"Hayakawa-san, what is this supposed to mean?!" Mizuno cried, panicked by Tazuna Hayakawa's sudden question.
Why would she suddenly ask him how many children he wanted in the future? Wasn't that the kind of thing a newlywed wife asked her husband when they were talking about their future?
Could Hayakawa-san have been affected by his Uma Mint constitution too? Had her desire gotten so out of control that she wanted to Uma Pyoi him?!
"Gwah!" Mizuno stumbled back two steps and threw up his hands defensively. "Hayakawa-san, calm down!"
"Trainer Mizuno, I am calm!" Tazuna took several more steps forward, continuing to corner him. Her chest rose and fell faster with her excited breathing, and her voice was charged. "Can't you tell?"
"?" Mizuno was doubtful.
No calm person asked a coworker of the opposite sex that kind of question, right?! If Mizuno dared say something like that, he would definitely be treated like a pervert and beaten up!
"Trainer Mizuno, I'm serious!" Tazuna lifted her head and stared at Mizuno's face, hidden beneath the shadows, her beautiful emerald-green eyes rippling with emotion.
Before either of them realized it, she had already backed Mizuno against the wall, leaving him nowhere to retreat.
At that moment, there was less than a centimeter between them. Mizuno could clearly feel the heat coming off her body—especially from those towering peaks of hers, hot enough to make his ribs feel like they were burning.
"Hayakawa-san, don't come any closer!" Mizuno said miserably, his back pressed flat to the wall and both hands raised high, terrified he might accidentally touch her soft chest.
"Trainer Mizuno, don't be afraid. I won't squeeze you dry like those immature Umamusume..." Seeing how frightened he looked, Tazuna gave him a gentle smile and tried to comfort him.
"I'm not asking for much. Around twenty children will do."
"Hayakawa-san, what are you saying?!" Mizuno nearly fainted on the spot.
That didn't count as squeezing him dry?! Even a blender couldn't wring someone out harder than that!
More importantly, why was Hayakawa-san acting like he had already agreed? He was pretty sure he had never agreed to have children with her...
If Tazuna had been an ordinary human woman, Mizuno would not have panicked this badly. The problem was that she was an Umamusume whose "love exchange" sessions started at six hours.
Although Mizuno's stamina had improved quite a bit by now, he still did not dare face Tazuna head-on.
After all, this green-hatted chief secretary's hidden strength was even greater than the Emperor's, Symboli Rudolf's! Those long, firm, beautiful legs of hers could snap his waist in half without even trying!
And judging by Tazuna's appearance, she was probably at least twenty-seven. She was almost at the stage where women in their thirties were like wolves and women in their forties were like tigers! Her desire had to be several times stronger than a young Umamusume's!
Mizuno did not even dare imagine how long his pelvis would last before shattering if Tazuna really came for him.
"Hayakawa-san, aren't we moving a little too fast?" Mizuno forced an awkward smile, trying to calm her down with a gentle tone. "We're still just friends, right? Isn't it a little early to be talking about twenty children?"
"Hmm..." Tazuna paused, then nodded thoughtfully. "You're right. It is a little rushed..."
She rested a hand on her chin and closed her eyes in thought for a while. Then, as if something had occurred to her, she clapped her hands happily and leaned in again.
"Then let's start with two~"
"That's not what I meant!" Mizuno could not help retorting, smiling bitterly under the continued pressure of Tazuna's chest. "I mean, how many children to have in the future is something only couples should talk about. We're just friends. We're not that close yet, so we shouldn't be discussing this."
"Is that so?" Tazuna tilted her head, seemingly puzzled.
"But haven't we already slept in each other's arms twice? Is that still not close enough?" Tazuna blinked, bringing up the times Mizuno had coaxed her to sleep in the Back-Mountain Warehouse.
Even though Mizuno had not done anything to her back then, their posture had been almost exactly the same as it was now. Wasn't that already more intimate than an ordinary couple?
In Tazuna's eyes, that was proof of the trust between them. They were not a couple, yet closer than a couple. If someone wanted her to lean against another man like that, she would refuse. Only Mizuno had that privilege.
Was that level of intimacy still not enough to have a child together?!
"Huh?!" Tazuna's ambiguous words successfully made Hishi Amazon, who had been observing from behind them the whole time, misunderstand. "Hayakawa-san slept with this scumbag too?!"
"Scumbag? What do you mean?" Tazuna turned back curiously to look at Amazon, unable to understand why this young girl would call Mizuno—a kind and upright trainer—a scumbag.
"Hayakawa-san, don't let him fool you. He's already ruined President Rudolf and the others!"
After that, Amazon told her everything Fuji Kiseki had told her.
After hearing it, Tazuna's expression shifted slightly.
"Trainer Mizuno..." Tazuna turned back to look at him. Although there was still a smile on her face, a trace of danger had appeared in it.
"I never expected you to make a move on innocent students while I wasn't around..."
"Where exactly is the innocence?" Mizuno felt terribly wronged.
Those girls had so much obscene garbage in their heads it was impossible to count, and every day they thought about how to Uma Pyoi him. Compared to them, even Ximen Qing would look like a pure little virgin. Where were they innocent?
If all the Umamusume students were that innocent, would there be so many trainers in wheelchairs around the academy?
"What if I told you I was forced?" Mizuno tried to defend himself.
To everyone's surprise, Tazuna did not doubt him at all. She accepted his explanation very easily. "Mm. I believe you."
After all, she had worked at Tracen for so many years. She had seen countless Umamusume run desperately for their dreams, and she had also seen countless trainers dragged into rooms by their beloved Umamusume for Uma Pyoi. So she had no doubt that Mizuno had indeed been forced by Symboli Rudolf and the others.
Who were those three Umamusume? The Emperor, the Empress, and the Supercar! They had always been the ones bullying others. Since when were they the ones getting bullied?
Rather, being targeted by all three of them at once meant Mizuno could only obediently lie there and get Uma Pyoi'd.
"You really had it rough." Like a caring older sister, Tazuna stroked Mizuno's head with pity.
"Wuu, wuu, wuu~" Mizuno froze for a moment, then covered his mouth as moved tears welled in his eyes.
Finally, someone understood him!
At that moment, Mizuno really wanted to hold Tazuna and cry his heart out. But after thinking it over carefully, hugging her right now felt a little too much like throwing himself into the tiger's jaws, so in the end, he did not do it.
"Isn't it possible he used his own Uma Mint to seduce President Rudolf and the others?" Amazon said.
"No. I believe Trainer Mizuno." Tazuna shook her head and continued gently stroking him.
"I've always been a good judge of character. There's no doubt in my mind that Trainer Mizuno isn't the scumbag you described. If he were the kind of person who used Uma Mint to seduce women, then from his very first day working at Tracen, the academy would already have been thrown into chaos. Instead, he wears this outfit at all times to conceal his own traits, to the point that even his presence is nearly impossible to sense..."
Tazuna recalled the scene from the first day she met Mizuno and could not help letting out a soft laugh.
"So..." Tazuna turned toward Amazon and smiled kindly.
"Amazon, you've misunderstood him..."
---
T/N: i realized it was weird to keep using hayakawa-san even in narration