After the meeting was dismissed, everyone left.
Lu Jue was about to take the sportswear out of the washing machine to dry when, unexpectedly, Silent Suzuka returned.
"Silence Suzuka, why are you back? Did you forget something?" Lu Jue asked, puzzled.
Silent Suzuka said nothing. After entering, she closed the training room door and then said expressionlessly, "You wouldn't be doing something to the clothes, would you?"
"Are you alright?" If he hadn't had his hands full, Lu Jue would have really wanted to touch Silent Suzuka's forehead to see if she had a fever.
Silent Suzuka gritted her teeth, "Of course I'm fine."
"Then what are you saying? What kind of talk is this? I'm kindly helping you dry your clothes, and you're speculating about me like this." Of course, Lu Jue wouldn't get angry with Silent Suzuka over this.
Silent Suzuka snorted, "I'm uncomfortable."
"Uncomfortable?" Lu Jue put the clothes back in the basket, walked over to Silent Suzuka, and bent down to touch her forehead, "You don't have a fever."
"You..."
Lu Jue's gentle breath made Silent Suzuka's rosy face flush.
The resentment she had been harboring instantly dissipated into thin air.
This person really has no sense of propriety... How could he suddenly get so close!
But she didn't dodge either.
Why didn't she dodge?
"I'm here to collect a debt. You owe me a massage." Silent Suzuka finally couldn't bear the close distance and voluntarily took a step back.
"I thought it was something serious," Lu Jue said with a laugh.
Silent Suzuka's action of closing the door just now had not escaped his notice.
He had thought she might do something to him, hahaha... He was also "feverish" to even have such a thought.
"But there's no bed here. Shall we go to the infirmary?"
The training room only had a long bench, which, while soft enough for one person to lie on, couldn't compare to the beds in the infirmary.
But this also gave Lu Jue the idea of getting a bed.
"No need, right here."
The conditions were a bit poor, but then there would be no need to worry about someone barging in.
Silent Suzuka was still very shy, because sometimes she couldn't help but make some strange sounds.
She didn't want to, but she just couldn't help it.
"Alright, if you don't mind, that works too."
"Anyway, I'll have to take a shower when I go back."
As she spoke, Silent Suzuka had already walked to the seat with a red face, skillfully took off her jacket, and lay down, just short of saying, "You may begin."
"Alright, I remember this is the last massage, right?" Lu Jue rolled up his sleeves and began to massage Silent Suzuka.
"Mm." Silent Suzuka closed her eyes, "Do you think I'm a lot of trouble like this?"
"No, not at all. You're my team member, so giving you a massage is only right." Lu Jue didn't know what was wrong with Silent Suzuka today; he just felt that there was a hint of melancholy in her words.
"Will you massage them later too?"
Lu Jue couldn't give a definite answer to such an uncertain question. "I've arranged a medical team for them, and that includes massage. Don't worry, the medical professionals are all girls too."
Silent Suzuka didn't get the answer she wanted, but she understood the implication—Lu Jue wouldn't actively massage team members after this.
So she was still... special.
Silent Suzuka felt a little secretly pleased, "Then didn't you get that certificate for nothing?"
"It's good to have many skills, you know ~" Lu Jue hadn't known before that he would have enough money to hire a medical team.
Silent Suzuka stopped talking and quietly enjoyed Lu Jue's massage for a while.
"Do I have any competition arrangements after this?"
"Of course you do."
"What if I want to go abroad? Will you support me?"
"Yes, it's good to compete with Uma Musume from other countries." Lu Jue then remembered that in the later stages of the anime, Silent Suzuka mostly trained abroad.
However, he didn't think he was worse than foreign trainers—he was from abroad, after all.
"Mm."
Silent Suzuka had this plan a long time ago, but because of Lu Jue's appearance, her heart wavered slightly. But it was only a waver.
Will this guy miss her when the time comes?
Her eyelids began to flutter, slowly closing, as if the world line was converging.
It's so reassuring...
Silent Suzuka fell asleep comfortably again.
...
"Silence Suzuka, wake up."
"Hm?"
Silent Suzuka reluctantly opened her eyes.
The last time she woke up was like this too, with a lingering resentment that a beautiful dream hadn't ended, not wanting to speak, not wanting to move.
However, her body felt unusually light, as if all her fatigue had been completely removed.
"The massage is over."
"Got it."
Lu Jue suddenly covered his nose and recoiled, saying disdainfully, "You have bad breath."
"What!?" Silent Suzuka immediately panicked, covered her small mouth, and looked at Lu Jue at a loss.
For some reason, Lu Jue's furrowed brow made her heart clench.
It wasn't shyness, but an emotion called grievance, gushing from the bottom of her heart like a breached river.
Don't look at me with that expression...
"Haha, just kidding." Lu Jue handed Silent Suzuka her jacket, "You looked so lifeless, so I wanted to tease you."
At this moment, Lu Jue hadn't realized the seriousness of the situation until he saw Silent Suzuka's reddened eyes...
Panic doesn't disappear; it transfers.
"Silence Suzuka, don't cry, I was just kidding!!" Lu Jue fumbled, not expecting himself to offend Silent Suzuka.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to, I..."
Silent Suzuka haphazardly wiped her face.
Feeling the wetness in her palm, she truly realized she was crying.
She hadn't cried even after losing so many races before...
"Silence Suzuka, how about I give you another massage as compensation?"
"Three times."
"Hehe, no problem, deal."
"Hmph." Silent Suzuka turned her head to the other side.
At this moment, the window was a beautiful frame.
The drifting clouds were like a wisp of cooking smoke, trapped within the painting. The crimson rendering was a master's freehand style, incomprehensible, but simply beautiful.
This was the warmth that Silent Suzuka acknowledged.
It just lacked something.
"Silence Suzuka, you're not angry anymore, are you?"
"No... still angry."
Lu Jue had never noticed how tsundere Silent Suzuka was before. "Then what do you need to stop being angry?"
"You... what you did to Uralala earlier."
When her heart was anxious, her mouth became unrestrained.
It was false to say she wasn't nervous; Silent Suzuka's tightly clenched hands were already covered in sticky sweat.
"What I did to Uralala earlier?"
Lu Jue was stunned.
When he reacted, Silent Suzuka in front of him had already lowered her head.
He noticed that Silent Suzuka was trembling slightly, like a wounded small animal.
Lu Jue swallowed, also becoming nervous, because he had wanted to stroke Silent Suzuka's head more than once or twice.
His hand rested on Silent Suzuka's head.
"Is that enough?"
"Mm."
...