Story:

Outside the crowd, away from all the chaos, Shiori in her yellow sports t-shirt and Miffy in her red one were doing their stretching exercises along the track rail—bending, reaching, side-stretching in the mechanical rhythm of girls who wanted gym class to simply be over.

Shiori's eyes kept drifting back to the track, though. Back to the black ponytail. Back to Butterfly, still at the finish line being applauded by boys who could no longer walk properly.

"Oi. Miffy," said Shiori, without turning her head. "You're on the track team. You're the fastest girl in our year. Tell me honestly." A pause, her voice flat. "Could you run faster than that?"

Miffy didn't reply.

She just sounded a hum. A low, single, noncommittal hmm—the sound of a professional athlete performing a full and sober evaluation of the evidence, weighing the track record of her own trained body against the memory of a foreign noble in school shoes destroying the athletics club record with a ponytail flying like a war banner.

Impossible, of course it's impossible, Miffy thought, reaching calmly for her toes. That woman isn't fast for a girl. She's a MONSTER. She outran trained male sprinters like they were jogging. That's not training. That's not talent. Whatever that is, it's not on the same curriculum.

"Thought so," said Shiori, reading the hum perfectly. Her nails dug briefly into her ankle. The strange, sourceless hatred simmered in her chest, patient as a coal.