"Chiya, what are you doing!?"
Early in the morning on the second day of the break, Katsumura Yota shoved open the door and strode straight into the room. "Come on, the seniors want to drag you out for bowli—whoa!?"
What he saw in front of him genuinely stunned him.
In the middle of the room stood a man wearing a top hat and a white mask, dressed in a black tailcoat and holding a wand.
The man raised the wand and shouted, "Incendio!" The next instant, a thin flame shot out from the wand and lit the candle in front of him.
Katsumura Yota rubbed his eyes, stepped back out the door, checked the room number several times, slapped himself a few times, then walked back in.
By then, the man in the white mask had already taken it off, revealing a handsome face underneath.
"Chiya?"
"Yota, what are you doing, going in and out of the doorway like that?"
Katsumura Yota scratched his head and walked in, still half in a daze. For a moment, he honestly thought he had wandered into the wrong setting. This was still the Uma Musume world, right?
Fujiwara Chiya lowered the wand and blew out the candle.
"That thing just now… how did you do it?" Katsumura Yota asked, licking his dry lips like a proper muggle.
"What thing?"
"The fire! Your wand shot fire just now, didn't it!? How did you do that!?" Katsumura Yota grabbed the wand and started inspecting it over and over, trying to find some kind of mechanism. But it really did look like an ordinary wand. Other than being sturdy and well-made, there was nothing unusual about it.
"Obviously, by chanting a spell."
"Bullshit!" Katsumura Yota pointed at the candle on the table and, copying Chiya from a moment ago, shouted, "Incendio."
Nothing happened.
"You don't have magic."
"The hell you mean, magic. Are you screwing with me on purpose!?"
Seeing that he did not believe him, Fujiwara Chiya shook his head. "Fine, I'll show you another one."
With that, he took off the top hat and held it out in front of Katsumura Yota.
"Check it."
It was just an ordinary hat.
"Now put it on the table."
Katsumura Yota did as he was told.
Fujiwara Chiya picked up the wand, tapped the hat with it, and said, "Wingardium Leviosa."
The hat floated straight up into the air.
That scene made Katsumura Yota's eyes nearly pop out of his head.
"That's impossible!" he shouted, reaching out to grab it.
"Hey, hey, hey, don't touch it!"
Before Chiya could stop him, Katsumura Yota had already brushed the brim. The hat instantly seemed to lose control and flew wildly around the room before finally crashing into the curtain and twisting it into a knot.
"…The magic went out of control."
"Cut the crap!"
After Fujiwara Chiya explained things to him, Katsumura Yota finally understood that all of it was just stage equipment. There were tubes hidden in the wand, a silent fan in the hat, and all sorts of strange little gadgets hidden on Chiya's body.
"So why are you suddenly messing around with this stuff? You're quitting being a trainer and becoming a magician now?"
"You don't understand. I'm doing all of this for the sake of helping Uma Musume train better."
Katsumura Yota gave him a look that said, Do you really expect me to believe that?
"By the way… did you buy that outfit too?" Katsumura Yota asked, looking at the tailcoat Chiya was wearing.
"Yeah. The mask too."
Fujiwara Chiya put the mask back on.
People really weren't lying when they said clothes made the man. The moment he put that outfit on, his entire aura changed. He looked polished, mysterious, and unexpectedly elegant.
And Fujiwara Chiya's build was not bad to begin with, so the tailcoat only made him look even more striking.
Seeing how cool he looked, Katsumura Yota honestly wanted a set like that himself. But none of this stuff could possibly be cheap. He had no idea where this broke idiot, who was always whining about money, had gotten the funds.
And the props definitely were not cheap either.
"If you ever put on a show, don't forget to invite me."
"I told you, I'm not changing careers." Fujiwara Chiya took off the costume and changed back into his loose usual jacket. "This is just to fool a Uma Musume. Once I've bluffed her properly, I won't need it anymore."
"To fool a Uma Musume? Who, Gold Ship?"
"There's no way I'd try to fool her. If Gold Ship saw this, she'd laugh at me for a year. She'd probably strip me naked too."
"Then who? Don't tell me it's Meisho Doto…"
"Sweep Tosho." Fujiwara Chiya sat down on the sofa after taking off all the gear. "A child that gives the teachers a headache."
"Hearing that, it sounds like you're once again going out of your way to make life difficult for yourself."
"This time it's different. I've fully prepared."
Katsumura Yota cast a sideways glance at the desk, which was covered in enough equipment to resemble an armory.
"Well, good luck."
"I am still missing one thing, though."
"What?"
"An assistant."
Fujiwara Chiya crossed one leg over the other. "I need an assistant who can help me perform when the time comes. It'll make things look more convincing. Besides, every magician has assistants, right?"
"You're not even a real magician."
"Doesn't matter. Help me out, and I'll give you a few of the gadgets as payment."
Katsumura Yota looked over the tools spread across the desk and thought it over.
"Any of them?"
"Once I'm done, you can pick whatever you want."
"Alright, then I'll play along with your little act."
Truthfully, he kind of liked that sort of thing too. In terms of interests, he and Chiya were pretty similar, otherwise they never would have hit it off so quickly when Chiya first arrived.
"Oh right, you still haven't said why you came here."
Caught up in the performance, Katsumura Yota had completely forgotten the actual reason.
He slapped his forehead.
"The seniors said they wanted you to—"
"Chiya!"
Before he could finish, the door was shoved open roughly.
A middle-aged man in pale yellow casual clothes, with messy hair and light stubble, strode in without hesitation.
"What are you doing? Why are you so slow?"
"Ryu-Aniki?" Fujiwara Chiya raised an eyebrow.
"And you too, Yota! I told you to go get him, and you vanished yourself!"
"I forgot, alright? I forgot!" Katsumura Yota hurriedly explained while the middle-aged man pressed a hand to his forehead.
He was their senior, Nishizaki Ryu. Because they were close, both Katsumura Yota and Fujiwara Chiya called him Ryu-Aniki. He was also the trainer of Mejiro McQueen and Silence Suzuka.
"Come on, we're going bowling. Don't waste your holiday hiding in your dorm."
As Nishizaki Ryu was talking, another man walked in. He was wearing a white tracksuit jacket and sunglasses, and beneath the open front of it, a glorious set of eight-pack abs was on full display.
"Yo, boys."
He leaned against the doorway and greeted them casually.
"Kuronuma-senpai?"
"We've got five people and need two more. You in?"
"Yeah, yeah, we're coming," Fujiwara Chiya said as he hurriedly started gathering up all the props on the desk.
"Let's go. After bowling, we'll drink a little too. We finally got a day off, so let loose for once." Nishizaki Ryu slapped him on the shoulder.
"Drink? The director doesn't allow that."
"At a time like this, stop worrying so much about your director-mom."
"A man should stand tall."
"True enough."
The four trainers left the dormitory together.
…
This gift should be alright, right…?
Mejiro Dober looked down at the sweets she had carefully prepared.
Bright had told her to choose something based on the trainer's tastes, but she had absolutely no idea what the trainer actually liked.
In the end, all she could do was hope he liked spicy sweets.
Mejiro Dober knocked on the trainer's door.
"Onii-sama!"
With a cheerful cry, the door opened, and a small black-haired girl ran out from inside.
"R-Rice Shower?" Dober froze the moment she saw who it was.
"Dober-san?" Rice Shower also stopped on the spot, staring at her.
The two of them looked at each other in silence.
"I came to see the trainer…"
"Onii-sama went out. I'm making food for him."
"Making food?"
Why was Rice Shower making food for the trainer? No, more importantly, why was Rice Shower in the trainer's room at all? Hadn't he gone out?
One question after another appeared in Mejiro Dober's mind.
"Um… please come in first, Dober-san."
As though this were her own home, Rice Shower invited her inside.
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A/n: Does anyone have any stories that they can recommend? I'm running out of reading materials for this week.