We entered the old school building diligently, without exchanging much of anything. Fine Motion, trotting along behind us, looked extremely pleased. I could hear her humming softly under her breath, and I could feel her gaze sweeping over us from behind.
“Trainer, is something wrong?”
When I turned around, Fine Motion was smiling as she said that. After repeating that a few times, I finally managed to bring up what I’d wanted to say.
“This might sound strange, but you can speak casually. I’ll try to do the same.”
“Hehe... that’s so like a Trainer. All right, I’ll speak casually.”
Fine Motion covered her mouth with her fist and laughed. For some reason, it felt like she was genuinely happy. Third floor of the old school building, far left, was it?
“Come to think of it, isn’t this the building Tachyon uses~?”
“You know about Tachyon?”
“Hmm~ who knows?”
She didn’t seem like she’d answer easily. I didn’t bother replying to the kind of conversation that would only circle around in place. I opened the classroom door at the end of the hallway.
“Huh...?”
No one was there. Dust-covered desks and chairs had been left abandoned inside.
At that moment, Tachyon’s words came back to me.
“Up the stairs and to the left, remember. You won’t be able to tell the difference, so you’ll probably end up making a full loop to get here!”
Fine Motion poked her head into the empty classroom and looked around.
“Yes, Tachyon is supposed to be here?”
“Looks like we came to the wrong place. It must be the other side.”
“Pfft... you still can’t tell left from right.”
Before I knew it, I carefully peeled off the tail that had been softly wrapping around my thigh and led the way.
“How dare you~ Ignoring the princess’s words~ And your ears are turning red, so you must be embarrassed~!”
Was she always this playful? Fine Motion kept chattering nonstop, teasing me all the while, and I quickened my pace even more.
“You’re really a child, getting sulky over something like this.”
When a younger girl was teasing me like this, how was I supposed to react? Getting angry felt strange, and telling her to stop teasing me felt strange too. Maybe it was because I didn’t dislike the way Fine Motion suddenly closed the distance between us.
After enduring Fine Motion’s relentless harassment, we reached the end of the hallway. I knocked on the door.
“Come in! Mortarion! It’s open!”
Tachyon’s voice came from beyond the door. When I opened it and stepped inside, a pleasant Earl Grey fragrance immediately filled the room.
“Did you finish your talk with Oguri Cap...?”
Tachyon had been hurrying over in a brisk walk, but when she glanced behind me, she stopped in her tracks. Then she let out a small laugh, as if she’d found something terribly amusing.
“Even now, are you still negative about my proposal, Oguri Cap?”
Tachyon turned around. Where she was looking, Oguri Cap was hugging a glass jar tightly to her chest, her suit puffed up like a hamster’s. The yellowish lump and dark brown residue left at the bottom made it easy to guess it had been pudding.
“....My mind has not changed.”
Apparently she had swallowed down an amount that looked difficult even to swallow at all, because Oguri answered after returning to her usual slim form, unchanged from before.
“Hmm~ Then I suppose I’ll have to make a counteroffer to Fine Motion-kun.”
“Tachyon. Should I say it’s been a while?”
Tachyon burst out laughing softly.
“A while? That greeting isn’t accurate. This is our first time meeting, after all. Just like Oguri Cap-kun over there.”
“Hmm~ I don’t quite understand, but I think I’m starting to get the picture.”
“I’m very glad I don’t need to repeat the explanation I gave Oguri-kun!”
Tachyon walked toward the table, carelessly turning her back as if telling us to follow. Fine Motion, as if this had all been arranged in advance, followed Tachyon, and after closing the door I trailed after Fine Motion.
Tachyon sat in the chair opposite Oguri, and Fine Motion stopped to glare at Tachyon.
“Sit down, Fine-kun. Why such a sour face? Smooth out that expression.”
“That’s not funny.”
Fine Motion let out a short sigh and sat down beside Tachyon. Tachyon, looking delighted for some reason, let out a series of snickers. I naturally sat beside Oguri. Oguri, eyes wide, looked at me. Before I knew it, her tail had wrapped around my ankle.
Fine Motion was like that, and Oguri too—when they wrapped their tails around their bodies like that, it probably meant they liked me. But I had no idea why they felt that way about me.
“There’s coffee and black tea, but unfortunately Cafe-kun didn’t visit today, so the only things I can offer are tea and pudding... or rather, there isn’t any.”
Looking at the glass jars stacked beside Oguri, Tachyon let out a small sigh. Oguri asked her if there wasn’t any more, but instead of answering, Tachyon stared at her with frightening eyes.
“The 152nd... no. Perhaps I should expand the concept to the 172nd hypothesis, ahahaha!”
“The two of you are after the Trainer. Can I take it that way?”
Fine Motion suddenly said that.
Oguri and Tachyon’s attention focused on the princess.
“I will win and win and win in races, and then for the Trainer...”
“Isn’t that something all of us can do, Oguri-senpai?”
At Tachyon’s words, Oguri shut her mouth tightly. Then, looking uneasy, she grabbed my sleeve. I lightly patted the back of her hand, telling her to calm down.
“Fine-kun, are you planning to kidnap the Trainer to Ireland...”
“It’s study abroad. Please choose your words carefully, Tachyon. Someone might misunderstand if they hear that. Study abroad in Ireland and Britain. I intend to provide a career that will be of great help to the Trainer. What about the two of you?”
At Fine Motion’s words, Oguri kept glancing at me anxiously, and Tachyon leaned back in her chair with an easy smile before answering.
“That’s your opinion, isn’t it, Trainer? Do you have any intention of going to Ireland?”
“If you’d asked me before hearing Oguri’s or your proposal, maybe. But not now. I’m going to do my best for Oguri.”
“Not the answer I wanted, but that’s what you’re saying.”
Fine Motion. Tachyon called the princess seated right beside her by name and smiled.
“So?”
Fine Motion’s reply was sharp, like a well-honed blade. Tachyon smiled slyly and spoke in a calm tone.
“I’m judging that there’s no benefit in the two of us fighting each other, Fine-kun. Think rationally, rationally. It would be wonderful if the three of us were the end of it, but can you really be certain this is the end?”
At Tachyon’s words, Fine Motion pressed her lips together.
“I, for one, don’t want to miss the chance to gain such a reliable ally. Well, I understand the desire to monopolize him...”
Fine Motion’s eyes turned toward Tachyon. With her head slightly tilted, she looked extremely threatening.
“If you look at me with such a scary face, this frail and delicate Agnes Tachyon might end up sobbing in Mortarion-kun’s arms, you know?”
Fine Motion said nothing. Even with the dangerous atmosphere she gave off, Oguri and Tachyon simply watched her calmly, without any sign of concern. Only I was being overwhelmed by it.
Tachyon smiled and took a sheet of paper from her lab coat.
“This is Oguri-kun’s contract, this is mine. And this is a contract I kept for emergencies, one without the name of the assigned Uma Musume written on it. Here, we can write Fine Motion.”
Tachyon pulled a pen from her breast pocket, wrote Fine Motion’s name on it, and held the contracts out in front of me.
“You’ve already verbally promised to contract with Oguri-kun, and if I hand this over now, Mortarion-kun will become Oguri Cap’s Trainer starting tomorrow. Fine-kun, are you confident?”
“With better conditions, with more benefits...”
“No, you know that isn’t what I’m talking about. What I’m asking is whether you can sway that iron-sinewed Mortarion-kun with those conditions.”
Fine Motion let out a long sigh at the contract laid out before me.
“That’s right, yes, you think the same as I do, which is why you’re going through such troublesome, inefficient work right now, aren’t you?”
“You’re a troublesome one, Tachyon.”
“You sound just like Cafe.”
Tachyon let out a small, delighted laugh. Her eyes still weren’t smiling.
“In other words, the one we need to sway is not the Trainer, but our senior over there—the gluttonous, overconfident gray monster who doesn’t care what others think. Do you agree?”
“...Yes.”
With the dangerous atmosphere the two of them gave off, I could only sit there awkwardly, unable even to ask what they were talking about.
“Trust me, Trainer.”
Oguri gripped my hand tightly.
“The Trainer is my Trainer. Not someone else’s Trainer.”
“Honestly... you’ve ended up with someone difficult to persuade.”
“That’s why I’m having such a headache, ahaha!”
Tachyon laughed, covering her face with one hand.
“So you’re planning to make a contract with Oguri and throw me away, Mortarion-kun.”
“Throw you away? I never said I’d make a contract with you. You were the one who said you’d contract with me if I didn’t have anyone else, Tachyon.”
Tachyon let out a long sigh.
“If Oguri-kun permits it, could I be accepted as well?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m asking whether, if Oguri-kun allows it, you could work as a team Trainer.”
At Tachyon’s proposal, I shook my head.
“I’m still a rookie with no training experience. There’s no way the chairman would allow me to run things as a team, and I don’t have the ability for that either.”
The chairman doesn’t need to be considered... Tachyon made a strange face and looked at Oguri. Then she lifted one corner of her mouth in plain sight.
“Ah, so it’s because you’re incompetent and have no choice. Mortarion-kun is incompetent, I see~ Isn’t that right, Oguri-kun?”
Bang.
Oguri slammed her fist into the table.
“Take that back, Tachyon.”
“Because the Trainer is incompetent, he can’t handle even two, let alone three?”
Suddenly, Fine Motion also cut me down mercilessly. She looked at me and blinked one eye. It seemed like some kind of signal, but I couldn’t understand what it meant.
“Fine Motion...”
Oguri growled low in her throat. Tachyon and Fine Motion only looked at the angry Oguri with amused expressions, as if she were adorable.
Comments (0)
Please log in to leave a comment. Login or Register