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“She’s gone now, Tachyon. Poor thing, she ran off before I could say anything,” the trainer frowns, carefully stepping into the room and sliding the door shut behind them. They glance over at the desk in the corner of the room and let out a faint sigh at the sight.
Wound up in the desk chair like a ball, incessantly drumming her fingers against the table… It would be safe to say that Agnes Tachyon looked just a little bit frazzled. An assortment of papers for a report she was working on lay scattered on her desk, completely forgotten.
“She may have left now, but Pokke-kun is the sort to do whatever she pleases— Actually, based on previous observation, there’s a chance she hasn’t left at all,” Tachyon rambles under her breath. Her teeth grind against her fingernails before she suddenly rolls her desk chair back to lock the classroom’s window and shuts its curtains with a concerning amount of force.
“Hey, hurry up and close the other window, guinea pig! If we don’t hurry, there’s a chance she’ll see me from outside!” the girl demands and starts snapping her finger impatiently. Instead of responding though, the trainer ignores her in favour of letting out a dejected sigh.
“Honestly, I should have realized something was wrong when you requested that training camp out of the blue. Avoiding your friends isn’t very nice, Tachyon,” they chide while slowly approaching the messy desk. In the corner of their eye, they can swear they can see a small pout forming on the young woman’s lips. To her peers Agnes Tachyon may seem like an unreachable, unstoppable force haunting the racetrack but to someone as old and close to her as the trainer, she really was no different from a spoiled child.
Tachyon swats them away. “You’re awfully comfortable meddling with my personal life. Might I remind you that you’re the guinea pig in this relationship?”
Completely unaffected, the trainer chuckles softly. “Yes, yes… I’m aware that yo— Oh?”
Now that they’re up close… The trainer’s eyes narrow in on the lab coat Tachyon is currently wearing. The sleeves are much shorter, indicating it’s her spare, and on the collar…
“Tachyon, is that soot?”
The researcher’s eyes widen for a moment, though she quickly regains her composure. “Merely the products of a previous experiment’s failure. I told you about the accident with Pokke-kun the other day, didn’t I?”
“You did, but that was also a good while ago, Tachyon,” they frown. “Give it here and I’ll wash it. It’s not good for you to be wearing something so dirty, especially because of your allergies.”
They reach their hand out only for Tachyon to quickly lean away like a discontent cat. Again and she rolls her chair out of reach. Again and she somehow manages to recline the chair just on time to perfectly dodge the trainer’s grasp. A long sigh falls out of their lips— here they go again.
“Tachyon,” they call. The girl wordlessly turns her chair around so they’re stuck staring at a blank backboard. Yes, a ‘poor mood’ indeed.
The trainer makes a sad expression, silently saying goodbye to any free time they so foolishly assumed they still had. Whenever Tachyon got like this (read: whenever she threw another one of her temper tantrums), it usually meant that they’d be stuck participating in experiment after experiment just to placate her.
But considering it’s been days… The trainer frowns. It was always important to them to put their trainee’s feelings above all, but they also know from experience just how dangerous Tachyon’s stubbornness could be to herself in the long run. They silently groan to themself. Being an adult really sucked sometimes.
One last time, the trainer puts their foot down and holds the backboard in place where it can’t move anymore.
“Tachyon.” Their tone turns strict and there’s a stern look on their face, but Tachyon still won’t budge. A beat.
They sigh. “As your trainer, you know I have to intervene in times like this, Tachyon. Wearing that for any longer is a severe health risk, why are you still—“
Oh.
The trainer carefully peeks around the back of Tachyon’s chair and their face falls at the sight. Tachyon was curled up in a ball, her reddened face hidden behind her knees and her ears flat against her head like she was trying to make herself as small as possible. Her arms crossed over each other and held the sleeves of the dirty coat close in a death grip so tight her fists shook. It was a pitiable sight, really.
“…Your job as my assistant is to aid in my research, not to coddle me,” Tachyon snaps with the strength of a baby kitten missing its prescribed dentures. Even still, the trainer knows better than to chase her down like that and quietly backs off. Slowly stepping away, they turn their focus to the rest of the room. The feeling of not being watched anymore makes Tachyon’s ears start to relax, just a little.
“You’ve been sleeping in here too, right?” They ask gently to try to change the topic, though they don’t wait for a response. Over the years Tachyon has been under their care, the trainer has learned that the girl tends to avoid the dormitory whenever she deems leaving the lab as ‘inconvenient’.
“You and Cafe get a lot of mileage out of this couch. It’s certainly been a good investment,” they smile to themself and make themself busy by walking across the room to start folding Tachyon’s blanket, fluffing up the couch pillows and packing away some mugs Cafe left out to dry into their proper cupboards.
Tachyon idly watches her trainer work from the corner of her eye. Chores. Given her upbringing, the ambient sounds of mindless chatter and the cluttering of dishware was completely foreign to her, yet for some reason she still found it soothing. Slowly but surely her breaths start to even out and her raw fingers let go of most of their tension in favour of laying flat on her knees.
Whatever it is her trainer seeks to gain from their doting and strangely parental behaviour, she’s never been able to understand and perhaps never will. It bothers her.
“You know, Tachyon,” the trainer suddenly stops their ramble about recent debut races when a sentimental smile spreads across their face. “Jungle Pocket seems like a nice girl.”
“And what about Pokke?” Tachyon snips, but the trainer only meets her with a chuckle.
“Actually, I had a chance to meet with Nabe-san recently,” they say as they start pouring a cup of black tea. Only halfway to make room for the sugar, of course. “He’s been working as a trainer for far longer than I have. It took a while to find the time to speak one-on-one, but I had a lot to learn from him. Really, I’d say the trouble was worth building that new connection in the end,” they say with a delighted hum before turning to Tachyon directly.
“You know, Jungle Pocket isn’t too bad herself. A background in freestyling, a steady win streak right after her debut, and now she’s both a Derby and Japan Cup Uma Musume.”
“Can you get to the point?”
“What I’m saying is you have a lot you can gain from Jungle Pocket as well,” they say pointedly, “In my opinion, she’s the most promising and willing subject you’ve had since that other sweet underclassman of yours.”
“…It’s not like you to skirt around the things you really want, especially when it comes to your research.” The trainer adds. Tachyon crosses her arms with a short, petulant huff.
“Your persuasion skills are a mess. I hope you’ll make good on your promise to donate your brain to science postmortem.” she jabs, though it lacks any real sting.
“Y-Yes, yes…” the trainer awkwardly chuckles, choosing to completely gloss over the fact that they’ve literally never said that. Tachyon seems to be in a decent mood again though, so perhaps they’ll let it slide for now.
The quiet room slowly fills with the sound of metal against porcelain as the trainer tries stirring Tachyon’s sugary tea monstrosity without spilling it. Though they can’t see her face, Tachyon’s ears noticeably perk up after the first clink. The girl lets out a wistful sigh as her eyes slowly gravitate to the suncatcher hanging from the window. When the trainer spares a glance up as well, they have to stop in awe at the sight.
Hanging from the windowsill under the afternoon sun, the suncatcher shines and reflects the light in the form of small, bright cuts of rainbow patterns stretching across the walls and floor. Despite the curtains being shut and the lights being turned off, it makes use of the bits of light that still managed to bleed through and illuminates the entire room. It’s a strikingly familiar sight.
“The Japan Cup…” both of them say at nearly the same time. The trainer leans against a cabinet and idly watches the patterns scattered across the room with a smile. Tachyon squints and quickly shrinks away before it blinds her.
How long has it been since she started feeling this way? That is, if it can even be called a feeling.
It’s a well-established belief that all Uma Musume are born to run. What it is each girl runs for, however, is generally considered something that she would decide for herself later in life. Once that goal is achieved, veteran runners often describe it as seeing a special ‘glow’ along the horizon as one crosses the finish line.
Tachyon once believed she had already lost her chance at seeing her special ‘glow,’ the light that could reveal potential even beyond that figurative horizon, but that all changed after the Japan Cup. The sight of Pokke dashing past her that day blew her eyes wide open to an even greater source of potential— trying again.
Watching Pokke made her see a lot of things differently. Watching Pokke run, watching her tense up trying not to disturb the birds resting between her ears, watching her get fired up over sweets and street rumours about tough racers… Watching her get scared and suffer under the weight of feeling like nothing but still choosing to run anyway.
Objectively speaking, there are plenty of Uma Musume both in the present and throughout history who have had the same ambition and struggled just like she has if not more, but none of them have interested Tachyon quite as much as Jungle Pocket.
Before she knew it, she was sacrificing time for gathering wider data samples just to linger around and observe Pokke for a little longer. Whenever she peeks over Shakur's shoulder to ‘borrow’ some of her data, her eyes tend to linger on Pokke’s stats for so long she forgets to memorize everyone else’s before Shakur catches her and kicks her out. When she overhears her dear Daiwa Scarlet huffing and puffing to herself over the girl she wants to beat no matter what, her thoughts aren’t immediately about research. Instead, they’re about understanding what she means.
It makes her stomach twist so much she wants to hurl.
Even though she’s been passively aware of these small cognitive changes that have been happening in her since the Japan Cup, the accident in the lab was the first time she’s been confronted by how much she’s actually changed.
Every time Pokke comes to the abandoned classroom during her lunch with Dantsu, Tachyon always notes a sense of ease and sudden excitement wash over her— a perfectly normal response considering all the observations she’s been doing since childhood on the effects of companionship— but that’s not the strange part. When the hour ends and Pokke is about to leave, lecturing her on how she should care more about class… she almost wants to go with her.
Cafe and Dantsu have already left, Pokke leaning against the door for one last jab before turning around… Oh, Tachyon can never stop herself from staring at her back longingly until it fully disappears. As she leaves, Tachyon’s heart flutters in the tune of her laugh just wondering what would happen if she stopped and looked back.
And when the door inevitably shuts behind her, she wants to claw her heart out because she can’t imagine why it keeps hurting when nothing is wrong. She can’t focus on research at all— she doesn’t want to focus on research which means her strange, developing interactions with Pokke are a problem now.
It’s precisely because Pokke is such a problem that she’s avoiding her now. Pokke makes her so, so happy. So much so that she wouldn’t mind just observing her forever. The thought alone terrifies her more than anything.
Tachyon buries her head in her knees, close to the lapels of her tattered spare coat, and takes one deep breath. When she exhales, she finds herself feeling more hollow than ever before.
It doesn’t smell like anything anymore.
Seriously… “What was I expecting?” she mutters under her breath, but she’s cut off by the sound of a cup being placed next to her. Tachyon quickly swipes up the cup of tea her trainer prepared for her, but holds off on taking her first sip. She glances to the side. Her trainer is absently scribbling in a notebook, but they don’t actually seem that busy, so…
Tachyon anxiously chews the inside of her cheek. She must be nervous, yet another unexpected reaction, but if she’s already regressed this far, she may as well bite the bullet.
“Guinea pi— Trainer,” Tachyon calls, sounding uncharacteristically uncertain. This catches the trainer’s attention immediately and they quickly turn around in attention. A beat. There it is again, that strange tightness in her chest.
“What does it mean to miss someone?”
The trainer blinks back slowly.
“…Huh?”
Tachyon frowns, immediately getting impatient. “Oh, you know. I’m aware that by definition it’s the act of feeling sadness or longing at the absence of another, but I was asking you.”
The trainer’s face falls into a wobbly frown. “Okay, sorry…” they sulk before perking up again. “I guess it’s… when you want to see someone but can’t? Though what brought this on? Is this for your research, or is it about…”
Tachyon’s ears pin to her head. “…A personal study,” she says, much quieter than usual. “Lately I’ve noticed that I’ve been experiencing some troublesome physical symptoms that I believe to be somatic— and what’s worse, they only seem to occur at the thought of Pokke-kun.”
O-Oh?
That makes the trainer give pause. An amused chuckle tries making its way up their throat and it takes all of their power to keep it down. “Uh… What kind of physical symptoms?”
“Common fever symptoms like a heightened body temperature even when I’m not sick as well as becoming more restless and finding it more difficult to concentrate,” Tachyon explains with a puzzled look on her face. “There’s more to it, but I find the latter particularly bothersome to the point of wanting to develop a solution for it right now.”
The trainer quickly stuffs their mouth into their fist so they don’t laugh and embarrass her. She knows what she sounds like, right? They know full well that Tachyon has a lot of trouble discerning her emotions, but they’re not sure if they can really spell this one out for her this time. A small snort finally escapes the trainer’s mouth and they probably deserve the glare Tachyon sends their way after that.
“Hey, I’m being serious here, guinea pig,” Tachyon snips before sinking deeper into her chair with an annoyed huff. “I honestly can’t understand it at all. Nearly all of my inefficiency as of late can be attributed to how little I can focus because of her— how much my mind keeps trailing back to her, how much I keep thinking about wanting to see her…” she blurts out with a bit of distress. “But I also can’t stand the thought of seeing her at all. It’s almost like it scares me because—“
Tachyon lets out one more mortified sound before burying her head back in her knees and crunching herself down into an even tighter ball-like position. She hates this, she hates not having control over her emotions at all. Before she knows it, a warm hand takes its place petting between her ears.
“…You know I hate having my ears touched.” Her voice comes out weakly. The trainer silently moves their hand away, just far enough for it to only hover above her head. Without another word between them, Tachyon gracelessly slumps over against their side completely, still in her little ball position just under her trainer’s arm. And if a small sob happened to escape her lips as it happened, neither of them choose to acknowledge it.
“There, there…” the trainer quietly soothes while rubbing small circles on the small girl’s back. They can’t see her reaction, having decided to just look straight up so as to not make her any more uncomfortable than she already is, but the way Tachyon seems to melt closer tells them it’s appreciated.
“Falling in love… is truly a terrible experience,” Tachyon curses under her breath, her voice cracking like glass. “I can’t even fathom why people like Digital-kun can fawn over it so happily when all it seems to do is get in the way.” The trainer listens quietly before letting out a hum.
“I wouldn’t say that,” they disagree in a gentle voice. “Love doesn’t have to be scary with the right person so long as you let yourself feel it. Pokke is a nice girl,” they reiterate and Tachyon hates the fact that she knows they’re right.
From all her time observing Pokke, she’d have to be an idiot to not know that. Instead of immediately shoving them down like she always has, Tachyon tries sitting with her feelings about Pokke for a moment— for experimental purposes, of course. She thinks about how bright she is, how kind she is to all her female fans who swoon after her as well as how interesting she is when she runs. So much so that sometimes she regrets passing her too early in a race. Tachyon feels like she could watch her and observe her little quirks forever and still feel satisfied, inefficiency be damned.
The day she watched the Japan Cup was the day the old Agnes Tachyon died, she thinks. That day she swore off Plan B and ran with all her heart, all because of what she saw in Pokke that day. She started leaving her lab more often to eat with her friends and collecting data in partner runs rather than just observing behind a screen from the stands.
Come to think of it, she had enjoyed herself through all of that, hadn’t she? In the moment, not hidden behind walls of sugar cubes and silver screens. Tachyon had now found herself wanting to be with someone rather than just watching. Maybe she wasn’t as twisted as she thought she was. Maybe, just maybe it would be alright if she let herself try to have a bit of ‘fun’ as Cafe tried to put it during their summer training camp all that time ago. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to accept the sting of inefficiency every now and then if it meant seeing that interesting girl grinning at her every time she looked away from the screen.
Before she’d realized it, the refracted light from the suncatcher had finally moved away from hitting her eyes and settled into a more pleasant position on her feet. Now that she can see the fragments better, it looks a little pretty.
Tachyon lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding and her tense posture slowly relaxes. She’s alright, she thinks. Change can be a good thing, she knows that because she showed her. Now back in reality, Tachyon quickly becomes aware of the arm still resting on her back. Her eye twitches.
Like a discontent cat, Tachyon immediately sits back up and rolls her chair as far out of the trainer’s reach as she can. They let her go and put their hands up in lighthearted surrender. Tachyon stiffly coughs into her sleeve.
“Feeling better?” the trainer chuckles. Tachyon just shoots them a look from the corner of her eye. Right back into tantrum mode… typical Tachyon. They laugh to themself, but they really are relieved to see the girl with her usual glow back.
“I was merely having a bit of trouble working around a minor setback in my research, that’s all,” Tachyon says pointedly in an attempt to deflect. She quickly rearranges the abandoned reports on her desk and flips open her laptop.
“Moving on, I have some important progress to make now so hurry up and prepare another cup of tea, this one’s already gone co—“
BANG!
The calm mood in the room instantly shatters when the two are interrupted by a pair of footsteps violently sprinting past the abandoned classroom followed by a string of colourful curses coming from an oh so familiar voice. The trainer hears a small squeak peek out from behind them as well, but they’re too busy squinting trying to read the classroom’s clock. If their memory serves right, the lunch period for students had just ended and it was time for afternoon classes to resume.
They cover their mouth with a hand and giggle to themselves. It would seem that a certain student by the name of Jungle Pocket had lost track of time on her lunch break and was going to be late.
“Come to think of it, you were supposed to be writing a test today, no?” the trainer stares in the direction they heard Pokke disappear to a little pitifully before turning back around. “I guess it doesn’t matter if you attend or not since you already did it, but—“
Ah.
When the trainer turns around, they find Tachyon curled up in her original position and clinging to the end of their shirt like she was trying to hide behind them. Tachyon stares at the door red-faced like she’s in a trance while fidgeting with the ends of her hair. She looked completely flustered as if just hearing Pokke’s voice alone was enough to make her nervous. Baby steps, baby steps. At least she was being more honest with herself.
The trainer smiles sheepishly and gently pats her on the back. It seems like they’d have to start coaching her through more than just running.