I left the alley, with renewed energy, feeling like a winner in life for the first time in my life, I expected to find a world of wonders, or at least a middle European town of those that always appeared in the series before the… Yes, apocalypse.
"ehhhh, so they weren't those fantasy worlds" I commented, seeing a busy street around me, which reminded me of that city that was full of illuminated signs, where its inhabitants spoke a language that was difficult to understand but with a beautiful culture.
I can't deny that I imagined myself in those beautiful fantasy worlds, with their incredible sights, their unfathomable powers that were beyond human understanding, so yes, I was very disappointed since it seemed that I had not been reincarnated but traveled in time, at a time long before the apocalypse, but then why the hell did they give me such a broken system? To make me suffer, letting me see the world of the rich and then throwing me into poverty again?
(Exterior point of view)
Outside the alley, at the entrance, a child was coming out, with a dark complexion, with curly hair full of garbage, a bare chest and a serious-looking wound on his left arm. People only gave him a sideways glance and He walked past him, without caring about his life or death, until an old man with a careless appearance bumped into the boy, who was curiously looking around him.
"Hey kid, what are you doing covered in tomato puree?" the older man who had bumped into Branco asked stupidly.
There even if they wanted to ignore the child covered in dirt, they could not ignore the stupidity of the old man, who seemed to be delirious, since the child only had his arm covered in what was obviously blood, so the world seemed to stop for a second because to the stagnation of all the people, who turned their heads towards the old man, and after seeing his wrinkled and ragged appearance, they ignored him again and continued with their lives, completely ignoring the child covered in dirt as if he did not exist, but they knew that he existed, because of the disgusting smell it gave off.
"Are you stupid or something?" the boy rubbed his mouth and said in an unsure tone.
"What a cretin brat you are, aren't you?" The old man stood up and growled in annoyance at the boy who left without giving the old man a second glance, who followed him in annoyance.
"Hey smelly brat, your parents know you walk around Tokyo with rancid tomato puree smeared all over your body." the old man snorted while covering his nose.
"No, now, are you really a fool or are you pretending? Don't you see that I'm an orphan? Literally everything about me screams, HELLO I'M AN ORPHAN, YOU WANT TO TAKE ME LIKE A KITTEN OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT!" The boy answers very angrily to the old man who seemed to have heard something shocking.
"So you're an orphan?" the old man asks, intrigued.
"Yes, all this, who the hell are you?" asks the boy, already fed up with the old man.
"Me? I'm Hideo Takahashi," the old man, now identified as Hideo, said while looking at the sides of the road in case a car appeared.
"And what's your name, you smelly brat?" Hideo asked the boy.
"I'm Branco Veliz, you old fool," Branco said angrily as he looked out of the corner of his eye at a street food stand that only sold fried food.
"For God's sake, didn't your parents teach you any manners before they died? By the way, are you a foreigner?" Hideo asked angrily as he followed Branco's gaze, and saw the food stand.
"I say the same thing, you stinky old man, your parents didn't teach you to respect the dead before they died, and yes, I'm from Argentina," using almost the same words as Hideo, Branco responded.
"There, so Argentina... WHERE THE HELL IS THAT STINKY BRAT?!" He was talking calmly until out of nowhere he shouted in Branco's ear.
"ARRGH! YOU OLD FUCK, MY DAMN EAR! WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT SUPPOSED TO BE?!" Branco shouted angrily to Hideo, but what Branco didn't realize was that they were in front of the food stand.
"two fried calamari please" Hideo's personality took a 180 degree turn when he confronted the stall manager.
"Right away" the manager answered with an amused half smile as he had seen this interesting pair for a while.
"Hey old fool, don't show off your wealth to the poor," said Branco, sitting on the chairs that were at the stand to wait for the squid.
"hmp, he who can, can, kid" with a funny smile Hideo as he sat in front of Branco.
"So now tell me, Branco" out of nowhere Hideo's personality changed again.
"speak up, hideo, what the hell were those things?" Branco also changed his expression when he saw that Hideo was already serious.