Chapter 25: The World Isn’t That Sweet
The commentator’s voice has a funny way of working. When you win, it sounds grand and glorious. When you lose, every word sinks into your ears with perfect clarity.
“First place goes to Thunderbolt! Black Hole finishes second! Mister Crown comes home in third!”
Third.
Third, huh.
Third place.
I didn’t win.
But it wasn’t a crushing defeat either.
Which made it the hardest result to react to.
“…”
I—Mister Crown—dragged my hooves toward the weighing room.
Slowly.
Really slowly.
It turned out your steps genuinely became a dejected shuffle after a race like this.
“…”
It’s not like the winner finished miles ahead of me.
The second-place horse didn’t seem impossibly far away either.
I felt like I might’ve been able to catch them.
But I didn’t.
And if I didn’t catch them—it means I didn’t catch them.
Today’s race wasn’t bad.
Seriously. It really wasn’t bad.
The start was decent.
My position during the race wasn’t bad.
I still had plenty left at the fourth corner.
I did.
And yet—
“Good work.”
A low, gentle voice.
When I lifted my head, Okabe-san was standing there as usual.
The jockey on my back let out a sigh.
Not a bad sigh—more like a “That was close” sigh.
“Good race. It wasn’t bad at all.”
Right? Right?
Exactly.
I think so too.
Today hadn’t been bad.
It really hadn’t.
But I still hadn’t won.
Okabe-san nodded.
“Yeah. I think dirt might suit him better.”
My ears twitched slightly.
The jockey nodded too.
“I agree. He can handle turf, but I think he has more potential on dirt.”
Dirt.
A dirt track.
Yes, today’s race had been a Class 2 allowance race on dirt.
Back when I debuted, I’d naturally assumed I was destined to become king of the turf.
Because turf felt kingly. It sparkled. It looked cool.
But reality had turned out differently. Whenever I charged forward on turf, something always felt slightly lacking. On dirt, however, I increasingly found myself thinking, “Oh, this actually feels better.”
Okabe-san lightly patted my neck.
“Let’s try dirt again next time.”
His voice wasn’t exactly pessimistic.
If anything, it sounded like someone trying to find the right path forward.
I get that.
I really did.
But still.
“Yeah. I’d love to ride him again. I think Crown has a lot more to give.”
The jockey’s voice was encouraging.
At that voice, I couldn’t help but snort.
“…”
This guy hadn’t done anything wrong.
In fact, I thought he’d ridden well.
He hadn’t pushed me too hard around the first turn, and in the stretch, he made sure to push me forward properly.
But there were still two horses ahead of me.
That was all.
These people couldn’t hear my thoughts anyway.
There was no point.
Yet my head kept getting louder.
The world wasn’t that easy.
So dirt, huh…
Not that I looked down on dirt racing.
That wasn’t it.
But still.
My ideal was to win a turf G1 in style and have some kid in front of the TV scream, “Mister Crown is amazing!”
Dirt racing was real racing too.
I know that.
There were dirt G1 races too. Strong horses were strong horses.
A king of the dirt track was undeniably cool.
I’d even seen some overseas dirt races on television before.
Huge ones.
But,
But.
Something felt off.
“This isn’t the protagonist route I imagined…”
The complaint escaped me as a low snort.
The jockey saw this and gave a wry smile.
“You look frustrated.”
Oh? You understand me?
I was supposed to be way more incredible than this.
Okabe-san smiled a little too.
“Being frustrated isn’t a bad thing.”
Yeah, sure.
But I wasn’t just frustrated.
Losing hurts.
Finishing third hurts.
Being unable to quite get there hurts.
“Well, take it easy and get some rest today.”
Okabe-san said gently.
The jockey stroked my neck one final time.
“Good work. Seriously, it wasn’t a bad race.”
Somehow that made it worse.
…I’ll keep trying, though.
I will.
But at times like this, I wished there were a few more lines aimed at the protagonist.
Not that they weren’t being kind.
They were.
It’s just—
I feel like my ideal world had a better scriptwriter.
“…The world’s not that sweet.”
The honest words slipped out.
Naturally, no human understood them.
Saku wasn’t here today.
He couldn’t come.
The ranch was busy.
And he was neither idle nor rich enough to visit the racecourse for every single race.
So no matter how much I thought, “Damn, damn, damnnnnn it!” there was no one to interpret it.
Though even if Saku were here, he’d probably just say:
“Yeah, yeah. You did your best.”
Still, it was a little lonely without him.
…No. Not lonely.
That’s not it.
It’s more that without him around—
All my great one-liners evaporate into thin air.
That’s the real inconvenience.
◇
That night.
Back in the racecourse stables, I stood listlessly on the straw bedding and couldn’t bring myself to move.
In the neighboring stall, the one who won today was busy celebrating, saying, “Man, I’ve really got talent!”
Or something equally annoying.
Winners were always loud.
Still, it wasn’t exactly my place to complain after losing.
So I just stared silently at the wall.
Then I let out a huge sigh.
“Haaaa…”
Couldn’t I do more?
Or was today’s result simply my true level?
If dirt suited me better, did that mean my path to becoming king of the turf was already closed?
No, no, no. The Emperor of Dirt sounded cool too, right?
It even had “Emperor” in the title. Although…
“Emperor” sounded kind of old.
And I was still young.
I was spiraling into increasingly pointless thoughts when—
“Ahh, it’s Crown-kun.”
A relaxed, somewhat absent-minded voice drifted over.
Yet somehow it sounded friendly.
My ears twitched.
I turned toward the sound.