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Maze – Part 02

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Translator: Kell

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Kazuya stood in the same spot as the other morning, staring wearily at the labyrinth of flowerbeds.

Square hedges as tall as a man, and colorful flowers in full bloom. A quick peek through the entrance revealed a twisted and intricate maze. Kazuya sighed. It looked like he would never come back out once he stepped in.

“What’s up, kid?” A sudden thick voice came from below.

Kazuya jumped, took a few steps back, and looked at his feet. A familiar face peeked out from under the hedge. Tanned and leathery skin, and a white beard. It was the same old gardener who trimmed the hedge that separated the campus from the outside.

Kazuya told him that he was here to see his friend.

“A friend? Who?” the gardener asked, surprised. “Does someone live here?” He scratched his cheek.

The man stood up. Kazuya’s head only reached his shoulders.

The gardener pointed to the maze. “I don’t know how to get past the maze, but I do know how to get to the middle.”

“Really?”

“Listen closely. You have to go along the wall. It’s a long way around, but just pick a side and follow it. The walls are all connected, so you should end up in the middle of the maze at some point.”

“I see.”

Kazuya thanked him, and after mustering up some courage, stepped into the maze.

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Meanwhile, Victorique was rocking in her chair by the window, despondent, like a princess locked away in some tower. Dressed in a wide-sleeved white dress with organdy ribbons and frills, she was wearily—but quickly—leafing through a difficult-looking book.

On her cherry lips was not an ivory pipe, but a thin white stick. A small candy bar. Candies in the shapes of teddy bears, castles, and bunnies lay scattered on the table beside her.

Victorique’s pudgy cheek puffed up and squirmed with each lick. Her movements were automatic; she had already forgotten about the candy. Her mind was focused solely on the complicated book.

Her fever had gone down considerably, and she appeared well. Above all, the timid and depressed look she had when suffering from the cold was gone. She was calm and expressionless, and the air around her was as ruthless as ever.

She sensed someone approaching from beyond the bizarre and impenetrable labyrinth of flowerbeds that surrounded the small house. Victorique’s little ears twitched like a kitten’s when it heard its owner return. But she did not look up. Apart from the sudden decrease in the speed at which she leafed through the book, there was no change in her still figure.

A small oriental boy emerged from the maze. He seemed to have just returned to the academy and was not wearing a uniform. His heavy breathing said he had a hard time getting through the maze. When he noticed Victorique sitting by the window, he stopped and stared at her.

She was holding it in. She continued pretending that she didn’t notice him, determined not to look happy.

She noticed that the boy—Kazuya—was smiling. She was still expressionless.

Kazuya walked toward her. Victorique looked up as if she had only just noticed the sound of his footsteps.

“Oh, it’s you,” she said in her husky voice, her expression still the same.

“Yup, it’s me. I’m back.”

Victorique scoffed and looked away.

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“You bland, foolish rascal suffering from telephonitis,” she said. “How many times do you have to call me? Each time I had to crawl out of my bedroom to the room with the phone. And while I was at it, I got shot with an injection.”

Kazuya stood outside the window, resting his elbows on the windowsill and looking at Victorique. What is she mad about? he wondered. While regarding her face curiously, he noticed the candy bars scattered on the table.

“Wow! Those are some pretty-looking candies.” He grabbed a bunny-shaped one, peeled off the orange wrapper, and tossed it into his mouth.

Victorique gasped.

“Wh-What is it?” Kazuya asked.

“My bunny candy! I was saving that one for last!”

“What? Why does it matter in which order you eat it? Besides, all candies taste the same.”

“…We’re done.”

“I remember you crying, saying you didn’t want that.”

Victorique lifted the thick book and slammed the hinge on Kazuya’s head. He fell silent, tears in his eyes.

Twilight was approaching, and the radiant evening sunlight of early summer was falling on the flowers, their petals glistening as though wet.

A light-blue kimono hung like a curtain on the window sill, swaying in the breeze. Victorique’s Wellspring of Wisdom had repurposed the kimono, a gift from Kazuya’s sister, as a curtain.

The wind blew again.

Kazuya wondered if he should talk about Brian Roscoe, the man he saw in front of the theater in Saubreme, but ultimately decided that he was probably just someone with the same name. For a while, they remained silent.

“Anyway, the fact that you’re able to bully me again means you’re feeling much better,” Kazuya said. “That’s good to know.”

Victorique shot him a glare. “What are you talking about?”

“Hmm?”

“You feel happy when you’re tormented? What a weirdo.”

“I’m not happy about it, of course! I’m seething. But that’s just what you always do. It was weird hearing you all weak and feeble like a different person. What I’m saying is… uhh… I was worried.”

“You were rather bossy for someone worried. Calling me mean and whatnot.”

“I-I did? Sorry. Did I offend you?”

“Of course.” Victorique nodded and turned away. She focused her attention back on the book.

The bright orange sun was shining on the flowerbeds. It dyed Kazuya’s face a faint red as he stared at Victorique from outside the window.

Kazuya scratched his head. Victorique still seemed mad about something. He presented the package he was holding to her.

“Victorique? Hello?”

“…What is it?”

“A souvenir.”

Victorique groaned and shot Kazuya a suspicious look. “So you bought one,” she mumbled. She stared at it warily for a moment. “I’m assuming it’s another weird item.”

“No!” he denied. “It’s, uhh… actually good.”

Victorique reached for it gingerly. Still feeling annoyed, she tore the wrapper wildly.

A small jade shoe appeared. A single, small shoe. It was a shoe-shaped pipe rest. Victorique lifted it gently with both hands. It stood out magically against the twilight. It looked more beautiful now in the hands of the little girl in this small house surrounded by flowerbeds than when Kazuya saw it in the window of the pipe shop in Saubreme. An item that seemed out of some fantasy world. Feeling proud, Kazuya looked at Victorique’s face, but her eyes were still narrowed in displeasure.

Victorique snorted.

Kazuya was shocked. “You don’t want it?”

“…I do!”

Victorique clutched the pipe rest dearly with both hands, as if she didn’t want it taken away. Her eyes were wide open like a child in wonder.

Kazuya stared at her for a moment, then giggled. “So you like it?”

A faint “hmm” of affirmation came from Victorique. Relieved, Kazuya watched her fiddle with the pipe rest with great interest.

“That’s good.”

Victorique cast a glance at Kazuya’s face, then returned her gaze to the pipe rest again, fiddling with it eagerly.

Kazuya noticed the alexandrite ring on her finger, a ring that changed color depending on the light source. “I guess there are two sides to things sometimes.”

“Where’d this come from?” Victorique gave him a weird look.

“Just a few days ago, I was saying how everything in the world can be explained with logic. But this case was very strange.”

“Hmm?”

“Up until now, I’ve only seen what I can see with my own two eyes, but maybe there’s more to things. Like the state of the world. I’ve started to see things in Sauville that I couldn’t back in my country. I thought that if the world was more than just what was visible to the eye, I could have a little more courage, and maybe I could become stronger than I am now. I can’t really put it into words well, but that’s what I think.”

“Unfortunately, you’re just a plain, ordinary human being.”

“Tsk. Well, I guess that’s true.”

Kazuya regarded Victorique’s face, tinged with melancholy, nobility, and decadence.

Victorique, who had instantly reconstructed the fragments of chaos just by hearing about the incident over the phone. In her head was a huge and bizarre space she referred to as the Wellspring of Wisdom.

Kazuya felt as if he too was entering this labyrinth. It was both terrifying and irresistible.

He was becoming a part of the bizarre maze that made up Victorique.

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“I don’t know why,” Kazuya said, “but while I was in Saubreme, I found myself thinking about you. Maybe it was because I heard you caught a cold. I doubt you even thought of me at all.”

“Of course not. I never wondered when you were coming back or how you would listen to what I had to say,” Victorique said doggedly. There was a slight hint of panic on her face. “Never.”

Kazuya had no idea why she was flustered. “Is that so?”

“Yes!”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it. You don’t have to be so defensive.” Kazuya fell silent.

The only sound in the small house was the flipping of the pages.

“So, I was thinking, Victorique,” Kazuya said. “How mysterious you really are. To me, you are the strangest of all mysteries.”

Victorique slowly lifted her head. She looked a little puzzled. Her green eyes blinked repeatedly as she stared at Kazuya.

“Is that so?” she said at last.

Kazuya nodded. “Yup. I can’t solve mysteries as rapidly as you, but someday I’ll solve the mystery surrounding you. I swear it.”

“Knock yourself out.” Victorique scoffed and looked away. Her cheeks were a little red, but Kazuya thought it was just his imagination.

Kazuya, wondering if he should ask her how to get to the middle of the flowerbed maze, watched the face of his little mysterious friend with a smile.

An early-summer breeze blew, tousling their black and golden hairs.

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