Turns out, it's for breakfast (2nd Umamusume snippet)

Waking up was a truly unpleasant thing for me today. For the last two hours, I'd flited in and out of consciousness. The bed was too hard, then it was too soft, the blankets were too warm, so I took them off. only to feel chilly and put them back on– and don't even get me started on the pillow! I missed my old, beat up one from home already– hopefully it wouldn't spend too long stuck in transit to Japan.

In the end though, it was my poor bladder screaming in protest that forced me to get out of bed. But nothing could have prepared me for the horrors I faced in the bathroom... 

One frantic flailing and desperate battle against the evil that are Japanese toilets later, I left my room with a yawn. Unbelievably, it is 5 AM, only an hour off from my usual 6 AM wake up time. All in all, considering I'd gone to bed at around 7 PM I'd slept some… Uh…

So, nineteen to five. That'd be…

As I mentally attempted to actually math out how long I'd slept– without just counting for once –I went down the short flight of stairs to the ground floor. Aunty's house wasn't particularly large, in fact on the outside it looked like a stereotypical Japanese anime house. It had a chest high wall– which for me made it reach somewhere near my belly button –encircling it, with a cute little green space, just big enough for a small garden, sandwiched between them. Beyond that, it was pretty much a combination of big squares, with a slightly recessed entrance, a second, slightly smaller, floor and a roof on top.

On the inside though… Well, for one, things were fancy. Not ‘Marble all over the place’ fancy, but it was definitely middle upper-class. Lots of good quality appliances, a fair few classic sculptures and paintings too. It lacked the in your face show of wealth of multiple designer furniture or artwork, but it was pretty obvious working at Tracen wasn't leaving her hurting for cash.

Now that I was on the ground floor, I scratched at a sudden itch by sliding my hand under my shirt as I tried to remember the layout. The entrance was right in front of me, the… dip where you had to take your shoes off– I knew it had a name, but for the life of me couldn't remember it –was only a few meters away from the stairs, which I made note of for later. If I recalled things right, to my right was… the kitchen? No, wait. Kitchen was on the right when you entered the house, right? So now, right was left, which made left right, right? Right. So then, to my right was the office and left was the kitchen?

Walking as quietly as I could across the hardwood floor, I slowly pushed the left door open and saw that I was right! It was indeed the kitchen. Slinking into it and turning the lights on, I looked around for some sort of snack I could munch on before my morning routine. The Heavens had seen to it that I had a pretty impressive body, one that was strong, tall and sturdy– and only needed about six hours of sleep and a singular spoonful of sugar to be bouncing off the walls with energy. To the great chagrin of my parents once I discovered sweets…

In any case, the kitchen! It was a very well furnished one, and pretty big to boot. Lining the walls were all kinds of cabinets and drawers, the ovens, countertops with appliances on them, and a massive fridge. In the middle of all that was an island rising from the tiled floor with a few bowls of fruits and hardy veggies on it, there was also a mug with some plastic film stretched across the top, and a note under it.

Picking up the note, I quickly parsed it:

‘Didn't have the heart to wake you up after such a long trip. Made you a brownie mug cake, just add milk, and put it in the microwave! There are also stir-fry leftovers in the fridge for you if you are hungry. -Tazuna.’

Not even putting down the note, I immediately opened the fridge and poured milk into the cup. Aunty's mug brownies were straight up dark magic. Rich, gooey, just chewy enough to be toothsome but melt into your mouth– A quick stir, and deliciousness was but two minutes on medium wattage away~♡. Giggling like a loon at the idea of starting my day like this, I grabbed the leftover tupperware she'd mentioned and started to scrounge for a plate to use. During my search, I ran into packets of instant miso soup in one of the cupboards. Grabbing one, I quickly put water into the electric kettle and flicked it on. While that heated up, I managed to find the cutlery drawer and pulled a fork, soup spoon and chopsticks out of it. Luckily, the next cupboard had both the plates and the bowls. Taking one of each, I dumped the stir fry in one, and the instant miso in the other. Water was done by then, so I poured it into the bowl and stirred with my spoon. Just then, the microwave beeped and I went to check on the mug cake… it wasn’t done yet, only the edges were cakey, the rest was still uncooked slop, so I put it back in but dialed in only half the time.

Sighing at the lack of gooey cup brownies, I gave my soup one last stir and took an adventurous sip. My mood immediately soared as the burning broth brought a happy, pleased sound from deep within my chest as it washed over my lips. Running my tongue over them, I felt little shivers run down my spine and up my tail, sending-it-a-wagging. Unlike my other life's cat tongue, I found utter delight in extremes when eating or drinking. I did have a particular weakness to heat though, and relished the feeling of burning– near scalding food~.

Before I knew it, I was leaning against the kitchen's countertop, sipping the steaming, much too hot for anyone else, soup. The dead, silent air of the early morning quickly filled with the sound of my tail happily wumping against the counter, and of my ears quietly fluttering for the simple joy of a good, warm drink~. Unfortunately, the bowl didn't last long.

Tempting as it was to make myself another portion, the microwave chose that moment to beep for a second time, prompting me to set the still-warm bowl in the sink instead… For a few seconds, I seriously considered eating the mug-cake immediately. It was, after all, probably mouth-charringly hot! The perfect temperature for me to enjoy… but I resisted the temptation and instead went for the cold noodles. They were quite good! Not too greasy, a bit crunchy still where they'd gone golden brown. My only complaint was the lack of garlic and onions– and the sheer amount of carrots. I liked the orange vegetable as much as the next uma, but did it really need to make up half the dish's volume?

Pondering the proper amount of carrot in any one dish, I looked past the kitchen's limits while chewing my way through the stir-fried carrots topped with noodles. It was actually an open topped design, with it connecting to a slightly wider, and much larger, dining and living space. The floor over there was the same hardwood as in the entrance, which was nice. From where I was, I could see a proper dining table– seeing as there were stools tucked under the kitchen's island, I assumed that the table was for more formal, or fancy, meals. While the island was for day-to-day ones.

Back to the table, it was a nice, big one– that I'd already seen in the past. One of the family friends of my parents was a wood carver. They made custom hardwood tables, expensive as hell. But really nice. Aunty had bought that one… five? Years ago. I'd been too busy playing video games at home while she and my parents were visiting their friend, so my memory of that wasn't great. I only knew the story because everyone involved loved to talk about it. The friend because it was the biggest sales he ever made up to that point, and also because as the first international shipping he ever did, the whole thing had apparently been hilariously jank to package properly. My parents just loved to tease my aunt over her absolutely gushing about the table once it got to her in Japan, and aunty… well, like I said. She liked to gush about it for a while once she received it.

Past the table was a nice little TV space. A type of big nice flat screen TV that I'd only ever seen in electronics shops, and never in a home until now, was attached to the wall. It looked connected to an equally fancy stereo station. Right under it was a small shelf with all sorts of DVD, VHS and other assorted players, as well as the stuff they played. A shocking amount seemed to be straight from the 90s for some reasons, big names like terminator, robocop and alien… also, was that a PS1? Huh, it was. How retro.

Of course, opposite to the TV was a couch. I wasn't a couch expert, but it was big and looked to be pretty damn comfy. Probably a premium sleeping spot while watching movies. Between the TV and couch was a low table with a remote on it, most of it was hidden by the dinner table though, so I could get a good look at it. Overall, it was a nice, comfy looking place. I could only imagine how nice it was to have sunlight stream through the big glass sliding door that led to the back of the garden. It was definitely a very bright room during the day.

Anyhow, now that I was done with the noodles, I dropped them and the chopsticks in the sink, and quickly yanked the cake out of the microwave and dug into it with the fork. It was everything I'd hoped it would be~. Rich, gooey and just sweet enough to make the chocolate stand out, without making the whole thing taste more like sugar than chocolate. It wasn't ‘burn your mouth with steam’ hot though, so a bit cold for my tastes. But eh, sometimes it was nice to have something at a temperature normal people would only call ‘A bit too hot’.

Cleaning and rinsing my dishes, I left them to dry on a rack next to the sink and headed back to my room. The door to it was on the second floor, right in front of the stairs. To the left, going up the stairs, were other rooms. I think that aunty and her roommate's rooms were over that way, as well as two other miscellaneous rooms. To the right was another set of small, narrow and very steep stairs that had more in common with a ladder. It seemed to lead directly into the attic, so I could only guess that the space up there was used for things semi-regularly. Aunty was a secretary, so maybe it was a storage for various papers and documents?

Closing the door to my room, I stretched with a groan before grabbing my traveling trunk and flipping it open. Ignoring the box taking up the whole left side, I rummaged through the right side and pulled out my exercise clothes. Thankfully, I'd been smart and left them at the top of everything after pulling out my nightclothes yesterday. Quickly shrugging them on, I grabbed the protective bag I'd tapped on the back of the top of the box and swung it across my shoulder. Quickly securing it with the straps, the thing inside jiggled some, letting out a dull metallic ringing.

Not five minutes after entering my room, I was already back on the ground floor and slipping on my shoes after writing a note to my aunt. But, just as my hand wrapped around the knob I suddenly paused… My parents were used to me disappearing on my morning jogs and exercise– I was usually back by the time they woke up after all, an advantage of going to bed at midnight and waking up at six. They were also totally fine with it, and I'd long gotten the permission to do whatever in the morning after my first big fight.

Aunty hadn't done any of that– she definitely knew about my morning routine. The fact I'd be allowed to keep it going had been a huge sticking point to me eventually folding and agreeing to study in Tracen for three years. But she hadn't okay'd it yet, nevermind shared any words with me besides nagging, pointing out where my room was, and wishing me a good rest in case I passed out before she was back from work.

I allowed my hand to limply slide off of the knob with a sigh. Yeah, leaving was a terrible idea. I didn't like the idea of not being able to burn off my excess energy like I usually did, or missing out on two days of exercise, but surely it would be fine, right? I could just sneak some practice in a corner of Tracen, yeah?

Taking off my shoes, I left the bag in the entrance and went back up to my room yet again. Opening the door, I actually paid attention to it as I removed what I was wearing and picked up some day to day clothes. At its core, the room was a big rectangle. Centered with the door was a large, nice window about as tall as I was that gave a pretty nice view of Tracen in the distance. Right under it was the nighttable, and directly to the right of that was the bed– which was a smidge too small now that I looked at it. No wonder I didn't sleep all that well with my feet dangling off the edge! The thing was sized for a single, regular sized human to sleep on. Not anything of my heft and girth.

On the opposite side of the bed was a walk-in closet that was only halfway into the wall, and past that was an empty shelf. I was pretty sure that stuff had been on it at some point, it was too clean not to, but that aunty had pulled everything from it so I could add my own stuff. Which was good, because I was planning to get a whole lot of gunplas and figurines if I could help it! The wall was completely bare on the left side from there on, making it pretty uninteresting to look at. For now I grabbed my trunk and moved it over there so it wasn't in the way.

On the bed's side of things, there was a lot more going on. First was a nice sturdy desk and a chair. It even had a few alcoves for supplies or books built into the writing area. No drawers though, which might get a smidge annoying in the future– but at least I'd have plenty of leg space. Then, there was the bathroom.

Since this was originally a guest room, I actually got to get my own! Set right next to the door leading into the room and taking up the right corner, It wasn't particularly large, thanks to how it was integrated into the room. It was cramped for a normal person even! Making it suffocatingly tiny for me. The fact that its walls were only just thick enough to block moisture told me it was a later addition, probably. But it was mine, and I didn't have to worry about sharing it and messing up bathing etiquette!

Speaking of, I pulled the door open after settling on what I'd wear today– or at least until someone gave me something else to wear, since Tracen did have a uniform. Right to the left of me was the sink, it wasn't a particularly big one, especially compared to the much larger mirror it was right under of. Right next to it was a small scaffolding shelf, where I'd already put all of the shampoos, tail-care products and other assorted stuff that belonged in a bathroom that I'd brought with me.

Behind that, all the way in the back was the bathtub– if you could call it that. The shower-bath combo was tiny. It was, maybe, possible for two people to get in it at the same time if they were human-sized. But for one bearing my massive frame? Soaking in that bath would be me hugging my knees to my chest as water struggles to fill what few gaps were left! And it also probably wouldn't even rise high enough to wet the top of said knees…

A small sacrifice that I was more than ready to pay, in exchange for this much privacy.

Especially with the accursed Japanese toilet that was sort of in the way of everything. Damnable bastard sat between me and the shower, smugly taunting me and challenging me to sit back on it and get another monsoon unleashed upon my ass… Sneering at the vile contraption, I side stepped it and entered the shower. Since I hadn't gone on my morning exercise, all I did was a quick rinse– no real point in doing more without any morning grime to wash off. Not that the brief shower was going to make my time in the bathroom any shorter than usual.

Stepping out as soon as I was done, I quickly dried off as best I could before pulling a plastic stool from under the sink and sitting on it. Facing the mirror, I held back a sigh. My hair was of the usual fiery red-orange shade that i was so proud off… but it was also a mess. All that time in, and in-between, a plane hadn't been the kindest to it, but going to sleep with it still being pretty damp had turned it into a tangled nightmare I now had to deal with. Grabbing my brush, I went to work to try and tame it.

Pulling knots out of my mane was a long and perilous affair– considering my favorite activity, you might think I kept it short. Less risk that way. To that, I said ‘nuts’! No, I wanted to look good while kicking people's asses, which was why I kept my hair long enough that it reached all the way down my the small of my back! It gave me a lot of options for styling it, but for today, I'd go for a simple pony(heh)tail. After getting my hair under control, I put the brush away and picked up my mini-comb and trimming scissor, then moved on to my ears.

I loved my ears. Unlike many umas, I lacked the rather distinct ‘patch’ of colour many of them had somewhere in their hair, making it solid red all the way through. By contrast, it was my ears that gave my head a nice little pop of colour. On the outside, the fine hair covering them was the same fire-red as my hair, except for their tip, which sported little tuffs of longer black hair that kind of gave the impression of black smoke rising from a flame.

Those were the easiest part of my ears to trim and keep looking nice and clean. I just had to give them a few snips every other week to make sure they didn't get too long and unruly. I'd tried to let them grow out once– the results hadn't been pretty. Or clean, for that matter. They weren't my ears’ only source of colour though. Their actual inside was actually a completely different shade from my hair! I wasn't sure why, but the fuzz that lined the internal walls was a light, golden amber in colour. There were actually a few red-ish notes in there I'd you knew where to look, my ears weren't super smooth on the inside, because of that all those little folds caused the fine hair to deepen in colour depending on the angle you looked them at. The result was that as the angle changed, either because they moved, or the person looking did, the splashes of red would subtly change.

It was a very pretty effect, and one that I was all too well acquainted with. My ears were extremely sensitive– to the point that anyone touching them would cause them to do their absolute best to try and make me take to the skies. The tuffs on the tips were easy enough to trip without that being too much of an issue… but the same couldn't be said of the big balls of puffy charcoal coloured hair that filled the lowest section of my ears. Now, those were a pain.

I could touch them well enough– and even that tended to send a shiver down my spine –but it was a lost cause for everyone else. After one too many close call with a hairdresser, I'd started trimming them myself. Something I'd become pretty good at, if I said so myself! Gave them a real fluffy cat, or fox, girl look! Just because I was an uma didn't mean that I couldn't be a cat-fox aficionado…

Ears dealt with, that left only my tail to be taken care of. Thankfully, brushing it was pretty easy and quick using the right brush. But I quickly faced a different issue: braiding it. I liked my hair colour, but I also really liked the effect in my ears, so it'd taken to use an amber ribbons to bind my tail since it was the same colour as my hair, it gave it a bit more depth and looked pretty good in my opinion– more umas really should style their tails if you asked me. Unfortunately, I hadn't been able to fit those specific ribbons into my trunk. The only ones I currently had were the grey-black ones I normally wore for exercising… or when I wanted to be real lazy on the weekend. I didn't like them as much, but they were both a safer bet considering Tracen had a uniform policy that seemed rather strict, and made to be used during workouts, so I'd gone with them instead.

I could probably find another set of amber ribbons in Japan, but finding ones that were the right colour and neither super flimsy, or obscenely expensive, was going to be a pain. Hopefully the rest of my stuff would get here sooner than later, and I wouldn't have to buy anything. In any case, I went with my usual go-to: a loose braid, kept in shape by the ribbon weaving in and out of it in a diamond pattern, and topped off by a bow at the base of my tail…

It looked terrible– the bow, I mean. It was lopsided on one side and off center, prompting me to ponder if I should just get one of those clip-on bows. It'd look a lot better than this, that's for sure… buuuuuut, at the same time model kits and whetstones weren't cheap. So money spent on that was money I couldn't spend on those. A difficult choice– that I already knew the answer to.

With everything hair related behind me, I reached out for my skin-care cream as I tried to figure out if I wanted to start with some gunplas, or buy a different brand of big robot kits, maybe a kotobuyika one?

The feeling of the cream on my fingers brought me back to the now. I didn't particularly like the stuff, but I rubbed it into my arms nonetheless. Each pass made the numerous scuffs and scars covering my arms vanish a little bit more, they'd never completely vanish, but hopefully if I wasn't allowed to wear my long gloves, they were discreet enough that people wouldn't take one look at me and shout ‘Delinquent!’. My size and personality was going to give me plenty of that already, no need to add to the fire.

Cream applied, I was now free to put on my clothes and… be bored? My first thought was to grab my phone and browse the Internet, but: A, I didn't have the WiFi password, and B, after being on my phone the entire time between here and France, I really didn't want to pick it up again. I didn't have books either, the box with my gear was too big to allow me to pack anything but clothes. There was probably a room filled with all kinds of books and manga, but I didn't know where it was… TV was sort of an option. But I also didn't want to risk waking anyone up watching it.

The idea of just lying in bed came and went. It was too small, and I was too energized after that mug-cake to sit still… Hmmm… actually, there was one thing I could probably do…

-[||]-

Maruzensky woke up far too early to her liking. 6 AM was sleeping time, not waking time. Especially when Tracen's gates closed at 9, between her dearest car and how close the house she shared with Tazu-chan was to the Academy, she usually slept a lot longer than this, “Guess the excitement of seeing all the new, cute first years is getting to me~.”

Speaking of new faces, their little household had a new member! Her dearest friend's mysterious niece! Well– not so mysterious, really. Tazu-chan could never stop gushing about her after all. Which, in itself, was absolutely adorable~♡. The Le Bretons would probably never realise it, but they really helped the poor gal out of her slump. She was trying to put on big airs after the injury, but Maruzensky could tell that Tazuna had been hurting a lot more than she let on. Suddenly learning she had family abroad, and them seeking her out to help their daughter have a good life? Now that breathed a new life into her!

For her part, Maruzensky had been on the sidelines of that, too busy being a rebel and taking part in all of the counter-culture activities she could back then. Of them all, the street racing scene held a special place in her heart… aah, a shame that laws after laws turned that sport into a shadow of its former self. She would have loved to race that Trueno one more time. That being said… she had no idea what the kid looked like. She'd seen pictures of her as a child, and she was real adorbs, what with her bright red hair, the touches of black on her ears and the amber highlights. But since then, she'd apparently hit one hell of a growth spurt.

She'd actually been looking forward to meeting her yesterday, but the poor girl had totally crashed out. Hit the hay like a guy with a burst tire on the last straight on a downhill hitting the side railing. Honestly, after over a day of hopping in and out of planes, she couldn't blame the kid. Hopefully, they'd be able to meet this morning before school…

Taking a deep breath with the intent to try and go back to sleep, something weird tickled the older uma's nose. Something was in the air, something sweet, eggy and… cinnamon-y? “Did Tazu-chan wake up early?” The ever dutiful woman always got up at 7 AM on the dot, and was handling her pre-opening duties at Tracen at 7:45 sharp. No change, no deviations– unless she was on break. But after thinking on it, Maruzensky wasn't actually that surprised that she was up even earlier than usual. With her niece being here, she was probably preparing breakfast in advance so they could chat over it, good enough of an explanation for her… what it didn't explain though, was the smell. Tazu-chan was a fan of the traditional Japanese breakfast, not whatever was being made.

Curiosity taking the better of her, Maruzensky got out of bed and quickly put on her casual fit so she could go and snoop on her bestie~. Leaving her room with a yawn, she was immediately confused. Having lived with Tazuna for so long, they knew each other's little idiosyncrasies. For example: their bedroom doors. She liked to leave the door open while she was in her room, it made it easier to hear what was going on, and also led to a little bit of air circulation. Her roommate on the other hand, she liked to do the opposite: she kept her door closed while she was in her room so she could have her own ‘me’ space.

And that door was firmly closed at this moment. Meaning that unless waking an hour early suddenly made her change her usual habits, whoever was cooking wasn't her. With that in mind, she tiptoed in the direction of the stairs and spared a glance to the guestroom’s door. It was closed too, but that could mean anything, she didn't know the kid's preferences, and she wasn't the noisy sort to try and listen at the door… anymore.

Glancing over to the stairs, a thin ray of light exiting the partly-opened kitchen door was shining through the entrance, gently dispersing the morning's dark. Standing at the top, Maruzensky could hear a quiet sizzle drift out of the room, along with the sound of someone moving every now and then. She couldn't think of any criminal bold enough to cook up a sweet treat in someone else's house, so the woman simply shrugged and jauntily wandered down the stairs with a yawn. Whoever was cooking, Tazu-chan, or for some god forsaken reason, her little niece, she was sure that their food would be perfect to chase away the sleepy fog hanging over her head so early in the morning~.

But, just as she was about to head into the kitchen after reaching the bottom of the stairs, her brain suddenly stopped with a screech. Something was in the genkan. Laying against the wall on the side that wasn't being illuminated by the kitchen's light, was a long, thin bag. Blinking at it, Maruzensky tried to make sense of wjat she was seeing– it was made from a cloth that was coloured a deep red, and sewn into it was a large yellow, reflective high-vis stripe that spiraled all along the bag's length. The red was menacing for some reason, but she couldn't quite place why until it suddenly came to her– the yellow had made it harder to see, but… it was coloured blood red, like the cloth had been washed in it.

That was enough for her thought process to wander off to places best left alone. But the sight of a leather-wrapped handle sticking out of the top immediately brought to mind a certain woman's mighty baseball bat. Now, of course it couldn't be that. The bag was too thin, too tall, but– “Nh, g'morn.” Her brain didn't have the time to process that fact, not when an absolute giant of an uma walked out of the kitchen.

It might have been Maruzensky's trip down memory lane. It might have been her love for everything from the 90s and 80s, it might even have been her brain attempting to play a funny joke on her. But the so-called ‘Beast of the Racetrack’ failed to see the fiery red hair, the ears with amber insides and black tuffs decorating both their top and bottom. Rather, she had eyes only for the piercing golden eyes set in a sculpted face glaring down at her, for the faint scars etched across the other uma's naked eyes, or for the amazing abs peeking between the pants and the rim of a slightly too small shirt…

Could she be blamed then, for finding herself back into the heated years of her youth, bending her waist at the hips in a respectful bow, greeting the only woman she knew that would have been so brazen as to break into someone's house to make sure they ate right?

“A-Ane-ue!?”

By the time her brain caught up to her words, she knew that Tazu-chan would never let her live this down.