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Admittedly, Nice Nature should've known it was a bad idea to confide in Ikuno Dictus about her sex life.
“There’s no need to be embarrassed about your heat cycle,” Dictus said analytically as Nature, seated with her in the Canopus trailer, shoved her face into her hands. “Most sexually developed umamusume experience the intense arousal of estrus during the summer months, and often satisfy their urges by pairing off with one or more people. It's the primary reason why there are no G1s run during July or August, and—”
“I know all that,” Nature said with a groan. “My mom gave me the talk, you know.”
“Oh.” Dictus frowned. “I'm not sure what your issue is, then.”
“My issue is that I'm pining for Tokai Teio.”
The invincible Teio. She was the inimitable prodigy of Nice Nature’s year, a miracle maker on the racecourse, and one of the most handsome and desirable umamusume of her generation. Nature knew the girl well enough to know that she was also energetic, kind, unflinching in the face of setbacks, and so damn cute when her ears flicked around. She'd always admired Teio, and she'd recently come around to the fact that she probably had a crush on her. But as June corralled every single one of Nice Nature’s hormones into her crotch and demanded sweaty, steamy sex, she was forced to acknowledge a new desire: the carnal need to pin Teio against a wall and make her squeal.
Ikuno Dictus nodded, as if she was examining a difficult math question instead of the total summary of Nice Nature’s shame. “That does complicate things somewhat.”
“Somewhat? Teio is the most desirable student in my classic year! She took a Japan Cup and an Arima Kinen, and she's the most stunningly toned woman I've ever met. Have you seen her wearing a sports bra, Dictus?”
“I haven't.”
“Well, I have. My eyes locked onto her abs as soon as I did, and… God, I can't even talk about how I felt then, and that was back in February. I'm fucked, Dictus.”
“I thought you were a virgin.”
“Eeeeaaagh!”
Nature slammed her head into her desk and began to imagine running away and taking up a job as a decorative mold. Dictus, for her part, looked apologetic. “I’m sorry that I misunderstood. Regardless of your sexual experience, though, I do think you should talk to Teio about your feelings.”
“No. Absolutely not. I cannot just go up to Teio and ask her if she wants to have sex! What if she laughs at me, or tells everyone in Team Spica? You know Golshi can’t keep her mouth shut. My reputation would be ruined.”
“I highly doubt that,” Dictus said. “And besides, you don’t have to ask her about sex at first. You could just eat lunch with her. Courtship isn’t a one-day affair.”
Despite every anxious bone in her body screaming otherwise, Dictus was probably right. Nature and Teio were friends—not close friends, but friends. Nature could say she was curious about how the Dream Series was going for her, and use that as an excuse to hang out. That wouldn’t look like an attempt to seduce someone way out of her league, right? Right?
Nature pulled at her cheeks in frustration. This was going to be a long, long month.
Two days later, Nice Nature found herself sitting down in the Tracen Academy lunchroom with teriyaki salmon on her plate and a parade of butterflies in her stomach.
Somehow, some way, she'd asked to sit with Teio at lunch today, and even more mysteriously, Teio had said yes. The double Crown winner and certified miracle-maker was now sitting across from her, biting into a potato and humming a tune. With her chestnut hair tied up in a neat pink bow and her sparkling aquamarine eyes, she was as cute as one of the cupcakes on her lunch tray, and Nature wanted nothing more than to bite into her.
Nature batted the thought away. She could not be thinking things like that. She was a side character. Side characters didn’t get the girl, and they definitely didn’t get to top. If she couldn’t pull herself together, she’d have to run away to a monastery to abandon her earthly desires, and that would mean she couldn’t run in the—
“Are you okay, Natie?”
Nature’s tail jumped up. “Oh, I’m totally fine!” she said to sate the other girl’s concern. “Just a bit tired, that’s all.”
Teio nodded. “I can imagine. The Takarazuka Kinen was only a couple days ago, huh?”
“Sure was. My eyes still hurt from trying to spot Hayahide so far ahead of me.”
“Yeah, she managed her stamina real well. But you did great too! The way you got into place on that final corner was incredible.”
Nature shook her head. “It wasn’t anything special. Just my usual.”
Teio patted Nature’s hand. “Hey, you shouldn’t put yourself down. You’re amazing, Nature. I can’t accelerate the way you do at all. It’s why I have to run near the front of the pack.”
And there was the reason Nature had first started having feelings for Teio: that earnest smile that broke through Nature’s shell of self-criticism like a baseball bat hitting an egg. She found herself turning bright red as she stammered out a thank you.
“No thanks needed,” Teio said. “Hey, how was it to race against Ayrton Symboli? McQueen said she wasn’t too intimidating during last year’s Kinen, but it seemed like she’s leveled up her game a lot with that second place. Was there anything you noticed?”
And now Teio was asking her for advice, too. “I mean, I wasn’t paying too much attention to her, honestly. But there were a couple things…”
They spent the next half-hour talking shop and catching up on how things had been since Teio’s Arima Kinen. Nature was vaguely aware of the goings-on in Teio’s life—they were in adjacent social circles as G1 racers, after all, and even lived on the same floor in the Ritto Dormitory. But it was that adjacency that made things so frustrating for Nature. Had Teio been truly unattainable, she could’ve written off her feelings as an immature girl’s fantasies. But instead, she was always just close enough to Teio to see her running laps on the practice track or playing ping-pong with someone in the dorm lounge, and that kind of proximity produced ideas that weren’t repeatable around polite company.
Even worse was the fact that the two of them genuinely got along. It was cute when Teio didn’t understand her terrible jokes, and the girl’s boundless energy could carry a conversation along when Nature was running out of things to say. Even long after their plates had been cleaned off, Teio was still excited to answer all of Nature’s questions about the Dream Series in detail. “I really don’t know why they made us wear those weird outfits for that last race,” Teio said. “And the translucent silk cloth hanging from the sides is so filmy.”
“The stomach window is absolutely a deal-breaker for me,” Nature said. “I don’t know how you and McQueen could run with those URA outfits.”
Teio giggled. “I mean, McQueen is pretty cute in hers, I can’t lie. And I bet you’d look nice showing some skin.”
Nature’s ears shot straight up.
“Or something like that, haha.” Teio’s laugh was less natural than usual, as if she was also embarrassed by what she’d just said. “Anyway, I think I left my homework in my room. I’d better grab it before class. See ya, Natie!”
Teio ran off as quickly as she arrived, leaving Nature alone as the butterflies flew into her throat.
“Why are we spying on Teio again?” Dictus asked from her seat at the top of the hill overlooking Tracen’s practice field where Team Spica was practicing.
“Because I feel insane,” Nature mumbled as she laid flat on the ground, grass tickling her stomach as she pressed a cheap set of binoculars into her eyes.
“You’re going to have to explain a little more, Nature. I’m not a psychic.”
Nature opened her mouth, only for the words to slip away from her as she finally found Teio with her binoculars. The girl had unzipped her tracksuit slightly, leaving a hint of her collarbone showing as she stretched on the turf, and Nature could feel her crotch heating up as Teio bent forward to grab her feet with both hands. Nature would’ve found Teio attractive like this at any time of the year, but with her estrous cycle close to its crest, she felt like a stovetop that someone had left sizzling overnight: dangerous to touch and ready to burn a house down.
But Nature would’ve been able to handle that if it was her only problem. She’d gone through multiple years of summer estrus without pairing off with someone, and although Marvelous Sunday had a habit of barging into their room right before she was about to masturbate, she’d made it through without breaking anything important. Side characters had to live with not scoring sometimes, right?
No, the real problem was that Teio had reciprocated. The last comment Teio had made at the lunch table had been the worst attempt at flirting that Nature had ever seen, but it had been flirting, and Teio’s embarrassed departure immediately afterwards had made it clear that it was genuine. This was deeply terrifying. There were a few girls at Tracen that had had a crush on Nature before, but they’d been closer to infatuated admirers than actual prospects, and she’d turned them down without too much thought. But Teio was someone she knew, someone she had rapport with, someone she actually wanted to peel clothes off of and press down into a bed. The possibility of intimacy felt tangible now, like a fruit dangling from a tree in Nature’s face, and she found herself too caught up in the possibility to be stopped by fear or shame. Because for the first time in her life, Nature felt like she had a chance.
But that was way too much to say to Dictus. So Nature just said, “I’m doing opposition research.”
Dictus gave a flat stare, and Nature knew that her entire soul was being read like a romance novel. “You won’t tell anyone, right, Dictus?”
“I don’t see why I would.”
“Okay. Good. Thanks.”
“Of course.”
Nature took a few settling breaths before returning her eyes to the binoculars, staying flat on the ground to keep a low profile even though she was probably betrayed by how her tail swayed behind her whenever she looked at Teio. But whatever.
First up on her list of “threats” were Special Week and Silence Suzuka, who were doing jumping jacks on the turf next to Teio. It was admittedly funny to even categorize Spe as anything close to a “threat,” given that she had the spine of a wet noodle outside of the race track. Suzuka was harder to read—she was terrifying when she was focused on running, but as loud as the vacuum of space otherwise.
“Do you think Suzuka has any interest in Teio?” Nature asked aloud.
“Not at all,” Dictus said.
“You sound remarkably certain.”
“Take a closer look, then.”
“What’s there to—”
Nature’s mouth shut as she watched Suzuka finish her warmup and immediately walk over to Special Week to braid her hair. Spe’s tail and ears both shot up, and even from a distance it was evident how red her face was getting. “Yeah, that’s the most obvious pair I’ve ever seen.”
“Sure is.”
With those two siloed off, Nature focused her attention on Vodka and Daiwa Scarlet next, although only briefly. Everyone at Tracen knew about their mortifying rivalry, and Nature had heard more than enough rumors about the shouts and moans coming from their shared room to know they would inevitably pair off too. It was what might happen before pairing off that worried Nature. “Do you think Scarlet would go for Teio to make Vodka jealous?”
“I doubt it,” Dictus said. “Scarlet has a very specific type if she’s looking for a one-night stand.”
“Which is?”
“Vodka-adjacent. Tall and vaguely masculine. Teio’s fifteen centimeters short of the first one, and too neutral with her gender presentation for the second. I wouldn’t worry.”
“Fair enough.”
Nature moved on to Gold Ship, who was currently… solving two Rubik’s Cubes at once. Sure, whatever. Gold Ship was a complete wild card who only seemed interested in sex if it was personally entertaining to her. She’d claimed that despite attending plenty of orgies during summer camp, she didn’t experience any increase in libido during the peak of estrus. That trait wasn’t particularly rare among umamusume, but at the same time, it was impossible to tell if anything Gold Ship said was true sometimes.
“Teio’s probably too normal for Gold Ship, though,” Nature concluded aloud.
“I agree,” Dictus said. “Gold Ship is fickle and noncommittal. Teio is probably much more romantic.”
“Romantic?”
“Doesn’t her racewear strike you as royal?”
Nature immediately imagined herself sitting across from Teio in a gilded carriage as they crossed the French countryside, blushing as Teio removed a glove from her hand and kissed her fingers individually. Embarrassment rose through her stomach and licked at her chest. “I-I guess it does.”
“Racewear says more about the competitor’s psyche than people realize,” Dictus elaborated. “As such, I don’t think Teio would sleep around just for the fun of it. There likely has to be an emotional connection to get her interested.”
“Right,” Nature said, feeling almost optimistic. “So the only person left on Spica is—”
“What are you two doing?”
Nature nearly dropped her binoculars as she realized that Mejiro McQueen was standing directly in front of her with a stern expression. She scrambled to her feet and began to wonder just how she had gotten herself into this mess. “We were, um, just—”
“Are we not allowed to be here?” Dictus asked. “It’s not unusual for other teams to spectate during practice.”
Dictus was a far faster thinker than Nature was. McQueen seemed to buy it, too. “I suppose you’re right,” she said as she tucked a strand of her lavender hair behind her equally straight shoulders. “My apologies. I’m a bit on edge today.”
“It’s fine,” Dictus said. “If you really want to apologize, just pick up some pastries for me on your way back from dinner.”
Right, Nature had forgotten that Dictus was McQueen’s roommate. They were a natural pair in many ways—both of them exuded a cool, collected air that should’ve filtered away the most annoying people in their lives but seemed to draw them closer instead. While Nature only knew McQueen as an acquaintance, she’d always admired her consistent record and dignified beauty, and knew she was at the top of her year’s “Most Beautiful Umamusume” polls for a reason.
Footsteps began to pound up the hill, and Teio crested it to reach the three of them. “Is something going on, McQueen?”
“Nothing in particular,” McQueen said. “I just wanted to know why Nature was watching us.”
She was downplaying her irateness a little, Nature thought to herself before promptly forgetting it when she realized Teio was looking at her. “H-hey, Teio.”
Either Nature was crazy, or Teio’s smile was a little broader than usual. “Hey, Natie! Watching us practice, huh?”
“Yup! Just some normal research, ahahaha.”
Nature was doing a terrible job at being normal, which was very unlike her. Teio didn’t seem to mind, though. “I’ll make sure to go at 100 percent for ya!”
“Which you’ll only do if we go back down to the practice field,” McQueen said as she turned around and began to walk down the hill. “Even Trainer must be wondering what we’re doing now.”
“Yeah, I know,” Teio said. “I’ll—”
At that moment, McQueen moved her tail to bat at Teio’s side, a small signal to start walking. Teio’s face flushed as she let out a laugh. “I’m coming, I’m coming!”
The two of them ran down the hill together. Nature watched them trail away with a growing horror.
“Looks like you can continue your observations as you please,” Dictus said.
“I don’t think I need to anymore,” Nature croaked. “My competition just walked away.”
Three hours later, Nature was lying facedown in her bed and trying not to scream into her pillow.
She’d done some cursory research into the rest of Teio’s social circle, although no other competition had made itself manifest. Mayano Top Gun, Teio’s roommate, was far too infatuated with her own trainer to be a threat. Yamamin Zephyr had a small rivalry with Teio, but their relationship seemed to stay within the bounds of friendship. Despite making friends with the ease of a true socialite, it seemed like the only people she had built a deep rapport with was Spica.
But that was the problem.
Nature groaned. She’d always known that Teio and McQueen saw each other as rivals, of course, but McQueen’s tail movement on the hill had been intimate enough for a chapel wedding. They were clearly connected on a deeper level than she’d realized, and her head swam with envy even as she felt the need to grind her crotch against the carrot plushie in her arms.
The internal motor driving Nature’s libido was still running at full. Her thoughts were like streetlights passing her by as she ran single-mindedly towards her animalist urge to grab Teio by the collar and suck her tongue out of her delicate little mouth. But any chance of satisfying that need seemed to be shrinking away. Mejiro McQueen was a member of the outlandishly rich Mejiro family and had won no less than four Group 1 races, while Nature was stuck at a profoundly frustrating zero. She was stately and calm where Nature was dull and emotional, and to add insult to injury, McQueen’s purple eyes were so much prettier than Nature’s dull browns. It seemed like the Goddesses themselves had given Nature the most eligible bachelorette possible as an obstacle.
Right before she was about to do something very unladylike, the door to her room opened and Marvelous Sunday bounced in, supernaturally cheery as always. Nature pulled her hand away from her waistband and raised it in greeting. “Hey, Marvey.”
“Hello, Nature! ☆ I hope your day has been as marvelous as mine!”
Nature groaned in response, which was apparently enough to take away some of Marvey’s momentum. “Oh, that doesn’t sound very marvelous at all! I can talk about it with you if you like.”
“I don’t think you’d want to hear about it.” And Nature sure as hell wasn’t going to explain the looming threat of estrus to someone who probably didn’t know what sex was.
“Aww, but you look so sad! Your pigtails are sagging and everything.”
“Are they actually?”
“They are! They look sad and decidedly un-marvelous.”
Nature sighed. Marvey probably wasn’t going to leave her alone unless she said something, so Nature quickly created a narrative with the more lurid details scrubbed out. “I’m dealing with love issues, Marvey. I want to ask someone out on a date, but they’re way out of my league, and someone else is going after them, too. So I feel like I should just give up.”
Marvey nodded. “That sounds really tough, Natie.”
“It’s Nature,” she mumbled.
“Sorry, Natie!” Marvey said. “But I don’t think you’re out of anybody’s league. You’re just as marvelous as anyone else!”
“Even if it’s Teio?”
Marvey’s eyebrows were furrowed; the girl was genuinely frustrated at Nature. “It doesn’t matter who it is!”
“But Teio’s the woman who made a miracle,” Nature said, sitting up to try to fight against Marvey’s growing glare. “And I know I’m a good racer, but I’m not an inspiration like she is. She’s so strong and determined and handsome, and I’m…”
“Nature, everyone has something about them that’s marvelous. Everyone! That’s what makes life so marvelous in and of itself!”
“Yeah, but…”
“No buts!” Marvey walked over to Nature and pouted. “You’re good at cooking, and good with your fingers, and you’re the funniest umamusume I know.”
“You know that ‘good with your fingers’ has a second meaning, right?”
Apparently she didn’t. “If you want Teio to like you, all you need to do is show Teio the things that make you marvelous! Then she’ll definitely fall in love with you.”
The notion of “falling in love” made Nature blush. Still, Marvelous Sunday did have a point. Even though she always felt dumb and feverish during the leadup to summer camp, she wasn’t a peacock who had to parade her assets around to attract mates. And her mom had always said that food was the key to winning someone’s heart.
“Maybe I’ll make her a few bento boxes,” Nature said, more to convince herself than to sate Marvey. “Use the dormitory kitchen. Fuji wouldn’t rat me out, right?”
“That sounds marvelous!” Marvey said, once again getting full use out of her only adjective. “And if you want, I’ll tell Teio about how marvelous you are, too!”
“Absolutely not.”
Nature’s heart was beating in overdrive as she walked into the classroom two mornings later with a steel lunchbox in her hands.
She'd made a trip to the shopping district after practice yesterday to pick up a few ingredients on sale, then laid claim to two burners and the rice cooker in the dorm kitchen to prepare the food. She’d never been one to pay strict attention to recipes before, but she found herself using almost every measuring spoon she had to get all of her proportions and flavors perfectly right. She’d even nicked her middle finger while trying to cut the cabbage she’d bought as finely as possible.
But even with her nerves and the estrous cycle trying to sabotage her, she was proud of her work. She’d bought an extra-large sea bass filet and cut off a small piece at the end to make into the filling for two onigiri, then fried the rest in her mom’s extra-crisp batter to make sure the crunch held up overnight. Both of these were presented on a bed of shredded cabbage, with pieces of pickled ginger placed nearby to add a splash of color. She’d somehow managed to roll the omelet perfectly despite only having round pans to work with, then boiled some edamame so that Teio would have a fun finger food to enjoy. The only truly embarrassing part of the bento was the homemade mochi—in some cruel twist of fate, Gold Ship had decided she was going to make cookies that night, and had stolen every single cookie cutter mold from the kitchen except the heart-shaped ones. But embarrassing as that overt affection was, it was only a small quibble. The food was economical but tasty, very well-presented, and very Nice Nature. She just had to hope Teio would enjoy it.
She beelined for Teio’s desk by the window, where the girl was looking out the window with a dreamy expression. “Hey, Teio.”
Teio shot up from her seat like a soldier at war. “Oh, Nature! Hi! I didn’t expect you’d be making your way over here.”
“I didn’t mean to surprise you, ahaha.” God, she was so fucking awkward. Whatever. Push through, Nature. “I did some cooking last night, and had a lot of extras, so I figured that you’d want some.”
She put the bento onto Teio’s desk. Teio took the lid off and examined it for a moment before looking back in surprise. “This isn’t extras, Natie, it’s a meal. You don’t have to—”
“It’s for you, Teio. Just take it.”
The forcefulness in her voice surprised her. Teio didn’t seem to be able to say no, and instead chose to inspect the contents of the bento more closely. “This looks really good. And thought-out, too. Tartar sauce for the fish, the fun edamame pods… And those heart mochi are so cute!”
“I’m not usually a heart-shaped gal,” Nature explained quickly. “Usually I cut them into stars or something.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Teio said. “It’s really nice. It almost makes it feel like—”
“Oh, am I interrupting something?”
Nature turned to see Mejiro McQueen standing next to her, holding a wrapped box and looking as deific as ever.
“Oh, not really,” Teio said. “Natie just brought me a cute lunchbox.”
“How kind of you, Nature.” McQueen gave her a warm smile before turning back to Teio. “I’m afraid that I’ll be overwhelming your stomach with this gift, then.”
Teio’s ears shot up. “Are those what I think they are?”
McQueen nodded. “The chocolatier visited us yesterday to discuss catering for the family’s next event, and his daughter taught us how to make some of her own recipes. I saved the best ones I made for you.”
Teio took the package from McQueen’s arms and opened it carefully. Inside was the most delectable array of chocolates Nature had ever seen. Each piece was drizzled with a colored glaze or topped with a small delicacy, and the range of flavors spanned from fruity to mature. It put Nature’s own handmade mochi to shame.
“Wow, this is all so much,” Teio said with a blush as she put both boxes at the side of her desk. “I’m going to have to run a little extra to balance out my calories today. Thanks, you two!”
Nature mumbled out a “you’re welcome” with McQueen and headed to her desk before either of them could talk to her more, knowing that she had just been thoroughly outmaneuvered.
Somehow McQueen didn’t see fit to stop there. The heiress proceeded to stuff out every single one of Nature’s attempts to woo Teio with an even more impressive offering of her own. When Nature pressed a cactus flower into a bookmark to give to Teio, McQueen was already there with a bottle of honey blossom perfume. Nature’s mixtape CD with Mitski songs and hand-drawn hearts on the case fell flat when the Mejiro scion revealed two tickets to a Smart Falcon concert. And the cake—well, the cake spilling out of the oven like a canyon fire was Nature’s fault, but she wouldn’t have tried to bake in the first place if it wasn’t for McQueen being better than her, so there.
The worst part was that she knew McQueen wasn’t trying to box her out. Giving gifts to the object of your affections during the buildup to the summer heat was thoroughly normal; her mother’s restaurant sold takeaway boxes of treats for this exact reason. Nature wasn’t being targeted by the richest girl she knew. She was just taking another loss.
Dictus was her only source of reassurance at this point, but even she could only do so much to buttress Nature’s floundering spirit. Presently she was trying to spoon rice into Nature’s mouth as the girl hid her face in her arms. “Come on, eat up?”
“There’s no point,” Nature said. “There’s only a week until summer camp now, and we both know I won’t be able to win Teio over by then. She’s the miracle maker, not me.”
“You should eat for other reasons, you know,” Dictus said. “Besides, that seems a little pessimistic. If Teio had already paired off with McQueen, she would’ve told you by now.”
“Maybe she’s too embarrassed to say. I know I didn’t know what to do when that one weird girl from the sports science track went after me last year.”
“But Teio isn’t you, is she?”
“She sure isn’t.” Nature’s tail flattened out as she sighed. “Maybe that’s the problem. If I was happy with myself, I wouldn’t want Teio’s tongue up inside my—”
“Hey, Nature?”
Nature’s ears shot up as she turned to see Teio standing by the table. Briefly her gut experienced the flowery euphoria of an airplane liftoff—and then it saw McQueen next to her and promptly dove into a wall.
“We were wondering if we could talk with you in private,” McQueen said, face stiff. “Do you have time right now?”
Nature nodded, since words weren't coming out.
“Thank you. You can finish your food if you like. We'll be waiting at the south entrance to the building.”
McQueen turned to walk away. Teio flashed her a timid smile, as if to say the execution won't be that long, don't worry! before following her.
Nature stared down at her previously-ignored Hamburg steak. “Do you think I could ask the kitchen for a different meal if I tell them it's my last?”
“McQueen didn't seem mad or territorial,” Dictus said in ignorance of her plight. “I think you'll be fine.”
“Rich girls are great at hiding their feelings.”
“She wasn't. I'm her roommate, I would know.”
Nature accepted this and let the fear of death leave her body, leaving behind only a muted ache. “I guess it can't be worse than being rejected, anyway. Tell Canopus that I'll be moping around instead of going to practice.”
She rose without touching her food and, ignoring Dictus’s strangely light expression, dragged herself out to where Teio and McQueen were expecting her. McQueen led both of them into a closed-off study room a few turns down hallways that Nature had never seen anyone go into in her life. Teio stuck to her side the whole time, almost disturbingly nervous, and Nature could’ve sworn that she tried to reach for McQueen’s wrist at least twice before pulling back, like a toddler tempted by a hot stove. How she was so anxious about what was definitely Nature’s rejection party, Nature didn’t know.
The room was barely longer than Nature’s dormitory bed, which was already small by itself. The three of them ended up on stools around a plasticky table, close enough that Nature could feel the warmth of Teio’s perfume sticking to the air—the honeyed scent McQueen had bought, a fact which further confused her overworked libido. Teio still couldn’t meet Nature’s eyes, and even McQueen seemed to be more capable of looking at the thin walls than starting a conversation, even as the duo’s tails fell on top of one another behind them.
But McQueen didn’t need to say anything. “I know what you’re going to tell me,” Nature said.
Teio’s hand froze on the hem of her shirt. “Huh?”
“Oh, come on, it’s obvious. You two are absolutely dating. The tails, the gifts from McQueen, the touchiness. If I’m being honest, I’ve known ever since I spied on you two at practice, but I tried to pretend that I had a shot at pairing off with Teio anyway, because I’m a sick pervert that loves to pretend I have a chance at the impossible.”
“Nature, that’s not…”
“So say the word, and I’ll be off. I’m sure Tachyon will be selling off-market vibrators like last year, so don’t worry about little old me. I’ll just—”
“We’d like to form a triad with you,” McQueen blurted out.
Nice Nature’s pity train ground to a halt. “Excuse me?”
McQueen’s outburst had coaxed some words out of Teio, too. “You’re really pretty, and work really hard, and your laugh after hearing a bad joke is really cute, even when I don’t know why the jokes are funny.”
“That’s not what—um, thank you, but…” Nature’s temperature was rising even as she tried to return some normalcy to the situation. Sexual arrangements besides pairing off weren’t particularly rare, but the concept of being involved in one had always felt transgressive to Nature, like skinny dipping in the academy pool. The fact that she was being propositioned by McQueen of all people only added to the surreality. “Do you actually want that?” she finally stammered.
“We do,” McQueen said. “Teio has found you attractive for some time. And although I hadn’t considered the idea until recently, I admire many of your traits, such as your generosity, your work ethic, and your… Er…”
“‘Lean musculature?’” Teio suggested.
“Something along those lines, yes.”
Well, at least Nature wasn’t the only one having indecent thoughts right now. “But you two are already such an established thing,” Nature said despite wanting to pull on Teio’s cheeks until she moaned. “Even if you haven’t told people that you’re together, we all know how close you are. I really don’t deserve to—”
“But we want you around,” Teio said, so earnest that Nature couldn’t talk back.
“I understand it’s an intimidating proposition,” McQueen said, “and that you and I don’t know each other very well. For now, maybe just take some time to get to know me better and work yourself into our dynamic. You can make a decision later.”
Nature couldn’t believe that she was warming up to the idea. “You’re not going to hate me if I back out, right?”
“Of course not!” Teio said.
“And if we decide it won’t work, we’ll all just pretend it never happened.”
“If that’s what you want,” McQueen said.
Nature had no clue what she was doing, but she had too many feelings pulling at her to care. “I guess we’ll have to do some ice breakers, huh?”
McQueen and Teio both gave each other a smile. “I suppose we will,” McQueen said.
“There’s a really nice honey drink stand set up near the school,” Teio said. “Do you want to go get some after our practices wrap up?”
“It’s… a date,” Nature said in breathy disbelief.
“Yup!”
The next week was a flurry of small dates and rendezvous, taken at a breakneck pace, as if Nature was in a boot camp for love. McQueen seemed to have a list of the city’s best restaurants and seasonal events written on the back of her hand at all times, and Nature found her reclusive tendencies challenged at every turn they took. Still, it was hard to complain when Teio was keeping her entertained at every turn. The girl spent about half an hour harassing a claw machine at an arcade until it dispensed prizes for all three of them, and Teio immediately gave Nature the biggest one. “All for you!” she said to Nature, making her glow brighter than the arcade lights.
McQueen’s presence was undeniably enjoyable as well. She was the crisp evening to Teio’s sunny afternoon, and always had something insightful to contribute to a conversation. But once you gave her a reason to open up, she was surprisingly passionate too, and even a little clueless. When they took an evening to visit a sushi restaurant, McQueen realized that the zipper on the back of Nature’s dress was slipping down, and immediately grabbed the fabric at the small of her back to re-secure it. The squeak Nature let out was closer to a moan than she wanted to admit.
July entered Nature’s bloodstream like a shot of espresso. On the night before summer camp, she spent an hour staring at all of the blouses in her closet, trying to decide which ones Teio and McQueen would like most. The thought of turning down their offer to form the triad had slipped away some time in the last few days, as had most of her other thoughts not related to her new paramours, as evidenced by the unfinished homework on her desk. It was no wonder that the JRA didn't run premier races during the summer; half of the competition would just end up fucking on the green before the horns even had a chance to sound. It was much better to let it all happen in private rooms hidden from the public eye, where Nature was free to do whatever she wanted.
Nice Nature had no clue what to do with herself. The sexual high of estrus was familiar, of course, but Nature had always had to contain it up until now, like a Coke bottle that she couldn't let herself shake. Now she was being given a pack of Mentos and told to wait. And waiting when she wanted to lick Teio’s neck every time she saw it? It was almost nightmarish.
It was the first time in years that she hadn’t sat with Canopus on the buses that took the student body to summer camp. She’d always been one of the misfits up until now, eligible for pairing off only by technicality, but now she was listening to Teio talk about a commercial she’d been in while trying not to stare at her jawline. She felt like a teenager stepping into the Arctic without a guide dog.
The first day of summer camp was universally reserved for sand castles, swimming, and the kind of oily, crispy foods that made you wonder why people went on diets, anyway. Nature passed the day in Teio and McQueen’s tow, eating yakitori and trying to figure out which member of the Akikawa family had decided not to open up the private rooms for pairs until the second day. Her hands were shaking as she settled into bed with the rest of Canopus in their shared room. One more night, Nature. One more night.
The second day of summer camp was the important one. Hundreds of students sat inside the cafeteria, food ignored, and listened as the custodial staff on the other side of the walls prepared the private bedrooms for the students to use as they saw fit. After the last of the locks were opened and the janitors trailed out of the building, Nature went to find Teio and McQueen in the dining hall after breakfast, and tried to look as innocent as possible as the trio walked into the winding hallways of the dorm.
The air was saccharine with air freshener, which had been sprayed liberally by janitors like soldiers rolling out barbed wire along a trench. Nature, ever practical, was carrying a spare change of clothes with her and trying to figure out if someone had slipped an aphrodisiac into her orange juice that morning. Teio wasn’t humming as she walked, which hadn’t happened for the first time in over a month. McQueen ran her left thumb under her fingernails nervously, eagerly.
Fuji Kiseki had started putting little whiteboards on the doors that students could use to mark off rooms as occupied, an oddly homely act of foreplay. When they finally found a slide-out door without a name scribbled on the side, McQueen turned to Nature. “You still haven’t quite said if you’re comfortable with this, you know.”
“I haven’t?” she said.
“Nope,” Teio said. “You just keep saying ‘it is what it is’ or ‘don’t worry about me,’ even though worrying about you is kind of the whole point.”
Nature opened her mouth to say “it is what it is” again before she stopped herself. She still felt vaguely disembodied, like a feral cat was piloting her body and she was sitting in the passenger seat. All of this—the arousal, the pursuit, the vaguely awkward courtship rituals—didn’t feel like something that she could do. The only thing that was familiar was the anxiety.
But how much of that was just her putting herself down? Because she loved lying to herself: she loved saying that things were fine when they weren’t, or that she shouldn’t do something that she very much could do. She was uncomfortable because this was one of the only times in her life that she hadn’t pulled herself away from something that she wanted but hadn’t earned. And she absolutely wanted this.
So she forced herself to stay in place. “McQueen, Teio, I do want this with you two. I mean it.”
Teio seemed relieved and more than a little happy for Nature, reaching over to squeeze her hand. McQueen nodded and turned the knob of the door. “Alright, then.”
The room itself was furnished thoughtfully and in exacting detail, like a hospital for the sexually ill. A king-sized bed served as the room’s centerpiece, with fold-up railings to keep people from falling out after something too extravagant. A bedside table held sanitary wipes, a knitted basket of condoms, and bottles of sexual products that Nature could barely identify. There was also a small radio on the bedside with a built-in alarm, on the off chance that someone wandered into one of these rooms and decided that they’d rather take a nap than fuck their own brains out. There was even an attached bathroom with a shower to clean up with afterwards. Nature had to admit that she was impressed.
Then she turned around, saw that Teio had already taken her bra off, and nearly died where she stood.
Her skin was deliciously tan, scuffed in a few spots from tumbles on the track. Nature had seen her defined abs before, and they looked even more spectacular with the full context of Teio’s entire upper body, which looked somehow deliciously soft to her despite the clear musculature. But Teio’s breasts specifically—small and supple, tender like the flesh of a peach—oh, Nature could eat them right now.
Teio’s blush was spreading down her neck. She turned away and covered her chest with her arms. “You don’t have to stare, you know.”
“Staring is part of the whole affair, Teio,” McQueen said. “You’ll have to get used to it.”
Nature had been struck so thoroughly by Teio’s attractiveness that she’d almost forgotten that McQueen was in the room. She turned around to take her in and nearly died again. McQueen’s skin was less tanned than Teio’s but just as beautiful, and her delicate lace bralette on cupped her slightly smaller breasts stunningly. If Teio was a peach, then McQueen was almost like marble, carved into stunning shape by a craftsman. It was almost a shame that it was for private display only.
It dawned on Nature that she was also supposed to take her clothes off. Nature pulled her shirt off of her head before they could accuse her of not participating, and even though she was at least a cup size bigger than both of them and her fitness levels were nothing to scoff at, she felt deeply inadequate in her department store T-shirt bra. “Is it too late to admit that I’ve never done this before?”
“We’re not exactly experienced ourselves,” McQueen confessed as she let her skirt fall to the floor like a discarded thought, revealing a lace bottom that had Nature swooning a third time. “Teio and I were each other’s first partners, and we’ve both been rather busy recently, so we haven’t had time to acquire experience. Although I will confess that Palmer has… given me some ideas.”
The concept of anyone adjacent to Daitaku Helios passing out ideas was more than a little terrifying. “What exactly do you mean?”
“Well, it’s… Oh, Goddesses, this is embarrassing.”
McQueen reached into the small bag she’d brought in with her, and some insane part of Nature’s subconscious imagined that McQueen would pull a live grenade out, and the entire escapade would be revealed to have been an elaborate prank. But instead, she pulled out a harness and a curving black silicone shape, long and smooth. It took about six seconds of vacant staring for Nature to realize it was a strap.
Her brain suddenly fled to her morning meal—fried flounder with potato salad, pickled radishes, and miso soup. She had the distinct realization then that it would be the last time she’d ever be able to taste those specific foods without thinking about something stiff penetrating her until she orgasmed. It was almost a shame, really. She liked miso soup.
“I’ll need a moment to secure this,” McQueen said as she started to loosen the fastenings of the harness. “Maybe you two should… warm each other up, for lack of a better phrase.”
Teio nodded at the same time as Nature did; clearly they were both experiencing the same sort of revelation at once. They climbed onto the mattress and kneeling in front of each other, knees and faces in close contact, staring at each other’s bodies in lurid amazement.
“I really didn’t think I’d end up here,” Nature mumbled, face burning up. “About to have sex with two absolute stunners.”
“Yeah, no kidding,” Teio said. “My mind’s going completely blank. All I can think about is—”
“How horny you are?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
They both laughed, and Nature felt the rest of her body loosen even her crotch pulsed. “Can I—um, you know—”
“Please.”
Nature pinched herself quickly to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. Then once she felt the pain radiating through her skin, she leaned forward and put her hands on Teio’s breasts.
Christ, they were soft. Nature had felt her own breasts before, and so shouldn’t have been surprised by this, but there was something about Teio specifically being soft to the touch that was surreal to her. Here was the girl that was supposed to be unattainable, handsome, a star for the cameras, and yet she was just the same as any other girl. No, she was even more than that. Nature brushed a thumb over her left nipple by accident, and Teio squeaked. Then she did it again on purpose, tracing the nail around the areola, and Teio moaned. She must have been exceptionally sensitive, and even though it was probably a result of Teio being at the peak of her cycle, Nature couldn’t help but feel a rush of power. She reached a hand down to Teio’s skirt to press against her—
Nature felt something small and tense beneath her hands. Teio’s face went white as a flower, and her eyes darted aside. “I didn’t know how to bring it up. It’s not… It’s not going to be a problem, is it?”
Nature’s pupils dilated. She answered Teio by grabbing a condom from the bedside table and tearing it open with her teeth. The wine-red color spread through Teio’s face again, two shades deeper than before. Right before she fell apart like wet paper, McQueen mounted the bed, harness and strap tightly secured on her torso. “I’m ready now, I think. Although I’m not certain what the best way to go about this is—”
“You break her from behind,” Nature said. “I’ll take the front.”
“‘Break her?’” McQueen asked.
“Look at her,” Nature said, gesturing at Teio, who was staring down at the bed and gripping her knees. “She’s even more eager than I am. Like—here.”
She shifted inwards so her knees were on either side of Teio’s body, then brought her lips to Teio’s neck. The girl was already shivering like an animal; when Nature started to suck on her skin, she nearly convulsed. “Natie…”
McQueen’s eyes glinted, and for the first time, there was a hint of wickedness to it. She moved to trap Teio in from behind, strap pressing into the small of her back, and reached a hand around to grope her right breast. Teio’s voice went high-pitched. “Oh God, you too…”
“You’ve been thinking about this for a long while, haven’t you?” McQueen whispered breathily into Teio’s ear as she skated a finger down her spine.
“Maybe a little…”
“Seems pretty greedy,” Nature said, pressing her mouth into Teio’s collarbones as she talked. “Even if everyone calls you the Monarch, wanting two girls at once is a lot.” Part of her couldn’t believe that she was becoming the tease, but only part. Teio made it so easy.
“That’s not fair,” Teio said even as she squirmed. “You both wanted this too.”
“We sure did,” Nature said as she moved down to Teio’s collarbone.
“And you’re not getting away until we get what we want,” McQueen muttered.
“That’s…” Teio’s voice finally dropped, low and husky and utterly cowed. “Please do.”
McQueen and Nature locked eyes from around Teio’s body. Nature still didn’t know McQueen as well as she might’ve wanted, but she got the feeling there would be time for that afterwards. Right now, though, they had the exact same goal running through their mind, tangible between them like an electric current: turning Teio into a sticky, gasping mess.
So they got to work. Nature pulled her mouth down to the breast that McQueen wasn’t kneading at, grazing her teeth against Teio’s skin. At the same time, McQueen put her lips up to Teio’s shoulders and began to suck greedily, just past the collar line of their uniforms so Teio wouldn’t be publicly embarrassed later. Teio’s body was incredibly responsive, sweating and quivering as Nature licked her nipple until it went hard. She could barely keep her eyes open. Poor Teio; it was about to get even more intense for her.
Nature moved down to her stomach next, kissing a trail down her shuddering abs to the waistband of her skirt, the faintest hairs tickling her upper lip. She looked up at Teio quickly and, after getting a keen, twitchy nod, pulled down her skirt with a single motion. Teio’s legs settled out in a spread, and her cock was visible now, about five inches long, wet at the tip and already throbbing. “You are eager,” Nature marveled.
“Of course she is,” McQueen said, pulling her mouth away from where she’d been kissing Teio’s back. “Now, can you help me lift her up? I want to get her in my lap so I can—”
“Absolutely.”
Teio pulled herself up slightly as well, and the three of them maneuvered her onto McQueen’s strap. The satisfaction she felt when Teio whined was liberating instead of embarrassing. She didn’t hesitate to pull her own skirt off as soon as Teio was in position, exposing her vagina, and felt another rush of euphoria as both Teio and McQueen stared. “Goddesses,” Teio said. “You look incredible, Natie.”
“You too,” Nature said. She reached for the condom she’d opened earlier, which had fallen to the side in her rush to overwhelm Teio, and began to unroll it. “Can I—”
“Please,” Teio begged.
Nature prepared the condom and pulled it over Teio’s tip, earning herself another squeak from Teio’s mouth. She could get addicted to that sound. Then Nature climbed slightly on top of Teio, straddling her waist and lowering her slit down onto Teio’s shaft. It slid in smoothly in one motion, and Nature shivered as she felt it pressing up inside her. Some of her own fluids dripped down her thigh, and she realized just how aroused she already was. This was going to ruin her.
She and McQueen ended up nearly face to face around Teio, legs wrapped awkwardly, body heat mixing with their lavender and citrus perfumes. An impulse grabbed Nature by the neck then, and she kissed McQueen on the lips. “Thanks for being willing to do… Whatever this is.”
McQueen was genuinely startled; she seemed to need a moment to process this. “Of course, Nature. And thank you for the same.”
“Any time.”
Then they broke Teio apart.
It started slowly, with McQueen thrusting up into Teio’s ass repeatedly, smoothly, as if she’d practiced beforehand. Nature’s movements on Teio’s cock were far less assured; she almost lost her balance several times, and the sensation of Teio inside her was almost overwhelming. But Teio didn’t seem to notice; she was trapped in pure ecstasy, mouth hanging open. “Natie… Queenie…”
Nature responded by pressing down so she could feel the base of Teio’s cock throb against her clit. The rush of bliss radiating from her stomach as she pulled away confirmed that she was surprisingly close herself. She couldn’t blame Teio for her delirium, but that wouldn’t stop her from encouraging it by pressing their mouths together and sucking on her tongue. Teio could barely get out a moan. Her breathing was sharp and heavy, punctuated by brief hitches whenever McQueen pushed inside her.
After two minutes of this, something shifted in Teio’s eyes. Her tongue began to loll out, and she grabbed Nature’s hips, making her heart do loops. “I’m close…”
Nature wouldn’t admit that she was close too. She began to gyrate even harder on Teio’s cock, subjecting her to the full range of motion of her hips. McQueen took a different track by gently nibbling on Teio’s right ear as she pressed in further. “What a good girl you are, Teio.”
Whispering that right into Teio’s ear canal sent a rocking wave coursing through the girl’s body, as well as a smaller one through Nature’s. Teio pulsed inside of Nature—she really was close—and so Nature pushed their bodies together completely, tits suffocated and clinging from their mingling sweat. McQueen matched the motion, and now Teio was trapped, unable to move anywhere except—
Teio’s exhale was desperate, relieved. Nature felt the condom expand inside her as the girl released everything she had, and the sensation was so lurid that it set Nature off completely. She gripped hard onto either Teio and McQueen—it was impossible to tell who in the moment—and let out a heady whine as her fluids dripped onto Teio’s waist.
They extricated themselves from the position slowly. Teio let out another moan as McQueen slid out from her, and Nature almost couldn’t believe that the girl still had the capacity to be aroused. Then again, as she watched Teio pulling the condom off of herself, she realized that she still had plenty of fire rushing through her. The peak of the estrus cycle was known to eliminate the refractory period, and in theory Nature had felt this when satisfying herself alone in previous years. But she’d never felt the desire to go through all the work of self-stimulation a second time. Now, though, was an entirely different matter.
She looked to Teio and McQueen, and they each laughed at once, faces flushed with the embarrassment that only came after sex. “That was…”
“Incredible,” Teio finished.
“One of a kind,” McQueen said.
“We need to go at it again,” Nature said.
They both turned to her in surprise, and she was briefly terrified that she’d said something wrong and ruined the entire mood. But then the two of them turned to each other and grinned, and Nature realized that they were just in disbelief that she was so eager.
“Absolutely,” Teio said as she reached for a sanitary wipe.
“I agree,” McQueen said, taking a cleaning solution from the inside of the bedside table and using it to spray down the strap. “However, I think we should change things up a little.”
McQueen’s eyes slid over the entirety of Nature’s body in a steady leer. She wiped down the silicone in her hands, making sure every inch was touched.
Nature felt a blush spreading through her face. And she couldn’t have been more excited.
They took at least three hours to themselves in that room. Nature had been told that the custodial staff at Tracen were paid hourly wages better than anyone else in the industry, and now that she’d seen how much of their sweat was soaking into the bedsheets, she was convinced that they needed to be paid more. She’d tried to pull the ties out of her hair sometime after her second orgasm, but McQueen had stopped her, saying that it’d be easier to pull on that way, so now her scalp radiated with the kind of slight pain that made you want more. She realized about halfway through that the thought was masochistic, but that realization wasn’t important enough to matter while her crush was deep inside her ass. Actually, was Teio her crush anymore? Did it count as a crush once you’d seen each other naked? Nature wasn’t sure.
They didn’t so much decide to stop as have the decision forced on them by fatigue. Even as umamusume at the peak of their physique, there was only so much they could do before needing to tap out. Nature ended up sprawled out across the lower half of the bed, breaths long and weary, a long-discarded blanket pulled over her crotch—ironic given what she’d just done, but she wouldn’t be Nice Nature if she didn’t suddenly acquire a sense of shame at the worst possible time. Teio was leaning on the side of the bed with her sailor suit thrown back on loosely, and McQueen was… cleaning up after them, in an act of terrifying discipline. She would be a thrilling practice partner to have, Nature realized.
And immediately regretted realizing, because that made her remember that her life was going to continue past these four soundproofed walls. As her season-induced libido bled out into the sheets, she squeezed her eyes shut to fight against the urge to cry. She was Nice Nature again: a mediocre athlete, a side character, a coward. She’d dove into this too quickly and forced Teio and McQueen to include her in a triad that would’ve been perfectly fine without her. They’d thank her for her time and leave her behind here and they’d be friends again, friends and—
“Spe told me about this really good yakisoba stand that always sets up down the road from the dorms,” Teio said. “Do you two want to go there for lunch?”
Nice Nature’s eyes opened.
“I’d love to.” McQueen said. “It would be great to try yakisoba that isn’t Gold Ship’s for once.”
“What do you think the odds are that she’s interning there?” Teio asked.
“Well, now that you’ve spoken it into being, it’s almost guaranteed,” McQueen said. “I suppose her cooking is good enough, though—”
“Wait, wait, wait.” Nature sat up on the bed, pulling the blanket over her chest. “You want to go with me?”
“Well, yeah, obviously,” Teio said while she pulled her socks on. “Unless you don’t like yakisoba. But there’s tons of stalls set up along that path, so I’m sure we could find you something to eat.”
“No, I do like yakisoba. It’s in my top five festival foods. But I mean—”
Teio and McQueen both gave her confused, innocent looks, as if they had no clue why she was surprised. As if they actually liked her.
And of course they did. They wouldn’t have done all of this if they hadn’t, would they?
Nature doubled over, breasts spilling out from the blanket, and laughed until her stomach shook. “Are you alright?” McQueen asked.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Nature said, wiping away tears from her eyes. “I just—I never thought this would happen to me, you know?”
Teio and McQueen looked between each other, seemingly relieved, and Nature realized that they’d been worried that she wouldn’t like them, either. They’d all been terrified of nothing, chased around by their own fears as reflected in a funhouse mirror. Maybe Nature was more like them than she could admit.
But she could think about that later. For now, she reached down to the floor to grab her clothes. “Alright, yeah. Let’s get that yakisoba.”