Blessings in Disguise
Written by: CherryDrug
Disclaimer: "I am not the liable owner of the series or franchise of one Eyeshield 21. I do not own it's original plot, it's characters, the public figures, events, places and etcetera. I do, however, own the plot of this story, as well as my OC, one Kobayakawa Kanami. Arigatou for not suing me :)."
Rating: This'll be a T-rated fan fiction, so those who're expecting sex or mature themes, please wait for a while ahaha. I'm not yet ready to corrupt my virgin mind with lemons or erotic stories just so that I could please all you perverts, ehehe ;)
Genre: Family, Friendship, Adventure, Drama, a spice of Humor, and Romance some time down the road :)
Characters: Erm...there'll be a lot in the future, but for now, Kobayakawa Kanami will be our main character for this story of ours :)
Summary: I wasn't somebody important that died from a tragic yet all too coincidental accident, with no family to bury me and no friends to mourn my passing; whereas she had been unexpectedly born into a family that still welcomed her with open arms, grew up with a supposedly fictional main character for an elder twin brother. Dear God, why mix us together? SI!OC-as-Sena's-twin.
Pairings: Guys, I'mma do the most impossible shit that one has could ever do. I'mma make this a Self-Insert!OC/Multiple Well, I guess I'm following in Choco's footsteps, what with writing a reverse harem fan fic, but goddamn it do I wanna try it xD It looks fun.
AN: Ok, I guess this is where I have to take in a deep breath and begin one hell of a speech. Hi guys! My username's EriDrug, and my co-author is Choco who's too busy with RL to continue her story, Step by Step. I'm always worried about her story, since she's lost some of her inspiration what with teenage drama, homeworks, and them lessons from hell, ne? This is my first Eyeshield 21 fan fiction, and I have one thing to tell you all.
Don't go easy on me.
I like hearing the opinions of others, to hear them criticizing my work, to hear what I could to make this story a better one—however, I will NOT tolerate flames AKA those reviews that are TOO opinionated and from readers who can't get their arrogant heads out of their flat, crappy asses that don't know when to just STOP, take a breather, see the good parts of a story as well, and give the author a chance because us writers are REALLY trying. We're really, really trying to make the readers happy, when in the first place, us writers are just writing to vent out our stress. So, to those who plan on nonsensically flaming me, go fuck yourselves ya assholes. However, to those who have a harsh review, please, please tell me what I did wrong without cursing the fuck outta me like most dicks would. I've dealt with flamers before, one even made Choco cry so hard, and I know how to treat you.
Like. You're. Nothing. Like you're garbage, like you're trash, like you're the shittiest scum of this planet. Like you don't even exist. You're just air. You're NOTHING.
But, again, to those who have a review that's pretty harsh and criticizing :) I don't bite, however please leave a note for your reasons, and I'll PM you to ask what I did wrong. I give chances, unlike FLAMERS, and I don't care if I lose favorites or follows because of these words—all I'm doing is standing up for myself, because I'm a writer, and I'm not just speaking for my rights, but for the rites of all writers. To flamers, if you have nothing good to say without a reasonable explanation or apology, you can go fuck yourselves off.
Anyways, to those who are just looking for a good story to read, carry on :) I hope this'll be good enough to satisfy your satisfaction buds ehehe.
Chapter 1
Her name hadn't always been Kobayakawa Kanami. She hadn't always been a small, newborn baby with chubby cheeks and eyes the brightest shade of green. Her parents hadn't always been Kobayakawa Shuuma and Mihae, an asian couple that had been blessed into their fifth year of marriage. And, most notably, she most definitely hadn't always had an older, twin brother who went by the name of Kobayakawa Sena and had the same wide, but dark brown, eyes as she—or 'Kanami' did.
No. Kobayakawa Kanami hadn't always been who she had been born as. In fact, this wasn't even her first shot at life. Her name hadn't always been Kobayakawa Kanami, nor were her eyes a bright shade of green and hair a dark shade of brown, and she wasn't even sure of what her heritage had been before her second shot at life.
Because Kobayakawa Kanami—the small, newborn baby with chubby cheeks, eyes the brightest shade of green, a small patch of hair on her head a dark brown hue, and asian blood coursing through her tiny veins—had once been Amelia Smith, the girl whose hair was as dark as night, whose eyes could have been the darkest shade of green that it could easily be mistaken as black, and who didn't have a single clue of what her lineage was.
When the two lives were compared, the differences were astounding. Whereas Kobayakawa Kanami had two loving parents who doted upon her, Amelia Smith was an orphan who had long lost hope of being adopted before she turned 'legal.' Whereas Kobayakawa Kanami had an older twin brother who clung to her whether they were sleeping or not, Amelia had several foster siblings whom she hid from since those who were older or younger than her preferred to bully her for her 'abnormality' of reading manga and books instead of prepping herself up like most girls her would age would.
Kobayakawa Kanami and Amelia Smith were both girls. One was a baby, and the other a young lady. One who had just been born from a mother whose tired yet relieved eyes stared lovingly at her once she was handed over, and the other having just died from an accident with the horrified eyes of strangers and passerbys staring at her as she bled to death on the concrete ground.
The two were complete opposites, living completely different lives and in completely different dimensions. One would never connect that the two were one and the same, unless one was the supernatural and omnipotent being who had shoved the soul of one Amelia Smith who was physically dying into the body of one Kobayakawa Kanami who was spiritually dying.
And thus, started the brand new life of Amelia Smith as one Kobayakawa Kanami.
Mihae knew, from the moment her water had bursted and the liquid had flowed down her inner thighs several weeks too early from the expected week, that today would be a most tiring and painful one. On the late afternoon of October 17, Mihae had been rushed to the hospital after she had to slap her husband out of his 'ostrich mode' which involved him ducking his head underneath one of the many pillows of the plush couch in their living room. The nurses had been kind and helpful enough to bring her into one of delivery rooms of the hospital they had, where her midwife waited for her with a comforting smile.
Mihae didn't feel comforted one bit—especially when a too early contraction had hit and the pain had immediately washed over her nerves that made her knees tremble and a painful whimper escape her mouth.
They had immediately laid her down on the only bed in the room, hooked her ankles on the stirrups. And, when the OB/GYN had finally entered the room, the anesthesia had been administered into her to help relieve the excruciating amount of pain that she would feel once she started pushing.
After a couple more minutes, with her husband's hand tightly restrained in her powerful grip, and the support and help of her midwife and the other nurses that would help in the delivery, the OB/GYN had given her the ok and she had began pushing.
And then, after ten hours of waiting, pushing, excruciating pain, Mihae's screams, and Shuuma's whimpers—a, surprisingly, healthy baby boy had been born, his wails piercing through the silence and filling the once cold room with warm relief with his cries. The little baby boy had first had his umbilical cord cut, cleaned and checked by the nurses, then handed over to the mother so that the two, newly-fledged parents would adoringly admire their bundle of joy.
"Mr. and Mrs. Kobayakawa, what would you like to name your child?" One of the nurses asked as the OB/GYN cleaned up the mess that the delivering of the baby had created.
Mihae and Shuuma reluctantly moved their gazes away from the drowsy baby boy that weighed 5.4 pounds—which, according to the OB/GYN, seemed odd, considering how large the swell of Mihae's stomach had been—and locked gazes, the married couple that had been blessed with life staring into the dark brown orbs of the other.
A silent message passed between the unworldly connection that these two had with one another since the moment of their unity as husband and wife, and Kobayakawa Shuuma turned to face the nurse, a happy smile curling his lips and twisting his pale features.
"Sena," the twenty seven year old father answered, his dark eyes twinkling with joy and delight. "His name will be Sena. Kobayakawa Sena," he affirmed.
Mihae smiled sweetly, her sweaty and tired face practically glowing with the effects of delivering her first child. "Named after the thunderbolt of Indra, a God of Hinduism, the religion that my parents worshipped when we were back in India," she elaborated to the confused nurse, who had heard of that name for the very first time and recognizing how unusual it was for a Japanese name. "It translates to dart, or to dash, in Sanskrit. But in Katakana, it means distinguished society," she said, pausing for a moment when she felt a wave of sharp pain wash over her, making her wince and wonder if this was merely one of the many after effects of delivering a baby. "And I'm sure that my Sena will help others just like—"
"Excuse me, Mr. and Mrs. Kobayakawa, but I'm afraid that I'll have to cut this touching moment of yours and tell you that Sena isn't the only baby coming out today," the OB/GYN interrupted their conversation, wearing a rather tired and weary expression on his face as he informed the stunned couple of the unexpected news.
"HUH?!" The two, newly-fledged parents exclaimed as one—Shuuma's glasses skewing downwards to emphasize his wide, bulging eyes that looked as if they could pop out of their respective sockets if they could get any larger. "Another baby?!" Mihae screeched, sounding confused and surprised and fearful at the same time. "What do you mean?!" Shuuma immediately demanded, looking insane and as surprised as his wife.
"I'm saying," the doctor drawled, looking away for a moment to roll his eyes in an exasperated manner. "That Mrs. Kobayakawa is correct. You are having another baby," he bluntly deadpanned, just as Mihae whimpered as a particular strong contraction pulsed from her lower regions.
"Mr. Kobayakawa, sir," one of the female nurses piped up, putting on a fresh pair of elastic gloves since the last one had been bloodied up by the earlier birth. "Could you please take the baby from you wife? He might hinder her concentration in giving birth to the other baby," she instructed, and watched with a careful eye as Shuuma did as requested. "Thank you," she said with a pleased smile, before scurrying off to prepare a fresh batch of towels and another basin of water that would be used to clean the new, hopefully lively, baby. Twins were rare, and even rarer for both babies to be born healthy what with their below average sizes and weight, since they had to properly distribute and share the nutrients within their mother's fetus as they grew within it over the course of nine months. The nurse hoped that the second baby would come out healthy and fine, just like its older brother.
"Mrs. Kobayakawa," the OB/GYN said, poking out from between the aforementioned woman's legs. "You'll need to be ready to push in a few minutes, just wait until I give the signal," he said, before disappearing underneath Mihae's raised hospital gown.
Cradling his oldest and only son in one arm and against his chest, Shuuma placed his hand in his wife's hand, pressing his lips together and clearing his throat to mask the whimper that fought to escape and make its presence known to the others in the room when his lovely Mihae gripped it tightly. He had lost most of his pride a few hours ago, and he needed to protect what little dignity he had left within him after whimpering and pleading to his wife to let his hand go. No, Shuuma would be brave and let his wife hold his hand once again as she delivered another baby—another baby that was unmistakenably theirs, and the twin to the fussing baby in his cradle. Another baby that they would have to nurture, take care of, and love with all their heart.
Shuuma was ecstatic with the news of another baby, momentarily forgetting about the extra expenses that they'd have to spend since they would have two babies instead of the expected one, but that didn't matter right now. His wife needed help, and Shuuma was going to give her all the help that he could give to her by now—by holding her hand and whispering encouraging words to her ear, just like what he'd done as she'd delivered Sena, with the addition of all the additional whimpers and yelps of the pain of what felt like his bones creaking underneath the strength of his wife's strength.
"You'll do great, honey," Shuuma consoled, smiling comfortingly at her despite the furrow in between his eyebrows which displayed his pain. "Just like with our Sena. I know you can do it, honey, I'll be here to help you," he murmured.
"I hate you so much," was Mihae's ever so loving reply with a grit of her teeth as she resisted the urge to start pushing the new and completely unexpected baby out of her fetus and just get things over and done with. "When I'm done with this fucking shit, I swear I'll rip your goddamn head off and shove it up so far up your ass so that you'll the know the pain of a woman giving birth—a hundred times!" She shrieked loudly at the end when she felt a particularly powerful contraction. She groaned painfully, her shoulder slumping down as she breathed in deeply, remembering those breathing exercises she and her husband took to calm her down and lessen the pain when delivering.
"Whatever you want, honey," Shuuma agreed, knowing that his wife wouldn't really do such a thing to him. After all, who would be supporting both her and kids?...Right?
After eight more hours of painful contractions, the midwife telling Mihae to push after every paush she had to endure through, Shuuma's twitchy smiles that looked more like grimaces, and Mihae swearing to castrate her husband after all of this was over—the second baby had finally been born. The little one had cried loudly, but compared to its older twin, its cries had only lasted for a few minutes. The new baby was then handed over to a nurse for cleaning right after it's umbilical cord had been cut off; after the nurse had cleaned the new, softly whimpering, baby, she wrapped a towel around the little one and handed the baby to the tired and panting mother, as it was appropriate for the mother to hold their baby first before anybody else.
Mihae graciously accepted her baby, cradling the little one in her arms, noticing by touch that this one was much smaller than Sena. With tired, brown eyes, the new mother of two looked down, and her once slanted orbs immediately widened in surprise as her jaw slackened at the sight of a pink blanket wrapped around the baby in her care.
"A...girl?" She said, sounding breathless. "It's...a girl?" She stated again, thoughts whirling about in her head as she tried to comprehend the situation that she had apparently landed herself into. When she'd been brought to the delivery room, Mihae had thought that she would only be giving birth to one baby, to only a son—but, to her most pleasant surprise, she'd given birth to two. A boy and a girl.
She'd given birth to a girl. Just like she'd originally hoped for. And she had a son as well, just as Shuuma wanted. And both were well and healthy, though they were below the average weight, but that was to be expected since they were twins, as the nurse had hastily explained once she'd seen the panicked and worried expression on Mihae's face.
"Shuu-kun," she said, her brown eyes tearing up, and she ripped her gaze from the baby—her daughter. Her beautiful, gorgeous daughter—to look up at her husband, who had a gobsmacked expression written on his face. "It's a girl!" She exclaimed, beaming brightly, as she showed their baby girl, her brown eyes twinkling in delight. " We have a baby girl!" She continued in a much louder voice, snapping her husband out of his dazed reverie.
"I...can see that," Shuuma said intelligently, his dark brown eyes still looking clouded as he tried to process the information of having a baby girl. It wasn't as if it was a bad thing—girl or boy, Shuuma would accept his new child, or children, as he had twins now, instead of the one he and his wife had originally expected. It was just that, considering his wife's expenses on clothes and shoes, much less the many ingredients she bought to make food, his mind was already screaming at him to bolt out of the hospital room with Sena in his clutches to escape the inevitable future of money flowing out of the window. "That's great, honey," he said, his lips stretching into a wide, genuine smile, because despite the unease he felt for what he'd soon expect from his credit card bills, Shuuma was really proud and happy that they had a daughter. Mihae had seemed a little bit sad that they would be having a son that she couldn't dress up or relate to once their boy had reached puberty.
"Mr. and Mrs. Kobayakawa, what would you like to name your daughter?"
"I—" Mihae turned to her husband, a pleading look appearing in her dark brown eyes.
Instinctively knowing what his wife was going to ask from him, Shuuma merely gave her a kind and warm smile, placing his hand over hers, and staring at both his wife and his children—his family—with a loving look. "You gave birth to her, just as you did with Sena, so of course you get to name her," he said soothingly. "I'll love whatever name you'll give her."
Mihaei swallowed, nodding wordlessly, before she looked down at the beautiful bundle of life within her arms. "I—" Mihae paused, staying silent for a few thoughtful minutes to ponder over what her second child's name would be. "Kanami," she finally answered, sounding a little bit hesitant, before she pursed her lips and nodded in a reassuring way to herself. "Kanami. I'd like to name her Kanami, after my grandmother and your mother," she said, turning to look up at her husband.
Shuuma blinked, testing the name. "Kanami...Kobayakawa Kanami...I like it," he said with a large grin, before looking at the baby in his wife's arms. "Hi there, Kanami-chan. I'm your father, your tou-san. And the beautiful woman who's holding you is your mother, your kaa-san," he cooed in a slightly higher than normal pitched voice.
The little baby girl—now dubbed Kanami—squirmed in her mother's hold, whimpering a little, and squeezing her closed eyes. And, to make things even more adorable, as if hearing his sister's discomfort, the little baby boy—now dubbed Sena—squirmed in his father's hold and whimpered softly as well.
Shuuma and Mihae cooed at their adorable twins, completely enraptured by their cuteness.
And then, to make things even better, the twins gave one last uncomfortable squirm before their eyelids fluttered open for the very first time. A pair of eyes blinked, squinted, squeezed shut tightly, before opening once again to get a less blurry image of the view of their parents.
The pair of newly-fledged parents released an 'awwwww'-ing sound, before the pair blinked, looking dumbfounded for but a moment.
"U-um, excuse me, miss," Mihae said to the nurse who had been patiently staying by their side the whole time, waiting to see if they were completely sure with naming their daughter 'Kanami.' "Is this...normal?" She asked, gesturing to her twins, whose eye colors were completely different from one another.
The nurse blinked, staring down at the pair of babies—the one wrapped in a pink blanket blinked at her, whereas the one in a blue blanket gave her a sleepy yawn. Sena blinked drowsily at her, his dark brown eyes drooping slightly as he yawned once again; Kanami stared at her with big eyes that were the brightest shade of green she's ever known.
"Depends, really," the nurse answered. "Do the two of you have any green-eyed relatives?" She asked, looking up at the two parents.
Shuuma looked straight up at the ceiling, trying to remember if he had any. "Why, yes, I did. My grandma and uncle had green eyes...what about you, hun?" he asked, looking at his wife who had the same thoughtful expression on her face.
"My dad had green eyes," she admitted, much to her husband's shock.
"Green? Are you sure? I always thought they were black or something..." he muttered, making Mihae laugh a little.
"It runs in the boys in the family. The older you get, the darker your eyes become," she explained.
"Well, I guess that's settled then," the nurse piped up, interrupting the couple's conversation. "You have nothing to worry about, Mr. and Mrs. Kobayakawa. This is completely normal," she said with a firm nod. "It's kind of a rare occurrence, but there are some twins with different features such as hair color, hair type, eye color, eye shape, and even skin color. In your situation, since the both of you have dominant brown eyes and recessive green eyes, it's possible for one of your offspring to get the recessive trait with green eyes, multiple or single birth. Kanami here, seems to have gotten that rare trait from you, unlike Sena who inherited your dominant brown eyes," she explained, even as the couple's eyes have already glossed over from the amount of information they could no longer understand.
"I...see," Shuuma said, smiling a little forced smile. "Well, ugh, thanks for the explanation, I guess," he told her, before turning to his wife. "I thought for a minute there that you were having an affair with another man," he sincerely told her, earning him a smack to the back of the head.
"Tch, idiot," Mihae scoffed, rolling her eyes, before releasing a yawn of her own, alerting the nurses that it was time for the new mother to rest.
"Good night, Mihae," Shuuma whispered, tenderly kissing his wife on the head. "When you wake up tomorrow, me and the kids'll be here by your side," he murmured as his wife's eyelids slowly slid shut and his kids were being taken away to be incubated.
It had taken two to three weeks before the Kobayakawa family could leave the hospital as a whole. Sena and Kanami had been born prematurely, and had to stay in the incubator a little longer than the usual so that the doctors could safely assure Mihae and Shuuma that their children were perfectly healthy babies that wouldn't have any complicated problems in the near future.
The house they lived in couldn't really be called a house yet. It was a small apartment with a conjoined kitchen and living room with the dining room awkwardly placed somewhere in between, one master bedroom, one much smaller bedroom, and a bathroom. They Kobayakawa family lived in a small place within a small apartment complex that was within a quiet neighborhood, but they were happy and content, and that was all that mattered to them.
It had taken a couple of weeks since the newly-fledged parents had brought their twins home to notice the differences between their children aside from gender and eye color.
Despite being the elder twin, Sena was the one who fussed the most and cried the loudest. He'd be the one who'd suddenly cry in the middle of the night every other day, the one who'd be picky about when he'd drink his milk, and the one who didn't like his sleep being disturbed. It had taken them a few days to realize what Sena's sleeping habits were like now—the little tyke would be sleeping for most of the day, and if you'd wake him up he'd start crying, much to his parent's irritation and dismay, and the only time he'd actually be active was somewhere in the afternoon until late night.
Kanami, on the other hand, was an angel. She didn't fuss or cry as much as Sena did, and the only time she'd ever cry was when she was hungry or if she needed her diaper changed. She also didn't sleep as much as Sena did; however, unlike her older brother, Kanami liked to move around. She had the tendency to roll on her tummy and wiggle about, as if she was trying to crawl despite being only a month old, and she tended to grab the closest stuff doll and pat it.
The Kobayakawa knew three things about their children. Sena was a baby who demanded absolute attention from anyone, Kanami was a very curious baby, and that the two liked to cuddle with one another when they were sleeping, or Sena tended to cuddle his younger sister when he slept and drooled over her, which were one of the few things that made her fuss.
Mihae and Shumma were happy with their children—because what more could they ask for? Their children were adorable, and they neither of them were sick. All in all, it seemed to them that they were blessed with completely normal children.
...That is until Amelia Smith woke up.
'It was...weird,' Amelia—no, Kanami thought as she furrowed her eyebrows at the ceiling. Even before this life, where she had been an orphan making her way through highschool, the concept of reincarnation or 'life after death' had never really appealed to her. Amelia, not Kanami, didn't exactly have a religion. The woman who took care of her and the other orphans as kids had taught them about Christianity, since the women themselves were loyal Christians; however, the mere concept of believing in, well, one religion didn't sound all that appealing, especially when Amelia grew older and began to learn more about the histories of several religions, and what people had done for their own beliefs and religions.
Christianity, Sunni Islam, Shia Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Protestantism, Judaism, Ahmadiyya, Zoroastrianism, Jainism, Sikhism, Taoism, Confucianism, and so much more...
It wasn't as if Amelia was an atheist, because she believed that there was a God, and she still prayed before eating and before going to sleep. No, it was just that Amelia had a hard time believing in which God. She had been pressured by both her caretakers and peers about that, because so what if you believed in a God? It didn't matter if you didn't know which God you believed in, as they'd told her.
Amelia had been frustrated by their explanations—because what right did they have to impose their beliefs on her? So what if she believed in a God, but not in a religion? Did it matter to them? It was her life, dammit, and she had the right to make her own decisions. To her, as long as she believed that there was a God somewhere, with the power to control the natural order of the world, and was watching over every single one of them, then she still wasn't atheist, because technically she believed in a God.
So to Amelia, reincarnation was a strange and foreign topic for her that she was completely indifferent to. Without significant people in her life, maybe aside from Mrs. Drews who made sure that she didn't starve herself to death in her room, buried underneath book after book, Amelia never really cared what would have happened after she died. For her, Amelia believed that after one died, they'd just be dead. Gone. Sucked into a black void, their existence in life having been used, and without any real reason to recycle their souls.
But looking at her—Kanami's—tiny and stubby fingers, clenching and unclenching, she couldn't exactly deny the existence of reincarnation anymore.
"Uuuuuuuggghhhh," the baby next to her—Sena, her brother, her twin—whimpered, shifting in discomfort, immediately catching her attention.
Kanami—not Amelia. Not anymore. Amelia's dead. Died in that car accident. She's gone. Gone, gone, gone—turned her head to face her brother, whose large, brown eyes were squinted and glossed over with tears. Sena sniffled twice, his fingers making grabby hands, and he kept wriggling about uncomfortably. Curiously, Kanami sniffed her brother, and was hit with the scent of baby powder, and was relieved to know that he didn't make a poopie in his diaper, especially when he was next to her.
Kanami raised her head a bit to stare at the door, then placed it back down so that she could comfortably stare up at her room's dark ceiling. And somewhere, Kanami just knows, from weeks of sleeping beside Sena and having to wake up in the middle of who knows what time because of one of his tantrums, she just knows that Sena is about to throw a tantrum because he just woke up.
And Kanami knows that he'd start crying soon, which would in turn wake their parents up. And Kanami wouldn't want that to happen to her poor parents. Her mother and father were very kind and loving parents to her and Sena, showering them with as much attention and affection as they could give, and trying their best to lavish their lives to the best of their capabilities despite the financial problems they had. Her mother was already tired, from having to care of the both of them, complete her daily chores, and deal with some of the rude people that lived upstairs and had the habit of throwing their trash onto their balcony, and her father on the other hand had an important business trip tomorrow, according to the conversation he had with her mom yesterday.
Turning her head to face Sena, Kanami opens her mouth to babble out nonsense to distract her older twin from exploding into tears and screams.
Much to her relief, her older brother pauses in his sniffling, and curiously turns his head to face her, his face still scrunched up into an expression of sleepiness, anger, and pain. He sniffs once, twice, but Kanami moves closer to him and throws her stubby arm over her brother's chest, snuggling up close to him, and babbling quietly into his ear, hoping that the sound of her soft voice could calm him down.
And, fortunately, it works, much to Kanami's surprise, because after a few long minutes of Sena wriggling uncomfortably underneath his sister's hold, the little baby finally manages to settle down. Sena gives one last sniff, before he turns on his side and throws his arm over her, returning her embrace.
The two of them stare into each other's eyes. One pair a dark brown hue; the other a bright green color.
Then finally, Sena's mouth stretches into a wide, toothless grin that shows all of his gums to her.
An in that exact moment, Kanami feels something warm and tingly bubble up within her chest. It's an indescribable feeling, but it makes her feel happy and safe and warm and protected.
Kanami returns the smile with a little difficulty, because the muscles in her mouth aren't used to turning upwards.
And in that moment, Kanami decides that maybe this life wouldn't be as bad as her first one.
Kanami can admit that living the life of a baby is hard and very frustrating—because the simple things such as talking and walking were now impossible feats to her, what with having a weak and untrained body. So, Kanami starts to discretely practice how to form the simple syllables and how to stand up for now.
Kanami doesn't have a hard time learning Japanese—since she'd learned how to read and write in hiragana, katakana, and kanji from a fellow otaku who'd been generous in lending her some books—but she does struggle with identifying the correct words to say. Japanese and English are not all that different from each other, both have synonyms, antonyms, homonyms, and homophones and both were also a struggle to learn about. Kanami has a hard time understanding Japanese, but she manages to do so.
Especially after her father comes home one day with a stack of children's books that his boss had given to him as a belted gift for their birth. Kanami uses the books to her advantage, trailing her fingers over the written words underneath their designated pictures and trying to pronounce them by forming shapes with her mouth. Kanami also practices the usage of her voicebox by babbling to anyone she could, even though they don't understand her.
She manages to say 'mama' and 'papa' by four months, a whole two months before Sena utters the same words, much to her parent's shock. Kanami remembers her mother bursting into tears and picking her up to cradle her close to her chest, cooing the entire time about how wonderful it is to hear Kanami speak. Her father, on the other hand, looks happy, but he does look concerned and suspicious about something.
And that's when Kanami decides to patiently wait for Sena to stand up before she can. She doesn't want to arouse any suspicions from either her mother or her father that she is anything but their darling daughter. So she waits until Sena stands up, which he does at ten months, the time she's able to say basic sentences that slightly starts to make sense, and she soon stands up a week after Sena's feat.
And it works. Her father no longer considers her intelligence with suspicion but instead with fatherly pride. Her mother lovingly describes her as a very smart baby, perhaps even a prodigy—when Kanami hears that word being used on her, she'd had to cover her bright red face with her hands, and had promptly stopped talking for a day or two.
All in all, life seems good to Kanami, and she starts to enjoy every second of it.
Time passes by in the blink of an eye to Kanami. Minutes turn into hours, hours turn into days, days turn into weeks, and weeks turn into months. Before she knows it, it's already been a year since she'd popped out of her mother and, to an extent, her and her brother's shared birthday. She's learned a few things about her family since 'Amelia' had woken up from her deep slumber. Her father is a business man for a company that has just started a few years ago, whereas her mother is a stay at home wife who likes watching soap operas with her and Sena curled up to her sides on the couch. Sena, the little devil in sheep's clothing, has a habit of getting his fingers tangled up in her slowly growing hair and pulling on it until her scalp hurts and she has to swat his hands away from her.
And as time passes by, Kanami not only starts to enjoy life with a family, but also starts to love her new family as well.
In her previous life, 'Amelia' had been an orphan with nobody to return her love. She's loved things—most particularly the old laptop that Mrs. Drews gave to her when she turned fourteen—but never has she loved a human being, aside from 2D characters like Itachi Uchiha, Sebastian Michaelis, Usui Takumi, Ikuto Tsukiyomi, Zuko, and so, so much more; so having been born in a family for the second time is unfamiliar and weird to her, especially when her father picks her up and tries to make her laugh, when her mother cradles her against her chest and whisper sweet nothings to her, and when her twin brother shares his things with her with enthusiasm.
'Amelia' didn't have anybody like that. Amelia grew up bullied, unloved, and unwanted. There was nobody there for her to make her laugh, to make her feel better, or to brighten up her day; she had nobody to watch out for her mental well-being, and the kids in the orphanage were mean to her, never bothering to share their things with her and instead choosing to boast about it in front of her.
Kanami, on the other hand, grew up with everything Amelia wanted. An actual place to call home and a family who love her despite her many faults.
And Kanami doesn't know how to handle that much love cocooning her, so she reacts to their love the only way she, not even a year old yet baby, knows how to. By spontaneously crying while she mentally wails about how she doesn't deserve such loving parents and an adorable older brother who loves her so so much that it just feels so painful.
Kanami wonders how lucky 'Amelia' and she is to have experienced love, even after death, because it's one the most beautiful feelings she could ever feel.
Kanami realizes something about the life she'd been born into a little too late.
Today's her and her brother's birthday and they're currently spending it in the house of her father's parents, because Kero-ojii and Namie-obaa's house is the only house big enough to contain their big family. Kanami sees people—people who she's apparently related to—she's never seen before, but takes in their affections with greed—she isn't hesitant to call herself an attention whore, because she knows she's one, but who wouldn't? When they'd lived a life depraved of attention that wasn't negative in the slightest?
But she promptly swats the hands closing in on her cheeks. Cooing and pats on the head she can take, even being handed off to be cuddled by other people, but Kanami draws a strict line before cheek pinching. She's seen Sena promptly bursting into tears when a particularly clumsy uncle of theirs had squeezed his cheeks a little bit too much, and she really doesn't want the same thing to happen to her.
Nu-uh. Sena can deal with all those cheek-pinching addicts that they call uncles and aunts, while she deals with the pats on the heads and priases of being such an adorable baby.
She's currently in the lap of one of her older cousin's—Minoru, a teenager with hair as dark as hers and eyes a much darker shade of brown compared to her brother's. Kanami doesn't mind being cuddled tightly to his chest as he coos in an embarrassedly high-pitched voice at how adorable and obedient she is for a one-year old baby.
Kanami sucks up his compliment like a sponge to water, and promptly awards her nice cousin with a big toothy smile that makes his dark brown eyes glitter and an 'awe-ing' sound bubble up from his throat.
It is only when her uncle grabs Minoru-nii's attention, does Kanami feel a sense of foreboding settle within the depths of her stomach.
"Hey, Minoru-kun! Isn't that your highschool playing?" Uncle number over nine thousand says; almost immediately, Kanami and Minoru's gaze strays towards the television placed in the very center of the wall adjacent to them.
On screen, there are a pair of teams, one on each end and wearing the assigned uniforms of their school, within a very big field with grass cut to a short length. The sun's rays beam down harshly against all of the players backs, and Kanami can barely see the bleachers filled with people who are cheering for their respective teams.
Kanami recognizes the sport on television. It's football—American Football, to be more exact, and she winces when she sees that one of the players had been brutally tackled to the ground by two people because he'd been holding the football. She sees that the referee has blown the whistle, but she doesn't hear it because of the commentors on screen. She blinks when the screen transforms from the players on the field to a pair of people sitting on a table and commenting about some players' skills.
Kanami takes the time to read the characters on the bottom part of the screen, where there are a set of numbers—most likely the score board—right next to the characters. She recognizes the characters written over the screen as Hiragana characters, and Kanami blesses whatever deity there is out there that it's Hiragana and not Kanji of all things.
She squints her eyes to read the characters that she hopes would form the names of the teams.
み would be Mi; さ would be Sa; き would be Ki. Misaki.
Before Kanami could decode the remaining Hiragana characters, her cousin and uncle does it for her.
"Hey, isn't that your high school, Minoru-kun?"
"Oh, you're right. I forgot that my school's football team had a game today."
"Forgot? Boy! Where's your school spirit?!"
"Ahaha. I can't keep track of all the teams on my school. I have enough trouble worrying about my own club."
"Hmmm, ok, but the Misaki Wolves, huh? That's a pretty cool name, are they any good?"
"Yeah. They're pretty good, but man, up against's Oujou's White Knights? I'm not really sure who'll win this one."
Kanami then promptly tuned out the rest of the conversation, her eyes having widened at the mention of that particular team.
'Oujou's White Knights?' She thinks, feeling a little bit dazed. 'Isn't that from that one sports manga I used to read before? What was it called again? Wait, what letter did it start with again? A? D? E? E! Oh yeah! Eyeshield 21!' She thinks, but then realizations dawns upon her when she remembers a crucial detail of that certain manga. 'Wait a humping minute, wasn't its main character's name Kobayakawa Sena?'
Almost immediately, Kanami snaps her head to where her twin sibling would be, right in the lap of one of her evil aunts, with his cheeks once again being squeezed to their limit. Kanami ignores the urge to giggle at her brother's misfortune, because there are much more important things that must be tended to immediately. She squints her eyes to get a better look at him, memorizing each detail of him with great focus.
Dark brown hair. Dark brown eyes. Her twin brother has the same hair and eye colors as the main character of Eyeshield 21, and they do share the same name; however, he doesn't quite yet look like Kobayakawa Sena from Eyeshield 21, and Kanami doubts her twin brother would gain legs that'd be able to run fifty yards in 4.0 seconds flat when he can just barely catch up to her, and toddling for crying out loud!
So Kanami relaxes against her cousin's chest, breathes out slowly, and decides that her life isn't some cliche fan fiction where the main character dies and gets reincarnated into a universe that had once been fiction. She's just Kobayakawa Kanami, the not so ordinary daughter of Kobayakawa Shuuma and Mihae, fraternal twin sister to Kobayakawa Sena, with the soul and consciousness of one Amelia Smith. She's normal; well, as normal as any teenage girl that had suddenly woken up as a baby girl can get.