Chapter Text
In a dark room, illuminated only by a pair of monitors, there sat with fingers laced in contemplation a single man.
A horse man.
The twitch of an ear. The swish of a tail through the kick pleat of a labcoat. The drip of an automatic coffee maker kept on a desk piled with stacks of files, folders, and documents. He's a doctor.
"I see...So that's how it is."
On one monitor, a Japanese telecast from the NHK featuring the newly globalized phenomenon that is URA umamusume racing. On the other, multiple tabs of spreadsheets and analytics. They're just like him.
...The umas, not necessarily the monitors, although both monitors and the doctor are quite bright by necessity.
Standing on the podium giving an interview to Twinkle Star Monthly, race winner Agnes Tachyon makes a sweeping academic gesture with one arm clad in the sleeve of an oversized labcoat, pontificating about the value of the research data she attains with each race regardless of winning or losing.
The twitch of an ear. The swish of a tail through the kick pleat of a (much more properly fitted) labcoat.
She's just like him.
Someone, somewhere, out there, is just like him.
He's not a statistical anomaly. Not a fluke. Not an aberration. Not alone in the world. There are others. Many of them in fact, at least enough for an entire sanctioned sports series. There's proof. And if they're that far away, it stands to reasonーor at least mathematical probabilityーthat there are others in between A and B.
B is the illustrious & groundbreaking Tracen Academy in Tokyo, Japan; A prestigious school for uma racing's uppermost echelon, the epicenter of an international sensation.
A is Araigima Underground Games Hub (AUGH) in Chambanana, Illinois, USA; A quirky community arcade for assorted nerds & hobbyists in the basement of a university resource center.
At a bus stop in campustown, illuminated by the lazy pink-orange of summer twilight and a single streetlamp, there stood gazing up at the university's welcome sign in contemplation a single man.
A horse man.
Eating a sandwich, one hand in his pocket. Nodding. Certain of his theorem, formulating his syllabus.
"Mhm, mhm...There's only one logical thing to do.", he assures himself.
"Are you considering enrolling at the Uni?", asks a random bystander waiting for a ride on the bench behind him.
The white-clad scholar glances back over his shoulder wearing a calm smile that's almost boyish despite a professor's highly academic beard adorning his chin.
"...I'm gonna' put out an ad on Craigslist." [🎶]
And so, that is how it all began. With a single man.
A horse man.
A horse man who is perhaps not as single as he once felt.
...And the bizarre but wondrous omnipresent everyday magic of the internet.