A Blue Rose with Thorns
A Blue Rose with Thorns
Chapter One
The spring training grounds were almost too bright, as though someone had washed the whole sky, wrung it dry, and spread it over the track.
When Rice Shower finished her first set, dawn had only just begun. She always liked arriving before everyone else, as if softening her footsteps and hiding her shadow could remove her from the crowd in advance. Beyond the finish line, she stopped to straighten her ribbon, settle her breathing, then came over holding her water bottle and said, “Good morning.”
She was always like that. Put herself in order first, then offer herself for others to see.
Her trainer stood beside the track, stopwatch in hand. After watching her for a while, she asked, “Didn’t sleep well last night?”
Rice paused, tightening her fingers around the bottle.
“…No, that’s not it.”
“Then you had a dream.”
Her voice was calm, as if she had casually placed a fact on a table. Rice was silent for several seconds, then lowered her eyes. “I dreamed everyone was watching somebody else’s race. Rice was on the track too, but nobody looked this way.”
Then she added, “That’s fine too… Everyone has something they’d rather see.”
Her trainer didn’t comfort her or answer with “Of course they would.” She only held out a hand for the bottle. Rice drew her hand back quickly, a faint blush rising behind her ears.
“Wanting to be seen isn’t wrong.” Her trainer took a sip and handed it back. “You can be a little greedier.”
Rice looked up. Her eyes were usually quiet and moist, but sometimes, for the briefest instant, something else appeared in them: not softness, but a thin, hard determination buried too deep. Her trainer liked that instant very much.
She had first noticed it one evening.
Training had ended late that day, and a trace of warmth lingered in the wind. Rice sat on a bench with an old picture book open across her knees. A dark-colored rose adorned its cover; the pages were frayed from turning. Her trainer had only meant to call her to dinner, but as she approached, she heard Rice read a line aloud:
“The blue flower has no one’s blessing, but it still wants to bloom.”
Her trainer stopped and looked down at the title.
The Happy Blue Rose.
“Do you like that story?”
Rice nodded, pressing her fingertips against the spine as though protecting a secret she was embarrassed to show.
“Why?”
Rice thought for a long time. “Because it isn’t the kind of flower… everyone will love. But it blooms anyway.”
The evening breeze lifted the loose hair over her forehead. Her trainer watched her in the twilight for so long that Rice began to close the book uneasily, wanting to take the conversation back. Yet a moment later, still looking down, she added:
“Rice… wants to beat Miss Bourbon once.”
It was neither a plea nor a bid for affection, only a quiet statement. But it was so direct that it felt as if someone had laid a slender knife in her palm: cold, silent, and unmistakably sharp.
Looking down at her then, her trainer understood that she had never truly been drawn to Rice’s pitiable appearance. What she liked lay deeper. Rice was always apologizing, always taking responsibility for every bad outcome, yet somewhere inside her was a bone that would not bend. Others saw a lowered head as weakness or surrender. Her trainer knew that even with her head bowed, Rice might be pushing forward inside, inch by inch.
So she said only, “Then go and win.”
Rice raised her head, astonishment filling her eyes.
That was the first moment her trainer clearly understood that the way she looked at Rice was no longer entirely innocent.
She was not content to see her stand obediently in a corner. She wanted to see her run, to cut through an ending everyone assumed belonged to somebody else, to cross the finish line quietly and stubbornly while the whole stadium waited for another name.
That was not a desire a trainer should have.
But she had it.
On the day of the Spring Stakes, before Rice stepped onto the track, her trainer tightened her ribbon a little. It took only a moment, but Rice went rigid, even the tips of her ears turning red. Her trainer looked down at the pale nape of her neck and its slight tremor.
All she said was, “Don’t think too much today.”
Rice answered softly.
After the race, her trainer stood below the grandstand without showing much emotion. She was good at hiding her expressions. Yet when Rice approached, she caught the faintest satisfaction in her eyes before she could suppress it.
That look warmed Rice’s chest and frightened her a little.
She still hadn’t run well enough. So many others shone brighter. But in the instant her trainer looked at her, she felt for the first time that perhaps she really could go a little farther.
Even a little would be enough.
Then came the Derby.
Rice grew quieter before it. She spoke little, stopped lingering after training, and did everything so properly that it seemed to be for someone’s inspection. Her trainer knew what it meant: she was nervous, more nervous than she admitted. The more frightened she became, the smaller she made herself, as if occupying less space would mean causing less trouble.
One night, her trainer came out of the equipment room and found Rice alone beside a bench, holding the unopened picture book. Thin light made her profile pale.
“Why aren’t you back at the dorm?”
Rice stood. “Sorry, Rice was just…”
“Just what?”
With her head bowed, she forced out, “Just wondering whether Trainer will be disappointed if Rice doesn’t run well.”
Her trainer watched her without answering. Wind curled around the grandstand and fluttered the pages. She drew the book from Rice’s hand, glanced at the dark flower on the cover, then tucked it back against her chest.
“I’m not afraid you won’t run well.”
Rice went still.
Her trainer bent to meet her eyes. “I’m afraid you’ll want to win and still pretend you don’t.”
The words pierced like a fine needle. For the first time, Rice felt that her trainer’s gaze was not gentle. Not entirely. Something else lay in it, denser and hotter, looking through her obedient exterior toward somewhere deeper.
Rice clutched the book, her fingertips turning faintly white.
Part of her wanted to flee. Part of her couldn’t bear to.
She did not win the Derby.
On the ride back, people offered comfort, their voices muffled as if coming through some barrier. Rice leaned against the window without turning. The glass reflected her pale, quiet face. She expected her trainer to say “It’s all right,” “There’s next time,” or “You worked hard.” Instead, she sat beside her in silence for a long time.
Only when the vehicle entered the dusk did she speak.
“You should understand a little better now.”
Rice turned, bewildered.
“It isn’t that you don’t want to win.” Her trainer’s calm was almost cruel. “You’re afraid to admit how badly you want it.”
Streetlights came on one by one outside the window. Rice looked at her.
She did not feel comforted. Yet she felt seen more clearly than comfort had ever made her feel.
Chapter Two
In the days before the Kikuka Sho, Rice was almost frighteningly quiet.
She still apologized: for failing to catch something handed to her, for using the track one minute too long. She still thanked her trainer for staying until dark for extra practice. But beneath those small habits, something was growing. Her trainer could see it.
She saw Rice refuse more and more firmly to ease up before the finish. Saw her shoulders tighten at the name “Bourbon.” Saw her sitting alone on the bench at night, picture book open, without turning a page for a very long time.
After training one day, she called from behind her.
“Rice.”
Rice stopped and turned.
“What are you thinking about?”
After a long silence: “Whether everyone will be unhappy if Rice really wins.”
“And you?”
“…Rice will be very happy.”
A brief light flashed in her eyes as she said it, like a flame struck in the dark: fine, hot, carrying something almost unwilling to bow. Then it vanished. She lowered her eyes again. “So… does that make Rice bad?”
Her trainer smiled.
“Only just noticing?”
Rice froze. Her trainer was already close, brushing sweat-damp strands back from her forehead. The touch was light, a fingertip passing over skin, but Rice stiffened completely.
“Wanting to win isn’t bad,” her trainer said. “But if you insist on calling yourself a bad girl—”
She paused, then finished softly.
“At least be a bad girl who wins all the way to the end.”
The words wound around her like a secret temptation. Rice looked at her, chest hot, even her fingertips trembling. She didn’t know whether her trainer meant to do this, or whether she should step back or stay. She only knew that from that day onward, each time she stood on the track, her mind held something other than “Don’t cause trouble.”
Win all the way to the end.
On the day of the Kikuka Sho, the entire grandstand seemed to be waiting for another name.
Rice stood at the gate as wind rolled through the course carrying a jumble of voices. She didn’t look around, only glanced toward the edge before the start. Her trainer stood there as calmly as ever, as if she had never known nervousness. Yet Rice saw the deeply hidden emotion in her tightened fingers.
And she was no longer afraid.
After the start, the world stretched into a narrow line. Wind, hoofbeats, and shouting were pushed far away. The final straight drew dreamily close. Rice heard her own ragged breathing and felt something inside her finally cross the barrier that had always held her back.
She wanted to win. She wanted it so badly.
As she crossed the line, the surrounding sound seemed to miss a beat. Beyond the finish, her chest heaving, her eyes were already searching for that person beside the track.
Her trainer did not immediately approach. She stood and watched. Too many looks, too many comments, too much disappointment and uproar without a clear target swept between them. But her gaze was steady, steady enough to pin Rice in place.
Rice looked at her.
Strangely, her first feeling was not joy but a cruel clarity. So this was what winning really did. So this was the quiet sound a story made when it was cut apart.
Rice sat alone in the lounge, motionless for a long time. When the door opened, she didn’t even look up. “I’m sorry.”
Her trainer stood by the door and closed it behind her.
“Who are you apologizing for?”
Rice didn’t answer.
“Bourbon? Everyone who wanted to see her win?” She came over and looked down. “Or yourself?”
Rice finally raised her head, her eyes shining wetly.
“Rice knows,” she said softly. “Everyone wanted a happy ending. Rice ruined it.”
Her trainer crouched to meet her gaze. She didn’t say “It isn’t your fault” or “You did well.” She simply lifted Rice’s chin, making her look at her.
“And you?” she asked. “Were you happy when you ruined it?”
Rice’s lashes trembled. She opened her mouth, but something blocked her throat. At last, she nodded once.
A trace of pleasure appeared in her trainer’s eyes.
“Then that’s enough.”
Something in Rice’s chest seemed to be pushed forward. This wasn’t forgiveness or rescue. It was more as if a thorn hidden in the dark had finally been seen—and instead of frowning, the person who found it looked indulgently upon it and allowed it to keep growing.
Rice didn’t know whether that was right. But it was already too late to turn back.
Chapter Three
In her senior year, Rice became quieter still.
She smiled, lowered her head awkwardly at praise, and carefully returned every good morning. But her trainer knew something had changed. She stood on the track more steadily, and more coldly. Her personality hadn’t hardened; she had finally learned not to hide her desire to win as though it were a crime.
By the Nikkei Sho, even others could see it.
“Rice seems different lately,” someone said.
Her trainer heard, but said nothing.
Of course she knew what was different. The unhesitating ruthlessness of the final sprint. No longer checking, again and again, whether taking the track would trouble anyone. That thing in her eyes, deeper and brighter whenever she looked toward the finish. Watching it, some place inside her trainer gave way and filled with something hotter.
She should have stopped it. She didn’t.
Sometimes she even wiped the sweat from Rice’s temple after practice and, when Rice froze at the excessive closeness, deliberately lingered. Looking into those moist eyes, she imagined them narrowed and taut before a finish line, almost merciless. She knew there was something in her gaze that shouldn’t be there, but repeatedly let herself sink into it.
The dormitory corridor was quiet on the night before the spring Tenno Sho. When her trainer came to find Rice, the door was ajar and only a small desk lamp was on. Rice sat on the bed without her picture book, looking down at her hands as if thinking of something far away.
“Why aren’t you asleep?”
Rice looked up in surprise, then lowered her eyes again.
“I can’t sleep.”
Her trainer entered and stopped before her. “What are you afraid of?”
After a long silence, Rice said, “Rice really wants to win. But the closer a race gets, the more it feels like something inside is broken.”
“Because you know you’re going to take something from someone else.”
She said it calmly, giving voice to the ugliest sentence in Rice’s heart. Rice’s shoulders trembled. She didn’t argue.
Her trainer bent, bracing her hands beside Rice and enclosing her in her shadow. With the light behind her, Rice couldn’t read her eyes, only hear her very low voice.
“But do you know something?”
“You’re not most beautiful when you’re bowing your head and apologizing.” She looked at Rice. “It’s when you know you’re about to cut apart somebody’s perfect ending, and still refuse to stop.”
Rice looked up.
The words were too heavy, dangerously so. Looking at the person so close before her, Rice heard a ringing in her ears, as if the world were withdrawing. Instinct told her she shouldn’t listen, shouldn’t believe. Yet the speaker was her trainer—the very person she should least lose herself in, and the one who most made her fall.
“Trainer…” Her throat was dry. “This isn’t right.”
Her trainer smiled, her gaze anything but light.
“I know.”
She tucked a loose strand behind Rice’s ear. Her fingertip brushed soft skin and lingered.
“But I like you this way.”
Something struck Rice’s chest. Not the warmth of reassurance, nor the relief of being understood. It was as though something she had pressed deep inside, something she could not admit even to herself, had suddenly been kissed by another person. No actual contact, yet it burned enough to make her tremble.
On the day of the spring Tenno Sho, Rice ran more like a blade than ever before.
In the final stretch she thought of nothing. Wind split beside her ears; cheers and gasps mingled like a long-delayed downpour. After the finish, her heart pounded, her whole body still caught in that ruthless concentration.
The grandstand was loud, and somehow very far away.
Standing in the light, she remembered the night before.
—But I like you this way.
The words made her eyes burn.
Backstage, people were talking over one another. Rice only wanted to flee. She hid alone in the equipment room and stood against the door for a long time, her fingers still trembling. She knew how many looks waited outside, how many disappointed people, how many stories had broken at her feet. She knew she probably resembled the kind of winner others said should never be loved.
When the door opened, she didn’t dare look up.
Her trainer entered and closed it. The narrow space grew so quiet that they could hear each other’s breathing. After a long time, Rice said with her head lowered, “Does this… make it easier for Trainer to hate Rice?”
Her chin was lifted before the words had settled.
Before she could react, her trainer bent and kissed her.
It wasn’t a brief brush of lips. It was too direct, too uncontrolled. Rice’s eyes widened; she froze against the cold lockers while her lips burned. Her trainer’s hand rested against her face, not hard, but leaving no room to retreat. There was no reassurance in the kiss, not even much gentleness. It was more like a declaration finally released after being held back too long:
Not pity. Not forgiveness. A preference so complete that she wanted even Rice at her worst for herself.
When they parted, Rice was still trembling, her lashes wet. Her trainer rested her forehead against hers, breathing unevenly too.
“Rice,” she said softly.
Rice gripped her sleeve as if it were the only thing keeping her from falling.
“When you win,” her trainer said, looking at her, “you are not allowed to apologize.”
Chapter Four
Before the Takarazuka Kinen, things grew quieter between them.
It wasn’t distance. Something that had gone too far was finally taking shape. That kiss was like a knife plunged into water: calm on the surface, everything cut apart below. Rice still followed her instructions in training and walked with her afterward. But whenever they were alone, the air inexplicably grew heavy. Even an ordinary sentence had to be turned over on the tongue before it felt safe to say.
For the first time, Rice understood that being someone’s favorite could be frightening.
She wasn’t afraid of being kissed. She was afraid of whether the person her trainer loved was really her. If she were no longer this sharp, unblessed winner who ruined other people’s perfect endings, would she still look at her that way?
The question worked into her heart like a tiny grain of sand. On the eve of the Takarazuka Kinen, she finally asked.
“Trainer.”
“Mm?”
“If Rice weren’t this kind of girl… would you still like her?”
Her trainer paused over her training records. She didn’t answer at once, as if thinking carefully, or as if forced to face the question for the first time. Lamplight clearly outlined her profile; even the shadows of her lashes were still.
She closed the notebook and looked up.
“I don’t know.”
Rice went pale. But the next sentence came quickly, calm and tangible.
“Because you aren’t that other girl. I’ve never loved a neatly trimmed Rice who only puts people at ease. I love the way you’re frightened, blame yourself, feel you have no one’s blessing—and still refuse to surrender the finish line even if it kills you.”
Rice looked at her, eyes growing wet.
Her trainer came over and gathered her into her arms. Unlike that uncontrolled kiss, this embrace was light and steady, as if she were finally willing to offer something firm beneath indulgence and obsession.
“I don’t love you because you’re a blade,” she said. “I love you because you’re the one holding it.”
Rice closed her eyes, pressed her forehead to her shoulder, and held her back.
At last she felt she wasn’t being allowed to break. She had simply been loved, even in her least presentable parts.
Neither mentioned the question on race day.
Some things, once spoken, no longer need proving over and over.
Final Chapter
Winter arrived sooner than expected. Before the Arima Kinen, the wind was already cold, crossing the track like the back of a knife against skin: chilly, but not wounding. Rice stood at the gate, her palms faintly warm. She no longer kept trying to hide herself or to discover whom every person wanted to win. Those voices remained, of course. But at last, they were no longer more important than her own.
Someone had already taken her side. Not to pluck her from the thorns, but to reach out and hold her while knowing they were there.
Before the start, she glanced toward the trackside.
Her trainer stood there, calm as in that first spring. But now Rice could read her. She saw the fingers tighten and release, the bright eyes, the heat pressed deep down but never extinguished.
That heat steadied her heart.
Once the race began, the world again held only wind, footsteps, and the finish. As the final straight approached, Rice remembered a distant evening when she had held The Happy Blue Rose and said with her head bowed, “The blue flower has no one’s blessing, but it still wants to bloom.”
Back then, she had thought blooming was a lonely thing.
Now she knew. It was all right to have thorns. All right not to be loved by everyone. Someone could stand far away, watch and wait, without asking her to become a flower that never pricked a hand.
As she crossed the finish, she thought of nothing. Wind burst beside her ears; the whole world seemed to brighten. She stopped with her chest heaving, each breath full of winter’s clear, cold taste.
The grandstand blurred into noise, but she had already found her trainer in the crowd.
Their eyes met across the distance, and Rice smiled. Not her usual careful smile, afraid of disturbing something, but a brief, light expression that came truly from her heart. Like a dark-colored flower quietly opening in the winter wind.
After the race, her trainer was waiting in the passage.
No one else was there. No unnecessary words. Rice stood before her, and despite just finishing her hardest race, felt as uncontrollably nervous as the first time this person had truly seen her. She opened her mouth, but only a breath emerged.
Her trainer touched her cheek, cooled by the wind.
“Want to apologize this time?”
Rice looked at her, lashes trembling, then shook her head.
Her trainer smiled.
“Good.”
Rice’s nose stung. She thought of spring’s morning mist, summer’s evening wind, autumn’s quiet, cruel victory, and the winter road she had finally run herself. For so long she had believed every desire to win made a person bad, every thorned flower only disappointed others. Now, before this person, she could admit it:
Yes, she wanted to win. Yes, somebody else’s perfect ending would stop at her. Yes, she was not always obedient, harmless, or fit to be gently displayed behind glass.
And what of it?
Her trainer bent, resting their foreheads together. Her voice was low, meant for Rice alone.
“Rice.”
“Mm…”
“Do you know why blue roses are beautiful?”
“Why?”
The look in her trainer’s eyes was the one Rice knew best, the one that most unsettled her heartbeat.
“Because they weren’t supposed to bloom, but did anyway.” She paused, brushing the corner of Rice’s eye. “And because—even with their thorns, I insist on loving them.”
Rice’s eyes grew hot.
She didn’t apologize. Didn’t ask whether she was a bad girl.
She only reached out and caught her trainer’s sleeve, like the girl who had once struggled to stand in the equipment room, and like someone altogether different. Wind entered the passage carrying winter’s clean cold. Standing in it, she felt that at last she no longer needed to hide her thorns.
When her trainer kissed her, it was much gentler than the first time, like kissing a flower that had fully opened. Rice closed her eyes and tightened her fingers, breathing in the faint warmth of the other person. It wasn’t fierce, but it was steady—steady enough for her to understand that some love does not wait for every thorn to be removed before it stays.
Some love is precisely the opposite.
It sees your thorns, your sharpness, the ways you are neither perfect nor docile. Then it reaches out anyway and cups the whole flower in its palm.
Inside that kiss, Rice thought:
A blue rose ought to be happy, shouldn’t it?