Chapter 1

December doesn't believe in doing things halfway around here. The wind comes in sharp off the hills, the sky sits low and the color of wet concrete, and by four in the afternoon the sun's already halfway out the door.

That's the extent of my meteorological expertise. Mostly I just stand outside, feel the cold bite through my windbreaker, and think, ah, that's cold, with the vocabulary of a man twice my age.

Today, the tenth of December, three idiots in matching club jackets climbed a hundred and some stone steps up a hillside shrine that nobody but elderly locals and the occasional stray cat ever bothers to visit. One of those idiots is me.

I want that on the record before anything else happens. I did not choose this. I was recruited under false pretenses, the details of which I will get to shortly.

The shrine itself isn't much to look at this time of year. Bare winter trees line the stairway on both sides, branches clawing at a sky that can't decide whether it wants to snow or just stay miserable. The stone steps are worn smooth down the center from decades of shoes, cold enough that you can feel it right through your sneakers. Somewhere near the top, incense is burning, thin and sweet, mixing with the smell of our own sweat drifting back down the hill.

Somewhere in this city, our classmates are hunched over cram school desks right now, memorizing formulas they'll forget in a week, dreading entrance exams that'll decide where they end up for the next three years.

Meanwhile, the three of us get to do this.

Life's fair like that sometimes.

"Remind me," I said, sitting on a lower step with my elbows on my knees, "why we're doing this specific training, at this specific shrine, on this specific freezing afternoon, instead of literally anywhere else."

The idiot with bleached blond hair, Yuuki, was mid stretch, one leg propped up on the stone railing, looking entirely too pleased with himself for a guy who had planned to make everyone's calves suffer. "Stair intervals. Best thing there is for explosive power and lung capacity. You, especially, could use both, a sloth that you are."

"I could use a nap."

"You could use both," he repeated, undeterred.

The last idiot who had buzz cut, Shizuo, was already jogging in place a few steps up, breath fogging in short little clouds, the way he always warms up whether anyone asked him to or not. Club practice for third years got cut back weeks ago, some administrative kindness to let everyone focus on entrance exams, and Shizuo's been quietly losing his mind about it ever since. His body rusts if he doesn't sweat every day. Mine, given the choice, would happily rust in peace.

The three of us don't actually need the entrance exams, not really. We got scouted on sports recommendations back in the fall, scholarships and everything already signed and sealed, soccer tying the three of us to the same high school before a single test question got written. Which is exactly why this training isn't part of club's training menus. It's just us, dragging ourselves up a hill on a Thursday because Shizuo refuses to let his legs forget what running feels like.

"Also," I added, narrowing my eyes at Yuuki, "doing shuttle runs on stone steps, in December, sounds like an excellent way to slip and become a cautionary tale."

"We'll be careful."

"That's what they all say right before the ambulance shows up."

Yuuki finally straightened out of his stretch, and something in the set of his shoulders told me he'd been waiting for someone to ask. "Fine. You want the real reason?"

Before he could answer himself, Shizuo cut in from above, not even breaking his jogging rhythm. "This shrine enshrines a matchmaking goddess. He got dumped two days ago."

I turned back to Yuuki very slowly.

"I wanted to show her my dedication," Yuuki said, with the wounded dignity of a man who knows exactly how this sounds out loud. "Hard work, effort, all of that. Figured if I sweat enough on her stairs, maybe she'll send someone new my way before Christmas."

"That's not how shrines work."

"You don't know that."

"I'm fairly confident that's not how shrines work, Yuuki."

He crossed his arms, unbothered. "We're sweeping the snow and ice off the approach first anyway, so it's not like we're taking without giving. Divine transaction. Perfectly fair."

I let that sit for a second, mostly because I didn't know where to even begin. "Okay. Setting the theology aside. Can I say something?"

"Please don't."

"If your dates were somewhere that wasn't a discount ramen stall with a coupon, or a sweets shop running a two for one, maybe your relationships would survive past month two."

That landed exactly as well as I expected.

Yuuki staggered back a full step, clutching his chest like I'd put a boot through it. "You wound me, Yama. You wound me on sacred ground, no less."

"I'm just saying."

"I am dirt poor man!" he declared to the bare winter trees, voice cracking with theatrical grief. "Between cleats and train fare and part-time shifts, I don't have the money or the schedule for anything fancier! I'm doing my best with what I've got!"

"I believe you. I'm not saying it's your fault you're broke. I'm saying maybe stop taking dates somewhere the coupon expires around the same time the relationship does."

Shizuo, still jogging, still not even looking at us, finally spoke up from the top step. "Both of you shut up and grab a broom. Muscles are going to freeze if we keep standing around talking."

We grabbed the brooms.

---

By the time the approach was clear of snow and ice, my hands were numb enough that I couldn't feel the broom handle anymore, which in hindsight was probably not a great sign for what came next.

The actual training was simple in concept and brutal in practice. Sprint up, jog down, repeat, over and over.

I tried, for the first few sets. I want that on the record too. My legs found a rhythm early on, this efficient little stride that spent exactly as much energy as it needed to and not a drop more, and for a while that felt like progress.

Then my brain did some quick math on effort versus reward, decided the reward wasn't worth it, and quietly stopped trying to push past that efficient pace at all. Call it a design flaw. Call it self preservation. Either way, my body settled into cruise control and flatly refused to shift gears again.

Shizuo and Yuuki, meanwhile, kept attacking the stairs like the stairs had personally wronged them.

Even with that auto self-preservation, my battery hits zero sooner that those two.

I'd love to tell you I went down with some dignity. I did not. I went down face first into the frozen grass beside the lower torii gate, arms sprawled, entirely committed to the bit.

I checked my phone somewhere around then, mostly out of morbid curiosity, and the screen said four o'clock. Only thirty minutes since the real workout started.

"There he goes," Yuuki called from somewhere above, not even slowing down.

Shizuo added. "Longer that I expected, at least. I'm almost impressed."

"Leave me," I said into the grass. "Tell my sister I loved her."

Neither of them stopped. Neither of them even looked concerned. Three years of this and they both know exactly where my limit sits, so there's no drama left in watching me hit it. Their footsteps kept going on up the stairs, still laughing, and I stayed right where I'd fallen, staring straight up at a gray December sky.

It was peaceful, honestly. Right up until I heard gravel crunching nearby, and a second later, two pairs of shoes stopped right next to my head.

One pair belonged to a middle aged man in a professional looking windbreaker, the kind with a fancy brand logo stitched over the chest. The other pair belonged to someone in bright red and white, the trim of a training tracksuit just visible past the edge of my vision.

I tilted my head back to get a better look and immediately regretted it, because the girl standing there looked like she was about two seconds from calling an ambulance.

Her ears were tipped forward and tense, the universal posture of alarm for her kind. Her hands hovered somewhere near her jacket pocket, fingers twitching like she was already reaching for a phone. Whatever expression I was making from the ground clearly hadn't reassured her in the slightest.

Blonde hair, the golden kind, flowed just slightly where it brushed her shoulders, parted neatly down the middle with two lighter strands framing her forehead like brackets around her worry. And her eyes, when they met mine, weren't a color I had a name ready for. Violet at the center, fading out toward gold at the edges, like someone had poured the last light of sunset straight into them and left it there.

I was lost in her for a second then I remembered I was supposed to be reassuring a stranger that I wasn't dying.

I sat up with what I hoped was an easy, nothing to see here kind of smile, and waved a hand.

"I'm fine," I said. "Just tired. Very, extremely tired. Not dying."

The man and the girl let out the exact same sigh of relief at the exact same moment, shoulders dropping in perfect sync, like they'd rehearsed it.

She's an Umamusume, no question, given the ears, the tail, and the tracksuit with stylised T on her left chest. She was from the Central Tracen, but nothing about her face rang a bell. No race broadcast, no sports magazine cover, nothing. Either she hadn't debuted yet, or she was racing somewhere quiet enough that it hadn't reached me.

The man had to be her trainer, and something about the two of them together, the careful distance, the quiet watchfulness, made me think of my twin sister without meaning to.

She's at Tracen Academy too, at Middle School Division to be exact, still without a trainer of her own, and she'll tell anyone who asks that it's because she hasn't hit her prime yet. That's the phase where an Umamusume's whole body, bone density, muscle elasticity, explosive output, all of it, finally peaks for racing and development.

For most it lands somewhere between middle school and high school, though exactly when differs from person to person. Some peak as early as their first year of middle school. Some don't get there until their final year of high school, or later. My sister enters high school this spring, same as me, which puts her right around the usual window. Not that usual means much when it's something this personal. Even if she ends up a late bloomer, she still can continue her racing career while in college.

I was still turning that thought over when the girl spoke, polite and a little hesitant, like she wasn't sure it was her place to ask.

"Um. Are you all still using the stairs?"

"Not me, at least," I said. "If you want to train here, feel free. Let me call those idiots."

"Ah, if they're still using it, we can find another place. Don't worry about it."

"It's fine," I said, already pushing myself up to sit properly. "We've had enough practice for today. Forcing yourself too hard is a bad thing, after all. Wait here, yeah?"

I turned and cupped both hands around my mouth.

"Oy! Idiots! Our turn is up!"

The girl bowed, small and deeply sincere, hands smoothing down the front of her tracksuit. "Thank you so much."

"You're welcome," I said, with the kind of casual smile that costs nothing.

A moment later Shizuo and Yuuki jogged down the last flight, wiping sweat off their faces with the collars of their shirts, both giving the newcomers the brief, curious once-over you'd expect from two boys who'd just realized they weren't alone on the mountain anymore.

After light warm-up, the girl stepped up onto the first stone stair.

And then she took off.

The sound alone was enough to make the three of us go quiet, her boots gripping stone with a crisp, percussive rhythm, the air around her displaced in a way that felt almost physical. It wasn't just fast. It was a completely different category of fast, the kind of uphill acceleration that made the shuttle runs we'd just finished look like a joke.

All three of us just stood there. I heard a low whistle from Yuuki, another from Shizuo, both of them equally stunned.

"That's," Yuuki started, and didn't finish.

"Yeah," Shizuo said.

Even at whatever amateur or low level she was training at, her baseline was operating in a different sport entirely. We'd just spent thirty minutes convincing ourselves we were doing real training on these same stairs, and watching her made that feel almost embarrassing in retrospect.

Of course, she is an Umamusume, after all. I've had accepted that I'd lose physically against my sister ever since I was a baby. But this might've been the first time Shizuo and Yuuki saw Umamusume in training.

I glanced over at the trainer, who was already pulling a stopwatch out of his windbreaker pocket. "Mind if we hang around at the bottom while we cool down? We'll stay out of the way."

He gave a small nod, eyes already tracking up toward the top of the stairs. "Go ahead."

So we did.

---

We settled onto the low stone barrier at the base of the stairs, the three of us in a row, jackets zipped up against the wind while our bodies cooled from the inside out.

"So how's your sister doing," Yuuki asked, mostly to fill the silence while we listened to the rhythmic pounding of footsteps somewhere above us.

"Still waiting. Still insists she hasn't hit her prime yet, so she's not exactly in a hurry either."

"Must be nice. Having something worth waiting for like that."

"Yeah, I'm happy for her, too." 

Talk drifted, easy and aimless. High school came up eventually, the way it always does these days. Yuuki mentioned he was moving into the dorms once term started, mostly to cut down on the grocery bill at home, one less mouth for his parents to worry about feeding. Shizuo and I were both commuting instead, since our houses sat close enough to the new school that dorm life felt like an unnecessary expense.

I hadn't noticed the trainer drifting closer until he spoke, eyes still fixed on his trainee somewhere above us, stopwatch clicking in his hand with each interval.

"You're all starting high school next spring?" he asked, conversational, like he'd been part of the conversation the whole time. "You sound awfully relaxed about the entrance exams."

"Yes," I said. "We got in on sports recommendations."

"Oh? What sport?"

"Soccer," Yuuki answered for both of us, chest puffing out a little. "All three of us, actually. Scouted as a package deal after this summer's regionals."

"That's impressive." The trainer's eyes flicked down toward us, curious now. "How far did you all get?"

The temperature of the conversation dropped about ten degrees before anyone said a word.

"We lost in the Playoffs," Shizuo said, voice gone flat in a way I knew too well. "We almost reached Nationals. If I hadn't gotten that red card back then..."

"You're right, Shizuo," I cut in, before that sentence could go anywhere worse. "You're completely right. But enough with the what ifs. Next time you do something that stupid again, I'm tackling you myself and slapping some sense into you, even if it costs me a yellow card doing it."

Yuuki barked out a laugh, breaking the tension before it could settle. "You should! I'll bring the first aid kit in case Shizuo fights back."

Shizuo actually looked guilty at that, and he tried to wave it off by aiming the conversation somewhere else entirely. "My bad. But we could've at least done something if Yama had played the full match! That's exactly why we need him ready in high school!"

"Oh, no you don't," I said, pointing an accusing finger at him. "How dare you pin that on me. Everyone on the team knows my limitations. We've been playing together for three years, for god's sake. You should all have prepared for the inevitability."

"There he goes," Yuuki said, grinning while shaking his head, "readily accepting his weakness instead of improving them, such a lazy bum. You know how hard it was trying to crack that parked bus without you two on the field? Impossible, that's how hard."

"We've relived that loss a hundred times already. Let it go. And speaking of my weakness, our new school's supposed to be strong, right? Deep enough bench that even when I sub out, we'll be fine."

"That's exactly the attitude that's going to get you in trouble." Shizuo clarified sternly. "If you take it easy, you won't even make the starting lineup. We're freshmen. We have to prove ourselves from day one, especially you. The coach already knows what you're worth, sure, but the rest of the team doesn't. I don't want you getting bullied for looking like you don't care even after you got there by soccer recommendations."

"Thanks for the concern," I said, and meant it, even wrapped in my usual tone. "But I'll manage. Yuuki, though. He should worry more about not starting trouble with his love life. That habit's already nearly gotten the three of us dragged into actual fights, twice. Keep flirting with upperclassmen's girlfriends and our friendship's going to be the thing in danger, not my playing time."

"Kuh! But our love was pure!"

Somewhere in the middle of all that, without either of us noticing when it happened, the footsteps above had stopped.

The girl had finished her set and made her way quietly back down, standing now beside her trainer with her chest still rising and falling in sharp little pulls, sweat catching the last of the afternoon light along her jaw. She wasn't saying anything. She was just listening, a faint, quiet kind of smile on her face that didn't quite reach all the way up as she was taking her water.

After listening to our banter, the trainer's gaze had drifted out toward the horizon, where the sky was starting to bruise orange at the edges. When he spoke again, his voice had softened into something gentler than the casual tone he'd been using with us.

"Mistakes happen. Bad luck happens." A pause. "What matters most is that you never give up."

It was a nice thing to say. The kind of thing you'd find printed on a poster in a gym somewhere, or on the last page of a sports manga volume. But something about the weight he put behind it didn't match up with three boys grumbling about a loss from months ago.

I looked over at the girl, and there it was. Her ears drooped, just slightly, just enough. She nodded, tight and small, the kind of nod that looks like agreement from the outside but feels like carrying something heavy on the inside.

That wasn't advice for us only. That was for her too.

I didn't know her name. I didn't know what specific weight she was hauling around under that composed little smile. But I've never had much patience for textbook encouragement, the kind that sounds nice and does nothing, the kind that keeps an athlete circling the same drain in their own head instead of climbing back out of it. Especially after I saw how hard and serious, she took her training.

So I said something. I hadn't fully decided to until it was already out of my mouth.

"Never giving up, huh?" I said, turning to look straight at her while talking about myself. "That part is already a given, isn't it? Every training, every effort, we've done our best back then and we'll keep doing that in the future, but past result or mistake is already settled and it rests quietly now. What actually matters is the space right in front of you. So rather than carrying the weight of why it happened, maybe it's time to ask: what comes next, and how do we step into it?"

Her eyes widened, just a fraction.

Then Shizuo grunted, loud enough to break it. "Sure. Just let that loss become my fuel for revenge next year's tournament, then."

"If that works for you, fine," I said, shrugging, reaching for my water bottle and taking a slow swig. "Just don't let it blind you to what's actually in front of you."

Yuuki, predictably, saw an opening and took it. "Then let me ask you, oh wise master. What exactly are you planning to do next?"

I didn't even have to think about it. "Go home. Take a hot bath. Eat dinner. Sleep until noon tomorrow."

Yuuki clapped both hands together, cracking up. "Yeah. That's very you."

We hauled ourselves up off the stone barrier, slinging our bags over our shoulders, stretching hamstrings that had gone stiff and unhappy in the cold while we'd been sitting still. The sky had shifted further while we weren't paying attention, gray fading into a deep indigo, and somewhere up near the main hall the shrine's lanterns flickered on one by one, small warm points of light against the coming dark.

We bowed to the trainer on our way past, offered a casual wave toward the girl, the usual parting words about good luck with the rest of her training.

We'd barely made it to the stone gate at the top of the approach when she called out.

Soft, but clear enough to carry.

We turned around, and she was already bowing, low and formal, hands pressed neatly against the front of her knees. When she straightened back up, her eyes found mine directly, no hesitation left in them at all.

And she smiled.

Not the tight, careful smile from earlier, the one built to reassure everyone else in the room that she was fine. This one was different. Bright, unguarded, lit up with something that looked a whole lot like resolve finding its footing again.

My brain, for a solid second, simply stopped processing anything.

I caught myself before Shizuo or Yuuki noticed, thankfully, tapping the brim of an imaginary cap and firing back the smoothest smile I could assemble on short notice, then turned and started down the hill like absolutely nothing had happened.

Behind me, Yuuki was already complaining about how cold his hands had gotten, and Shizuo was threatening to drag both of us back up here again next week, and somewhere underneath all that noise, I found myself wondering, quietly, uselessly, what kind of track a girl who ran like that was destined to end up on.

I didn't get an answer. I didn't even get her name.

But the cold felt a little less sharp on the walk down, all the same.