I dream a very long dream.
When did it start? I couldn’t remember.
Was it when I was preparing for the Central Trainer exam?
Was it when I saw the Tracen recruitment notice and started getting ready?
Or was it after that, or before it?
Those dreams were so vivid that they were almost disruptive to daily life.
So vivid I could have written them down in a diary on the spot. Training menus, things that happened with my assigned Uma Musume, the sight of the Winning Live, and more.
In those dreams, where my assigned trainee changed every time, I spent three years.
Without any warning, whenever I almost forgot, that distant dream would come back, and its contents were always the same.
Fighting, crying, misunderstanding, forgiving, being forgiven—a story of a clumsy rookie Trainer and an Uma Musume.
The only thing that changed was which Uma Musume was assigned to me.
As the number of dreams with that specific three-year span increased, I became better and better at tailoring the training for my assigned girl—more carefully, more perfectly.
And the Uma Musume who grew under that training would always lift a trophy, just like always, and come running to hug me.
It was no different from a delusion.
Every time, I took on an Uma Musume, put her through different training, and we both gave it our all...
And then, later, the story would twist into something like lovers licking each other’s wounds and efforts, over and over again.
Only the Uma Musume I was responsible for changed each time, and our dream—no, my dream—kept carrying that miserable story forward in different situations and different forms.
Who the other person was, what they looked like, what we talked about. Once I woke up, everything blurred.
I won a G1, but I couldn’t remember which race it was. We went on a date because it was supposed to be a great restaurant, but I couldn’t remember where it was. I couldn’t even remember the menu.
That was how it repeated, and the only thing I could tell inside the dream was, “Oh, this one’s different from the girl I handled last time.”
Maybe the fact that three years were compressed into a single night—so short and yet so long—was what confused me.
Or maybe I had just dismissed it as a dream and deliberately erased it. An absurd dream. That was all I had pushed to the far side of oblivion.
There was a girl who won G1—more than once, in fact.
There was a girl who recovered from injury like a miracle and wrote her own myth.
There was a girl who defeated an absurd number of rivals and proudly became a legend.
It was a very interesting dream.
Even in Central alone, there were countless Uma Musume and countless Trainers.
And among them, I kept dreaming of lifting the trophy for the graded-race league, something you could only describe as being chosen.
It was the goal every Trainer desperately wanted, and I kept dreaming it over and over again—as if I had been promised three years to make it happen.
Was I trying to succeed as a Trainer?
As a rookie Trainer who had just finished OJT, it was fine to have ambition, but the contents of the dream were so ridiculous I couldn’t even laugh.
Because I had done well in the dream, I felt confident I could keep doing well from here on out.
I might not be able to create a G1-winning Uma Musume with my own hands, but I believed that if I did my best, I’d at least be able to smile.
The weather was clear, and the breeze was fresh. It was the best day. Maybe even a perfect day.
“Trainer... I finally found you.”
That was, until an Uma Musume I had never seen before said that to me.
“Trainer, there you are.”
That was, until an Uma Musume I had never met grabbed my sleeve and pulled me along.
“Trainer, I’ve been waiting for you.”
That was, until I met an Uma Musume who hugged me from behind even though we were meeting for the first time.
“Trainer, so it really is you... Let’s start with a handshake.”
That was, until I met an Uma Musume who held out her hand as if she were greeting an old friend.
“Trainer.”
And until I met an Uma Musume who gave me an incredibly dazzling smile.
“Um, excuse me, but do you maybe know me? Today, a bunch of girls I’ve never seen before keep coming up to greet me. Is my face really that common...?”
That was, until everyone looked at me with wounded expressions.
Maybe everything had been perfect.
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