For the Expectations and Dreams She Carried
Kitasan Black froze at those words, then urgently asked:
"Right, A-Zhen... I mean, where's Trainer? Why didn't he come with you?"
"A-Zhen? Oh, you mean Anjing..."
After a moment of surprise, Tokai Teio was about to answer when an idea suddenly occurred to her.
She unconsciously looked at Mejiro McQueen again and found her friend looking back at her with the same unspoken understanding. After exchanging a glance, Teio's mind raced as she smiled and said:
"They're still behind us. The two of us run faster, so we got here first."
"I see..."
Kitasan Black softly replied, her gaze instinctively drifting toward the distance beyond the medical center, as though she wanted to catch sight of that familiar figure.
Then, her relaxed expression tightened slightly. Her eyes gained a trace of hesitation, along with an irrepressible urge to investigate.
She took a deep breath, then turned to the two seniors before her, her voice more solemn than ever.
"By the way, you two... I have something I want to ask."
Tokai Teio had sharply noticed earlier that Kitasan Black's way of addressing Anjing Zhen had become far more intimate than before.
Perhaps because of her experience as Student Council President, her thoughts instinctively drifted toward matters of romance.
The tacit understanding she and Mejiro McQueen had built over years of working together allowed her to realize, from that brief exchange of glances, that her friend had thought of the same thing.
If it was really as they suspected, then this would be troublesome.
If it truly involved romantic feelings, then on one hand, school rules explicitly prohibited such behavior. After all, a Horse Girl's prime competitive years were extremely short, and romance could easily affect her races.
Especially since the Shining Series had