisely, more powerfully, more beautifully than anyone else. But every time she completed a circuit, she flicked a glance my way. Each time, something inside my chest prickled. It felt as though she could see straight through the pain I was trying to conceal with sheer stubbornness.
"We're halfway through the session. Let's keep going."
Then, after several sets, I handed Orfevre a towel and a drink. Sitting down on the bench for hydration, she wiped the back of her neck with the towel and muttered:
"...You've got a lot of nerve showing your face to me looking like that."
"Huh?"
"Are you not aware of it? I am saying that face of yours looks like a corpse's. Do you think someone like that can truly serve as my staff?"
My heart jumped at the words. But she didn't even turn to look at me. She simply went on, calm and certain.
"Displeasing."
A gust of damp wind carried the smell of spring. But even that breeze felt like pain now.
"What do you take my running for? ...We will not continue training. Leave at once."
"But—"
"Will you make me say it twice?"
It was a voice that shoved me away. Merciless. Cold. Mixed with the chill rising through my body, it made me unbearably sad.
It wasn't Orfevre's fault. It was my fault for failing to manage my condition. The reason I had to hear words like this was because I was the one at fault. The urge to snap at her—at anyone—rose hot in my throat, but I forced it down. It would be unforgivable for a fully grown adult to take it out on a child, and more so if that child was the trainee under her care. That kind of thing could destroy trust entirely.
All kinds of thoughts spun through my head. Her words were stakes driven into my chest. The pain was no longer just the dull ache in my lower belly. My whole body was screaming, and yet why couldn't I tell anyone?
"...Okay. I understand..."
When I finally managed to answer, my voice was so weak it sounded like it belonged to someone else. I couldn't even raise my eyes. I merely bowed and turned my back.
One step, then another. The sound of gravel under my feet seemed to echo from very far away. I held back the thing rising in my throat with everything I had and did not stop walking.
I heard nothing behind me. In the silence—so complete it felt like even the wind had stopped—I fled back toward the trainer's office alone.
On the way there, I prayed I wouldn't meet anyone. I didn't want anyone to see me like this. Especially not Orfevre. I was supposed to be strong in front of her, the trainer who supported her, the staff that held up her run.
But my body was already at its limit.
The moment I opened the door and all but collapsed into the room, my strength gave out. I crumpled to the cold floor. The instant my cheek touched it, the thing I'd been holding back burst. I wasn't supposed to cry. I knew that. But the tears spilled anyway.
For being a woman to become shackles like this.
For a body I had never wished for to make me suffer this much.
And more than anything—
I had made Orfevre lose faith in me.
That hurt worst of all.
If there is another life, then I am well and truly done with being born a human woman. Thinking that with all my heart, I stopped thinking at all.
My head was resting on something soft. Someone was gently stroking my lower belly. The fingers moved slowly, without hesitation, yet somewhere in their motion there was still awkwardness. At some point I seemed to have fallen asleep on the sofa.
A sweet, pure scent brushed my nose. Chamomile... maybe. There was a faint trace of honey mixed into it, and merely breathing it in made the knots in my heart loosen. Strangely, all the discomfort that had been blooming throughout my body was gone.
This has to be a dream.
Nothing hurts anywhere.
Just as I was thinking that, something wet suddenly slapped over my face, and the suffocating sensation yanked my consciousness rapidly to the surface.
"Ugh...!"
I peeled whatever it was off my face and opened my eyes a sliver. Filling my vision were wheat-gold hair like sunlight, lustrous and shining—and a wide-eyed Orfevre.
"...Orfevre...?"
The moment I whispered her name, she froze.
The curtains in the trainer's office were half drawn, letting in the pale light of afternoon. On the desk sat a steaming mug. In my hand was a damp towel. And at some point a jersey had been laid over my stomach. A Tracen Academy jersey. Hers, probably.
What a ridiculously convenient dream, I thought with a dry laugh.
Orfevre averted her eyes for a moment. The sharpness from before was gone from them, replaced by something far more unsettled. Her hand was still resting on my belly, though it had stopped moving. Only her tail kept swishing restlessly across my stomach as though it didn't know what else to do.
"...Your insolence truly knows no bottom, does it? To think you would use a king's leg as your pillow."
"Eh—ah!"
So I had, of all things, been using her leg as a pillow. Even in a dream that much was unacceptable. I blinked and hurriedly tried to sit up, but my body was still heavy, and I sank right back against her knee. Noticing, Orfevre gently stretched out a hand and pressed my shoulder down—not forcefully, but with the carefulness of someone handling something fragile.
"This is a royal command. Do not move."
Her attitude was as imperious as ever, yet there was no coldness in her voice. Startled and confused, I could do nothing but stare at her face. Her expression was stiff; her usual pride remained intact, yet there was something like anxiety hidden beneath it. Her hand slowly lifted from my shoulder and touched my forehead.
Just for an instant, as though checking my temperature.
"Why... are you here?"
The words I finally managed to squeeze out were hoarse and weak. Orfevre narrowed her eyes and gave a tiny snort, as though batting the question away.
"I merely retrieved the staff that had fallen by the roadside. What could be more reasonable?"
Her words were as difficult and curt as ever, but the steaming mug on the desk, the wet towel on my head, and the jersey laid over my stomach silently testified to what she had done.
Apparently she had been nursing me in her own way. From the awkwardness of it, it looked less like experience and more like an imitation of something she'd once seen someone else do.
I understood, with my head, why she was here. But Orfevre was a lofty, noble Uma Musume. The weakness of a trainer ought to have meant no more to her than some pebble by the roadside. So then why?
"...About earlier, I'm sorry. You had to see me looking so pathetic..."
When I murmured that, she knit her brows for a moment.
"You are human. Naturally you are weak."
Her voice was low, utterly matter-of-fact. It was true, of course—and yet having my weakness stated so plainly nearly made me cry again.
"...No matter how weak you may be, the king's running shall not waver. ...However, if the staff breaks, I cannot go properly onward. Do not ever forget that."
No. I had misunderstood her all along. She had been worried about me. In her own way, she had been showing concern.
Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes.
She turned her gaze away and looked toward the sunlight filtering through the curtains. The soft afternoon light illuminated her golden hair until it seemed as though particles of light themselves danced there. I had not told her the reason for my discomfort. And yet she returned her hand to my belly and slowly began stroking it again, as though trying to soothe the pain living there. The motion was clumsy. Yet that very clumsiness made her feelings plain.
"I do not understand your pain."
She murmured it low, almost like talking to herself.
"But you are my possession. I will not permit what belongs to me to be threatened somewhere beyond my sight. ...Recover quickly."
Those words made me laugh a little in spite of myself. It was such a roundabout way of saying it. She wasn't apologizing, and she wasn't comforting me outright. Yet she was still worrying over me. At last I understood that this was Orfevre's way of being kind.
The dream was so wonderful that I couldn't help smiling.
"Yeah... thank you."
At that, she stopped moving for just an instant and cast me a sidelong look.
"...Hmph."
She turned her face away, but her hand never stopped gently stroking my stomach. As though that were simply her natural duty. My head was still pillowed on her thigh, and its warmth seeped into me little by little.
What a lovely dream, I thought, and closed my eyes again. The next time I woke, I would surely be sprawled on the cold floor. But for now, I could allow myself to sink into this warm dream just a little longer.
And it was only when I woke again that I realized it had not been a dream at all.
That I ended up clutching my head over the reality of the jersey on my stomach, the towel on my forehead, and the fact that my pillow had been the somewhat self-satisfied Orfevre's thigh goes without saying.