At Nishikino Academy.
"..."
Tamamo Cross sat at the edge of the academy training grounds, watching the students run the track, and let out a sigh.
It had already been half a year since she retired and came to Nishikino Academy as a special instructor.
Being a special instructor had actually turned out to be surprisingly enjoyable. Still, her talent for teaching was honestly pretty average. There was no denying she was strong when it came to running herself, but teaching was a different matter. She didn't have Tony Bianca's gift for explaining something once and having it click right away.
Even so, she was more than happy to share her racing experience with the students at Nishikino Academy.
The only thing that left Tamamo Cross a little dissatisfied was how little time Sakuraba Ryo had been spending at Nishikino Academy lately.
"That guy Sakuraba's been way too busy lately, flying back and forth between Japan and America... Ugh, it's getting harder and harder just to see him."
"I heard the students in the international class are already getting results in the American Triple Crown. Guess that's why Sakuraba's shifted the focus of his work over there..."
As Tamamo Cross muttered to herself, a good idea suddenly popped into her head.
"Heh. If we can produce an Umamusume with strong results here too, then Sakuraba would come back here more often, wouldn't he?"
"Then I can ask him out for walks more~ Yeah! That sounds like a pretty good plan!"
Watching the students run across the training grounds, Tamamo Cross felt her motivation for work rise all over again.
...
Meanwhile, at Tracen Academy's training grounds—Oguri Cap was trying out a slow jog on the track.
The foot injury she had suffered at the end of the year had mostly healed, and she was now doing rehab training. But if she wanted to get back to the level she had been at before, it was still going to take quite a while.
After all, during the time she'd spent recovering, she hadn't been able to train at all.
Meanwhile, her rivals had been free to use that time to keep getting stronger and stronger.
So if Oguri Cap wanted to return to the peak she had reached last year, she would have to work even harder than before.
"Haa..."
After finishing another lap, Oguri Cap stopped by the starting line and let out a long breath.
Beside her, Belno Light handed her a dry towel at just the right moment.
Oguri Cap took the towel and wiped the sweat from her face.
"Belno, come to think of it, where's Ryo been lately? Feels like I haven't seen him at all..."
The little ears atop Oguri Cap's head drooped, and she looked utterly listless.
Seeing her like that, Belno Light could only smile helplessly as she answered,
"Sakuraba-san should be in America right now. I heard one of the Umamusume he's invested in has been getting results over there, so he's been busy with work there lately!"
"Besides Tamamo and me... Ryo has other Umamusume he's invested in too?"
Oguri Cap stared blankly at Belno Light.
Belno Light blinked, looking surprised.
"Someone as amazing as Sakuraba-san obviously wouldn't only invest in the two of you~~"
"Who knows? Maybe right now, Sakuraba-san is already working with Umamusume even stronger than you, Oguri."
"Hehe. If Oguri doesn't work harder, they'll leave you behind—doesn't that make you feel even more motivated?"
"Uu! I don't want that at all!"
After Belno Light egged her on, Oguri Cap's tail started swishing furiously behind her, her face full of reluctance.
Belno Light couldn't help laughing to herself at the sight.
Oguri really was easy to read.
The moment Sakuraba-san came up, she always lost her composure.
...Still.
Was it really okay for Oguri to keep going like this...?
Belno Light looked at the silly little Cinderella beside her, earnestly trying to psych herself up.
She couldn't help feeling that if Oguri Cap kept going at this pace...
Sakuraba-san's going to get stolen away by someone else, you know?
...
And at that very moment, the Sakuraba Ryo everyone was thinking about was slowly waking up on a hotel bed.
"..."
His head felt heavy and foggy, like he'd drunk an entire bottle of strong liquor.
Sakuraba laboriously opened his eyes and saw the hotel ceiling above him.
"What am I... doing?"
His thoughts were still muddled, and the faintly decadent scent in the air only made his already groggy head throb even more.
I remember...
I think I passed out after drinking Obey's black tea.
Was that tea expired or something?
How did I just black out from drinking it?
What the hell, I seriously need to file a complaint against this hotel!
Sakuraba forced his heavy body upright, but what his fingers touched was cool, smooth fabric—the hotel bedsheets.
Then a strange weakness spread through his limbs, especially below the waist, as though some kind of force had worked him over again and again, leaving behind a deep, lingering soreness and a faint swelling ache.
He instinctively frowned and tried to move his legs, only to feel an especially sharp discomfort flare through his hips and groin, as if the muscles and joints there had been stretched and overused, leaving behind an indescribable weakness and dull pain.
What is this...? Did I do some kind of high-intensity workout yesterday?
His groggy thoughts still hadn't sorted themselves out when the cool air against his skin suddenly made him freeze.
Slowly, he lowered his head—
"What the...?!"
What he saw was his bare chest.
And below that... nothing.
The thin blanket covering him had slipped into a tangle around his waist, and beneath it, he was completely naked.
His heart skipped a beat.
The blurry fragments of memory from before he passed out, the strange condition his body was in now, and the reality right in front of him all collided at once, exploding into total chaos in his mind.
Before I blacked out... I drank the black tea Obey Your Master handed me... and then...
Just as his eyes widened and he nearly bolted upright to throw back the blanket and check for himself, he heard the rustle of fabric nearby.
Sakuraba turned his head stiffly.
Obey Your Master was standing not far from the bed, by the bathroom door. A white bath towel was wrapped around her body, barely covering the important parts. Her bare shoulders and long legs still glistened faintly with moisture that hadn't quite dried after her bath.
Her smooth, loosened hair spilled over her shoulders, with a few strands stuck to her faintly flushed cheeks.
Her gaze wavered slightly, and there was a clear, unnatural blush on her face. She bit her lower lip as she looked at him with a complicated expression—shyness, unease, and perhaps even a trace of... some indescribable satisfaction.
The instant their eyes met, the air seemed to freeze solid.
Sakuraba felt all the blood in his body rush straight to his head. The ache in his waist and hips suddenly became impossible to ignore, and together with the shocking sight in front of him and Obey Your Master's abnormal reaction, it all pointed to a possibility so horrifying it made his scalp prickle and left him barely daring to think it through—
No way?!
This is bad!
My innocence is gone!!
While I was passed out...
What the hell happened?!
The room fell deathly silent. Only the intermittent drip of a faucet in the bathroom that hadn't been fully turned off broke the stillness.
Sakuraba's face went from stunned, to pale, to flushed red in an instant. He fumbled frantically for the blanket to wrap himself in, but the movement tugged at the ache in his waist and hips and made him suck in a sharp breath. He ended up frozen in place, not knowing whether to move or stop.
Looking at how flustered and panicked he was—almost to the point of comedy—Obey Your Master's blush hadn't faded, but the curve of her lips shifted into something very different from shyness: a smile touched with amusement and satisfaction.
She let out a soft laugh, her voice carrying a hint of languid huskiness from what had happened before.
"Hehe... you don't need to make that face, Sakuraba."
She tilted her head, and the towel swayed lightly with the motion.
"Worrying won't help, you know? Everything you're imagining right now... whether it should've happened or shouldn't have... it's all already happened."
She deliberately stressed the words "already happened." Her gaze moved freely over Sakuraba's stiff body without the slightest attempt to hide it, lingering on the scratch marks left on him as though admiring her own handiwork.
"And besides—"
She drew out the words and took two steps closer, the hem of the towel swaying with each one.
"I was the one who made the first move, okay?"
"So you don't need to worry that you were the one who betrayed Sunday Silence. I was the one who made the first move~"
"You're just the victim here, Sakuraba~"
Her eyes swept meaningfully across his sore waist and abdomen, and the smile on her face deepened further, even taking on a note of open approval.
"Your body's really fantastic. I'm very satisfied~"
"...!"
Sakuraba looked as though he'd been struck by lightning. His lips trembled, his mind was in complete chaos, and it took everything he had to force a broken question through his teeth.
"W-Why would you do something like this?! Obey! Do you even know...?!"
"I do."
Obey Your Master cut him off. She had already reached the bedside and bent down slightly.
The faint scent of body wash mixed with her own distinct smell and enveloped him.
She extended a slender finger and gently touched it to Sakuraba's chest, which was rising and falling unevenly from shock and confusion.
Her fingertip was cool, but the touch made him shiver as if he'd been shocked.
A little of the joking look left Obey Your Master's face, but the smile in her eyes—and some deeper emotion—didn't fade.
She gazed into Sakuraba's wide eyes and lowered her voice. It was soft, but carried unmistakable seriousness.
"I'm not the kind of girl who does this casually, Sakuraba Ryo."
Her finger lightly traced the line of his chest.
"If I could do something like this with you..."
She paused, leaned in a little closer, and the warmth of her breath nearly brushed his ear as her smiling voice slipped clearly into it.
"If it isn't because I like you... what other reason could there be?"
Sakuraba couldn't say a word.
Are Umamusume from America all this wild?
Never mind the last one, who went straight in with a kiss.
This one actually drugged me—is that for real??
"How did you make me pass out?"
Sakuraba was pretty sure one of his system Traits had a passive effect, didn't it??
So how had he still been knocked out?
"Hehe, I just added a little of the sleep aid I use sometimes to your black tea~"
Sleep aid...
No way this damned stuff didn't count as poison just because the dose was too low, right...?
No wonder the Trait didn't activate...
But even more than his broken system Trait, what gave Sakuraba the bigger headache right now was his relationship with Obey Your Master.
He had only just agreed to be Sunday Silence's boyfriend, and then this happened.
What the hell am I supposed to do now?!
"..."
Sakuraba opened his mouth, but something seemed to catch in his throat.
Guilt toward Sunday Silence, confusion over what had happened, shock at Obey Your Master's outrageous actions—all of it had tangled itself into one knot, and his face kept shifting from pale to flushed and back again.
Obey Your Master, however, seemed capable of reading every expression on his face with ease.
Her lightly tracing fingertip stopped and instead pressed gently over his heart, feeling the unsteady beat beneath her hand.
Her smile changed again. It was no longer simple teasing, but a blend of cunning and a kind of insistence that allowed no refusal.
"You're thinking about Sunday Silence, aren't you?"
She said it plainly, her voice still gentle, but carrying easy certainty, as though she could see straight through him.
"You're worried you don't know how to face her? That you feel sorry for her?"
Sakuraba's body stiffened, and his silence was answer enough.
Obey Your Master let out a soft sigh. But there was very little apology in it—more the plain acknowledgment of a fact.
"She did get to you first. I won't deny that, and I don't want to."
She tilted her head slightly, and her hair brushed over his neck and shoulder, leaving behind a faint tickle.
"So what exists between us... obviously can't be told to her."
She paused, watching Sakuraba's expression tighten all at once, while the curve of her lips only deepened.
"But, Sakuraba."
She lowered her voice further, like a lover whispering in private, though what she said made his heart jolt.
"I have no intention of giving you up either. I like you. That's already happened, and... I don't regret it."
Her fingers pressed a little harder against his chest, as if trying to press that resolve straight into him.
"So for the time being, you'll just have to put up with a little inconvenience."
She blinked, her tone carrying a proposal that sounded almost innocent and yet was cruel in an entirely different way.
"How about keeping this... a 'secret relationship' with me?"
Looking at Sakuraba's suddenly wide eyes, full of disbelief, Obey Your Master leaned in even closer, until there was barely any distance left between them. Their warm breaths mingled as she spoke slowly and clearly, one word at a time.
"Because when it comes to this—"
A strange light flickered in her eyes: the satisfaction of getting what she wanted, a possessiveness that refused to yield, and a dangerous thrill at binding him tightly to herself.
"We're accomplices in this, Sakuraba."
"You and I... both of us."
I was forced into this!
Sakuraba screamed inwardly.
Knock knock knock!
Just as Sakuraba was desperately trying to figure out what the right choice could possibly be, someone knocked on the hotel room door.
And from outside came Tony Bianca's voice.
"Obey, are you in there?"
A silent shriek went up in Sakuraba's chest.
Holy hell!
What accomplices at a time like this?!
At this rate we're about to get caught red-handed!
While Sakuraba still had no idea how to deal with this, Obey Your Master decisively kicked the clothes on the floor under the bed.
Then she untied the towel wrapped around her body, revealing her shapely figure.
Before Sakuraba could get more than a glance, she climbed onto the bed and flipped the blanket up over both of them.
More precisely, she covered only Sakuraba with the blanket, while leaving her own upper body exposed toward the door.
"I'm here~"
Smiling, Obey Your Master called back toward the door.
---
T/N: O _ O