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Lost in Manhattan – Part 02

Greenwich Village exuded elegance and contentment, with its refined and luxurious buildings, sidewalks, and passersby.

They crossed a bustling intersection, moving further across Manhattan Island.

Suddenly, the noise level rose. Horse-drawn carriages, double-decker buses, mounted police officers. There were more people heading to work and children on their way to school. Men in business suits and children in colorful traditional attire hurried past, a typical sight in the New World.

After crossing the intersection, they found themselves in East Village.

Kazuya looked around. Victorique narrowed her emerald eyes to observe.

As if by some mysterious magic spell, the scenery transformed entirely. It felt like stepping into a completely different country despite being only a street away from Greenwich Village. The two stood still.

Two wagons, one pitch-black and the other pure-white, clattered past each other at great speed. They both looked ancient and ready to fall apart. The black one was loaded with coal. A man with a soot-covered face was standing on it, holding a shovel. He seemed drunk despite the early hour, singing Ukrainian folk songs loudly. The white wagon carried milk tanks labeled MILK in red. A skinny blond boy with blue eyes was on it, swinging an old ladle.

Old brick buildings were packed so closely together they seemed about to collapse. Faded, colorful shirts, underwear, and sheets fluttered like strange flags. The air was thick with the smells of food, dust, sweat, and oil.

People bustled by, some with blond hair, fair skin, and broad shoulders, others with black hair, dark complexion, and exotic features. Their eyes varied in color—green, blue, reddish—reflecting their Eastern European origins.

Victorique, with her silver hair and petite frame, and Kazuya, his black hair blowing in the wind, stood out even more in East Village.

Rundown, makeshift stalls, little more than parked wagons, lined the street. A middle-aged woman sat atop a cart piled with secondhand clothes from all around the world.

Stalls selling fruits and vegetables stacked in crates also had bright red bottles on display. A gaunt man wiped them with a dirty cloth. What was inside the bottles was a mystery.

Some buildings were grimy and tilted, their entire windows coated in pure white. What kind of store could they possibly be?

Victorique and Kazuya stood there, taking in the scene. The large immigrants were busy working, paying them no mind.

Can I really find a job and a home in such a tough city? I have to, for Victorique.

At Kazuya’s feet, a man with dirty black hair suddenly screamed, “I’m missing a leg! A leg!”

Startled, Kazuya looked down and saw that the man, likely a war veteran, was indeed missing a leg under his tattered clothes.

“I’m really missing a leg!” he sang, shaking an empty can with a few coins. A beggar. Realizing they had nothing to give, he raised a thick arm to hit Victorique. Kazuya quickly shielded her.

A large shadow passed over them. Too big to be a bird.

Kazuya, still holding Victorique, looked up. Victorique followed his gaze, her white-blonde hair swaying.

Between the buildings, they saw a figure jumping and dropping something. An off-white object floated down, landing at Victorique’s feet. Kazuya picked it up. It was that morning’s Daily Road newspaper, featuring a photo of Victorique in a blue dress. But why had a newspaper fallen from above?

Kazuya stared at the picture of Victorique, her hair flowing with regal dignity. The memory of last night’s events made him smile.

Victorique de Blois, the hero in a stars-and-stripes dress, queen of the New World, was currently in this chaotic city with nothing. No home, no books, no sweets, no dress.

The wind blew, flipping the newspaper to another page headlined, “Highly Anticipated Boxing Match! Champion vs. Challenger, Tonight!”

“Whoa!” Kazuya, nearly hit by a delivery bicycle, shielded Victorique again.

“Don’t just stand there!” the cyclist yelled in Romanian-accented English.

“Chaos, Kujou,” Victorique said in a low, raspy voice.

Kazuya saw a different emotion cross her small face. It was something primal, a kind of fear or unease. This emotion—a mix of gloom, anxiety, irritation—had occasionally flickered across her features ever since they arrived in the New World.

Victorique cast her gaze down. “I’ve read books collecting thousands of years of history and ancient wisdom from the Old World,” she murmured, “but what I see on this street is completely unknown.”

“Y-Yeah.”

“Oh! Look at that, Kujou!” Victorique pointed to a window on the first floor of a dilapidated building.

Inside, a poor-looking Italian family gathered around a morning table. The mother and children, for some reason, held black umbrellas indoors, using their free hands to nibble on pickled carrots or scoop up brown beans.

“They’re eating under umbrellas inside the house,” Kazuya said, shocked. “Why?”

“I can’t stand it.”

“Hmm, what kind of apartment should I get for you?” Kazuya wondered.

They exchanged glances before resuming their stroll.

The company they sought was in a back alley of East Village. Poorly dressed young men stood in line in front of a crumbling mixed-use building. When Kazuya arrived, a window on the third floor flung open, and a middle-aged man with black hair and tanned skin stuck his head out.

“Boys! The clerk position’s already filled. Good luck!” he shouted, and the queue erupted in angry yells. “Yeah, yeah. Good luck, you unemployed lot.” He slammed the window shut.

Sighing, Kazuya joined the group of young men returning to the main street.

As they walked back through the bustling street, Victorique said, “Well, we crossed the bridge. Now we go to the town with pink cakes.”

Kazuya raised his head gloomily.

“Kujou, what’s wrong? Did a mouse step on your foot? If you worry about every little thing, you’ll turn into a pumpkin.”

“Well, you see, that job posting was the only one in this morning’s paper that allowed first-generation immigrants to apply. Whatever. I’ll keep looking. It was never going to be that easy. Yeah.” Kazuya forced a cheerful nod.

Victorique looked even more puzzled. “I see. You like working that much, huh?”

“Like I keep on saying, if I don’t find a job, I can’t buy you sweets, books, or dresses!” Kazuya waved his fist around. “Listen, Victorique. Everyone pays rent to live. For example, Mushanokouji supports Ruri and Rokushou by working at the International Police Organization every day. Mr. Bon Vivant, whom we met last night, draws comics every day. You need a home too, so I…”

“A home?”

“Yes, a home!” Kazuya cast his gaze down, and in a small voice added, “A place where you can lay out a futon and relax to your heart’s content. I’ll make it happen… for you… I have to… I’m a man, after all.” His spirit sank.

Victorique abruptly raised her head. Kazuya studied her small, beautiful face. Emotions had vanished from her emerald eyes. They were simply open, gazing blankly at some distant place. In them was the same empty, cruel light as when they first met, as if she had lived through thousands of years.

Victorique slowly blinked. “A home?” she muttered in a hollow, husky voice.

Kazuya clenched his fist and nodded firmly. “Yeah!”

“A home.”

“Yeah!”

“A home.”

“Yeah!”

“A home.”

“What’s wrong with you?”

“But…”

“What is it?”

“What is a home, Kujou?” she asked sincerely.

Kazuya stared back in surprise. Snorting irritably, Victorique pointed her index fingers in all directions—right, left, up, down.

“Did you forget?” she huffed.

“Well, I forget a lot of things. What are you referring to?”

“I’ve hardly ever lived in what you call a home. Of course, I’ve spent my time reading various books from all ages and places, letting the Wellspring of Wisdom flow freely. But I never…”

“Huh… Ah!”

A scene from when he first met Victorique suddenly flooded back, a sudden recollection that raged through Kazuya’s young and tender mind like a storm.

Kazuya had endured a lonely school life, ostracized by noble children who saw him as a strange Easterner. His days were bleak. One day, he climbed a tower’s stairs with printouts in hand, reaching the high ceiling adorned with solemn religious paintings, and finally arriving at the secret conservatory filled with light and greenery. There, he found the mysterious Victorique, looking like a doll abandoned on the floor.

She slowly lifted her face to meet his gaze. Her expression was as cold as it had been back then. It felt like these days she smiled at him a lot more often. Had she changed from the girl in his memories? No one knew the truth. This was all in the distant past.

Victorique de Blois was Kazuya’s treasure, his golden butterfly, the eternal beautiful enigma in his life. Back then, she practically lived in the secret room of the library tower.

“Indeed,” Victorique said forlornly.

Kazuya snapped out of his reverie. The current Victorique, nearly identical to back then except for her hair color, appeared as cold as a doll, speaking in a hoarse voice.

“I have only lived in the tower of Marquis de Blois, Saint Marguerite Academy’s library, the candy dormitory, Saubreme’s prison, and the outbuilding at your residence. As such, I know nothing about this home you keep talking about over and over like an idiot since this morning.”

“I see.”

Victorique’s emerald eyes gleamed as her pink yukata fluttered in the wind. Kazuya, heart wrenched, studied his diminutive companion. In this town, Victorique, resembling a small yet ferocious beast, looked very peculiar.

And then…

Bang! Bang!

Gunshots rang out nearby.

“V-Victorique!” Kazuya called out, scanning the direction of the shots.

The glass of a nearby telephone booth shattered, and blood splattered across the pavement. A young man in a fashionable hat lay wounded.

Such bloody incidents seemed commonplace, as Kazuya was the only one visibly shaken. People around merely shrugged. Murmurs of discontent came from all over.

“Another purge by Garbo Boss?” sighed someone in an Eastern European accent. “These gangsters never get tired of it.”

“I heard the DOJ is founding the FBI to handle these bloody issues.”

“They should fix the NYPD first.”

Ugh.

Kazuya shrank at the sound of gunfire and the smell of blood. He shook his head. Then, coming to his senses, he called, “Victorique! Over here!”

Victorique turned, her white-blonde hair dancing in the wind. She reached out a hand.

Police sirens sounded in the distance. A large, jet-black carriage with iron bars rumbled past between them.

Accompanied by loud hoofbeats, a foreboding black shadow swept past. Men filled the carriage, hands clenched on iron bars. Their cloudy eyes darted around. Peering down at Kazuya, the prisoners emitted nasty chuckles, rolling their eyes, sticking out their tongues.

Kazuya watched in astonishment, then turned to Victorique, only to find her gone. Frantically, he scanned the crowd. She was right here moments ago.

“Victorique? Where did you go?” Kazuya pushed through the throng. “Excuse me! Did anyone see a small, white-blonde woman?” No one paid him any heed.

She suddenly vanished after the prison carriage passed. It can’t be. Was she taken away by that carriage? But why? I can’t think of any other possibility.

Kazuya maneuvered through the congested sidewalk.

“Hey, watch out!” shouted the driver of a rickety stagecoach.

“S-Sorry. Victorique!”

Kazuya looked around the street. Then, he set off towards where the large prison carriage had disappeared to.