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By most standards, it was a miserable afternoon. Armies of raindrops beat down upon Tracen, their charges plinking to a stop against the academy's windows before slowly regrouping on the cold ground. The dimmed light of the classroom—if it could still be called that—which Manhattan Cafe was presently sitting in was accentuated by the endless blanket of grey plumes that we call clouds. Cafe thought of it as a brilliant sight, the fog of war brought by the rain only emphasizing the comfort she felt in her neatly brought-together legs, her eyes that had finally gotten to rest after writhing and aching all day, and in the warm solitude she felt. Even more importantly, she could see her friend better when the sun wasn't beating down on her as the rain did on the windowsill. She could say hello to the endless, aromatic void that filled her coffee mug, and to-
"Oh hello, Cafe!"
The door burst open, bringing with it the displeasure of being interrupted at such a peaceful moment by the swash of noise and warm light of the hallway. And, of course, the other Umamusume who frequented the room, carrying a plain white mug with her.
"Why... are you here?"
Something about that tone, or the way it looked like Tachyon had interrupted an intimate moment with an invisible someone, caught her offguard. Regardless, her own emotions weren't what mattered here.
"You like decaf, don't you, guinea pig?"
"Yes... though I'm not craving some right now."
"I could deduce that. Tell me, however, why keep yourself awake so much? Your performance in training has been slipping lately."
"I can't miss any opportunities to even be able to grasp at her. And my friend, she's a bit of a night owl... we can bond in that way."
Tachyon simply closed the door behind her, pushing it back with the bottom of her foot, before slowly pacing over to the desk Cafe was sitting at with that sharp, dangerous look in her eyes. She set the coffee mug down, leaving a small gap between her decaf and the half-empty espresso already on the desk. Something about the way she placed it atop the wooden desk, almost curtsying before retracting her fingers and curling them in a decorated gesture, gave off the impression that this was an experiment Tachyon was more... involved in. One she cared for. Even the tiny gap felt like a considerate gesture; respecting Cafe's own beverage while gracefully offering her own. Either that, or the black-haired Uma was making all of this up through the haze of sleep deprivation.
Yellow eyes slowly drifted up to pierce Tachyon's, almost shining into them like lightbulbs.
"What's the experiment this time?"
The mad scientist let out an almost dramatic, mellow sigh, once again uncharacteristic of her.
"Well, I suppose science still requires fully informed consent... This here is spiked with xylazine. It'll put you right to sleep."
Cafe's ears and eyes both shot up. She recognized the name xylazine: it was horse tranquilizer.
"You're tranquilizing me... how much is there?"
Tachyon smiled widely in what appeared to be some weird form of pride that she herself didn't understand, her expression slightly unhinged.
"Oh, a mere two-hundred milligrams. Nothing my guinea pig shouldn't be able to handle, right? Either way, it's not even the focal point of the experiment. Hardly! What I really seek to observe..."
The impassioned scientist crossed her fully sleeved arms and went on rambling to herself for another thirty seconds or so, though the general gist—from what Cafe could infer—was that she wanted to deal more with emotion in some way.
"Now, it's imperative you drink it up. Come on, Cafe~."
Those yellow lightbulb eyes met her gaze again, blankly staring at nothing in particular. The scientist could feel a mild tinge of offense, disgust even, in her chest, yet her face felt so... warm. The particular emptiness that accentuated the little bags below Cafe's eyes in that moment made her feel almost vulnerable, exposed, as if a failed experiment was glaring back at her, disappointed at the audacity to give her two-hundred milligrams of tranq. That experiment then took a long sip of her espresso, setting it back down. The gap between the two mugs was slightly widened.
"...Cafe, it's detrimental to your health to deprive yourself of sleep like this. But if you insist, it may just be beneficial, in fact."
"I've told you, that's the point... She's so close."
Tachyon practically slithered over to Cafe's side of the desk, standing above her with a condescending look in her eyes. The pair almost looked like two shadows cast atop the same wall, the sky outside only dimming further and further into that foggy, blue-ish-gray. The rain only seemed to intensify, plunging itself at the glass in hopes it could burst into the room and see what the two shadows were up to.
"If you're so insistant on keeping awake... I suppose that lines up with what I was here for. Try to retain consciousness for as long as possible through this little experiment, and we'll see how it correlates to your recent drowsiness in your running."
Suddenly and without asking, the standing shadow dropped her weight onto the other's lap, sitting sideways. She bowed her head toward Cafe and wrapped an arm around the back of her neck. Two black ears instinctively perked up, sprouting from the soft black hair they sat atop.
"What are you-"
"This isn't so bad, is it? Or is there a different position you prefer?"
Cafe wanted to argue back, yet outside of the forcefulness, Tachyon's presence was undeniably... nice, in a way. Even if it poured down with such force. Even if it was all for some experiment she only half-understood.
"This room has a sofa."
"Of course, guinea pig, I was well aware. Yet I hypothesized I wouldn't be able to simply move you by asking politely, could I?"
Without another word, Cafe slowly tries to shift the weight off of her lap, before it moves itself. She takes her now quarter-full mug of espresso and sets it on a side table, sitting expectantly on one end of the old yellow couch... only for said mug to be pushed to the side, the same way a parent would move candy away from a child, before setting down a healthier alternative. The alternative that just so happened to contain two-hundred milligrams of xylazine.
Seeing no other way out, and honestly needing the rest, Cafe took a small sip from it. It tasted and felt like fairly standard coffee, only instead of a warm flavour slowly permeating through her body and refreshing her, it instead made her feel... not lighter, but more weightless. Before she knew it, she was slumping back, her eyes not bothering to focus on anything in particular.
"I'm only... doing this... for my own sake."
Cafe could feel weight on her body again, though not weight of her own. Tachyon simply started ruffling her hair with one hand while both of their bodies met at the sides, yet Cafe could already feel the onset of that haze that comes when trying to keep yourself awake just for the sake of it. The soft lulls of the rain from one side of the room mixed with the soft humming and shuffling of outside movement, which was settling down now as it became later in the afternoon.
"Are you still conscious, Cafe~? I wouldn't want to end this without gathering more valuable data... it'd be a waste of my sedative, after all."
"Yeah..."
Her anesthesized murmur was just as soft as the noise in the room and the hand in her hair. One ear found itself between a pair of fingers, as Tachyon seemed to be gathering data about the texture of the jet black hair of the Uma across from her. Said Uma hadn't even noticed that Tachyon had a stopwatch in her other hand, which was now set aside on a couch cushion as she rotated to caress her slim stomach with her newly freed set of fingers.
"Now, for... what I've truly been meaning to test. Your capacity to stay awake based on your mental state and external stimuli, of course."
Tachyon herself knew that was a mere excuse, and so would Cafe if she was even slightly more conscious.
"Picture something for me. You are now in your long-awaited Arima Kinen. You've just rounded the final corner and are still in eighth towards the final spurt. Exciting, isn't it, Cafe?"
"Ahhhh...."
Manhattan Cafe's head yawed slightly to her left, where Tachyon had been sat. Her eyes opened up slightly more, trying to physically see the imagined race.
"You're so close to reaching that friend of yours- if only you could make one final breakthrough now..."
Once again, it seemed to perk her up just a tiny bit, little raindrops of wakefulness slipping through Tachyon's splayed fingers.
"And in a flash, it's all over again. By all accounts you may have done great, first place even, yet you're still yet to reach her."
She murmured incomprehensibly in response, her facial expression mellowing again. Tachyon readjusted the way she was sitting once again, her legs crossing over Cafe's thighs as one hand slowly moved back and forth along her waist and the other remained playing with a few strands of hair. The scientist had almost completely forgotten what she was here to record (or, atleast, what her excuse was meant to be). She'd been taking in the silkiness of Cafe's hair or the way her abdomen was shaped, not paying much conscious attention to her guinea pig's response. Though she still did; perhaps as a subconscious way of reducing "two sleepy Umas snuggling on the couch while listening to the soft rain" to just another experiment in her mind.
"Now, Cafe~. You're enjoying a nice, aromatic latte, home-brewed with the finest of beans, all grown by your own plants."
She finally realizes after finishing the sentence that her "experiment" had gone a bit off the rails. This... was merely supposed to be so Manhattan Cafe could be in the right shape to be a worthy rival, after all... To see if she'd be able to keep alert based on what she was thinking about most, despite her recent sleep deprivation. That's all this experiment was meant to be.
...
Tachyon gazed across at the window, and the now empty desk next to it.
"You're sitting by the window, listening to the great deluge of November rain. Your adrenal glands produce cortisol at a steadily lowered rate, your heartbeat stills."
"You decide it would be most optimal for the last month of your training before the Grand Prix to let the feeling wash your body away, falling into the recesses of REM sleep."
Tachyon moves her hands to grasp Cafe's fingertips gently.
"And in a dream, you can finally feel your friend. Your fingers brush against her at last."
...
Cafe doesn't respond, not with the slightest movement or noise.
One of Tachyon's arms stretches back over to the stopwatch.
Seven minutes, fourteen seconds.