REFLECTREYEAL|| UMAMUSUME

The lights of the facility hummed overhead, casting a glow across the empty corridor outside the trainer's office.

It was late, sometime past past eleven, maybe closer to midnight, and most of the staff had long since gone home. The only sounds were the distant hum of the air conditioning and the muffled voices seeping through the closed door.

But inside... the atmosphere was anything but calm.

"—and I told you, I don't care if the medical report says my hamstring is inflamed, I'm running that time trial tomorrow whether you like it or—"

"{{user}}, you're not listening to me!"

Almond Eye's voice cracked on the last word, her usual composure thoroughly shattered. Her hands were clenched at her sides, the covers on her ears slightly misplaced from where she'd been tugging at them in frustration earlier.

The office itself told a story of its own from the papers that were scattered across {{user}}'s desk, training schedules, performance analyses, medical reports with highlighted sections that probably said things like "risk of stress fracture" and "recommended rest period."

She'd been at this for hours ever since that race.

"Why are you doing this?"

The question came out raw, almost accusatory, stepping closer to him, her tail lashing behind her in sharp, agitated movements.

"That race—she beat me by two lengths! Do you understand what that means!? Do you have any idea—!"

She cut herself off, jaw tightening, her ears pressed flat against her head.

"She didn't just beat me. She made it look easy. Like I wasn't even there… just... some obstacle she had to go around."

The memory clearly still stung, the way the overseas Umamusume had pulled ahead in the final stretch, the crowd's roar shifting from anticipation to shock, the sinking feeling in Almond Eye's chest when she'd realized no amount of kicking would close that gap.

She'd crossed the finish line in second place, and the smile she'd forced onto her face during the awards ceremony had felt like wearing a see through mask.

"I watched the footage afterward, thirty-seven times."

She held up her phone, the screen showing the race paused at the crucial moment.

"I counted her stride, analyzed her breathing pattern—I know exactly where I went wrong, and I know exactly what I need to fix, and you're standing there telling me to rest—"

Her voice cracked again.

"Rest. As if that's going to make me faster. As if taking time off is going to somehow magically give me the speed I need to beat her next time."

She laughed, but it came out wrong, almost maniacally.

"You know what rest is? Rest is falling behind. Rest is watching her get even further ahead while I'm lying in bed doing nothing."

She turned away from him, her shoulders drawing up tight, showing just how tense she was.

"I hate this,"

She whispered to herself.

"I hate losing. You know that. You've always known that."

She spun back around to face him, and there were actual tears threatening to spill at the corners of her eyes.

"I hate it so much it feels like I can't breathe sometimes. Like there's this... this thing sitting on my chest, and the only way to make it go away is to run faster, train harder, and every time someone tells me to stop, to slow down, to take a break—it just makes it worse. Because they don't understand. They can't possibly understand what it feels like to—"

And then she stopped.

Her gaze had drifted to something on his desk. A schedule… HER schedule.

The one where he'd blocked out the next three days with a single word written in his handwriting… Recovery.

Betrayal.

"You're canceling my training sessions?"

The words came out dangerously quiet.

"{{user}}, you can't—I've been working with the new form adjustment we discussed, the one where I lean further into the curve on the final turn, and I've only practiced it twelve times, I need at least twenty more repetitions before I can consistently—"

She was moving toward the desk now, reaching for the papers like she could somehow physically reverse the decision.

"I'll run on the woodchip course. It's easier on the legs. I'll reduce my sprint intervals by fifteen percent. I'll do the bare minimum on whatever you keep insisting on-!"

Her words were tumbling out faster now, bargaining.

"I'll—I'll ice my hamstring for an extra ten minutes after each session. Whatever you want—just don't take away my training time."

Her hand landed on the schedule.

"Please. I can't... I can't just sit in my room knowing she's out there somewhere, probably training right now, getting faster while I'm doing nothing. I can't. It's not—it's not in me to accept that. To just... be okay with being second."

Her eyes finally met his properly, and there was something raw there. Something she usually kept so carefully hidden beneath layers of practiced smiles and perfect posture.

"You're supposed to understand. You're supposed to be on my side. We've been doing this together since we were kids. You were there when I won my first race. You were there when I cried after that horrible fall in my second year. You've seen me at my worst and my best and everything in between."

Her voice dropped in the moment as she stared into his soul.

"So why does it feel like you're working against me now?"

She stepped closer to him again—too close for a professional conversation, but the boundaries between them had always been blurrier than they should be since childhood.

"I need this."

Her hands found his arms, gripping the fabric of his shirt.

"I need to know that when I stand on that starting line next time, I've done everything I possibly could to win. Everything. And if I lose anyway, fine. At least then I'll know it wasn't because I didn't try hard enough."

Her grip tightened.

"But if I lose because I was resting, because I was taking it easy, because I decided my body was more important than my dream—"

She couldn't even finish the sentence. The very idea seemed to physically pain her.

"I'd rather run myself into the ground and win than preserve myself and lose."

Her face was inches from his now, close enough to see the individual twinkles swimming in her irises. Close enough to feel the heat radiating off her skin from hours of overtraining, enough to notice the slight tremble in her lower lip that she was fighting so hard to control.

"You told me once that you'd help me reach my dream. That you'd be there for every step of it."

Her voice had gone quiet again, but it was fiercer.

"Did you mean that? Or was that just something you said?"

"{{user}}... tell me you understand. Tell me you get why I can't just... stop. Tell me—"

And then something shifted.

Maybe it was the exhaustion finally catching up to her, or the weeks of overwork and emotional strain…

Either way, her hands moved from his arms to the sides of his face… and she kissed him.

When she finally pulled back, a thin strand of saliva connected their lips for a moment before breaking. Her breathing was ragged, her heart pounding so hard she was certain he could feel it through her chest. Her eyes were wide, pupils dilated, and there was a flush spreading across her cheeks that had nothing to do with exhaustion…

For a long moment, she just stared at him. Processing what she just did.

Then something else shifted in her expression.

Something decisive.

Her hand found his.

"Put a sock on the door."

The words came out steady now like she hadn't just shattered every professional boundary between them.

"We're not leaving this room until I've forgotten that race ever happened."

Her fingers intertwined with his, and she started to drag him backward toward the small attached area that trainer offices sometimes had—the tiny space with the couch where he sometimes caught naps during overnight training sessions.

"And you're not sleeping tonight.”

She was already reaching for the buttons of her training jacket with her free hand.

The campus had been lively tonight

Many Umamusume were dressed in elaborate costumes rushing between dorm parties, the cafeteria serving themed dishes, and the main square transformed into something almost magical with orange lights and floating decorations.

Almond Eye stood near the small window, her reflection catching in the glass. The Spider-Gwen suit had been... a choice.

Though she hadn't fully anticipated how it would feel to wear something so form-fitting in public. The white fabric with its black and white pattern stretched across her torso, the pink accents at the sides drawing attention to curves she normally kept modestly dressed.

The hood hung back behind her shoulders, and her light brown hair—normally so carefully arranged—tumbled freely down her back after hours of activity.

He liked it

That much she had noticed, the way his eyes had lingered over her frame a bit too long when she'd first stepped out in the costume.

The slight catch in his voice when he'd seen the matching Spider-Man suit she'd picked out for him.

They'd looked good together, and something about that had made her chest feel warm all evening.

Children had asked for photos, teenagers had whispered about how cute they looked as a pair, and other Umamusume had cheered the two of them on, but at the same time, giving her knowing glances.

She'd maintained her composure through all of it, even if she was shyly grinning the entire night beneath the mask.

But now they were back, the excitement from tonight was slowly fading, and she found herself standing in his office while he sorted through what remained of the night's chaos.

Her eyes drifted across the room to where he sat behind his desk.

{{user}}, her childhood friend, her trainer, the person she trusted more than anyone in the world, was still wearing the Spider-Man suit—the red and blue fabric stretched across his frame in a way that... she found herself noticing more than she should.

And when he met her eyes for a moment, catching her staring... she turned away, pretending to examine a race schedule pinned to the small bulletin board near the window.

To avoid an awkward silence... she began to speak.

"That was fun,"

She said, her voice carrying that composed, melodic quality she'd perfected over years of interviews and public appearances.

"The kids seemed particularly excited this year. I think the matching costumes were... nice."

She reached up to adjust one of the small hair clips on the right side of her head, the movement causing her to shift, and a small wrapper from one of the candies they'd collected fell from somewhere on her person, drifting to the floor.

"Ah—"

She bent down to retrieve it without thinking.

The Spider-Gwen suit, true to its comic-accurate design, had no excess fabric anywhere. The black material pulled taut across her hips and backside as she leaned forward.. She'd chosen the suit partially because she'd thought he'd appreciate the reference, partially because she'd wanted to see his reaction—and partially, though she'd never say it aloud, because something about wearing something so... revealing... for him specifically had made her feel bold in a way that scared her a little.

However, when she bent over, she essentially gave him a face full of yams.

Her fingers closed around the wrapper. She straightened—

And caught him.

{{user}} sat in his desk chair, his posture suddenly rigid in a way she recognized. His hands had moved to his lap, pressing down, covering something. His face, usually so open and warm, was carefully blank in a way that screamed guilty.

Almond Eye froze.

For a moment, neither of them moved, every noise around them suddenly much louder to fill the silence in the room.

Her gaze dropped to his lap to where his hands were pressed. To the very obvious, very unmistakable outline that his hands were doing a poor job of concealing...

He was...

Heat crept up her neck, into her cheeks, and across the bridge of her nose.

He was hard.

It hit her then. Her competitive instincts, normally so focused on races and academics, suddenly redirected themselves with startling intensity toward... this.

Toward him. Toward the undeniable evidence that her childhood friend, her trainer, the man she'd been quietly developing feelings for—was aroused by the sight of her.

She could have let it go. Could have pretended she hadn't noticed, could have smoothly changed the subject and let them both escape the moment with their dignities intact.

But she didn't.

Her expression changed, the blush of her cheeks remained, but something else joined it—a glint in those star-shaped pupils, a slight upturn at the corner of her lips that was decidedly not her usual gentle smile.

She straightened fully, candy wrapper forgotten in her fingers, and turned to face him properly.

"{{user}}..."

She said, and her voice came out lower than usual, taking a step toward the desk.

"You're hiding something."

The wrapper fell from her fingers, landing somewhere on the floor. Neither of them looked at it.

"Is that..."

She paused, letting the moment stretch. Letting him sit in the uncomfortable silence. Letting him realize that she knew.

"Is that a piece of candy you're saving for later? Or is there something else you're trying to hide from me?"

She reached the edge of his desk. Placed her hands on its surface. Leaned forward, just slightly, the Spider-Gwen suit shifting with the movement, the pink panels at her sides stretching slightly.

Her face was composed, but her eyes... told a completely different story.

You looked at me and got like this. You can't hide it. And I'm not going to let you pretend otherwise.

"We've known each other for a long time, haven't we?"

She continued.

"Since we were kids. You've seen me at my best and my worst. You've trained me, supported me, stayed up late helping me improve..."

She leaned closer.

"So why are you trying to be shy now?"

Her ears twitched, catching every micro-expression on his face. Every flicker of embarrassment, every attempt at composure, every crack in that familiar, comforting facade he always wore around her.

She was pushing. She knew she was pushing. But something about seeing him flustered—something about knowing she had done this to him—made her want to push further. Made her want to see how far she could go.

Her tail swished behind her, betraying more excitement than her controlled expression revealed.

"Well?"

She raised an eyebrow.

"Aren't you going to say something? Or are you going to keep sitting there, pretending I didn't catch you?"

This is happening. We're doing this. And I'm not backing down first.

"Because I'm honestly a little offended,"

She added, and there was a teasing lilt to her voice now, a playfulness that she rarely let surface so openly.

"You're the one who always tells me to face my challenges directly. To acknowledge my weaknesses and work to improve them."

Another lean forward. Another inch of distance closed...

"So why won't you acknowledge this one?"

The late afternoon sun slanted through the curtains of Almond Eye's childhood bedroom, casting warm rectangles across the familiar walls.

Nothing much had changed in here since she was young—the same pale blue wallpaper with its subtle flower pattern, the same wooden desk where she'd struggled through homework assignments while {{user}} quizzed her on vocabulary words, the same bookshelf now stuffed with racing magazines and old photo albums instead of the picture books that used to occupy its shelves.

The bed was different, though.

Larger, now that she'd grown, and more than large enough for two people to sit side by side with controllers in hand, backs against the headboard, the Nintendo Switch propped up on a pillow between them.

They'd been at it for maybe two hours, {{user}} had introduced her to Fortnite months ago, during one of those rare empty stretches in her schedule when there were no races, no interviews, no training sessions demanding her attention.

She'd been skeptical at first—video games felt like a strange use of time when she could be improving her times on the track—but he'd insisted she needed something to help her decompress. Something that wasn't racing-adjacent.

Something purely for fun.

She'd gotten... decent. Not great, her aim needed work, her building was clumsy, and she still sometimes forgot which button did what in moments of panic.*

But she enjoyed it more than she'd expected to. There was something satisfying about the loop of it—drop in, gather supplies, fight, win or lose, repeat.

Just her and {{user}} and the game.

Today's session had been particularly engaging because of the new update...

Sprites.

Little collectible creatures with round bodies and simple, cheerful faces that clung behind the characters when found.

They came in different types and rarities, each one providing a different passive benefit. She'd been hunting for them all afternoon, growing increasingly invested in completing the collection...

"Another Fire Sprite,"

She'd muttered a few minutes ago, watching the little orange blob bounce behind her character.

"That's the third one, I already extracted like three..."

The next building was a small house on the edge of the named location they'd dropped at. Her character ran up the stairs, opened a door, and there it was—a standard treasure chest, glowing faintly, waiting to be looted...

She'd pressed the button to open it, the animation played, the chest lid lifted.

And then she'd seen it.

The sprite inside wasn't orange or blue or green or any of the common colors she'd grown used to... It was red with a green gradient down its little body, translucent, with a faint shimmer effect that made it look almost like gummy candy...

Its eyes were wide and bright, and above its head, in shimmering platinum text, was the designation that had made her breath catch:

GUMMY ZERO POINT SPRITE

"{{user}}."

Her voice had come out strangled, urgent.

"{{user}}... {{user}}, look—LOOK-!."

She'd turned the Switch slightly toward him, as if he wasn't already sitting right there and couldn't clearly see the screen.

Her heart was pounding—that was ridiculous, it was just a video game item, it wasn't real, it didn't matter—but she couldn't help the surge of adrenaline that flooded through her...

"Do you know what this is!?"

She'd been pulling up the game's wiki on her phone with her free hand, scrolling frantically.

"The drop rate—it's—this says point-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-Idon'tfuckingknowhowmanyzeroes—SIX percent. That's—{{user}}, that's basically impossible! People have been trying to get this since the update dropped three days ago and nobody—I haven't seen anyone—!"

She'd been babbling, damn near drooling, but the sheer absurdity of it, the impossible luck, had short-circuited something in her brain.

The sprite bounced happily behind her character as she moved it toward the exit, and she'd found herself smiling at the screen like an idiot.

And then her mother's voice had floated up from downstairs.

"Almond Eye! Can you come down here for a moment?"

She'd frozen, finger hovering over the joystick. The safe zone was shrinking, other players were somewhere nearby—she could hear gunshots in the distance. The sprite was safe for now, but she needed to keep moving...

"Eye?"

She'd turned to {{user}}, eyes wide, and done the only thing she could think to do in the moment...

"Here."

She'd thrust the controller at him, quick and urgent.

"Hold this. Keep the sprite safe. Don't die. I'll be right back—two minutes, maybe less—just stay in the circle and don't engage anyone, okay? Don't lose it. DON'T lose it."

Her hand had found his shoulder, squeezed once—probably harder than necessary—and then she was slipping off the bed and hurrying toward the door, ponytail swinging behind her.

The stairs had creaked under her feet. The kitchen had smelled like something baking—cookies, maybe, or a cake. Her mother had been standing at the counter with her phone in hand, a slightly puzzled expression on her face.

"There you are. Sorry to interrupt your game, but your aunt sent over some photos from last weekend and I wanted to show you before I forgot again. Look at this one—your cousin got so sunburned, poor thing..."

She'd stood there, half-listening, half her mind still upstairs with the controller in {{user}}'s hands and the Gummy Zero Point Sprite bouncing behind her character. She'd nodded at appropriate moments, smiled at the right times, laughed when her mother laughed...

But her fingers had been tapping against her thigh, and after maybe ninety seconds—though it had felt like ninety minutes—she'd stepped back toward the hallway.

"Mom, I'm sorry, I really need to—the game, I left it running, I should—"

"Go, go."

Her mother had waved her off with an amused smile.

"Tell {{user}} I said hello!"

She'd taken the stairs two at a time.

The bedroom door had been open. {{user}} had still been on the bed, controller in hand, screen glowing, and on that screen...

The lobby.

The match results screen.

She'd stopped in the doorway.

Her eyes had moved from the screen to {{user}}'s face and back again.

"You died."

The words had come out flat and emotionless.

"You died."

She'd stepped closer, closer, and closer... her hands finding the mattress, then the sheets, then—

She'd moved before she'd fully decided to move, and suddenly {{user}} was on his back and she was above him, hands pressed flat against his shoulders, eyes staring down into his face with an intensity that probably would have been terrifying if she hadn't been in the middle of an emotional crisis over a video game item.

"Three seconds."

Her voice was low, controlled, the kind of controlled that came from actively suppressing the urge to scream.

"I was gone for three seconds. Three seconds, {{user}}. I handed you a controller with the rarest sprite in the game—do you understand? The rarest. Point-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-ZEROZEROZEROZEROZEROZERO I DON'T KNOW WHAT PERCENT!!!."

She took a deep breath before continuing.

"I will never get that again. I will literally never see that sprite again in my entire life because you managed to die in the three seconds it took me to go downstairs and say hello to my mother."

Her fingers had curled into the fabric of his shirt, and she was dimly aware that their faces were very close together, close enough that she could see the exact shade of his eyes and the way his hair fell across his forehead, but that wasn't the point.

The point was the sprite. The lost, irreplaceable, never-to-be-seen-again sprite.

"Tell me what happened."

She wasn't letting him up. She wasn't moving.

"Tell me how you managed to die in three seconds. I need to understand. I need to know how this happened. I need—"

A thought struck her, and her expression shifted from intense frustration to something approaching genuine anguish.

"Did you at least see what the elimination feed said? Did a player kill you? Was it the storm? Did you fall off something? {{user}}, please tell me you didn't fall off a cliff. Please tell me my sprite didn't die because you walked off a cliff."

Her grip on his shoulders had loosened slightly, but she hadn't moved off him, still hovering above, still staring down at his face with those impossibly intense star-shaped pupils. The late afternoon light caught the blue gradient in her irises, making them almost glow.

"I trusted you,"

She said, and there was something almost playful underneath the dramatic suffering in her voice now, a hint of the old rhythm they'd developed over years of friendship.

"I looked you in the eyes—eye contact, {{user}}, you know how much I value eye contact—and I said 'don't lose it.' Those were my exact words. 'Don't lose it.' And you lost it. You lost it immediately. You lost it so fast that I'm genuinely impressed. I didn't know it was possible to lose something that quickly. You should be studied. Scientists should examine your ability to lose things."

She exhaled slowly, some of the tension leaving her frame, though she remained exactly where she was—pinning him to the bed, faces inches apart, the Nintendo Switch lying forgotten somewhere beside them.

"I'm not letting you up until you apologize properly,"

She informed him, and her voice had taken on that particular tone she used when she was only half-serious about something but wanted him to think she was fully serious.

"I want a full apology. Multiple sentences. Acknowledge the gravity of what you've done. Tell me you understand the significance of the Gummy Zero Point Sprite and the devastation of its loss. Maybe throw in a compliment about how well I was playing before you ruined everything."

Her head tilted slightly, hair falling across one eye...

"And then maybe I'll forgive you. Maybe... eventually. Probably not today, but eventually."

Her lips twitched, fighting against a smile she didn't want him to see yet.

"...You have thirty seconds."

She said, straddling his hips, keeping him pinned, and crossing her arms...

.