Umamusume. They are born to run. They inherit otherworldly names, and are inspirited by dreams most dramatic and wonderful. Now, they run ever forward. That, is their destiny. No one knows how the races that lie in their futures will end. Even so, they continue to run, aiming only toward the goal in front of them.
.
.
.
Useless.
Waste of space.
Burden.
He had been called many names, not any of them were a lie. They are all the truth. When people around him work hard to achieve something, he wasted his youth on useless things. He always distract himself instead of working hard to achieve something. He can't blame anyone as it was all his fault.
So many ifs
If he had tried harder,
If he had focused.
If he had stopped chasing fleeting comfort in things that never mattered.
But regret was a cold blanket, it kept you still, buried, and numb. The world had moved on. He hadn't.
Day after day, he drifted. No purpose, no ambition, no plan. Just noise in his head and silence in his life.
Even his parents had stopped calling.
He didn't resent them. He wouldn't have called himself either.
What was there to say?
That he was still breathing? Still wasting oxygen?
He'd scroll past job ads he'd never apply to, delete unread emails that offered courses he'd never take. All the while pretending he was thinking it over, pretending he was just waiting for the right moment.
But the truth?
The moment had already passed. Years ago.
And all he had done was watch it leave.
He wasn't even sure when he started disappearing. It wasn't one big fall, it was hundreds of small slips. Skipped deadlines. Unsent messages. Alarms snoozed until the day was gone. Quiet failures that no one noticed, until one day, neither did he.
Sometimes he wondered what was left of him now and sometimes, late at night, when the ceiling stared back and sleep refused to come, he caught himself thinking:
Was this it?
Had his story already ended, and no one told him?
He thought about the kind of person he might've been, in another life. Someone who mattered. Someone people could rely on. Someone worth remembering.
But thoughts like that were dangerous. They made your chest hurt. They made you hope, and hope was just another way to break yourself again.
Still...
Still, something deep inside hadn't quite died. Not yet.
Maybe it was cowardice. Maybe it was instinct.
But something, anything, had to change.
Before nothing was left at all.
If he had been given one more chance? Would he still waste it?
He didn't know.
Maybe. Probably.
Change sounded good in theory, until you realized it meant doing things differently. It meant trying. It meant hurting. It meant risking failure all over again.
And he had already failed so many times.
So he stayed still.
Another day in the same room. Same silence. Same stale air.
Outside, the world spun on without him. People walked with purpose. Laughed. Yelled into phones. Ran for buses. Lived.
He watched from behind his curtain, a ghost in his own life.
Sometimes, he went on walks. Not because he wanted to, but because sitting in that room too long made it hard to breathe. The walls would press in. The quiet would ring in his ears.
So he wandered.
Nowhere in particular. Just far enough to pretend he had a reason.
The park was one of those places. Not big, not clean, not special. A cracked fountain in the middle, a few rusted benches, and a dirt path half-eaten by grass.
But it was quiet. And that was enough.
He sat on the bench farthest from the path. The one under the dying tree that creaked when the wind hit just right. He liked that one. No one bothered him there.
Just the usual: wind in the branches, a dog barking in the distance, someone's footsteps on gravel.
Until...
A flash of motion.
Then another.
Quick, and loud.
Someone was running.
And not just jogging for health. No.
They were running fast.
He looked up, expecting to see someone with a knife running towards him. Instead, he saw a blur of colors and a trail of dust. It was a girl, but not like any he had ever seen. Even from a distance, he could see the twitch of ears atop her head and a tail that whipped behind her.
Her face set in a mask of pure, agonizing effort.
I want that, he thought. It was a pathetic, sudden spark, the first thing he had felt in years. I want to feel like I'm going somewhere that fast.
His chest tightened. Not with inspiration, but with a sudden, crushing pain. The "cold blanket" of his regret suddenly felt like it was made of lead. The world tilted. The park, the dying tree, the girl, they all smeared into a streak of yellowish red. His heart, usually a lazy, stuttering thing, gave one violent, desperate heave against his ribs.
One more chance, he whispered into the void of his own mind. Just to not be... this.
And in that instant, something shifted.
Not in the air.
In him.
.
.
.
I still remember that day like yesterday. The day my life changed.
The transition wasn't like the stories. There was no tunnel of light, no goddess offering a contract. Just a sudden, violent cessation of the man I was, and the terrifying, breathless birth of the girl I became.
When I woke up, I found myself in the arms of a woman I don't recognize. I tried to resist but I was too weak, and small.
She hold me tighter in her arms, pulling me into a soft and warm hug. Something I haven't felt for many many years.
And at that moment, all I can think of was my mother. The same woman I disappoint. The same woman who raised me with all her love just so I can break her heart.
I couldn't help but cry. I really missed her.
But the woman's hug calmed me down. I don't know why, but when I see her face, I can see my mother's face.
Seeing her face sends a wave of relief inside my body. I felt like all my burdens were lifted off, leaving only the sense of calm and safety.
It's like when my parent picked me up to my bedroom because I fell asleep in the car.
I grew up in a quiet corner of the countryside, far away from the flashing lights of the city. In this life, I wasn't a shut-in. I couldn't be. There was a restless energy coiled in my bones, a literal physical itch that made sitting still feel like a slow death. Every time I saw the open fields, and my tail would lash with a mind of its own.
The itch never went away.
If anything, it grew sharper with every passing year.
As a toddler, it meant I was the child who could never stay in one place. I crawled early, walked early, ran,really ran, before anyone thought it was normal. I fell a lot. Skinned knees, dirt in my hair, tears that never lasted long.
"Easy, easy," my father would laugh, her hands always reaching for me just in time.
His voice was gentle. Warm. The kind of voice that made you feel like everything would be fine as long as it existed.
I didn't know their name yet. I only knew Papa and Mama.
Sometimes I'd wake up gasping, small hands clenched into fists, chest tight with a fear that didn't belong to a child.
They would always come.
They'd sit by my bed, stroke my hair, hum softly until my breathing slowed. I never told them why I cried. I didn't have the words. I didn't want to burden them with ghosts from a life they never knew.
I want to pay them back. I want to make them proud.
I want to go as far as I can.
But one thing never changed about me.
I'm still a coward.
.
.
.
"Hey, heeeeyyy! You okay? You've been spacing out so much"
My father's voice woke me up.
"Huh? Oh, dad. No it's okay, I'm just daydreaming"
I get up from the ground and sweeping the dirt off my pants. I was helping my father tending the field. I like doing this, at least this kind of job doesn't stress your mind as much as being forced to stay in front of the screen for hours.
"What's wrong? If you still feel tired, you can keep resting" He stopped doing his work for a moment, looking at me.
"I'm fine, I had enough rest." After all, umamusume is way stronger then human.
"Let's finish this and go home. I don't want mom to scold us because we're late again" I added.
"You said it!"
After a tiring day in the field, we decided that's all for today and prepared to go home.
On the way home, we have a little chat.
"So... middle school is almost over, right? Have you think about your next step? "
"What do you mean? "
"Sigh... I know I can't force you to live the life you don't want, but... Do you ever thought of racing? You like running right?"
"I like running, not racing. I understand that even you found it weird for an umamusume to not like racing. But, isn't kind of overrated? Just because someone was born as an umamusume, doesn't mean they need to race, right? There are a lot of umamusumes out there who lived an ordinary life. I mean, look at at Mrs. Mono, she has been a shopkeeper for her whole life"
"W-well, maybe you're right. I guess I just hasn't moved on from that life"
My father told me he was an umamusume trainer. That's exactly how he met my mother.
"You never told me the full story, how was you and mom like back then?"
"Ahhh... I still remember our first meeting like yesterday. " He paused for a moment. Everytime I asked about his and mom's past, he always like this,
"I was still an intern working as a sub-trainer. Then, my mentor recruited an umamusume into our team. That's the first time I met her, oh my beautiful honey badger"
"Why honey badger? "
"Let's just say... Uhh... She's an aggressive one. Please don't tell her I said this to you"
There goes another weapon I can use against him.
"Anyway, back to the story. My mentor assigned her to me because he already had plenty of umamusumes to take care of, and that's where everything begins..."
"... Our journey wasn't smooth. Heck, you can even say it was a mess! We were so frustrated, but in those frustrations we become closer... "
"... When I finally got my license, I immediately recruit her as my trainee, this time officially. We spend the years together, we lose so many races but we never give up... "
"... I accompany her until the end of her career. And after spending so much time together, I just can't let her go. Three years later, we married"
"Wow, that was... an interesting story"
"Chuckles... If I could repeat my life a thousand times, I will always find my way to her"
"Okay I get it, dad. You proved your point. I have enough of your love story"
We spend the rest of the walk in silence. When we arrived at home, my mother was standing on the porch.
"We're home! " Dad said.
"Hmph! If you didn't arrive in 5 more minutes I would've gone searching for you" She said, while holding a spatula in her hand.
"We were just having father daughter time. No harm. Let's get inside, the sky is getting darker"
I guess some things never change.
Right...
I turned around and stared at the sun, or what was left of it.
INHALES
HAHHHHHHH...
I'm grateful of my second chance.