Special Rivalry
Special Week was cute.
That was the first thing El Condor Pasa noticed about the transfer student from Hokkaido. Special Week was cute for a few reasons. The most obvious reason was that she was small and squishy and hopelessly naïve. There was something excruciatingly adorable about that. There was an intrinsic instinct in everyone and anyone to be drawn or attracted to small, soft things. They were naturally cute. So, Special Week being her small and soft self, was naturally cute too. It stood to reason.
However, the less obvious reason that El Condor Pasa found Special Week cute was that naivety. She wanted to be the best horse girl in Japan! How adorable, how cute, how totally and utterly impossible. When Special Week had declared that dream of hers before the class, everyone found her cuteness palatable.
Yes, perhaps it was mean-spirited but El Condor Pasa couldn't help it. She had laughed as well.
Next was the foregone conclusion which that with her ineffectual upbringing and her head in the clouds was that Special Week's dream was totally and utterly out of the question. But that foregone conclusion was shattered pretty quickly.
El Condor Pasa hadn't noticed at first. She had been soaring along the green; lost in her own dreams to be worried about anyone else. But when she crossed the finishing line and carted off, in wait of second place, she had not expected that cute and naïve Hokkaido horse-girl to be in second place.
And that's when the mean spirited "cute" Special Week was turned to something else. El Condor Pasa's heart skipped a beat. It was just one. She didn't even feel flushed or hot. That race had been pretty standard of her skills but the two were correlated, it was almost certain but El Condor Pasa didn't know what it meant.
So, she assumed it was a spark of rivalry. She could sense that her initial assumptions about Special Week were wrong. She clearly meant big business if she could run like that and impress everyone, not just El Condor Pasa. So, maybe it meant that El Condor Pasa had a destined rival in Special Week. Someone who could push her to do better. Maybe that's what it meant. That strange, skipped heart beat and that held breath and that flush in her cheeks and all these other things that occurred whenever Special Week was around.
Well, El Condor Pasa didn't know what any of this meant until it was too late.
She spent her time grinding to get better. She had her own hopes and dreams after all. She couldn't spend her time watching her classmates get better and become better rivals. So, El Condor Pasa spent her time getting better. And she did. The adults in the world of racing – the trainers, commentators, the journalists, the spectators and more – all thrust heavy expectations upon her shoulders, but she was determined to live up to those standards.
She was determined to be the racer that they thought she was; the bird soaring on the green. She would run and run and run and be the hero of the story. The masked heroine with good looks on stage and even better looks on the field. This was all part of her journey to the top, so she could fulfil her dream. She was going to become the strongest and most famous racehorse in all the world and El Condor Pasa would stop at nothing to realise that dream.
Even if it meant hurting Special Week along the way.
Their goals were at crosshairs, after all. Both desiring, hungering and yearning and wishing and wanting, the Triple Crown status.
The tie was something of a blessing. It meant that it could prolong the eventual disaster that they were both on a collision course on. But, truth be told even mostly sweetly, El Condor Pasa didn't want to hurt Special Week. She didn't want to see Special Week cry at the expense of her joy for that would be utterly heartbreaking. But the world of competitive racing was not that kind; not even to friends or lovers.
El Condor Pasa smiled as she turned around. She didn't hurt. She felt freer and more courageous than ever as she basked in the sun and in the limelight. The applause thundered, and she revelled in it. The adrenaline burned in her system as blood pulsed through her veins. It was amazing. Utterly enjoyable. But when she glanced at Special Week and Suzuka Silence who had trespassed onto the field just to congratulate Special Week that's when El Condor Pasa realised why her heart had skipped a beat that fateful day not too long ago.
Tears did not prick at her eyes, but a small, dull pain did prick at her heart. Her smile twinged.
She understood now. It was not a destined rivalry which had caused turmoil in her heart and in her body whenever she thought of, whenever she encountered, Special Week. It was a budding infatuation. A crush.
El Condor Pasa's gaze fell upon how Special Week and Suzuka Silence hugged. They were so close, so tightly embraced. It was sickeningly sweet like sugar which was far too processed.
Special Week was cute. She was really cute. Even when she was hugging Suzuka Silence so tight that one would make the easy mistake of thinking they were lovers rather than best friends. But, what if… What if there was something more kindled than their friendship?
The thought did not bode well with El Condor Pasa. Jealousy, what she thinks is jealousy, coiled around her insides though she begged it not to. She didn't want to ruin this beautiful moment of victory, and of friendship between Suzuka Silence and Special Week, with an emotion as hideous and as petty as jealousy.
Slowly, Special Week slipped away. She turned around and beamed. El Condor Pasa's shoulders rolled back. She returned the beam falsely. She tried not to think about this crush, this seemingly unrequited crush, on Special Week as they hugged.
It was a warm, loving hug between that of friends. It was not a hug between that of lovers, either, but perhaps not of rivals too.
There were wordless thanks as they embraced. Happy and cheering was the audience as they ate up the friendly rivalry that seemed to be between El Condor Pasa and Special week. But their hug was a promise to continue charging on through to their dreams, but it still hurt. It was a naïve promise even though one day soon one of them would get very hurt. One more so than the other and El Condor Pasa feared it might be her with these confusing feelings in her pounding heart.
To be the strongest and most famous racehorse in the world, El Condor Pasa had to be strong. Not just on the race track, it would seem. But in matters of the heart too. As Special Week slipped from her arms and returned to Suzaka Silence's side, El Condor Pasa realised that strength of the heart was far harder to muster than strength of the body.