"Ugh, fuck… Why's the world so fuzzy? Where are my glasses?'

I yawn and reach up to rub at my eyes. Except, there's one problem- these aren't my hands, a revelation that sends me into an advanced state of 'what the living fuck'. Last time I checked, my hands were bigger than my cheeks. And just what had happened to the scar just below my right thumb? Since when were my fingers so… stubby?

I tried to ball the (my?) fingers into a fist, but apparently my motor control had, along with my glasses and the top third of my fingers, fucked off to La La Land. Hmph. This was going to be problematic, I could tell. Well, laying around wasn't going to help, and I shouldn't need fine motor control to sit up, right?

Naturally, this endeavor turned out to be a major fucking failure. As soon as I put a miniscule fraction of my body weight on my arms, they gave out, and I fell back onto the bed with a cry. Variations of 'Fuck!' ran through my head as it hit whatever I was laying on (soft - a pillow?), and my eyes filled with tears.

'How fucking embarrassing,' I thought. I wasn't a fucking baby that cried whenever something went wrong, but this was so fucking frustrating! Since when was I so weak that I couldn't even sit up? I sniffled, desperately trying not to make a sound. I would not cry, I would not cry, I would not cry…

And, I was crying. Wails ripped themselves out of my throat, and my limbs flailed against my will. From somewhere far away, footsteps thundered, and a door flew open. Of fucking course my little hissy fit would get spectators. A brown blob (human, presumably) ran over to me and… picked me up. Picked me up, like I was a sack of fucking potatoes, or something.

What the fuck? Had I shrunk? Had I been magically transported into some kind of dimension full of giants? Was I just really fucking high? Either way, crying didn't seem so bad anymore. I guess the person ( a woman?) disagreed, because she rocked me and cooed something that probably would have been soothing if it was in fucking English. As it was, it wasn't, so I freaked out just a little bit. Well, maybe more than a little… Yeah, I was fucking losing my shit. Can you blame me? I'm apparently surrounded by giants (Japanese giants? I didn't speak the language, but I'd watched enough anime to recognize it), or I've been shrunk, or I'm some kind of…

Oh my God. Oh my fucking God. I was a baby. I was a fucking baby. It shouldn't make sense, but it did, and oh my fuck, how was this possible? Had I been… Reincarnated? But that mean I was dead, and I didn't remember dying, except I did remember now! Which was great, and good, and made me cry, which made the lady holding me panic, and then everything kind of went to shit.

She rocked me in her arms for what felt like forever until my wails turned into quiet sniffles. I wanted to thank her for helping me, but I didn't think babies were supposed to talk, and it didn't seem like she spoke English, anyway.

Who was she, anyway? Something in the back of my mind told me that she was my mom, but surely that wasn't possible. My mom was older, and skinnier, and… in a different world. Right. The thought shoved a lump in my throat, and not breaking out into tears again was a struggle. It didn't make sense, though. I hated my old mom. Why would I be sad? How could little things like apple jelly on toast make my heart ache?

I was just being irrational, I decided. I'd been suddenly sprung into a new situation, and my mind just wasn't handling the stress well. It happens, right? Everybody has those bad days where you just, like, die and get reincarnated as a fucking baby! What a normal and pedestrian situation I'm in!

A soft sigh punts my train of thought off of its tracks. Ah, right. My… new mom? Maybe? Man, that was weird. As soon as I learned how to ask in her language, I'd get her name, because I was not calling her Mom. However much I hated her, the woman I called Mom was far, far away from here.

The woman (ugh) softly smiles at me, and I decide to call her Tall, Dark, and Gorgeous (TDG for short), because holy fuck, she's pretty. A little too old for me, and also probably my mom, but still pretty. She had warm bronze skin, and dark eyes that reminded me of a cup of black coffee. Long, curly brown bangs framed her face, swaying whenever she moved her head. She smiled and asked me something in what I was now pretty sure was Japanese. I didn't understand, but her smile was contagious, so I sniffled and smiled back. TDG laughed triumphantly and asked me something in Japanese again.

Well, as far as moms went, I guess I could have done worse.

People didn't generally give newborns watches, so I didn't really have a way to keep track of time, and the days kind of blended together. It wasn't entirely unpleasant, though. Sure, it felt like my teenage brain was rotting from boredom, and there were some incredibly uncomfortable things (if I ever see another diaper, it'll be too soon), but how long had it been since I'd regularly gotten more than 5 hours of sleep?

I guess my parents were popular, because most of my waking moments were spent gurgling at strangers to entertain them. One of my first visitors (at least, that I was awake for) was a man with spiky black hair and a matching beard. Something in the back of my mind told me I knew him, but I ignored it until I noticed his headband. His headband. Either this guy was a really dedicated cosplayer, or I had been reborn into the fucking Naruto universe, and my parents were chummy with Asuma Sarutobi.

Well, shit.

After meeting Asuma, I sort of resigned myself to the fact that, yep, I was Naruto character now. I wished I had some kind of way to tell when, though. I mean, Asuma was alive, so I wasn't Boruto's age, but he also had his beard, so I wasn't, like, Kakashi's age or something. The Sandaime came to visit me, too, so not only was I apparently the most important baby in the world, I was born… sometime close to the Rookie 9? I mean, I might have been Itachi's age, or something, but he was alive, so I was born before the Konoha Crush. Man… what a crappy time to be born. I was the farthest thing from athletic, so I wasn't really sure how I'd do as a ninja, but I couldn't just laze about and let myself become canon fodder. I had people that cared about me, and I wouldn't do that to them.

I couldn't tell if TDG was a ninja, but she probably came from a ninja family, since I was always fucking drowning in them. There were a few that, like Asuma, visited fairly often, but most of them seemed like they were only visiting out of courtesy.

There was another man, though. He visited more often than Asuma, but not as often as TDG, and never at the same time. Could he be my father? I didn't really know what I looked like, but we had the same skin tone (darker than TDG), and I couldn't really come up with any other reason for his being here so often. He didn't wear a headband either, but he had a large scar that ran from just under his right ear to under his chin, so I doubted he was a civilian.

Now that I thought about it, TDG had bandages on her arms, and I doubted civilians did that, either. Well, if they had a newborn baby, I guess it made sense for them to retire, if only until I grew up. What would they consider "grown up", though? If 12 year olds were old enough to be soldiers, it probably wasn't all that old. I liked to think that my parents were better than that, though, however wishful it was.

They did seem to be good people, though. I didn't really know them outside of how they acted around their daughter. My dad, who I'd decided to call You're Very Quiet But I Enjoy Talking To You (YVQBIETTY, or Bietty), wasn't as loud as TDG, but he seemed polite enough, and he always had a smile to spare for me. I'd come to the conclusion that he and TDG were taking shifts caring for me, which explained why I rarely saw them in the same room. It was kind of cute, but I wasn't really sure if it was necessary. Babies were supposed to cry all the time, sure, but I was hardly a normal baby, and I'd feel bad if I kept them up all night taking care of me.

Days continued to blur into weeks, and weeks into months. Eventually, my parents started trying to get me to talk. I'd picked up a few basic verbs, too, but I didn't think I was supposed to have that kind of comprehension yet, so I kept them to myself. It was kind of frustrating, just barely understanding what people were saying.

"Kōmori, do you know who I am?" Bietty- no, Sasayaki, that was his name, asked. I grappled with the urge to roll my eyes. I knew I was supposed to be a baby, but holy fuck, this was annoying. Of fucking course I knew who he was; half of my time was spent with him. I liked him, though, so I graced him with a "Tōchan!" and an adorable pat on his nose. I would never dream of calling myself prideful, but I'd be damned if I wasn't a fucking adorable baby.

Clearly, TDG… or, rather, Tabiki, agreed, because she gasped and leaned forward in her chair. "Mori, what about me, kore?

Who am I?" Again, I kindly and tactfully resisted the urge to sass at them. They had been good to me, so it might have been kind of rude… And besides, were babies even supposed to know how to sigh dramatically? I'd have to test that later.

"Kāchan!" I declared. Tabiki was too far away to poke, so I settled for pointing at her. She swooned and picked me up, and I reflected upon the fact that I couldn't be more than a few months old, but I was already a ladies' lady. Well, with my dazzling good looks, what did I expect? Not that I actually knew what I looked like, but people never seemed to think babies were ugly, so I supposed that applied to me, too.

Being swung around got kind of annoying after a while, so I patted her cheek until she set me back down in my highchair. Sasayaki's shoulders convulsed with his typical silent laugh. He spoke too fast and too complicatedly for me to fully understand, but I understood enough to tell that he was telling Tabiki that I hated her. She was sort of tiring, sure, but I didn't hate her, and I would not let this stand,

"No! No!" I shouted. Sasayaki blinked. I pointed at Tabiki. "Like!" The choppiness was embarrassing, but I could probably get away with it, being a baby. Tabiki's mouth opened and closed like a dying fish, and her eyes were wide as saucers. I frowned and turned to Sasayaki, whose eyebrows were higher than a kite. Had I done something wrong?

I banged my stubby fists on the table, and they started. Tabiki started to say something, but apparently thought better of it, and sighed instead. Sasayaki exhaled, ran a hand down his face, and muttered something I didn't understand. What the fuck was wrong now? I sighed dramatically and slumped in my seat. It seemed like no matter what life I was in, grownups were fucking weird.

Ah... it's kind of annoying that FF doesn't allow indentation. I know it's impossible, but in the dark recesses of my mind, my English teacher is criticizing my poor formatting...

In any case, thanks for reading, and, like, super thanks to those who followed and/or favorited, even though what I had earlier was kind of... eh. Admitting this is kind of embarrassing, but I couldn't help but smile when I saw the notifications, haha. I'm sort of a novice, so knowing that people enjoyed my writing enough to want to see another chapter is really reassuring!

I was heavily inspired by Silver Queen's Dreaming of Sunshine and Lang Noi's Catch Your Breath, so if you enjoyed this, you might enjoy those! They're both 100+ chapters, too, so they should be able to tide you over until I publish the next chapter. They're really good, too, so even if you aren't, by some miracle of nature, desperate to see Chapter 2, you should read them anyway.