Kazuya had never seen a city like New York, and yet in some ways, it hardly felt like a city at all. It was more of a small country, a sprawling modern metropolis from a futuristic fantasy. The motorcar, still new in Europe and virtually unheard of in Japan, owned the streets, gleaming in the sun as it sped back and forth in various colors and models. Buildings reached so far into the sky it hurt to look up at them, and at night brilliant lit signs chased away the darkness like a beacon. People of every ethnicity mingled together on the crowded streets, even those that had so recently been mortal enemies. It was easy to believe the myth of unity and equality, as long as one didn't look too closely.
There were few Japanese immigrants on the East Coast, and Kazuya was privately grateful for this. During the war, anyone of Japanese descent in the west had been rounded up like chattel, imprisoned for no reason other than their ethnic features, so similar to the enemy in the Pacific. Here in New York, all people with Asian features were distrusted as a whole, but there was less bad blood on this side of the country, so far from Pearl Harbor and the internment camps. Most people assumed he was Chinese, which, while upsetting to his pride and identity, was safer than being immediately identified for persecution. Still, it was much harder for him to get around the city than it was for Victorique, and it took him some time to realize that not all people were as amenable to foreigners from Japan as Frederick had been.
"Even in America I may as well be the Black Reaper," he sighed as they walked home after dinner some days later. Victorique walked to his left, preoccupied by the bag of sweets she had bought, her expression mild and content as she chewed. "People either avoid me or glare when they think I'm not looking."
"Away from one's home country, it is never easy to fit in," she noted dully, popping a brightly colored sweet into her mouth. "Even I felt a few glares in my direction."
"You don't seem particularly upset," Kazuya said, gently prodding her over to his right side, away from the road, as they made a turn toward home.
"I rarely bother with other people's opinions, particularly when it comes to something I cannot change," she said haughtily. "Only fools believe that race and blood make some superior to others."
"Still, I wish they wouldn't stare. I didn't fight in the war because I wanted to."
"I don't think most of the soldiers in that war fought because they wanted to," she said, a dark expression crossing her porcelain features.
Kazuya squeezed her fingers gently. "Let's talk about something else," he suggested.
Victorique nodded, her cheek bulging with candy. "Kujo?" she said once she was through chewing.
"Kazuya," he corrected automatically. She ignored him. They stopped to wait for a carriage trundling past.
"Are you really going to work for that awful place?"
"It's not awful," he said defensively. "It's the New York Times, Victorique."
"No," she scoffed. "It's a freelance office that puts up temporary talent for the Times. It's not the same thing." They crossed the street at a jaunt, Kazuya holding onto his hat as he helped Victorique hop up onto the sidewalk. Her miniature heels clicked satisfyingly on the concrete as she fell right back into an easy step at his side; despite her much shorter legs, he had long learned to match her pace. "You probably won't even get to write," she added, crumpling up the empty bag of sweets in her petite fist.
"You can be so cruel sometimes," Kazuya sighed.
"I'm just telling the truth," she said. "You're not the type of person to sit around idly."
"I can't exactly be picky, can I?" he argued. "Our savings are dwindling away; one of us needs to work if we don't want to go hungry."
"I'm going to work!" she bristled. "All you need to do is be my assistant again!"
"What work? We're not even done preparing the office space, and we have no means of advertising ourselves yet. We need something more reliable than that."
"Are you insinuating that I can't do it?!"
"No, I'm not," Kazuya sighed. "Why are you so against my working, anyway? I worked in Japan while we were saving for our passage to Saubure and then on to America, didn't I?"
Victorique pouted grumpily.
"In Japan I couldn't work because of the language barrier," she mumbled.
"What does that have to do with anything? There are no problems like that here, your English is perfect."
"Exactly!"
"That doesn't change the fact that we still don't have a source of income. I'm sure the agency will be fine once it's all set up, but what are we supposed to do in the meantime? I have to work somewhere or we'll starve."
Victorique stopped suddenly, hands clenched into fists at her side.
"You... You're an utter fool, Kazuya Kujo! I should have known better than to expect even a semblance of intelligence from an incompetent third son!" She spun on her heel and dashed back the way she'd come, leaving Kazuya gaping after her.
"Wh- Wait! Victorique! I said wait! Jeez!" He hurried after her but when he turned the corner she had vanished into the crowd.
His heart caught in his throat; it wasn't that Victorique couldn't take care of herself, but she also had a knack for finding trouble. It would be all too easy for her to be abducted in plain sight, mistaken for a vulnerable little girl and dragged into a dark alley somewhere.
"Vi... Victorique!" he shouted, throwing himself into the sea of people. He barely noticed when cold raindrops started to fall in the evening light.
"Hmph, idiot," Victorique scoffed, patting down her skirt. She had darted down a side street and hidden behind a low wall while Kazuya ran right past her into the city, shouting out for her. "Serves you right," she muttered haughtily, tossing her hair over her shoulder and returning to the main street. She had no intention of running off into the night like a child while her husband worked himself up into a panicked frenzy searching for her. He could do that by himself, if he wished. She would go home, take a bath, and read a book or two until he came back and apologized for his thick skull.
Just like a man, to ignore the obvious, she scowled, walking briskly down the street and ignoring the passerby that gave her a wide berth. Must I really spell it all out, like some lovesick child?!
Victorique couldn't help but feel stung that Kazuya wouldn't understand how she felt. They had been apart for so long during the war, unable to even write to one another. When he returned home to his family and found her waiting there, it had been like the first breath after having drowned. An immense, sharp relief, unbound joy and unbearable loneliness all at once. They had been married almost immediately, and begun making plans for their future. Because Victorique had been unable to communicate and thus unable to learn Japanese while staying with the Kujo family, Kazuya had had to work in order to earn the money they needed to immigrate. Victorique had deeply hated having to see him off every day, waiting for hours until he finally, finally, came home after dark, exhausted and barely awake enough to even spend time with his wife or family. She had not complained or explained her feelings aloud, knowing that in a few months they would be free to leave Japan and the upsetting memories behind, but she had no desire to repeat the experience.
She didn't expect Kujo to spend every waking moment with her, but when she had come up with the idea for the agency, she had assumed that it would be run by the two of them, together, as they should be. When he pointed out the fact that being her assistant would mean he would be working for free, his earning potential wasted, she had instead prayed that any job he found would be relatively regular and less strenuous than the type of work he'd had to do in the past. Journalism suited him, and a job at a newspaper with set hours should have been ideal, but in the end the xenophobia and ill-will toward the Japanese had made it impossible for him to find employment with any newspaper of repute. The office that took him in was barely an office at all; it subcontracted freelancers to fill in any unused space on other papers, and paid a pittance unless those papers actually ran their content. It was competitive and cutthroat, and meant that reporters needed to be aggressive in tracking down their stories if they wanted to get paid.
If it were up to Victorique, she would have burned the place to the ground before letting her husband work at such a disreputable and exploitative office.
I shouldn't blame Kujo, she admitted as she turned the corner onto their street and placed a hand on the iron gate. It was starting to rain, and Victorique felt a tiny pang of guilt for her husband's sake. It's not as though he didn't try to find employment elsewhere... But she couldn't help it, she was still mad.
She pushed the gate open churlishly and stomped up the walkway, when she was distracted from her rage by a flash of light glimpsed from the corner of her eye.
She darted into the bushes immediately, her instincts telling her to find cover before she could even assess the situation. She was not afraid, of course, but she wasn't a fighter like Kujo and she preferred not to draw unnecessary attention if she could avoid it. Crouched low to the ground, trying not to think about the dirt and leaves getting all over her petticoat, she slowly pulled back a branch until she could see through the wet foliage.
Someone was holding up a small lamp at the edge of the garden, hidden behind an overgrown rosebush. The light bobbed questioningly in a small arc, as though its owner were searching for something specific. Victorique frowned, her mind racing.
The serial killer? Unlikely. She hadn't told Kazuya, but Victorique had inspected every wall and floorboard of the house for anything the police or contractors might have missed. As she'd deduced, there was nothing of interest in or around the property, and even if there had been, only a fool would have waited until the house was purchased to come looking for it. The thoroughness with which the killer had disappeared was certainly not the mark of a fool.
A thief, perhaps? There wasn't much of value, and certainly not out by the garden where there was no window or other access into the house proper. Besides, what self-respecting thief carried an oil lamp to the scene of the crime and lit it on the side of the house that faced the street?
That left one other possibility, and Victorique scowled. Annoyed, she emerged from the bushes and marched over to the intruder, ignoring the rain pattering onto her hat.
"Have you never heard of a warrant, Constable?" she snapped as she stepped around the bushes and came face to face with a young, dark haired police officer who, not having noticed her approach, gave a loud, frightened scream and fell backwards into the mud.
"W-who-?!" he stammered, clutching his heart. "Where did you-?!"
"Do all Americans lack manners?" she asked, voice thick with disdain. "It is common courtesy to offer one's own name before asking for someone else's." She studied him carefully, taking in his slicked back hair and narrow, beady eyes so she could catalogue it for future reference.
"N-now see here, Miss," the man said, clearly offended at being questioned by what he assumed was a child. "This is private property, and it is against the law to trespass-"
Victorique scoffed loudly. "The nerve! Does the police in this city not even keep records of the landowners and residents?"
"O-of course we do!" The officer insisted. "Which is why I know that this property belongs to a certain Jap by the name of Kujo and his wife. They have no children, so run along and don't let me catch you trespassing again, unless you want your parents to give you a right scolding."
Victorique's blood pressure spiked, her fists clenching furiously at her sides.
"How dare you address Kujo with that slur?!" she snarled, so angry she had forgotten all about the fact that she was currently annoyed with Kazuya. "He is a good man, a gentleman, whose only fault is in being too thick-skinned to suspect ill intentions hidden under politeness. Do you really believe every soldier in that war wanted to fight? Are you truly so dull that you would blame the helpless pawn for the orders of a king?!"
Her eloquence confused him, she could read it on his face, but at the moment Victorique could care less.
"Xenophobic fool," she spat, "too prejudiced to see past your own self-aggrandizing stupidity. Did you think yourself a hero, hoping to find some evidence of some dark secret of Kujo's? Or were you merely planting that evidence so you would have an excuse to rid this neighborhood of it's foreign stain?"
"O-of course not!" The officer said as he got to his feet indignantly. "An officer of the law would never-"
"Oh, so now we're talking about the law, are we?" Victorique said with a derisive snort. "Very well, let's talk about American law, and the clear stipulation that the police do not have the right to search the citizenry or their private property without probable cause and an order issued by a judge. I am also aware of another interesting law in this country, for the record; apart from the universal right to bear arms granted by your constitution, it is also within a property owner's right to use those arms in defense of themselves or said property. My husband and I can both use a revolver as well as anyone else, so unless you wish to be shot for trespassing, or reported to your superiors for your unlawful conduct, I suggest you immediately take your leave, Officer Maddox."
The man paled, terrified.
"H-how did you know my name?!"
She smiled at him, cold and dangerous. "I wonder how?"
She huffed as he ran screaming past her, shouting about silver demons and ghost children, his cries echoing strangely in the rain.
"Idiot," she muttered, bending down next to the forgotten lamp. His name was clearly etched into the side, along with his badge number and his department. "Never underestimate a Grey Wolf."
She spent a few minutes examining the area where the policeman had been searching before she sneezed and shivered, her clothes wet and uncomfortable.
"Ugh, how annoying," she said, tracing her fingers over a faint etching on the wall, buried under a small mound of dirt. "We don't even have a runic dictionary."
Notes:
Two years since I last updated already? What even is time? I swear it's only been a few months ಥ‿ಥ