"Mmm~"
Walking down the halls of Tracen Academy, Maruzensky stretched lazily.
She had just found a quiet spot on campus and taken a nap, and after waking up, she felt completely refreshed—like she could throw herself right back into student council work.
Lately, friction between the Regional Academies and Central had been increasing.
Especially up in Hokkaido.
Several schools that had originally needed Central's support had suddenly notified them that they no longer required assistance from Tracen Academy, nor did they need Central to send people over to manage them.
They had even gone so far as to publicly declare that they could operate their schools independently and train Umamusume even better than Central could.
To be honest, when Maruzensky first heard that news, she thought it was fake news.
Regional Academies claiming they could raise Umamusume stronger than Central's?
Ha, what a joke.
How could Umamusume trained by Central possibly lose to ones from the regional circuit?
In Japan's racing scene, the idea that Central's Umamusume stood above the regional ones was practically an ironclad rule.
Anyone who questioned that rule would usually be suspected of having lost their mind.
And yet now, someone really was using that slogan as promotional material, so as a member of the student council, Maruzensky naturally had to investigate.
Before long, with her astonishing speed at digging things up, she found the source of those messages.
Nishikino Academy.
A school that should have declared bankruptcy last year, yet somehow still existed.
Not only was it still around, it had developed to a scale comparable to Tracen Academy.
What on earth had happened there in just a single year?
The deeper Maruzensky looked, the more shocked she became.
Nishikino Academy's development curve looked as though it had strapped itself to a rocket at some point and shot straight upward.
But where had the money come from?
Where had the funds for Nishikino Academy's growth come from?
A school could not develop without money. The bigger the academy, the greater the expenses.
And since last year, Nishikino Academy had barely been taking any subsidies from Central at all...
If the money had not come from Central, then where had it come from? Who had financed the academy into what it was now?
Someone had to be backing the school behind the scenes...
But if that was true, then another question followed.
Who was sponsoring Nishikino Academy? And for what purpose had they invested in it? Was the current situation exactly what they wanted to see?
The pile of unanswered questions was mountain-high. Just thinking about them was enough to make Maruzensky's stomach hurt.
It was precisely because of the pressure from investigating all this that she had chosen to relieve some stress with a nap...
Only...
"I always wake up with my back and waist feeling sore..."
Muttering that to herself, Maruzensky headed toward Central's student council office.
"Mmh... no matter what, I should report all this to the President first~"
With that thought in mind, she prepared to go find Symboli Rudolf.
"At this hour... Rudolf should be in the office working."
"Well, she is the President. It's hard to imagine her ever relaxing properly..."
Maruzensky shook her head as she walked.
"Oooouuuoooou—"
"?"
Just as Maruzensky reached the door to the student council office and put her hand on the knob to open it, that sound suddenly drifted out from inside.
What was that noise??
And that voice... sounded kind of familiar?
"S-Sakuraba-san... not there...!"
"Ah—!"
Wasn't that the Rudolf's voice?!
Pff!
A plume of white steam practically rose from the top of Maruzensky's head, and her formerly pale skin flushed scarlet in an instant.
Although Maruzensky was one of the academy's great seniors, she actually had no experience with romance at all.
But she knew perfectly well what kind of activity usually produced sounds and dialogue like that...
Th-That can't be right?!
How could Rudolf be doing... doing something so shameless inside the student council office?!
I must not be fully awake yet...
It has to be an auditory hallucination!
Right... it has to be because I've been too busy with work lately, and now I'm hearing strange things.
Calm down, Maruzensky, calm down.
Take a deep breath. It'll be fine.
Maruzensky inhaled deeply. Her fingertips trembled slightly, but at last she steeled herself, gripped the doorknob tightly, and prepared to shove open the heavy wooden door in one go—
At that very instant, faint, broken breaths drifted through the crack again, mixed with soft little whimpers, as though someone's lips were being covered—or as though they were desperately suppressing some unbearable emotion. Then a low male voice sounded, carrying a trace of amusement.
"...You're absurdly sensitive here too."
"Ugh... d-don't... Sakuraba..."
Maruzensky's hand froze midair, and her whole body locked up as if she had been struck by lightning.
They really are doing it!
President!
Rudolf!
You!
How can you do something this shameless?!
Central's... Central's Great Emperor—how can you make sounds that embarrassing?!
Isn't this total depravity?!
No!
I have to stop the President from falling any further!
Even if it's awkward! Even if we can't stay friends afterward!
If I open this door... there'll be no turning back...
But...
Even so!
I have to restore Central's honor right here and now!
With the resolve to defend Central's dignity even at the cost of friendship, tragic fire blazed in Maruzensky's eyes. She hesitated no longer and slammed the heavy door open with all her strength.
"Rudolf! Please stop this shameless—?!"
Her grief-stricken cry cut off abruptly.
The scandalous scene she had imagined was nowhere to be seen.
The office was brightly lit. Symboli Rudolf was lying face-down on the sofa used for short rests, still neatly dressed in her uniform, though the hem of her jacket had been lifted slightly to reveal a strip of her lower back.
And beside the sofa stood Sakuraba Ryo, both hands... pressing firmly into either side of Symboli Rudolf's waist.
Hearing the crash of the door and the shout, both of them turned toward the entrance in shock.
There were still tears in Symboli Rudolf's eyes—physiological tears from pain—as well as puzzled confusion at being interrupted.
"Maruzensky...?"
"?"
"?"
Question marks practically popped up over both Sakuraba Ryo's and Maruzensky's heads.
Huh?
What was going on?
Maruzensky could only blink blankly.
Sakuraba Ryo kept his hands where they were, raised a brow, and spoke in a tone colored with both resignation and understanding.
"As you can see, miss, your beloved President's lower back muscles have become stiff as a rock from spending too long hunched over her desk, so I'm giving her rehabilitative massage. That 'shameless' line just now... what exactly were you going to say after that?"
Maruzensky froze where she stood. The righteous outrage on her face instantly solidified, then peeled away piece by piece like a shattered mask, replaced by utter embarrassment and mortification. She looked so flustered it was as if wisps of white smoke might really start coming off her head.
"M-Massage...?"
She looked at Symboli Rudolf's expression—somewhat embarrassed, yes, but far more pained and helpless—then at the thoroughly proper placement of Sakuraba Ryo's hands, and finally realized just how catastrophic a misunderstanding she had made.
So... those strange noises... were because Rudolf was bad with pain? And the "not there" and "sensitive" had been about sore trigger points in her stiff muscles?!
Maruzensky suffered social death, right then and there.
She regretted opening the door.
---
T/N: 4 chaps meeting this weeks quota, last week it was 7dtd this week it was tomodachi life........ teehee
bonus chaps
100 stones -> 1 chapter
200 stones -> 2 chapters
300 stones -> 3 chapters
and so on
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This is a fan translation of 亏钱赛马娘,什么叫你真的赢比赛了? by 路边杂鱼 Rights to the original work belong to the creator. Please support them by exploring their original work or sharing it with others if you can. Thank you for reading and supporting my efforts to bring this story to a wider audience!