Description: Abigale Elphick, a 17-year-old, former internationally known equestrian, is a British transfer student who moves to Japan with her father after he and her mother go through a rough divorce, due to her mother's narcissistic personality and horrible treatment towards Abbie. Ever since the divorce, Abbie's stopped competing and lost her reputation as the top youth rider to someone she wishes to forget. For a while, the only comfort Abbie has is her horse, Aquaries, a hot-headed, off-the-track-thoroughbred that she owns and trains. Abbie begins to attend Nekoma High, where she runs into a certain rooster-topped boy who she'd met at the stable she's riding at, Pine Crest Equestrian Center. Could he bring her back to the person she once was, or will she fall deeper into the pain of the divorce? Or will the root of the divorce make an appearance and destroy her new life, too?
Chapter 1
"Abbie, really, I promise it won't be that bad!" My dad exclaims as he pulls into the driveway of my new barn where I'd board my horse, Aquaries, a ten-year-old, off-the-track-thoroughbred that I've owned since he stopped racing at the age of five.
Dad parks the car then cuts the engine, turning to face me. I know the look on his face all too well. It's his 'I'm-sorry-you-were-dragged-into-this-mess' look. I've seen it way too many times, lately. Sometimes I wonder if it's going to turn into his permanent expression.
"I never said it would," I responded, glancing over at him.
He smiles at me, taking my hand in his. I smile back at him, hoping that he'll see that I believe him, which I do. My dad's only ever wanted the best for me, it was my mom who tore us apart.
Suddenly there's, a loud neigh and a stomping sound coming from the trailer attached to dad's truck. Both of us laugh, knowing exactly who it is and what they want.
Dad opens the car door, hopping out. "What do you say we get that impatient beast settled in his new home?" he asks, causing me to laugh again as I'm letting myself out of the truck.
"He is not a beast, just overly expressive!" I retort while helping dad open the back of the trailer. Once the back is opened, I head to the side door, climbing into the front.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever you say!" I hear my dad call.
Aquaries, ever so impatient, stomps his large hoof against the trailer floor and tosses his head, neighing loudly.
I roll my eyes as I untie the lead line from the metal ring on the trailer wall, kissing his muzzle. "Oh lord, Aquaries, relax, you're getting out now." My tone is short, but I can't help but smile fondly as I back him easily out of the trailer. And onto the pavement of the drive.
Just as I'm turning Aquaries away from the trailer, a tall, lanky woman walks out of the stable, glancing over at us.
"Abigale Elphick?" she asks, making her way over to Aquaries and me.
Aquaries, side-steps, pawing the pavement. I nudge his shoulder in an attempt to make him stop. When he does, I glance back up at the woman, giving her a half-smile. "That's me," I say.
She smiles at me, extending her hand. I shake it before quickly grabbing the side of Aquaries' halter as he spooked at a car horn, leaping to the side.
"Easy, easy, Quaries, shhhh," I murmur, calming Aquaries, who's quivering beside me, wide-eyed and nostrils flaring. When he finally settled down, I let out a sigh, looking back to the woman. "I'm sorry, he's usually not this jumpy."
The woman just waves a hand, smiling. "Oh, don't worry about it, my boys are the same way. I'm Eita Watanabe, the barn manager, and main instructor, but you can just call me Eita. Welcome to Pine Crest Equestrian Center!"
Eita turned her attention to Aquaries, raising her hand to his muzzle for him to sniff, careful not to spook him. He cautiously eyed her hand before allowing Eita to raise her hand to his cheek to give it a scratch.
"He's beautiful," she says. "What's his name?"
I smile, proud of how calm he's being with a stranger. Usually, he can't stand any strangers touching him. Patting his shoulder, I reply, "Aquaries' Nighting Gale, but Aquaries for short."
My dad finally approaches us after securing the trailer. He moves to Eita, shaking her hand. "Hi, I'm Mark Elphick, Abigale's father."
"Eita Watanabe," Eita says, smiling. "So, why don't we put Aquaries in a paddock, out in the back, while I show you his stall and give you a tour?"
Dad nods. "Sounds great!"
Eita leads us through the stable, out to a large, open area with at least ten large paddocks. She tells me to put Aquaries in the first open paddock, which is towards the front of the group, before having me follow her back towards the front of the barn.
"Alright. So, this is the main barn's entrance. The office is here," she says pointing to the wooden door to my right as we walked through the stables. "Next to it you find the tack room," she continues, pointing to the door to the left of the office. "Down this way, we have the first row of stalls and down here, towards the middle, the cross-tie, and wash-stall areas. This barn is mainly school horses. We don't really put boarders horses in here unless we have to." Eita led me down the long, spotless aisle of large box stalls with gleaming gold nameplates. The cross-tie and wash-stall area were huge with six sets of cross-ties and two different wash-bays.
"Now as we head this way, you'll find our large indoor arena," Eita says, leading me down the aisle to the left of the cross-ties. Inside the arena, there were multiple horses and riders working over fences or on flatwork. All of them looked extremely skilled and hard-working. One horse, in particular, a flashy steel-grey gelding, caught my eye as his rider worked effortlessly him through a tight spiral pattern. The horse bent and flexed in the direction his rider asked with ease, hooves sending up tiny clouds of dirt with each stride.
"Nice, Tetsuro!" Eita calls out to the rider I'd been watching, snapping me out of my trance. He glances over and nods his head to Eita before returning his attention to his mount.
Eita turns to me. "That's Kuroo Tetsuro, one of my more advanced riders. He's probably about your age," she says, before resuming the tour.
Eita shows me the second barn, for boarders, the third, smaller barn for her, the other two instructors, and the owners' horses. She introduced me to one of her geldings, a seventeen-year-old Dutch-Warmblood named Montee. She showed me where the three large outdoor riding rings were, where the round pens were, where the enormous cross-country-schooling field was, the out-doors wash stalls, and the rest of the paddocks. Eita informed me that there were several trails on the property, through the woods, that were either just good for a leisurely hack, or good for stamina building.
It was incredible how huge the facility actually was. I hadn't realized how large it was until I was there, walking the property myself.
Eita and I returned to the parking lot, where my dad sat in the truck, waiting for us to come back to unload all my tack and supplies.
"Ready to get this stuff inside?" He asked as we approached the vehicle.
"We're ready!" Eita declares while I nod in agreement. "If you want, you can just drive your truck down the pathway on the side of the barn and back towards the border's stables." She informs us.
Dad and I drove the truck and trailer down the pathway and parked by the front of the stables that Aquaries would be living in. The first thing we un-loaded was my large tack trunk, which had wheels on the bottom to make transportation easier. Eita directed me to Aquaries' stall, where I placed the trunk down, in front of the side that didn't open. Then, we went back and the two of us gathered my tack and brought it into the gorgeous tack room, placing it in the tack locker with my name on it. (Not everyone got lockers, but I'd decided to request one) When my two saddles and bridles were hung up, we went back for my saddle pads, which surprisingly all fit in the tack locker. We stored Aquaries' blankets in the storage room above the tack room in a bin with his name on it, along with every other boarder's bins. We brought his grain and supplements to the large feed room and put the grain in the tin labeled "Aquaries", and stored his supplements on the shelf above the tin.
When everything was finally in its place, Eita asked me if I needed anything else and I'd waved her off, thanking her for all her help. Eita and I said goodbye and dad went to move the truck and trailer back up to the driveway.
I decided to bring Aquaries in for the day, sure that he'd mostly settled into the new environment.
"Quaries!" I called, stepping up to the gait, lead line in hand. "Time to come in!"
From the other side of the large paddock, Aquaries' head shot straight up from where he'd been grazing when he heard me call for him. He let out an enthusiastic neigh and leaped into a gallop, racing over towards me.
I let out a laugh at his excitement to see me again as he slid to a stop just before slamming into the gate.
"You saw me, like, an hour ago, boy, did you miss me that much?" I asked him, clipping the lead line onto the ring on the bottom of his halter, giving his forehead a scratch. Aquaries leaned into my touch, letting out a little nicker. I smiled and unlatched the gait, leading him out of the pasture and back up to the barn.
As I was leading Aquaries into the stable, I noticed there was someone watching me from the entrance. It was the guy I'd seen riding, earlier. He watched me the whole way up to the stable.
When I reached the door, he smiled, a big smile, one that sort of unsettled me. I quickly glanced at him, nodding, before leading Aquaries down the aisle, to his stall. Unlatching the stall door, I led a hesitant Aquaries into the large box stall and gave him a kiss on his muzzle before un-doing his halter and letting him free in his new home. Nervous at being in a new place, he immediately followed me back to the door and when I closed it, stuck his head over the top, letting out a whicker.
Feeling for him, I grabbed a peppermint out of my tack trunk and opened the wrapper. With the treat flat in my palm, I held out my hand and let him take the treat with his lips, before rubbing his forehead.
I'm so focused on Aquaries that I hadn't even noticed that the boy had followed me into the stable and was resting against the stall door across from Aquaries'.
"Thoroughbred, right?" the guy asked. I whipped my head around, surprised by the sudden voice.
Up close, I have a much better view of what he looks like than when he was riding. The guy is tall, maybe around six feet, with messy black hair that flops over his right eye and sort of spikes upward, making it appear like a rooster-top. He's lean with broad shoulders and a muscular build. He looks comfortable in tan breeches and a black T-shirt with worn tall boots. His narrow, cat-like, hazel eyes seem to observe every little detail as his gaze falls on me.
Aquaries snorts and kicks his stall door, mad that I stopped paying attention to him. I resume his cheek scratches before responding.
"Yeah, off-the-track." I don't say anything else, devoting all of my attention to Aquaries.
The guy moves so that he's now standing next to me, observing my horse. A smirk grows on his face as he says, "So tell me about him."
I look at him out of the corner of my eye, squinting. Why did he want to know about my horse? And why, for the love of God, was he standing so close to me?
I blink, returning my gaze to Aquaries, before responding in a clipped tone. "Aquaries' Nighting Gale. Ten-year-old off-the-track, dark bay. Bought him at the age of five, trained him from a racehorse to an eventer." Aquaries, irritated at the closeness of a stranger, let out a shrill neigh before tossing his head and kicking at the door, again. Used to the unnecessary outburst, I don't flinch, but the guy takes a step back, seeming to understand the demand of boundaries.
"Clearly not a fan of strangers, huh," he says, shoving his hands in his pockets. The guy continues to observe Aquaries from a respective distance.
I look at him out of the corner of my eye. His interest in my horse was unsettling, as I'm kind of over-protective over Aquaries. Nobody besides me has ridden him in the five years I've owned him, not even my trainer's.
"No, he's not," I respond.
We stand there in silence for another minute before I spun around, grabbing my jacket off of my tack trunk and pulling it on.
"I should probably go, my dad's waiting for me," I say, turning back to Aquaries to give his muzzle a kiss, goodbye, before heading down the aisle.
The guy nods and falls into step beside me. "I'll walk you out," he tells me.
I just sigh and continue walking until I reach the parking lot, where the guy calls out to me. "By the way, I'm Kuroo Tetsuro. I'll see you around."
Glancing back in his direction, I don't really know how to respond, so I just say, "Abigale Elphick," before walking towards my dad's truck and getting in.
When I'm all settled, my dad asks, "Ready to go?"
I nod, looking over to see that the guy - Kuroo - was still standing where I'd left him, watching as my dad pulled out of the lot, driving away.