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After the Shuka Sho sash ceremony, Shakur does not mingle with the rest of the crowd. She’s overcome with the need to see Fine. Needs to say something, but she hasn’t figured out what yet. She heads straight backstage. The din of the celebration fades as she walks quickly through the tunnels. Shakur raps her knuckles on the door to the dressing room as she opens it. Fine is sitting on a stool, hands folded in her lap, staring into the dressing room mirror. She turns her face from side to side.
“Congratulations, Fine. That was a good run.” Shakur feels underdressed in her oversized shorts and ratty hoodie. She wishes she had worn something nice for once, and then immediately squashes the thought and scowls.
“You’re saying congratulations with such a sour face,” Fine says. She still hasn’t looked away from the mirror. Shakur feels a flash of irritation.
“Yeah, well, you’re going to be late for your concert if you don’t change soon.” Shakur feels like an elementary schooler, but her mouth keeps running. “You may be a princess, but you can’t keep your fans waiting, you know.”
Fine stills. She turns the stool so she’s facing Shakur, who feels like she just got a limelight thrown on her. It’s hot, intensely so. But Fine’s gaze is anything but. She’s not smiling.
“What did you say?” Fine’s voice is soft.
Shakur tries to laugh, but it doesn’t come out right. “You heard me. No need to boss me around, princess.”
Silence. Fine looks up at Shakur. Fine’s mouth is a straight line.
“Princess? Really? I thought you of all people…”
“Me of all people would what?” Shakur’s temper flares, white-hot, knocking her off-balance in a way Fine never usually provokes. “You know me, Fine. I collect information, it’s what I do. You can’t be surprised that I found out. You have a frigging security detail. When the chairman talks about your father, she calls him His Highness. Of course I’d pick up on the fact that you’re the Irish crown princess.”
“Come now. You really think that a royal family would send their precious crown princess to a foreign country? To a racing academy, at that? Even with a security detail, that would be inane.” Fine Motion barks out a single, hollow laugh. “What a foolish rumor. I am a fool for not correcting you sooner.
“Not just a fool. I’m worse than that. I’m worse than scum. A liar, a conman, a devil.” Underneath the blotches of pink forming high on her cheekbones, Fine’s face is pale. Her eyes are twisted shut. “I’m not an Umamusume. I should never have been allowed to attend this academy in the first place.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Shakur says. None of this makes any sense. Normally, Shakur would say so. But something in Fine’s expression makes the words turn to ash on her tongue.
Fine’s fingers curl and flex before she lets her arms hang loosely at her sides. She does not look at Shakur as she speaks. Her eyes are still shut. She speaks woodenly. “I was not born a girl.”
Shakur leans back. “Huh? You’ve got all the traits of an Umamusume, right? You have ears and a tail, you live to run… You have to be a girl.”
Fine makes a strange, garbled noise. Then she giggles, once, too loud. “Shakur. You idiot. If only it were that easy.”
“I don’t understand,” Shakur says. “You’re a girl. I don’t–”
In an instant, Fine closes the distance between them. There’s not even one full centimeter separating Fine’s face from Shakur’s. Her nose is running. Fine digs her fingers into Shakur’s shoulder and brings her mouth close to Shakur’s ear. Shakur forgets about the phlegm and the tears on Fine’s face. Shakur forgets what they were talking about. She forgets her own name.
“I thought you were smart. I thought you were all about data. Then what’s your data telling you, huh? Use your brain,” Fine snarls.
Fine’s fingernails are sharp. Shakur pictures the crescent indents they must have formed in her skin, just north of her scapula. Fine shoves Shakur, and she steps back. Roughly, she drags a hand across her face. The snot is still there. Her eyes are still wet.
“I don’t even know why I bothered to tell you,” Fine says. She worries a scuff mark with her foot. “I thought…”
A knock at the door. “Fine? Are you still getting ready?”
Fine straightens her spine. She touches her fingertips to her jaw, and Shakur watches as Fine transforms. Every muscle in Fine’s face is subdued into a perfect emulation of serenity. “Yes, Trainer. Please give me some more time.”
“Okay, Fine. I’ll be waiting!” The sound of heels clicking on concrete grows faint.
Shakur stares at Fine and says nothing. She says nothing because she is experiencing chest pain unlike anything she has ever felt before. Her mind is roaring, full of horrible debris and shrapnel, sharp and hostile. Don’t know why I bothered to tell you. Don’t know why I bothered. Bother.
As that echo crashes around Shakur’s head, Fine turns away from Shakur. She reaches into her locker and pulls out her concert costume. She shrugs off her white blazer. “If you’ll excuse me,” Fine says, her back turned towards Shakur as she unzips her skirt. “I need to finish changing.”
Shakur does not think. She moves instead. Her hand catches Fine’s wrist. Fine turns, eyes wide.
“Wait.”
Fine goes rigid. In that terrible, calm voice, she says, “I don’t have time to wait. Please let go of me.”
“No.” Shakur grips Fine’s wrist harder. Fine winces. A reaction. Good. Shakur won’t let go. “You can’t just… Fuck, Fine. You can’t just say shit like that and then expect me to leave it alone.”
“Why can’t I?”
Shakur’s mind is still a warzone, but she’s calmed down enough to think again. She sees the scattered data points align into a formula. Fine’s fury. The venom in her voice when she called herself a conman. The fact that she called herself a conman in the first place.
“I...” Shakur loosens her grip. “I wasn’t trying to hurt you.”
“Yet you did.”
“I don’t understand. But I want to understand.”
Fine turns, just slightly, enough so that her eyes meet Shakur’s. Her gaze is searching. “Why?”
Shakur tilts her head to the side. “Why what?”
“Why do you want to understand?” As Shakur inhales, Fine turns around. She’s so close that Shakur can feel her breath on her neck. It startles Shakur into shutting her mouth. “Don’t say it’s because you collect data.”
“I wasn’t going to say that. Dumbass.” It’s partially true. But it’s not the whole truth. It doesn’t feel like the truth here, now, with Fine so close and looking like she’s been crushed underfoot. “I want to know. Because…” Shakur’s mouth feels like it’s full of glue. She clears her throat, wills her tongue and teeth and lips to cooperate, even if her throat wants to close up and stop these sappy thoughts from spilling forth. “I want to know because you’re important to me.”
Fine raises her eyebrows.
Shakur looks down at her. She’s struck by the urge to move Fine’s bangs to the side so she can see her forehead. What an odd thought to have at a time like this.
“Important to you.”
“Yes.” Shakur blushes. She forces herself to resist the urge to drop Fine’s gaze.
Fine bites her lip. For a long moment, Shakur thinks that the conversation’s over. But Fine inhales and begins to speak.
“I was born an Umamusume, yes. I have ears and a tail. And I love to run. But… Well, to make a long story quite short, there was… there is a problem. With me. I wasn’t born right. I was born an Umamusume, but my chromosomes don’t match that of a typical Umamusume’s.
“I am an Umamusume with both female and male traits. Intersex, is what they call it when humans have a combination of both traits. There’s not really a word for it for Umamusume. They say…” Fine’s eyes brim with tears again. “The doctors said they’ve never really seen this before. They don’t know what this means for me in the future. But they said I’m not truly a woman.”
Shakur feels her mind clear. “That’s bullshit.”
Fine blinks up at her. A tear rolls down her cheek. “Excuse me?”
“That’s bullshit,” Shakur says again. She adjusts her grip on Fine’s wrist. She tries to rub soothing circles with her thumb as she speaks. “You’re telling me some doctors looked at you and decided you weren’t a woman because of, what, exactly? Your chromosomes? Some test results? Bloodwork?”
“You’re oversimplifying.” Fine looks tired. She twists her hand and pulls her wrist free. “The doctors said-”
“Fuck the doctors.” Shakur shakes her head. Her bangs fall in her eyes, and she drags her hand through them. She wants to pull her hair, gnash her teeth, scream. She’s so, so angry, but not at Fine. “Fuck them. Wait, fuck that. I'm sorry. Forget that. Forget them. Your biology is different. So what? Whatever’s going on with your genes, that doesn’t disqualify you from womanhood. It just means… It just means you’re an Umamusume with different biology. That’s all. We all have different biology, anyways. We all have different genes. Genetic variance allows us to be better athletes.”
Fine doesn’t say anything. Shakur keeps rambling on, desperate to fill the air with something other than the heavy atmosphere that’s filling the room. “You said you weren’t born right. But what does that have to do with anything? You were still born an Umamusume. You’re here, aren’t you? You’re at the academy. Racing. Performing. Or supposed to be performing, fuck, you’re going to be late, aren’t you?”
“Shakur.” Fine’s voice makes Shakur close her mouth.
Fine’s mask is gone. Her eyes are puffy, pink around the edges. Her lip is trembling again. There’s dried tear tracks on her cheeks, and more tears are threatening to fall in the corners of her eyes. “You don’t understand what you’re saying,” Fine says.
“Then explain it to me.”
“I don’t know how to explain it to you!” Fine shouts, her voice breaking. “I don’t know how to explain it because I’ve never had to explain it to anyone else before! When I came here, everyone saw an Umamusume, everyone saw girl. And that felt good. But it’s not that simple. My bloodwork, it comes back with readings that are way out of range for what’s normal. I have too much testosterone in my blood. Four times as much as the average Umamusume. I shouldn’t be here.
“I’m here because I wanted to be. Because I said I’d be willing to accept the consequences if anyone found out.” Fine’s voice is shaking. “No one was supposed to find out. The chairwoman knows, but she’s the only one. She’s the one who fought for me to stay, and then fought my father to let me race. She vouches for me. But if anyone found out…”
“You’d be kicked out.”
Fine nods.
The security detail suddenly takes on a new form. It doesn't exist to protect Fine from others, but to ensure that her secret stayed just that: a secret. Other pieces suddenly come to mind and fit together. How the chairwoman was careful in how she addressed Fine’s family. Shakur didn't know the chairwoman was even capable of acting in a conscientious manner. Fine’s eerie ability to slip into a mask.
“You told me,” Shakur says slowly.
Fine looks delicate. “I told you because I… I wanted you to understand. Because you’re important to me, too. I thought if anyone could look at me and see… but you can’t. You can’t, no one can.”
Shakur turns over words of encouragement, declarations, quotes, references. None of them fit. None of them sound right. She stands there and feels helpless. Naked.
“You’re… you’re going to miss your Live, you know,” Shakur says, tentatively.
Fine jumps. “You’re right. Gosh.”
The moment shatters as she turns back to her locker. “You should go, Shakur.” Fine’s voice sounds faraway. But she’s right there.
“Let me help you. With the, ah. Zipper. For your costume.” The words come out stiff, but they emerge nonetheless.
Fine stops. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Fine turns around. “Then help me with my tie, please.”
Shakur fumbles with the knot. She’s slow to untie it. The brooch that Fine wears feels heavy, looks ornate. Shakur tries to be careful as she maneuvers the fabric. She lets the tie hang there, too nervous to pull it from Fine’s neck.
Fine cocks her head to the side. She’s wearing a small smile. “And the gloves, too.”
Shakur sputters. “The gloves? Surely you can-”
Fine holds up a finger. “Nuh-uh-uh,” she says. “You said, ‘Let me help you.’ So, I’m telling you what you can do to help.”
Shakur’s ears feel hot, but she reaches for Fine’s hand anyway. She peels back Fine’s gloves one at a time. Fine’s wrists are slender. Shakur didn’t realize this when she was tugging on them earlier, but she’s very aware of this right now.
When Shakur releases her hands, Fine steps back toward her locker. “I can remove my race skirt, thank you very much,” she says in a sing-song voice. Shakur tries to stutter out a protest, but Fine’s too quick. She’s already stepping into the wide, white skirt by the time Shakur can think of a retort. And that retort dies on her lips when Fine begins to pull up her purple, thigh-high stockings. Sure, they’re the same stockings that everyone wears, but they look special on Fine.
Fine sits on the stool and tugs up her stockings. “I can never get these stupid garters to clip to my shorts,” Fine grumbles. Shakur thinks about helping. She looks at Fine’s legs, her pale thighs. She is aware that she is looking for too long. By the time she convinces herself to stop thinking about the stupid stockings, Fine is already lacing up her boots.
She stands, smooths down her skirt, and reaches for her jacket. Shakur watches as she pulls it on. “I’m ready!”
“Fine,” Shakur says.
Fine tilts her head.
“I… I don’t know what to say.” She stops. Starts again. “We’re not done talking about this.” She tries to say it in a light tone, but it comes out sounding more like a threat. Her voice sounds low, gravelly.
“No?”
“No.” Shakur shoves her hands in her hoodie pocket. “I’m not going anywhere, though. That’s a promise.”
Fine’s face shifts. It’s different, though, from when the mask slid into place. Softer. More open, maybe. “You’re not going anywhere,” she says, slowly.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Shakur repeats.
Fine reaches up and adjusts the ribbon in her bun. She looks like the picture-perfect idol. She catches Shakur’s eye in the mirror. Shakur can still see the hint of red under her eyes.
“I need to go,” Fine says.
“I know.”
Fine brushes past Shakur, heading to the door. Shakur watches her go. With her hand on the handle, she says, “Shakur?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
Before Shakur can respond, the door clicks shut. Shakur stands alone in the dressing room. Fine left the pieces of her racewear scattered on the floor. Shakur picks each piece up and folds them, putting them back into the locker. She picks up Fine’s tie from the floor, smoothing out the wrinkles before draping it over the edge of the locker door.
The opening notes of the Live begin to play. Fine’s voice is clear and strong. Shakur sits down on the stool. She listens to Fine's beautiful voice and waits.