"Welcome back, Oguri!"
"You really made waves at Central! We're so proud of you!"
"That's our girl!"
The first thing Oguri Cap saw when she returned to Kasamatsu with Sakuraba Ryo was her friends welcoming her with bright smiles.
"Everyone, I'm back!"
She waved as she spoke.
"After a ride that long, you must be starving. Come inside and get something to eat."
"Okay~"
"Norn, you're such a mom..."
"Oh, shut it."
As the girls bickered their way into the room, Sakuraba Ryo was left standing outside by himself, oddly out of place.
"Uh... nobody's welcoming me?"
Hey, I'm your boss too, you know. Why's everyone crowding around Oguri?
Seriously...
Keep this up and I'm going to make things very difficult for you later.
"Sakuraba-san."
Just as Sakuraba Ryo was mentally drafting a whole petty rant, a gentle voice sounded from behind him.
He turned around and found Fujimasa March looking at him with a warm smile.
Unlike when he'd seen her at the Japanese Derby, the waist-length teal hair she'd had before had been cut to just brush her shoulders.
"March...? Your hair...?"
"Oh, this?"
Seeing the startled look on Sakuraba Ryo's face, March curled her lips into a faint smile.
"After the Japanese Derby, I had someone in Kasamatsu trim it a little. Just felt like a change of pace~"
"I see..."
Sakuraba Ryo blinked, feeling a little regretful. He had actually liked March's long hair before.
Still, short-haired March was cute too.
A beautiful girl really did look good no matter what hairstyle she wore.
"Welcome back, Sakuraba-san."
While Sakuraba Ryo's thoughts were wandering all over the place, Fujimasa March extended a hand to him with a smile.
"Huh. So you're the first one to say that to me? Kind of a letdown."
Sakuraba Ryo took her small hand. It felt cool and smooth, almost like carved jade. It would probably feel pretty nice to just keep holding it.
"Haha." Seeing that he was still hung up on the others not welcoming him, Fujimasa March covered her mouth and laughed softly. "You come back to Kasamatsu plenty as it is. Everyone's used to having you around, so of course they treat you differently."
"Tch. Bunch of people with no respect for their boss."
Sakuraba Ryo shook his head and sighed, then tried to pull his hand back from Fujimasa March's grasp, only to find he could not move it at all.
Still smiling faintly, Fujimasa March lightly kept hold of his hand with one of hers.
"Now, now, don't rush off yet. There's something I still want to say to you."
"Hm?"
Sakuraba Ryo blinked, puzzled.
Something she could only say when they were alone?
"If this is a confession, I'm afraid I'll have to decline. I'm not looking for a relationship right now, you know?"
"Pfft—what are you talking about?!"
The sudden line completely shattered Fujimasa March's composure.
"It's not a confession."
Hands on her hips, she glared at Sakuraba Ryo in exasperation.
"I just wanted to tell you something!"
"Oh, okay. Then go ahead."
Sakuraba Ryo silently wiped the cold sweat off his face.
Thank goodness it wasn't a confession. He had no interest in dating right now.
Women only slowed down his rate of losing money.
Hmph. Sakuraba Ryo was a sigma male, after all.
No mere pretty girl—just a pink skeleton in the end—was going to ruin his cultivation.
His Dao heart was strong enough to weather worldly tribulations.
...That said, if she really insisted on dating him, he probably would agree.
"I won the Tokai Derby thanks to you."
Fujimasa March looked straight into Sakuraba Ryo's eyes, gratitude plain on her face.
"Oh? Congratulations."
The congratulations came out by reflex, but then it hit him.
Fujimasa March had won the Tokai Derby thanks to him?
What was that supposed to mean?
Had he helped her with anything?
"Wait... did I actually help?"
"Of course you did~"
There was a different kind of softness in March's gaze as she looked at him.
"Do you remember the Japanese Derby?"
"It really helped that you invited me to go watch it."
"Seeing a race in person really does feel different from just watching a recording of it on TV..."
"On TV, all you can learn are their movements. You can't feel the quality the top runners carry."
"After I went back to Kasamatsu, I tried to imitate the quality Oguri and Chiyono O had at the Japanese Derby, but I failed. In the end, all I managed was this half-baked imitation..."
"But when I took that half-baked imitation into the Tokai Derby, I realized none of the other runners in that race had that kind of quality. So naturally, I won the Tokai Derby."
"So... thinking about it now, if I hadn't accepted your invitation back then, Sakuraba-san—if I hadn't gone to Central to watch the Japanese Derby live—I probably wouldn't have been able to win the Tokai Derby either..."
"..."
Fujimasa March stepped in front of Sakuraba Ryo and wrapped the hand she'd taken in both of hers, holding it tight. In her golden eyes, emotions as soft as feathers shimmered quietly.
"Thank you."
"Thank you for inviting me back then..."
"Thank you... for helping me realize my dream..."
Faced with those soft, shining golden eyes and gratitude so sincere it was almost burning, Sakuraba Ryo found himself at a loss.
He opened his mouth, but the words caught in his throat. In the end, all that came out was a gentle breath.
"Um... March." He scratched at his cheek, his gaze drifting for a moment before settling back on her face. "I really... didn't do anything all that amazing."
He shifted the hand enclosed in hers ever so slightly, and when he spoke again, his voice was gentle.
"Inviting a friend to watch an important race—that's a pretty normal thing to do, isn't it?"
"At most, I just gave you a little push."
He paused, and his eyes turned serious.
"The one who truly walked that road was you. The one who kept working at it on Kasamatsu's training track, stumbling and getting back up again, was you too."
"Even if you saw that so-called 'quality,' without that frustration, without that refusal to lose—the grit to keep worrying at it, to keep testing it, to even step onto the Tokai Derby track carrying that half-baked imitation—you wouldn't have today's victory."
Sakuraba Ryo smiled, bright and clear, like afternoon sunlight falling through a gap in the trees.
"So if you're going to thank someone, the person who deserves it most is the you who never gave up."
His words, and that open, sincere smile of his, were like a key cut to fit perfectly into the narrow gap in her heart.
Fujimasa March stared at him blankly, feeling some heavy, tightly wound corner inside her suddenly pried open just a little by that smile.
How strange.
It was the middle of winter, and yet it felt as though a warm breeze had slipped in.
She blinked awkwardly, and only then realized her cheeks had begun to grow warm.
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T/N: short hair ooooooooooh