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The rain had started at dusk and showed no sign of letting up even as closing time drew near. The drops tapping against the windows were fine, but relentless. Every so often, the hiss of a car on the wet road outside stretched long into the night.
It was a small izakaya two train stops from Tracen Academy.
An old wooden counter. Lighting just dim enough to soften the lines of every face. Nothing fancy, though the grilled dishes and simmered food were good.
It was not the sort of place where academy staff gathered, which made it perfect for a night when he did not want to be seen. The Trainer tipped the glass in his hand. Most of the amber liquor was gone, the ice already half-melted, but he could not bring himself to order another.
“...Haven’t you had a little too much?”
A gentle voice came from beside him.
Tazuna Hayakawa, secretary to Tracen Academy’s chairwoman, tilted her head as she peered into his face. She wore the same green uniform she did at work, and even here, indoors, her usual hat remained firmly in place.
He had once asked why she wore it all the time.
“It helps me feel at ease,” she had said with a smile, and left it at that.
Even so, she was more relaxed than usual tonight. Her collar sat a touch looser, and the glass of plum wine in front of her was already half empty. Even over dinner with coworkers, it was rare to see her let her guard down this much.
He had not been the one to invite her. Tazuna had approached him just outside Tracen Academy’s front gate.
Do you have some time tonight?
Her words had been soft, but there had been something in her voice that left very little room to refuse.
Today, his trainee, Mimosa Flight, had lost her comeback race.
“I’ve only had three.”
“You have miscounted. That makes five. You’re drinking faster than usual, and more than usual.”
“You really do keep an eye on me.”
“Looking after a Trainer’s health is part of my job as well.”
“The chairwoman’s secretary has a pretty broad job description, doesn’t she?”
“Hehe. It depends on the situation.”
Tazuna smiled. It looked like the same gentle smile she always wore, but her green eyes never left his face.
“You’re thinking about today’s race, aren’t you?”
He had thought he was hiding it. Apparently not.
He set down his glass. The ice inside gave a dry little clink.
“How could I not?”
“Mimosa ran well.”
“She finished eleventh.”
“A finishing position does not tell you everything about a race.”
“She hates that kind of talk more than anyone.”
Mimosa Flight hated having defeat polished into something pretty.
You lost, but you tried so hard. Just making it back to the track is something to be proud of.
Whenever someone said things like that, Mimosa would smile for them, then find somewhere no one could see and bite down on her lip.
She was an Umamusume with chestnut hair and eyes that looked almost gold beneath the sun.
She had never possessed overwhelming speed from the beginning. She had finished third in her debut race, earned her first win on her second attempt, and remained in open-class competition through the spring of her Classic year.
But every time she ran, she grew stronger.
Mud in her face never made her flinch. Getting boxed in never made her panic. And in the final stretch, no matter how hard the race had been, she always found one more gear.
Her racing style was not flashy. Her pedigree was not glamorous.
Still, step by step, through nothing but her own strength, she had climbed toward the summit.
In the spring of her Classic year, she won her first graded race in a Derby prep and earned her place in the Japanese Derby.
Mimosa cried.
So did her Trainer. Just that once, he had wept without caring who saw.
At last, he had thought.
At last, he had reached the place he had been chasing since he was a child.
Then, one week before the Derby, something small had shown up in Mimosa’s right leg.
Imaging revealed no clear fracture. She felt almost no pain just walking around. Some doctors even said the condition was not severe enough to make racing impossible.
Mimosa said she would run.
This chance would never come again. She could endure a little pain. Everything she had done until now had been for the Derby.
He scratched her from the race.
The reason was simple: a mild inflammation, with the possibility that racing could make it worse.
Mimosa did not speak to him for three days.
Later, further examination revealed that the inflammation extended deeper than the first tests had suggested. Had she run, she might have lost her entire racing career.
His decision had been correct.
On paper.
But being correct did not erase the fact that Mimosa had never stood on the Derby starting line.
After months of treatment and rehabilitation, she had finally returned to the turf today, eight months later.
And she had finished eleventh.
“What did she say afterward?” Tazuna asked.
“‘I’ll win the next one.’ She looked fired up when she said it.”
“That sounds like Mimosa.”
“Whether she meant it is another question.”
“You don’t know?”
“She puts on a brave face around me.”
He gave a small, self-mocking laugh.
“I used to understand her better. Whether she wanted to run or rest. What she was scared of. What she was angry about. Now, no matter what I ask, all I get is ‘I’m fine.’”
“And you think that means she trusts you less than she used to?”
“...Maybe.”
“That is not it.”
Tazuna rejected the idea immediately.
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because I’ve watched the two of you for a long time.”
The answer came so naturally that he was left speechless for a moment.
There was no one at Tracen Academy who did not know Tazuna Hayakawa.
As secretary to the chairwoman, she kept the administration running, supported Trainers when they needed it, and listened when an Umamusume needed someone to talk to. There seemed to be no corner of academy life where she was not somehow involved.
And yet almost no one knew anything about Tazuna herself.
Where she came from. Her family. Her school days. Where she had studied, or what had brought her to Tracen Academy in the first place.
Ask, and she would smile and gently steer the conversation elsewhere.
People found it strange, but no one pressed too hard.
That was simply the kind of person Tazuna Hayakawa was.
There were other odd things about her, too.
A few months ago, he had returned to the academy late at night to retrieve something he had forgotten. On a track that should have been empty, he saw someone running.
A woman with dark brown hair streaking through the moonlight.
Fast did not begin to describe it.
With every stride, her body seemed to dissolve into the dark, and by the next moment she was impossibly far away.
Above her head, two shapes that were definitely not locks of hair seemed to cut through the wind.
The next morning, he told Tazuna what he had seen. When he added that the runner had looked strangely like her, she answered with her usual smile and an explanation so smooth it almost sounded rehearsed.
“I was only checking the track at night.”
“By running on it? You were going awfully fast for an inspection...”
“Exercise is important for one’s health, you know.”
Whatever that had been, it was not a normal person’s idea of exercise.
And that was not all.
Once, on a day off, he had happened to run into her at a supermarket. In her basket was a bottle of shampoo made specifically for Umamusume.
It is for academy supplies, she had explained.
Perhaps. But did academy staff usually go out and buy a single bottle of professional supplies in a personal shopping basket?
There was also the way she always put her phone on speaker.
No matter how noisy the room was, she never once pressed it against the side of her head.
There were plenty of things he had found curious.
But he had never tried to connect them.
Doing so felt rude somehow.
Tazuna Hayakawa was Tazuna Hayakawa.
No more and no less.
At least, that was what he had believed until tonight.
“Mimosa stopped showing you her weakness because she does not want to trouble you,” Tazuna said. “Not because she stopped trusting you.”
“That amounts to the same thing. What kind of Trainer am I if my own trainee is the one worrying about me?”
“Does it?”
Tazuna took a small sip of plum wine.
“Could it not simply mean that she cares enough about you to worry?”
“That’s a very kind way of putting it.”
“I am only stating the facts.”
He let out a quiet breath.
After the race today, Mimosa had smiled.
“Felt a little heavy out there. But hey, I made it all the way around. I’ll be better next time.”
Then she had held out her fist, the way she always did. He had bumped his knuckles against hers.
And he had noticed her fingertips trembling.
She had been afraid.
Afraid her leg might hurt again. Afraid she might never run the way she used to. Afraid that no matter how hard she worked, the summit might already be beyond her reach.
And he believed he was the reason those fears had taken root.
“I took the Derby away from her.”
“You protected her life and her future. There was no other choice.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that I took away the place she wanted to stand.”
“Would you rather have sent her out there knowing the risk?”
“I don’t know.”
He lowered his eyes.
“I know I made the right call. If the same thing happened again, I think I’d stop her again. But... making the right choice doesn’t mean you get rewarded for it.”
Mimosa was alive.
She could still run.
Maybe that should have been enough.
But she did not run merely to stay alive.
She ran to win.
“Two graded wins. One second-place finish in a G1. I’ve been a Trainer for twelve years now.”
He stared at his own palm.
He had trained plenty of Umamusume. Guided some to their first wins. Helped others return after injuries.
He had sat up until the middle of the night with girls unsure about their futures. He had held retiring racers while they cried after their final race.
They had thanked him.
I’m glad you were my Trainer.
More than one had told him that.
And still, he was nowhere near the person he had imagined becoming as a child.
“I was supposed to become the greatest Trainer in the world.”
Tazuna’s hand stopped.
Only for a heartbeat.
He did not notice.
“The greatest in the world?”
“You going to laugh?”
“No. I think it is a wonderful dream.”
“It was a kid’s dream.”
“Was there something that inspired it?”
Her voice remained gentle, though it had dropped just slightly lower than usual. He thought nothing of it. Blamed the alcohol.
“There was an Umamusume I admired.”
“Someone famous?”
“Famous doesn’t cover it. She was a legend.”
“...A legend.”
“She’s the biggest reason I became a Trainer.”
Somewhere at the bottom of his memory, summer returned.
The smell of grass baked beneath the sun. The roar rolling down from the stands. Dark chestnut hair swaying beyond a fence.
“I wanted to see her again,” he murmured, almost to himself.
“I think part of me always believed that if I became a Trainer, I might run into her somewhere someday.”
“And now?”
“Some part of me still does.”
He slipped a hand inside his suit jacket.
Separate from his wallet, he always carried a small leather card case. From inside it, he drew a piece of paper folded into quarters.
It had once been a single photograph. The edges were worn. The color had faded white along the creases from being folded and unfolded too many times.
It was sealed inside a clear protective sleeve now, but there was no hiding its age.
“I have a picture.”
“A picture...?”
“I spoke to her a few times when I was a kid. This was taken the last day I saw her. It’s sort of my good-luck charm.”
He smiled.
“Want to see it, Tazuna?”
He unfolded the photograph.
A young Umamusume and a boy stood side by side, both holding up awkward peace signs.
The boy’s skin was sun-browned, his hair plastered to his forehead with sweat. The Umamusume beside him wore a smile that looked just a little embarrassed.
He turned the photograph toward Tazuna.
“Her name was—”
The smile vanished from Tazuna’s face.
“Tokino Minoru.”
Even now, saying the name brought the heat of his childhood rushing back into his chest.
“Ten starts. Ten wins. Seven records. Undefeated champion of both the Satsuki Sho and the Japanese Derby. The phantom Umamusume.”
Tazuna stared at the photograph as if she had forgotten how to blink.
“You know her, right? I mean, you would.”
“...Yes.”
“Back then, people said they couldn’t even imagine her losing. Apparently, people around her were calling her ‘Perfect’ before she’d even debuted.”
“I... see.”
“Then right after the Derby, she suddenly retired. No reason was ever made public. She disappeared from the public eye, and that was it.”
He traced the Umamusume in the photograph with one finger.
“I wonder how she’s doing now.”
Tazuna’s fingertips trembled faintly.
“As long as she’s alive and well, that’s enough for me.”
He smiled and started to put the photograph away.
Tazuna did not look up.
At the time, he thought she was simply remembering an old legend.
The first time the boy—the Trainer in his childhood—ever saw Tokino Minoru was beneath the enormous scoreboard at a racetrack.
His father had brought him that day. Back then, the boy understood almost nothing about how racing worked.
Why did Umamusume run? What did they gain by winning? Why did the adults packing the grandstands shout names until their voices went hoarse?
He knew none of it.
He only knew that, in the final stretch, there was one Umamusume who ran differently from everyone else.
The racers who should have been ahead of her kept sliding backward, one after another.
Of course, she was the one passing them.
But to a child’s eyes, it looked as if the world itself were retreating around her.
Dark chestnut hair. A tail driving powerfully behind her. A small ornament tied near the base of one ear.
Tokino Minoru.
The announcer screamed her name and the ground seemed to shake. She flew across the finish line in first.
From that moment on, the boy’s world had a center.
They first spoke on the way home that same day.
Separated from his father by the crowd, the boy wandered around the back of the racetrack until he found himself somewhere spectators clearly were not supposed to be, surrounded by buildings meant for staff and competitors.
He no longer knew which way he had come from.
He was biting his lip, absolutely determined not to cry, when a voice called from behind him.
“Hey, you. What are you doing back here?”
He turned.
The Umamusume who had been racing on the turf only minutes earlier stood there in front of him. A light jacket had been thrown over her racing outfit, and she was rubbing her damp hair with a towel.
The boy’s eyes went wide.
“Minoru-neechan!”
“Since when am I your big sister?”
“But you’re Minoru-neechan.”
“I’m Tokino Minoru. Minoru is my name. There’s no reason to add neechan to it. We’re not family.”
“You’re older than me, so you’re neechan.”
“That is some impressively sloppy logic.”
She sighed in exasperation, but did not send him away. When she noticed the red around his eyes, she crouched until they were looking at each other face to face.
“Anyway. What happened? Are you lost?”
“No.”
“Then where are your mom and dad?”
“...Dad went somewhere.”
“That is what being lost means.”
The Umamusume took his hand.
Hers was still hot from the race, damp with sweat, with faint calluses across the palm.
“I’ll take you to the information desk. And no wandering off again.”
“I didn’t wander off. Dad disappeared.”
“Yes, yes. We’ll go with that.”
On the way, the boy kept staring up at her.
“You were really fast.”
“I know.”
“Fastest in the world?”
“Soon enough.”
“Then you’ll win the next one too?”
“Of course.”
Not once did she hesitate before answering him.
To the boy, there was nothing cooler in the world.
When his father finally came to collect him, Tokino Minoru asked the boy his name.
“So? What are you called?”
He thought for a moment, then shook his head.
“Secret.”
“Why? I told you mine.”
“I’ll tell you when I’m number one in the world too.”
“Number one at what?”
“Haven’t decided yet.”
“Then decide first before you say things like that.”
Tokino Minoru laughed.
The boy tucked that smile somewhere deep inside himself and swore he would never, ever forget it.
After that, he begged his father to take him back again and again—to Tokino Minoru’s races and to Tracen Academy’s public training sessions, which at the time could be watched by ordinary visitors under certain conditions.
She kept winning.
In her debut she had opened an enormous gap and set a record. Different distances did not stop her. Different racetracks did not stop her.
After every race, the boy made his father buy a newspaper, then asked him to read the kanji he did not know.
Undefeated.
New record.
Monster.
The strongest in history.
The articles were full of enormous words.
The boy thought every one of them was true.
No—if anything, they were not enormous enough.
The strongest Umamusume in the world.
That was the only description that fit her.
At one public training session, he waited for her at the very front of the viewing area.
At first, Tokino Minoru walked right past without noticing him.
“Minoru-neechan!” he shouted.
A few steps later, her ears twitched. She turned around.
“...Oh. It’s you.”
“You remembered me?”
“There aren’t many kids who yell that ridiculous nickname at the top of their lungs.”
“You were fast again today!”
“Obviously.”
Their conversations never lasted more than a few minutes. She had training. She had interviews. The boy had a train home to catch.
Still, every time they met, he managed to squeeze in one or two questions.
“How are you so fast?”
“I train.”
“If you train enough, can anyone get as fast as you?”
“Sorry, but no one else gets to be me.”
“Why not? You’re all Umamusume.”
“Because I’m special.”
“You just say that about yourself?”
“It’s a fact. Am I wrong?”
She was cocky. He knew that.
Somehow, it never made him like her less.
If anything, every time she said something with that absolute confidence, he found himself delighted all over again that she was Tokino Minoru.
Another day, the boy saw her talking to a Trainer.
The condition of the course. How far she would run. Meals. Rest.
That person, apparently, thought about everything Tokino Minoru needed in order to race. The boy only understood that later, after asking his father.
“Who’s that guy next to you, Minoru-neechan? What does he do?”
“He’s my Trainer.”
“What’s a Trainer?”
“Hmm. The really simple answer? He’s the person who makes me the strongest.”
In that instant, a new dream was born inside the boy.
He could never become Tokino Minoru.
But maybe he could become someone who stood beside her.
Of course, she already had a Trainer. By the time a child like him had realized what he wanted, the world was already far ahead.
So he thought about it and arrived at a different answer.
Then he would raise an Umamusume who could surpass Tokino Minoru.
Someday he would stand in front of her beside someone faster than her, stronger than her.
And he would declare that he was the greatest Trainer in the world.
A child’s dream did not need evidence.
As the Japanese Derby drew close, public training sessions were suspended.
The boy still went to his usual place by the viewing area.
He knew he would not see her, but he thought that if he stayed nearby, maybe he might at least hear her voice.
She never appeared.
Instead, he heard the adults whispering.
Heat in her right leg. Damage around the toe. She might be scratched from the Derby.
The boy could not believe his ears.
The newspapers were saying similar things.
Clouds over undefeated two-crown favorite.
Training delayed.
Final decision may come as late as race day.
The adults said they should not force her to run.
His father tried to explain that her body mattered more than any race.
The boy could not accept it.
Tokino Minoru was going for the Triple Crown. She meant to take on the world.
If she could not run in the Derby, that dream could not even begin.
More than anything, he had the feeling she was somewhere by herself, frightened.
From the very first day they met, Tokino Minoru had always said I’ll win without the slightest hesitation.
The thought that someone like her had vanished without a word terrified him.
He had to see her.
A few days before the Derby, the boy went to Tracen Academy alone.
If he asked his father, he would obviously be stopped. So he said nothing, left home with his allowance clenched in one fist, changed trains, and asked strangers for directions over and over.
By the time he finally reached the academy grounds, the sun was already leaning west.
Naturally, an ordinary visitor could not simply walk in. A high fence enclosed the grounds, and security guards stood at the front gate.
The boy thought for a while, then walked as far from the gate as he could.
There, an old tree grew beside the fence, one thick branch reaching close to the chain-link.
“I can do this.”
Years later, he would still have no idea what had made him so certain.
He climbed the tree, edged out along the branch, and grabbed the fence.
The wire bit into his palms. One shoe nearly slipped off halfway over. When he looked down, the drop was more than high enough to frighten a child.
Turning back never crossed his mind.
Tokino Minoru was on the other side.
That alone kept his hands and feet moving.
He scraped his knee when he landed, but barely noticed. He ran through the grounds, following the distant sound of footfalls until he reached the training track.
And there he found her.
Tokino Minoru sat alone on a bench beside the course, dressed in training clothes, elbows on her knees, staring down at her interlaced fingers.
She looked wrong somehow.
In race footage, her head was always high. After a win, she smiled like someone who had never doubted the result and raised a hand to answer the cheering crowd.
Whenever he saw her after public training, she stood with her chest out and her chin up.
Now she looked small.
Her shoulders rose and fell. Sweat shone on her forehead. Only the shoe on her right foot had been removed, and thick tape wrapped the area from her ankle down toward her toes.
“Minoru-neeechan!”
He shouted with everything he had.
Tokino Minoru’s ears shot upright. She raised her head, found him, and stared.
“...Oh. It’s you.”
The same words as always.
Then the boy came running toward her with a grin, and her expression hardened.
“—Wait. How are you even in here?!”
“I came to see you!”
“I can see that. How did you get in?”
“Over there.”
He pointed toward the tree.
“Climbed the fence.”
“You climbed the fence?”
“Yeah.”
“Alone? Your father didn’t stop you?”
“Yeah!”
Tokino Minoru pressed a hand to her forehead and let out a long sigh.
“That’s dangerous. What would you have done if you fell?”
“I didn’t fall, so it’s fine.”
“I am not talking about the result.”
“But I got to see you.”
“Honestly, you...”
She was angry. The boy could tell.
Strangely, he was not scared of her.
There was more worry in her voice than irritation.
“Your knee is bleeding.”
“I’m fine. Totally fine.”
“No, you’re not. Sit down.”
Her tone allowed no argument.
Once he sat beside her, Tokino Minoru pulled over a first-aid kit, cleaned the scrape, and covered it with a small piece of gauze.
“Sting?”
“Nope. I’m fiiine.”
“Trying to act tough? Your voice just gave you away.”
“Compared to you, Minoru-neechan, this is nothing.”
“Why are you comparing yourself to me?”
She said it, but a small smile slipped through.
Up close, Tokino Minoru was different from the legend printed in the newspapers.
Her chest rose when she breathed. She sweated. She dropped the cap from the disinfectant bottle and clicked her tongue under her breath.
The boy already knew that side of her.
He knew the girl who had taken a lost child to the information desk. The girl who called him cheeky and laughed whenever they met.
Which was exactly why he could tell that something about her was different now.
“Minoru-neechan. Are you nervous?”
Her hands stopped.
“What?”
“You looked really scared just now.”
“Scared? Me?”
“Yeah. Are you scared you’ll lose the Derby?”
Tokino Minoru’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“...Who said I was going to lose?”
“I thought maybe you were nervous because you were scared of losing.”
“You’ve got a lot of nerve for a little kid.”
Her voice was strong.
But the boy did not miss the fingers of her right hand, clenched tight over her knee.
Nor did he miss the way her ears had tilted outward.
He had no idea what she was actually afraid of.
He only knew that the Tokino Minoru he knew was lying.
“Then that’s no good.”
“What isn’t?”
“You can’t lose yet.”
“...Yet?”
“Because my trainee is gonna be the one who beats you.”
The boy stood.
His scraped knee hurt a little, but he ignored it and puffed out his chest.
“I’m gonna be the greatest Trainer in the world.”
“A Trainer?”
“Yeah. I’m gonna raise the strongest Umamusume in the whole world.”
“My, what a big dream.”
“And she’s gonna surpass you, Minoru-neechan.”
“Me?”
“So you’re absolutely not allowed to lose yet.”
It was breathtakingly selfish logic.
He knew nothing about what she was going through. Nothing about the crushing weight carried by the Umamusume in front of him.
Tokino Minoru stared at him.
Then, without warning, she burst out laughing.
“What even is that...? Pfft—hehe...”
“Don’t laugh!”
“But you—”
She covered her mouth, one eyebrow lifting as her shoulders shook.
“I mean it!”
“All right, all right. I get it.”
“You don’t believe me.”
“I believe you.”
Tokino Minoru stood.
The instant she put weight on her right leg, one eyebrow twitched ever so slightly. Then her usual expression returned.
She pressed one finger lightly against the boy’s forehead.
“But who do you think I am?”
“Tokino Minoru. Strongest Umamusume ever.”
“Exactly.”
She smiled.
The shadow that had been there before was gone.
At least, that was how it looked to the boy.
“Do you think I’ll lose?”
“No.”
“See?”
“But you’ll lose to my trainee.”
“That is a very long way off.”
“It’ll happen. Definitely, definitely!”
“Then I suppose I’ll have to keep winning until you get here.”
Tokino Minoru looked toward the track, where the evening light lay warm across the grass.
“I’m going to win the Triple Crown. Then I’ll keep running. I want to see what’s waiting across the ocean, too.”
“You’re gonna race the world?”
“Yes. I want to see how far I can go.”
“Then I’ll go to the world too!”
“You?”
“Me and my trainee. We’ll come all the way out there and get you.”
“Is that so?”
Tokino Minoru looked down at him, eyes narrowing with a challenger’s smile.
“Then don’t give up halfway. If you’re going to call yourself the best in the world, make it all the way to me.”
“Of course I will.”
“And will you finally tell me your name?”
“When I’m number one in the world.”
“Still keeping it secret? Fine. Until then, I’ll call you ‘Future Number One.’”
“That sounds awesome.”
“Don’t let it go to your head.”
From somewhere in the distance came a voice searching for him.
“Is someone over there?!”
A security guard.
The boy jolted.
“Oh, crap.”
“Do not ‘oh, crap’ me.”
Tokino Minoru sighed and caught him by the arm.
“Should we run? We still might—”
“Idiot. Running away will only get you in more trouble.”
The guard and several staff members hurried over.
Suddenly, the boy was less afraid of being scolded than he was of getting Tokino Minoru in trouble.
“—Sorry.”
“For what?”
“I snuck in. They might get mad at you too.”
“If you had enough sense to worry about that, you should have had enough sense not to break in.”
She said it, but she did not let go of his arm.
When the guard moved to take the boy away, Tokino Minoru stopped him.
“Wait. I’ve met this kid a few times before.”
“Even so, he entered the grounds without permission—”
“I know. I’ll give him a lecture too. And you’ll need to contact his guardian, right?”
Just then, a newspaper reporter on his way out after finishing an interview wandered over, a camera hanging from his neck.
“Minoru, isn’t that the kid who’s always waiting by the public viewing area?”
“That’s him. Apparently he climbed over the fence today.”
“Kid’s got initiative, I’ll give him that. If you two know each other, why not? Want me to take a picture?”
“Really?! Yes!”
“Hey. Don’t decide that for me.”
“You don’t want one with me, Minoru-neechan?”
When he looked up at her, Tokino Minoru drew her brows together in obvious discomfort.
They had met several times by then, but never taken a picture together.
At last, she gave a little shrug.
“One picture. But only if you promise that from now on, you come through the front gate.”
“I promise!”
“You are very good at saying the right thing.”
They stood side by side with the track behind them.
The boy flashed a peace sign.
Tokino Minoru kept her arms folded at first, but after the reporter prodded her, she reluctantly copied him.
“Closer together.”
“This is close enough.”
“What, the legendary Tokino Minoru gets shy in front of a camera?”
“Who are you calling shy?”
The shutter clicked.
At that exact moment, the boy was grinning from ear to ear.
Tokino Minoru was smiling too, just a little.
The photograph arrived at the boy’s home by mail several days later. Inside the envelope was a short note.
To Future Number One,
Next time, come through the front gate instead of climbing the fence.
Don’t give up until you bring me an Umamusume who can surpass me.
—Tokino Minoru
The photograph and the note became the boy’s greatest treasures.
On the morning of the Japanese Derby, the racetrack seemed to vibrate with a strange, feverish heat.
Tokino Minoru would win.
Everyone believed it.
No—believed was not quite the right word.
They accepted it the way they accepted that the sun would rise: not as a possibility, but as a fact decided before the day had even begun.
The boy sat in the stands beside his father. Tucked close to his chest was the photograph that had arrived a few days earlier.
He wanted to take it out again and again, but he was too afraid of dropping it.
“There! I see her!”
Through his binoculars, he found the familiar dark chestnut hair.
Tokino Minoru looked exactly as she always did. Back straight, head high, walking slowly through a storm of cheers.
From this distance, he could not see whatever treatment had been done to her right leg. The newspaper rumors that she might be scratched from the race suddenly felt absurd.
“Minoru-neechan! Over here!”
The boy leaned over the railing and waved.
There were tens of thousands of people around him.
There was no way she could hear.
He shouted anyway.
The racers entered the gates. The boy clasped his hands together.
He would have been lying if he said he was not afraid.
He believed she would win. He could not imagine Tokino Minoru losing.
Still, he could not forget the face he had seen in the evening light a few days before. The girl who was always so bold had been sitting there with her fingers clenched tight.
“She’ll be okay, right?” he whispered to no one in particular.
His father answered beside him.
“You never know until they run the race.”
“Minoru-neechan is going to win.”
“Yeah.”
“She’s definitely going to win.”
The words were for her.
They were also for himself.
The gates opened.
Tokino Minoru broke cleanly, but settled into the middle of the pack in the early going.
There was no opening to the outside. Other Umamusume boxed her in from the front and both sides.
A murmur spread through the stands.
“She can’t get out...”
To the boy, it looked as if she had been trapped.
His throat went dry. Sweat dampened his hands around the binoculars.
Tokino Minoru did not panic.
She found the smallest seam and slipped through it, climbing steadily through the field. By the time they swept into the final corner, the leaders were within reach.
They turned for home.
“Go!”
The boy screamed.
Tokino Minoru caught the runner ahead of her.
For a heartbeat, it looked as though she would simply blow past and leave everyone behind.
Then her body dipped.
Only for an instant.
But to the boy, it looked as if her right leg had tangled beneath her.
The field came rushing closer.
The roar of the crowd seemed to twist into a scream.
“Minoru-neechan!”
The boy leaned so far over the rail his father had to catch him, and shouted until his throat tore.
“Don’t lose! Don’t you dare lose until my trainee is the one who beats you!”
He never knew whether the words reached her.
But in the next instant, Tokino Minoru changed.
Her body drove forward again.
With every stride, the gap behind her widened.
Once more, it looked as if the whole world were sliding backward around her.
No one could catch her.
Tokino Minoru crossed the line first.
Two minutes, thirty-one point one seconds.
A record.
Ten starts. Ten wins.
And now, a seventh record.
The undefeated winner of the Satsuki Sho had conquered the Japanese Derby as well.
“She won! Minoru-neechan won!”
The boy jumped until his father scooped him off the ground, shouting her name again and again from his arms.
During her victory lap, Tokino Minoru turned toward the stands only once.
There was no possible way she could have picked one little boy out of a crowd of tens of thousands.
Still, she raised one hand.
The boy waved back.
He never doubted for a second that it had been meant for him.
The next morning, the newspapers were filled with her name.
Undefeated two-crown champion.
The strongest in history.
Triple Crown next? Or overseas?
The world awaits.
Tokino Minoru’s future seemed to stretch forever.
Then, a few days after the Derby, she canceled everything.
The first announcement was short: poor health.
The boy assumed she would rest for a few days and come back. She had just run the Derby. Of course she was tired.
A week passed.
She did not return.
The papers filled with reports no one could verify.
High fever.
Emergency hospitalization.
Serious illness.
Career-threatening condition.
Overseas campaign canceled.
Triple Crown bid abandoned.
Every day, the boy read the papers.
None of them told him how Tokino Minoru really was.
So he wrote her a letter.
Please get well soon.
I’m not a Trainer yet.
I don’t have a trainee yet either.
So you’re still not allowed to lose.
He addressed it to the training facility that had mailed him the photograph. In the sender field, he used his father’s name.
At the bottom, instead of signing his own, he wrote:
From Future Number One.
He still wanted to wait until he had become number one in the world before telling her his name.
No reply came.
He wrote again.
And again.
None of the letters were returned to him, but there was no proof they had ever reached her.
The boy tried to use newspaper reports to figure out which hospital she was in. Every article named a different place. Even when he begged his father to help, he was told no.
“The best thing we can do right now is let her rest quietly.”
His father was right.
The boy still could not accept it.
He had the awful feeling that if he simply waited quietly, she would disappear.
Then, one evening, he came home from school and found a newspaper on the living-room table.
Tokino Minoru’s photograph filled the front page.
AN ERA ENDS.
UNDEFEATED TWO-CROWN UMAMUSUME ANNOUNCES SHOCK RETIREMENT.
The article gave no detailed reason.
It said nothing definite about what she would do next.
There was no statement from Tokino Minoru herself.
“No.”
The boy read the article again.
Then again.
Tokino Minoru had said she would win the Triple Crown.
She had said she would race across the ocean.
She had promised to keep winning until he became the greatest Trainer in the world.
She could not simply be gone.
The boy ran out of the house and headed for the training facility.
This time, he stood at the front gate.
He did not climb the fence.
He had promised her.
“Please let me see Tokino Minoru.”
No matter how many times he begged the security guards, the answer was the same.
She was not here.
They could not tell him where she was.
“Then at least give her my letter.”
“I’m sorry, kid. We can’t take it.”
“She’ll know who I am. Tell her it’s Future Number One.”
The guard looked helpless, but the gate did not open.
The boy sat outside it for hours.
Even when evening came and rain began to fall, he kept waiting.
She never appeared.
Eventually, his father came to take him home.
The boy did not even change out of his soaked clothes. He sat there clutching the photograph and cried.
But he did not give up the dream.
Someday he would become a Trainer.
Someday he would find her.
And when he did, he would show Tokino Minoru the greatest Umamusume in the world—the one he had trained himself.
Then she would smile at him the way she used to.
The noise of the izakaya seemed to recede.
Tazuna Hayakawa kept staring at the photograph without moving.
Normally, she never left another person waiting for an answer. Now her lips parted, closed again, and parted once more as if she could not decide which words to choose.
“...Tazuna?”
At his voice, she finally looked up.
“I’m sorry. You surprised me.”
“Didn’t expect it?”
“No. Not at all.”
“It’s an old picture. Hard to make her out, right?”
“No.”
Tazuna managed a smile.
“I can see her very clearly.”
Something about the answer bothered him.
It sounded almost as though she could see past the scratches and faded creases of the photograph itself.
Still, Tazuna knew more about Tracen Academy’s history than almost anyone. It would hardly be strange for her to recognize Tokino Minoru in her youth.
He dismissed the thought and started to draw the photograph back.
Tazuna’s fingers did not release the edge.
“How did you come to know her?”
“The first time, I got lost at the racetrack.”
“Lost...”
“I insisted my dad was the one who wandered off.”
He laughed softly.
“She took me to the information desk. After that, whenever I went to a public training session, we’d talk for a few minutes. I doubt she ever even knew my name.”
“You never told her?”
“I was trying to sound cool. Told her I’d give it to her once I became number one in the world.”
Something moved behind Tazuna’s eyes.
“Then... what did she call you?”
“‘Future Number One.’”
Her fingertips trembled.
This time, he saw it clearly.
“Are you all right?”
“...Yes.”
Tazuna returned the photograph.
As she withdrew her hand, her right thumb rubbed along the side of her index finger.
He had seen that gesture somewhere before.
Before he could chase the memory, Tazuna asked:
“Was the day you climbed the fence the last time you saw her?”
“How did you know about that?”
“Earlier, you mentioned her hair moving beyond a fence.”
“Oh... right.”
The explanation made sense.
And yet she had asked as if she already knew the scene.
He blamed the strange feeling on the alcohol.
“There were rumors she was hurt before the Derby, and public training was canceled. I got worried and went to the academy. They wouldn’t let me through the front gate, so I climbed a tree and went over the fence.”
“That was extremely dangerous.”
“She told me the exact same thing.”
“As she should have.”
The answer came so quickly that he laughed.
He pointed to the boy in the photograph.
“I scraped my knee on the way down. She patched me up. Then I asked if she was scared of losing the Derby, and she got really mad.”
“She was not angry.”
“Huh?”
Tazuna lowered her eyes.
“...Perhaps she was only flustered because you had come too close to the truth.”
“Maybe.”
“What did you say after that?”
“That she wasn’t allowed to lose yet. Because my trainee was going to be the one to beat her.”
He looked down into his glass.
“Stupid kid, right? I had no idea what condition she was in. Didn’t know a thing about what she was carrying. I just kept telling her to win. Don’t lose. Win.”
“Sometimes those are exactly the words that save someone.”
“Save them?”
“When everyone around you says victory is inevitable, having even one person promise you that someday you will lose... perhaps that makes it a little easier to breathe.”
He looked at Tazuna.
There was a shadow in her profile he was not used to seeing.
“That’s awfully specific.”
“Only an imagining.”
She answered quickly.
Her voice was slightly hoarse.
He tried to slide the photograph back into its protective sleeve, but his fingers would not cooperate. The corner caught again and again.
“I meant it, you know.”
The words escaped him before he knew he was saying them.
“Meant what?”
“Becoming the greatest Trainer in the world.”
Tazuna said nothing.
“I wanted to stand beside her. I thought if I raised an Umamusume who could surpass Tokino Minoru, then I could finally go see her with my head held high.”
In the photograph, the boy was smiling without a trace of doubt.
The smile was almost too bright for the man to look at.
“But I still haven’t taken a single trainee to a G1 win. I even took the Derby away from Mimosa. If that kid saw me now, he’d probably be disappointed.”
“He would not.”
Tazuna’s answer was firm.
“You mean the kid version of me?”
“Yes.”
“How can you possibly know that?”
“Because you have not abandoned your dream.”
“I’m pretty close.”
“And yet you are still a Trainer.”
“Maybe it’s just inertia.”
“Inertia cannot make a person carry other people’s lives for twelve years.”
Her voice was quiet.
It did not sound like consolation.
That kindness was what finally broke something open in his chest.
A tear fell.
He had not even realized he was crying until it traced a line down his cheek and landed on the table.
“...Huh.”
He wiped his face with the back of his hand.
“Trainer...”
“Pathetic, isn’t it?”
He tried to laugh.
His voice shook instead.
“I never became someone worthy of standing beside her.”
“Hold your head high.”
Tazuna’s voice felt closer.
“To every Umamusume whose life you have touched, you are already an irreplaceable Trainer.”
“You’re too kind, Tazuna.”
“I am stating a fact.”
“But I’m not the best in the world.”
“Are you still saying that?”
Her tone sharpened, just a little.
“If you had not stopped Mimosa, she might never have raced again.”
“Being right doesn’t give her Derby back.”
“No. It does not.”
Tazuna did not soften the answer.
“The time she lost will not return. The races she missed will not return. But the fact that some things cannot be recovered does not mean the life that comes after them must be lost as well.”
He said nothing.
“Mimosa ran today.”
“She finished eleventh.”
“I am not speaking about her placing. I am speaking about the fact that she stood on a starting line again.”
“She’d be furious if she heard you say that.”
“Yes. Which is why I will not say it to her.”
Tazuna smiled faintly.
“But for someone who once lost the ability to run, standing on a starting line again can be every bit as difficult as winning.”
He raised his head.
“Tazuna, you sound almost like—”
Something began to connect before he could finish the sentence.
Whenever an Umamusume broke curfew, Tazuna caught her. No one ever seemed to witness the chase itself, yet by the next morning the culprit would somehow be sitting in seiza outside the chairwoman’s office.
Tazuna knew strange amounts about old races, old running styles, old training methods.
The face she had made at Tokino Minoru’s name.
The tremor when he said Future Number One.
That habit with her right hand.
And, just now, the flash of a bold, competitive voice that had not belonged to the gentle secretary he knew.
Impossible.
Tokino Minoru was a legend from decades ago.
She had disappeared without explanation. Even now, the public did not know whether she was alive or dead.
The woman sitting in front of him was Tazuna Hayakawa. Secretary to the chairwoman of Tracen Academy. A woman he had worked beside for years.
They could not be the same person.
And yet once the thought had appeared, it refused to leave.
Tazuna slowly raised a hand to the brim of her hat.
Green, with a small horseshoe ornament at the front.
“Trainer.”
“Yes?”
“I asked you once before, did I not? Whether you wanted to become the greatest Trainer in the world.”
“That was an old dream.”
“No.”
Tazuna removed her hat and held it against her chest.
“Your dream is not over yet.”
“I’m not a kid anymore.”
“No.”
Her smile softened.
“You’ve grown quite a lot.”
He forgot how to breathe.
“...Tazuna?”
She reached over and set the hat on his head.
His eyes widened. Naturally, the green hat was a little too small for him.
Even so, its little horseshoe sat just above his brow.
“Stand proud, Trainer.”
The polite formality vanished from her voice.
“To every Umamusume whose life you’ve touched, you are already someone no other Trainer could replace. Stop counting only the races you failed to win.”
“What are you...”
“Or what? You think you don’t have the right to call yourself number one just because you haven’t won a G1?”
A challenging smile lifted the corner of Tazuna’s mouth.
That voice.
Those eyes.
That impossible confidence in her smile.
Time reversed inside his memory.
A girl taking a lost child by the hand behind a racetrack.
A girl turning around after public training with an, Oh. It’s you.
A girl cleaning the blood from his scraped knee on a track washed in sunset.
Who do you think I am?
“No way...”
The blood drained from his face.
“But that can’t...”
“What can’t?”
“Tokino Minoru was more...”
“Younger?”
“No, that’s not what I mean.”
“Cooler?”
“Not that either.”
“Faster, then?”
For the first time, something faintly lonely entered Tazuna’s eyes.
“That one, I cannot deny.”
He shot to his feet.
People at the table behind him turned in surprise.
“Tazuna.”
“Yes?”
“You’re...”
His throat shook.
He felt as though saying it aloud would make all the years between then and now collapse at once.
“Minoru-neechan...?”
The instant he said the name, tears spilled from Tazuna’s eyes.
“—Took you long enough.”
She was crying.
And still, she smiled exactly the way she had all those years ago.
“You took far too long to notice, Future Number One.”
He could not speak.
He looked at the photograph.
Looked at the woman in front of him.
Then looked back at the photograph.
The hair was different. The clothes were different. The way she spoke was different.
But when she smiled, one eyebrow still rose a fraction higher than the other.
When she tried to act tough, her ears still angled outward.
When she tried to hide something, her right thumb still rubbed the side of her index finger.
The girl in the photograph and the woman before him became one.
“You’re alive.”
The words were barely a whisper.
“Yes.”
“All this time.”
“Yes.”
“It really is you.”
“It’s me.”
He started to reach for her, then stopped halfway.
He did not know whether he had the right to touch the person she was now.
Tokino Minoru was the one who stepped forward.
She rested her forehead against his chest and wrapped her arms around his back.
The embrace was not tight.
It felt less like clinging and more like making sure that the years they had been unable to touch were real at last.
Carefully, almost fearfully, he put his arms around her.
“I wanted to see you.”
His voice trembled exactly as it had when he was a boy.
“...I wanted to see you too.”
Tazuna’s answer had taken far too many years to reach him.
By the time they returned to their seats, several people in the izakaya had glanced their way more than once.
He cleared his throat awkwardly. Tazuna put her hat back on and pretended nothing had happened.
Her eyes were still red, so the act was not especially convincing.
“...We drew some attention.”
“Because you stood up so suddenly, Trainer.”
“So it was my fault?”
“About half.”
“And the other half?”
“A secret.”
The answer was so much like the old days that he let out something halfway between a laugh and another sob.
The moment he knew Tazuna was Tokino Minoru, every tiny oddity he had noticed over the years began to make sense.
The eye that could read the condition of almost any Umamusume at a glance.
Her absurd knowledge of old races and old training methods.
The speed that meant no curfew-breaker at Tracen ever truly escaped her.
And then there was the joke she had once made after drinking.
I was rather good at running myself, you know. Why, I even won the Derby—
At the time, he had laughed and decided Tazuna became surprisingly bold when she drank.
Apparently, she had not been joking.
“You nearly told me yourself once, didn’t you?”
“I have no idea what you mean.”
“When you were drinking. You said you’d won the Derby.”
“I do not recall such an event.”
“Stop looking away.”
“Alcohol truly is frightening.”
Tazuna pushed her plum wine farther from herself.
When the brief teasing ended, quiet settled between them again.
He had more questions than he knew how to ask.
In the end, the first one out was the simplest.
“Why did you disappear?”
Tazuna folded both hands in her lap.
“I will tell you in order.”
Her voice was no longer the voice of the racer from his childhood.
It was soft, careful, unmistakably Tazuna Hayakawa.
“First, before the Derby. You thought I was afraid of losing, did you not?”
“You weren’t?”
“I did not think I would lose.”
That much she said with the same absolute certainty she had possessed as Tokino Minoru.
“What frightened me was the possibility that I would never make it to the starting line.”
Chronic pain in her right knee. A split near the toe. Inflammation that kept returning.
Once she began to run, her speed had not diminished. But no one understood better than she did how much strain was accumulating inside her body.
There was only one Japanese Derby.
She had absolute confidence that she could win it.
But if the doctors refused to let her start, then she would never even have the chance.
“I also thought, a little, about what would happen if my leg stopped moving in the middle of the race. If the undefeated Tokino Minoru failed to reach the finish line... would all that expectation turn into disappointment at once?”
“So that’s why you looked like that when I came to see you.”
“I would have preferred you not see me that way.”
“You’ve always been stubborn about showing weakness.”
“I hardly think you are in a position to criticize me for that, Trainer.”
Unable to argue, he shut his mouth.
“The newspapers called me ‘Perfect.’ The spectators told me that Tokino Minoru would always win. I was proud of those words. But they also made it harder and harder for me to say I was scared. Or weak.”
Tazuna touched the brim of her hat.
“And then you said, ‘Someday my trainee will beat you. Until then, don’t lose.’”
“Looking back, that was an absolutely ridiculous thing to say.”
“Yes. It truly was.”
She laughed.
“But it saved me. Everyone else demanded that I remain undefeated forever. You were the only person who promised me a defeat waiting somewhere beyond that. Without knowing anything, you taught me that the day someone surpassed me would not be an ending. It could be a road into the future.”
He looked at the boy in the photograph.
That kid had simply wanted to beat her someday with his own trainee.
There had been no profound thought behind it.
“My right leg gave way in the Derby stretch,” Tazuna said, her voice lowering.
“For one moment, the sound from the stands became very far away. And then I remembered what you had told me. I thought, I cannot lose before that boy gets here.”
“You heard me shouting?”
“There were tens of thousands of people there. Naturally, your actual voice could not have reached me.”
“Right.”
“But I heard you anyway.”
Her eyes softened as she looked at the boy in the photograph.
Heat gathered deep in the man’s chest.
A few days after the Japanese Derby, Tazuna Hayakawa—Tokino Minoru—began to feel an exhaustion that would not go away.
At first, everyone assumed it was fatigue from the race.
Instead of improving, the symptoms worsened day by day. Eventually, severe spasms seized the muscles throughout her body until moving her arms and legs became difficult.
Tests revealed that bacteria had entered through the wound near her toe and the infection had spread deep into her body.
Emergency hospitalization.
Repeated procedures.
For a time, even her life had been in danger.
“I asked them not to disclose the details to the public. Reporters had gathered at the hospital, and there were already so many stories being printed that were not true.”
“I read them.”
“I am sorry I worried you.”
“‘Worried’ doesn’t begin to cover it.”
“...I’m sorry.”
She survived.
Recovery took a long time.
Even after the fever passed, her body would not obey her the way it once had. The right leg was left with lasting damage, and she had to begin again with walking exercises.
Simply standing up from a hospital bed left her breathless.
The legs that had once carried her faster than anyone in the world trembled against the floor.
The doctors told her she would never return to competition.
She could return to ordinary life.
With time, she might even be able to run lightly again.
But her body would never withstand racing.
“Did you cry when they told you?”
Tazuna thought for a moment.
“Not in front of the doctor. My Trainer started crying first.”
“That sounds like you.”
“I cried that night, after I was alone.”
She said it calmly.
That calmness made the loneliness of that night feel heavier, not lighter.
“The academy and the people around me suggested making my condition public. My fans wanted to know I was alive. They said that if people saw me recover, perhaps it would give someone courage. Even if I could never race again, there were ceremonies, television appearances, coaching younger Umamusume...”
“Those weren’t bad options. I’m sure everyone meant well.”
“Yes. As you say, Trainer, no one meant me any harm.”
She refused anyway.
She could not bear the thought of offering the public a version of herself that could barely walk.
They would compare her with the way she had once run.
They would pity her.
They would say, But you’re Tokino Minoru. Surely you’ll make a miracle happen.
And the weight of expectation would settle on her shoulders all over again.
“If I appeared before people as Tokino Minoru, no one would treat me normally. They would try to encourage me. They would hope for a miracle. They would wish for me to run again. Back when even walking was difficult, all that kindness—all that expectation—felt unbearably heavy.”
“—You didn’t want anyone to see you weak.”
“No.”
The answer came without hesitation.
“Tokino Minoru had to be the strongest. She had to be undefeated. The public was not the only one who believed that. More than anyone else... I was the one who could not forgive myself for becoming anything less.”
The details of her illness remained private.
All that was announced was a short statement: Tokino Minoru had decided to retire from competition.
There was no retirement press conference.
No ceremony.
After the Japanese Derby, Tokino Minoru simply vanished from public life.
“I waited at the front gate.”
“I know.”
He stared at her.
“You knew?!”
“I heard afterward. They told me there was a boy who sat outside for hours in the rain and refused to go home.”
“Then—”
“I could not see you.”
She lowered her gaze.
“Back then, I did not believe I was someone who could stand in front of you. I had broken our promise. I did not want you to see what I had become.”
“What about my letters?”
“They reached me.”
“All of them?”
“Every one.”
He closed his eyes.
The answer he had wanted so desperately for so many years had arrived with almost unbearable simplicity.
“You could have written back at least once.”
“I tried many times.”
“But you never did.”
“No.”
“You thought I’d be disappointed in you?”
Tazuna did not answer.
The silence did it for her.
Maybe he should have been angry.
He had cried over her disappearance more times than he could remember. He had waited at the front gate. Written letter after letter. Searched for her even after becoming an adult.
But now that he knew what had been in her heart, he could not bring himself to condemn the woman sitting in front of him with her head bowed.
“There’s no way I would have been disappointed.”
“The Tokino Minoru you admired was the fastest Umamusume in the world.”
“The Minoru-neechan I knew was more than that.”
She looked up.
“You took a lost kid to the information desk. Every time I showed up at public training, you humored an annoying little brat. You cleaned the knee of an idiot who climbed a fence, stood up for him with security, and even took a picture with him.”
“I did not ‘stand up for’ you. I merely ensured the appropriate procedure—”
“The details don’t matter.”
“They do matter.”
He smiled.
“Seriously. That part of you hasn’t changed at all.”
Then he said:
“Even if you can’t race. Even if you lose. Even if your name changes. You’re still you.”
After a long silence, Tazuna told him what had happened after her recovery.
The chairwoman of Tracen Academy at the time had offered her a different kind of life: use another name and take on work of a different kind.
Not as someone who ran, but as someone who supported those who did.
At first, she refused.
She did not know what she could possibly do outside of racing. She had believed that if you took running away from Tokino Minoru, nothing remained.
But there were young, injured Umamusume at the rehabilitation center.
Girls furious that they could not run.
Girls rushing their recoveries and pushing too hard.
Girls who could not admit their fear to anyone and cried alone.
They did not know the Tokino Minoru who had once existed.
So she spoke to them simply as an older woman who happened to know a little about running.
“One girl told me, ‘I’m scared. I feel like I’ll never catch my rival again.’”
“What did you tell her?”
“That even if there are days when you cannot run, that does not mean you stop being yourself.”
Tazuna smiled.
“Only after I said it aloud did I realize I was saying it to myself as well.”
She accepted the chairwoman’s offer.
Tazuna Hayakawa.
At birth, an Umamusume was given a family name in addition to the name she used as an Umamusume. Both were official names, though very few ever used the former in daily life.
She chose that name.
She changed her hair. Changed her clothes. Deliberately softened the way she spoke.
Instead of walking at the front with her chest high, as she once had, she learned to stand half a step behind someone else.
“At first, it was only a name I used to hide.”
“And now?”
“Now, it is my name.”
What had begun as an act became, over the long years, part of who she truly was.
Organizing documents. Managing schedules. Advising Trainers. Noticing the smallest changes in an Umamusume before anyone else did.
No one asked her to be the fastest in the world.
That freedom brought relief.
Sometimes it also brought a strange loneliness, as if the years she had lived as Tokino Minoru had vanished along with the name.
“Couldn’t you have looked for me?”
“Unfortunately, I did not know your name. The address for the photograph and the sender on every letter both belonged to your father. And every letter was signed only ‘Future Number One.’ It is not as though I had no clues at all, but...”
“But you didn’t look.”
“No.”
Tazuna admitted it.
“I did not want to destroy the Tokino Minoru who still lived inside that boy’s memory. More than that, I was afraid. What if we met again and you were disappointed? What if you learned that the strongest Umamusume in the world could no longer run at full speed? What if you had given up your dream?”
“You didn’t recognize me when I came here as a rookie Trainer?”
“Not at all.”
“There wasn’t even a little resemblance?”
“The you in my memory was a child forever. Besides, you were the one who said you would not tell me your name until you became number one in the world.”
“Don’t make it sound like this is my fault for keeping my promise.”
“About half of it is.”
“And the other half?”
“—My cowardice.”
This time, Tazuna did not hide behind a joke.
“What will you do now?” the Trainer asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Are you going to tell people who you are?”
“No.”
“No one?”
“Not for now.”
Tazuna rested a hand on her hat.
“The Tokino Minoru people would want to see is not the person I am today. I do not want to live in order to become a legend again. Nor do I want to spend the rest of my life being mourned for the way I can no longer run.”
“All right.”
“You will not try to stop me?”
“No. That’s your decision to make.”
He thought for a moment.
“But can I ask you one thing?”
“What is it?”
“Don’t disappear again.”
Tazuna went still.
“You don’t have to be Tokino Minoru. You don’t have to run. You don’t even have to stay the person I admired.”
He looked straight at her.
“Just... as Tazuna Hayakawa, please don’t disappear from my life again.”
The izakaya was full of sound.
Plates touching. A server calling out. Laughter from a distant table. Rain tapping steadily against the window.
Tazuna took one breath, as if listening to all of it and making sure this moment was real.
“...All right.”
Then she answered properly.
“I promise.”
“You didn’t exactly keep the last promise we made.”
“This one, I will.”
“Okay. I’ll trust you.”
“Thank you.”
He looked at the photograph again.
“I still haven’t become number one in the world.”
“You are still saying that?”
“Because it’s true.”
“Then become number one from here.”
“You make it sound so easy.”
“You are going to raise an Umamusume who surpasses me, are you not?”
“How exactly am I supposed to prove someone surpassed a woman who retired decades ago?”
“Ten starts. Ten wins. Seven records. Undefeated two-crown champion.”
An old fire kindled in her eyes.
“I should think the target is quite clear.”
“Still setting the bar insanely high, I see.”
“Who do you think you are talking to?”
She smiled.
“You are Future Number One, are you not?”
He watched her for a long moment.
Then, quietly, he laughed.
“Right. I was.”
“First, Mimosa.”
“I want to help her win.”
“Yes.”
“But I won’t break her just to get a victory.”
“I think that is exactly as it should be.”
“Then maybe I’ll never be the best in the world.”
“Perhaps you are defining ‘the best in the world’ too narrowly.”
“The old you would’ve said whoever wins is number one.”
“The old me was rather young.”
“And now?”
“I still love winning.”
The woman before him lifted a glass of water instead of her plum wine.
“But I have learned that victory can take more than one form.”
He lifted his empty glass.
The two touched with a soft clink.
“Tazuna. Will you come to the track tomorrow morning?”
“Certainly. Would you like me to check Mimosa’s condition?”
“That too.”
“And the other reason?”
“You can still run a little, can’t you?”
Tazuna narrowed her eyes.
“You do not intend to try keeping up with Mimosa, I hope?”
“Not a chance.”
“A wise answer.”
“You really are competitive...”
Outside, the rain was still falling.
The next morning, the Trainer waited for Tazuna at Tracen Academy’s front gate.
True to her word, she appeared in her usual hat and green training clothes.
Mimosa Flight arrived a little later, steps light beneath her.
“Why are you two acting so weirdly formal this early in the morning?”
“We’re not.”
“Are we?” Tazuna said.
“Tazuna, you looking away makes it even more suspicious. And what’s with the outfit? You planning to exercise or something?”
Mimosa looked from one to the other.
Before she could interrogate them any further, she pulled out her phone.
“Whatever. We’re all here, so let’s take a picture.”
“Why all of a sudden?”
“The day-after-my-comeback-race commemorative photo. When I win next time, we can look back and laugh about how I climbed all the way from eleventh.”
The excuse was a little forced, but he did not object.
Tazuna looked up at the front gate for only a second, then gave a small nod.
They asked a passing security guard to take the picture and lined up in front of the gate.
Mimosa Flight in the middle.
Her Trainer on the right.
Tazuna Hayakawa on the left.
“A little closer, please,” the guard said.
The Trainer and Tazuna each stepped half a pace inward at exactly the same time.
They were not nearly as awkward as the two people in the old photograph, though both of them ended up wearing slightly embarrassed smiles.
The shutter clicked.
This time, no one had climbed a fence.
Afterward, they parted ways with Tazuna and headed for the track.
The Trainer stood beside the course and pressed a hand to his head, still feeling some of last night’s alcohol.
He had not slept well either.
In his dreams, past and present had changed places over and over.
Tazuna in her green uniform would begin to run, then somewhere along the way her clothes would become Tokino Minoru’s racing outfit.
His younger self chased after her.
No matter what he did, he could never catch up.
At the end, she would turn around and tell him to come through the front gate.
That was when he woke.
“You look awful.”
Mimosa was stretching nearby, chestnut hair tied back behind her, already changed into training clothes.
“Were you drinking last night?”
“A little.”
“You don’t have the face of someone who drank ‘a little.’”
“Ugh... I repent.”
“If my Trainer is hungover, I’m the one who gets nervous.”
“Sorry...”
He apologized so readily that Mimosa blinked at him, caught off guard. Usually, when alcohol was involved, extracting an apology from him was not nearly this easy.
“Did something happen?”
“Yeah.”
“Can I ask what?”
“Not yet.”
“Huh.”
Mimosa did not push.
She started jogging lightly, testing the condition of her right leg as she moved.
Ordinarily, the day after a comeback race could easily have been a full rest day. At Mimosa’s request, however, they had agreed on a very light session.
Her gait looked normal.
No swelling. No heat.
“Mimosa.”
“Yeah?”
“Were you scared yesterday?”
She stopped.
“Where’d that come from?”
“Did you think you might not be able to run?”
“...No.”
“Did you think your leg might start hurting again?”
“It didn’t hurt.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Mimosa pressed her lips together.
After a while, she looked toward the outside of the course.
“I was scared.”
The words came out small and strained.
“When I got in the gate, I could’ve sworn my right leg hurt. It didn’t. Not really.”
“Yeah.”
“Even after we started running, I kept thinking, What if it breaks again? I knew I had to move up, but it felt like my body kept stopping itself.”
“I see.”
“Pretty pathetic, huh?”
“No.”
“I finished eleventh.”
“A finishing position doesn’t—”
“Don’t tell me it mattered because I tried hard.”
“I won’t.”
He answered immediately.
Mimosa looked at him.
“A loss is a loss. If you’re frustrated, you’re allowed to be frustrated.”
“Yeah.”
“But you don’t have to hide the fact that you were scared.”
“I thought if I told you, you’d stop me from racing again.”
“If your body says you shouldn’t race, I will stop you.”
“See?”
“Being afraid and being unable to run are not the same thing.”
He looked at her right leg.
“The physical part is for me and the doctors to judge. If it’s your heart that’s afraid, then we’ll teach it not to be. Together.”
“Don’t say it like it’s easy.”
“It isn’t. It’ll take time.”
“So when’s my next race?”
“Haven’t decided yet.”
Mimosa’s ears drooped with obvious displeasure.
“Running away?”
“No. I’m just not rushing.”
“But—”
“I want to make you number one in the world.”
Mimosa’s eyes widened.
It had been a long time since he had said words like that aloud.
“Until yesterday, I thought I didn’t have the right to say it.”
“And now you do?”
“I don’t know.”
“What kind of answer is that?”
“I don’t know. But I can still aim for it, can’t I?”
He smiled.
“Though my idea of ‘number one’ might not be the same as yours. So let’s actually talk about it.”
Mimosa was silent.
“Do you resent me for keeping you out of the Derby?”
“A little.”
“Fair.”
“But—”
She touched her right leg.
“If I’d run and broken it, I wouldn’t be standing here now, right?”
“There’s a good chance you wouldn’t.”
“Then I resent you, and I’m grateful to you.”
“Complicated review.”
“That’s how people feel about stuff.”
“You’re an Umamusume.”
“Oh, shut up. You know what I mean.”
Mimosa laughed.
It was different from the smile she had worn after the comeback race.
This one looked a little awkward. A little frustrated.
But it was not forced.
“Trainer. I want to win next time.”
“Yeah.”
“I want to win a G1.”
“Yeah.”
“I want to be number one in the world too.”
“Then let’s do it. Together.”
“You mean it?”
“That’s what I’m your Trainer for.”
“What’s with you all of a sudden? Trying to sound cool?”
Mimosa shrugged.
“Still. I like your face better like that.”
“What kind of face did I have yesterday?”
“Like you were about to run away.”
He smiled ruefully.
She was right.
He had been trying to run.
From the version of himself who had failed to protect Mimosa’s dream.
From the version of himself who had failed to fulfill his promise to Tokino Minoru.
He had been trying to call number one in the world nothing more than a childhood fantasy and leave it behind.
Light, quick footfalls approached from the far side of the track.
Mimosa turned.
“Someone’s running.”
A woman in green training clothes.
She was not wearing her hat. Dark chestnut hair streamed behind her in the morning wind.
Fast.
It was obvious she was nowhere near full speed. Her stride was short, and a faint habit of protecting her right leg remained.
Even so, her center barely moved. Every ounce of force in every step traveled cleanly into the ground.
Mimosa drew in a sharp breath.
“Who is that?”
“Academy staff.”
“No way. Nobody on staff runs like that.”
“Apparently she used to run a little.”
“That is not ‘a little.’”
The woman slowed to a stop in front of them.
“Good morning, Trainer. Mimosa.”
It was the usual voice of Tazuna Hayakawa.
“Morning.”
He answered.
Mimosa was staring.
“Tazuna, you can run like that? Wait—hold on, you’re an Umamusume?”
“I am merely somewhat good at physical activity.”
“Somewhat...?”
“A light session today?”
“Yeah,” the Trainer said. “We talked it over. I’m rebuilding the schedule from scratch.”
“I see.”
“We’re not rushing into the next race.”
“I think that is a good decision.”
Mimosa looked back and forth between them.
“Seriously. You two feel different today.”
“Like I said, you’re imagining it.”
“Liar. Something definitely happened.”
“Adults have complicated lives.”
“That answer makes it even more suspicious. I’m getting the whole story later.”
Tazuna laughed softly.
“Mimosa Flight.”
“Yes?”
“I hear you intend to make this Trainer the greatest in the world.”
“Huh?”
Mimosa whipped around to stare at him.
“You told her?”
“It came up.”
“Wow. So you say that to everyone? I thought it was our secret.”
“I didn’t tell her.”
“Then let us call it an educated guess,” Tazuna said, wearing her usual gentle smile. “I believe the two of you can reach for it.”
“If you say that, Tazuna, I kind of feel like I might pull it off.”
“However.”
Tazuna’s gaze sharpened.
“If you intend to become the best in the world, half-hearted training will not take you there.”
“Bring it on.”
Mimosa lifted her chin.
“I’ll become stronger than anyone.”
“Excellent answer.”
Tazuna looked to the man.
“And you, Trainer. Do not give up halfway.”
“I won’t.”
Then he smiled.
“This time, I came through the front gate.”
Mimosa tilted her head.
“The front gate?”
“Old story.”
“Now I really want to know.”
“Someday.”
Tazuna’s eyes narrowed with quiet nostalgia.
“Then I should return to work.”
“You’re done running already?” Mimosa asked.
“That will be enough for today. The chairwoman’s secretary has many things to do.”
“I want to run with you sometime.”
“With me?”
“Yeah. Whenever you have time.”
Tazuna gave a slightly troubled smile.
“I would not recommend it.”
“Why?”
“I am rather competitive.”
For those few words alone, the old voice returned.
The Trainer nearly laughed.
Mimosa did not notice. If anything, her eyes brightened.
“Same here.”
“Then someday.”
“Promise?”
“Yes. I promise.”
Tazuna put on her hat and walked toward the academy buildings.
The Trainer watched her go.
She would not suddenly disappear again.
He decided to believe that.
“Trainer.”
“Hm?”
“Who is that woman?”
“The best chairwoman’s secretary in the world.”
“That’s it?”
“For now, that’s it.”
Tokino Minoru belonged to legend.
Ten starts. Ten wins. Seven records. Undefeated two-crown champion. The phantom Umamusume who vanished just before she could spread her wings across the world.
But Tazuna Hayakawa was alive in the present.
Supporting someone.
Scolding someone.
Standing beside someone else’s dream and watching over it.
That was enough.
The person he had spent his life trying to catch was never the phantom preserved in a record book.
It was one girl on the other side of a fence, the girl who had made a promise with him long ago.
“Let’s get started, Mimosa.”
“Okay. What’s today’s menu?”
“Easy jog first. Then we check your form.”
“How easy is easy? Ten laps?”
“You raced yesterday. Remember?”
“I know, I know.”
“And if you feel anything strange, tell me.”
“Overprotective much?”
“I know.”
Mimosa laughed and set off down the track.
He followed with his stopwatch.
The sun was beginning to rise.
Raindrops still clung to the grass, catching the light like countless tiny stars.
The road to number one in the world was still long.
Perhaps it had no ending, no matter how far he went.
Even so, he had no intention of stopping anymore.
Through the window, I can see the two of them.
Mimosa is running. Her Trainer is chasing alongside her.
Of course a human cannot hope to match an Umamusume stride for stride.
Even so, he is running as hard as he can.
Just like he did back then.
The boy who climbed a fence, scraped his knee, and came to see me anyway.
That boy truly became a Trainer.
Until last night, I did not know.
No.
Perhaps I simply never allowed myself to notice.
I have seen him countless times since the day he first arrived at Tracen as a rookie.
I saw him studying materials late into the night because he was worried about his trainee’s condition.
I saw him sit in silence beside a girl who had lost a race, knowing that words would not help.
I saw him receive a letter from a retiring trainee, then slip somewhere no one was watching so he could cry.
I knew all of those things.
And still, I could not connect him to that boy.
After all, the boy had stubbornly refused to give me his name until the very end.
In my memory, he remained a child forever.
And perhaps, in my own memory, I remained Tokino Minoru forever too.
When I open the drawer of my desk, there is a small box at the very back.
Inside are an old photograph and a stack of letters.
I look remarkably cocky in the photograph.
The boy beside me is smiling far more innocently than the man does now.
To Future Number One.
The words on the back are in my own handwriting.
Next time, come through the front gate.
Don’t give up until you bring me an Umamusume who can surpass me.
What an irresponsible promise.
I disappeared without waiting for him.
I could not even bring myself to answer the letters he sent me.
Because I was afraid.
Ten starts. Ten wins. Seven records.
An undefeated Satsuki Sho.
An undefeated Japanese Derby.
The person people loved was the perfect Tokino Minoru.
Not the girl who could not walk and cried every time she saw herself in a mirror.
At least, that is what I believed then.
Tazuna Hayakawa was once a name for hiding.
A way to run from the legend.
To run from expectation.
To protect the weak version of myself.
But that is no longer true.
There are people I met under this name.
Umamusume I supported under this name.
People who call this name and smile at me.
Tazuna Hayakawa is not a mask anymore.
She is me.
I have no intention of becoming Tokino Minoru again.
For now, I have no intention of revealing the truth to the world either.
I do not want to be placed on a pedestal as a legend again.
I do not want a life spent being mourned for the way I can no longer run.
But perhaps it is all right for one person to know.
To know that Tokino Minoru did not disappear.
That she is still alive, as Tazuna Hayakawa.
There is another photograph in the drawer now.
A new one, taken this morning because Mimosa asked for it.
In front of the main gate.
Mimosa in the center.
Her Trainer on the right.
Me on the left.
All three of us are smiling.
He does not climb fences anymore.
He walked through the front gate on his own feet and came all the way here.
I place the old photograph beside the new one.
A boy and a girl.
A Trainer and the chairwoman’s secretary.
They are the same two people.
They look completely different.
A long time has passed since then.
There are many things I lost.
The Triple Crown.
Racing overseas.
The future in which I might have kept running.
Time that will never return.
But there were things I did not lose.
Someone remembered the words from that day.
Someone kept chasing his dream after I disappeared.
Someone saw me after I could no longer run the way I once had—and did not look disappointed.
Through the window I opened for fresh air, I hear Mimosa’s voice.
“Trainer, you’re slow!”
“Stop asking the impossible from a human!”
“Aren’t you gonna be number one in the world?!”
“That has nothing to do with this!”
I cannot help laughing.
The old me would probably have said exactly what Mimosa did.
If you cannot catch up, run until you can.
If you cannot win, keep trying until you do.
A wonderfully simple, arrogant way of thinking.
I do not dislike it.
I pick up my hat and leave the room.
I have a meeting with the chairwoman next.
Documents to check.
A meeting to prepare.
And this afternoon, a rookie Trainer is coming to me for advice.
Another busy day for Tazuna Hayakawa, secretary to the chairwoman of Tracen Academy.
Once I am in the hallway, I glance out the window one last time.
He is still chasing Mimosa.
She is far ahead.
He has not stopped.
Future Number One.
Back then, I thought it was nothing more than a child’s boast.
Even now, I do not know whether he will truly become number one in the world.
Whether he will win a G1.
Whether he will raise an Umamusume who surpasses my records.
No one can know those things.
But to the Umamusume whose lives he has touched, I suspect he is already an irreplaceable Trainer.
Until the day he can finally admit that to himself...
This time, I will be the one who stands beside him and watches.
Not as Tokino Minoru.
As Tazuna Hayakawa.
I will not disappear again.
I promised him that much.
And when it comes to keeping promises—this time, I have no intention of losing to anyone.