Warnings for this chapter: Breastfeeding, cursing, and some existential crisis-ing.
Disclaimer: I own nothing except Ichido.
Last Edited 3-8-18
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Text Key:
Italics = Emphasized thoughts/text/dialogue
"Dialogue" = Japanese Dialogue (For the sake of organization)
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Holy shit.
I was actually a baby.
I was actually, really a baby.
The cliché-ness of it all was just too much for me. I did not want my life to go to waste and I didn't want to be forgotten. I'd even thought that before I died. I guess whatever deity that exists out there took that as my dying wish and granted me another fucking life. A bit overkill on that, don't ya think?
I mean, I was not particularly upset at the idea of continuing to live on, but the universe could have at least granted me a re-do of my own life. Being in this predicament made me pitiful of the poor soul that I had just robbed the body of. Whoever they were going to be was destroyed because of me. Cause I just had to reincarnate into this body.
A part of me urged myself to let this justified guilt go and to take the opportunity to live once again. I wanted to, all my aspirations were once again within arm's reach but...
I could never be who I was ever again.
By being birthed by another mother, becoming kin to a new family, I had become a completely different person and cursed myself with the fate of change. I couldn't goof off with my old friends or hang out with my previous parents. I couldn't go to those family meetings that I openly hated, but secretly enjoyed. I couldn't continue where I left off in my academic life; it would take years for me to reach high school again. It was as if someone had hit the reset button but didn't press it all the way.
I don't understand why I had my memories. Why were they even remotely important here? If I had to be reincarnated, why did I have to remember all the pain and suffering of the real world? I wanted the innocence of a child, to be uncaring about crime or war and to be able to make a huge fuss over small things like losing my favorite toy or making a mess with my food. Instead, I was tainted. Tainted with the duskiness of an adult. Tainted with fear of the real world.
I knew that the moment I realized I was a newborn. I would never be like other children as I grew up in this life. I would be a freak, the outcast.
And there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.
While other children cried over a toppled ice cream and threw tantrums over not getting that newest toy, I would be silently sitting in the corner, contemplating whether or not I would actually die again the next day. I knew.
The thing that I was most worried about was the sanity of my parents in this world. They would catch onto the idea that something was wrong with me. Maybe even go as far as to see therapists. They would be so confused and I would be so mad at myself for making them feel that way.
I didn't want to be like this. I don't want to be like this.
No. I wouldn't be like this. Paranoia had never done me any good in my old life and I doubt it will in this one.
Whether the universe liked it or not, I refused to let this new life change who I am.
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I was gagging on my bottle.
It was appropriate to say that it was definitely a new experience. For sure, it's one I'll never forget.
The person who had been feeding me for the time being, whom I had assumed to be a nurse at the hospital I was in, accidentally shoved the nipple of the bottle way too far into my throat and triggered my favorite human reflex. The gag reflex.
The nurse's incompetence made me really wonder whether or not she was fully qualified to be there.
I was hacking and choking, clearly causing the nurse to go into a panic attack as I continued to suffocate on the life-giving liquid that had leaked into my trachea and was sputtering out of my mouth in rather repulsive globs of mucus-like liquid. I had managed to disgust myself. Accomplishing new things even at birth...
It took a lot of patting on my back to calm me down, even as I was trying my best to reign in the wild emotions that ran loose. My body demanded that I cry because I was 'hurt'. I wasn't hurt, not even a scratch, but my body interpreted the simplest poke as an assault against my person.
I hated this. This feeling of helplessness against my own body. It was degrading.
It was safe to say that I had absolutely no idea where I had been born. It must have been an Asian country of some sort because of the little snippets of language I had heard from the mouths of the hurried staff. All I needed now was to hear a common greeting to be absolutely sure. It was odd how most people knew how to say 'hello' of all things in other languages.
The nurse who had been cuddling me finally dropped her facade of kindness and continued to force feed me my milk. I did not want milk, so I feebly slapped at the plastic bottle, blindly aiming for her incredibly rough and calloused hands. It was after a few seconds of this repeated action that the nurse finally caught wind of what I was doing and muttered about my refusal to eat. Too bad I could not comprehend what she said, it was probably something I could have reveled in.
I'd just managed to rile up a fully grown woman.
I felt my body lift up from the place where I was settled and move. I was then unceremoniously plopped onto a soft pillow. At least, I assumed it was a pillow. The bitter nurse muttered a little more about something and walked away, her obnoxiously loud high heels clopping against the ground.
Finally, some time to myself.
For about, like, ten seconds. Since I was being cared for in a hospital, I could tell from the sickening smell of antiseptic and the occasional screams that would come from nearby rooms, I had assumed that I was inside the infirmary. You know, that room that always seemed to remind me of the egg nests from Alien but with just babies. I was probably an undistinguishable child in the rows upon rows of either pacified or screaming infants. At the moment, all of the other babies seemed to be dozing off.
The door to the room swung open, the slight screech of the door making me flinch. Heavy footsteps invaded the previous silence of the room and creeped me out slightly. The sound reminded me eerily of those kinds of footsteps you hear in a horror movie.
The clapping of this person's shoes stopped unsettlingly close to me. Just when I thought it could not get more strange, two huge hands clamped themselves around my minuscule body and raised me into the air. I protested with little gurgling noises, not even close to the slew of curse words I wanted to scream at this stranger. Curse my undeveloped vocal chords...
I must have been suspended in the air for a long time because the person who was holding me up did not move their arms for a solid minute. They seemed to just be staring at me. Maybe in awe, maybe in disgust; I wouldn't be in a position to tell until I had the ability to see.
Finally, the figure hugged me close to them. I felt the slight roughness of cotton scraping against my soft, delicate skin. I heard a heartbeat, steady and strong as it thumped heartily against my carrier's chest and my small head.
I instinctively calmed down at the repetitive rhythm, slowly letting my breathing fall into sync with the one of my holder's. I had assumed this person to be a man, mainly because his breathing was deep and his chest was just too flat to be one of a woman's. I mean, this person was basically as flat as a cutting board.
For some unknown reason, he smelled like a fireplace and the odor was absolutely intoxicating for my day-old body.
I was only slightly embarrassed by the fact that I was aggressively sniffing this man's shirt.
He finally spoke after an eternity of silence, affirming the fact that he was, in fact, a man.
"Konnichi wa," the man greeted, his voice rumbling deeply against his chest. He added softly, "Ichido."
This confirmed it, I had definitely been born in Japan. Which was absolutely amazing because I loved Japanese culture.
The one thing that confused me, however, was the thing he added at the end of the sentence. What the hell did "Ichido" mean? Was it my name? Was it a good name?
I want answers goddammit.
The man bounced me on his hip, making oddly cute sounding noises with every little jump in the air. It was not extreme, but that nauseating feeling that you usually get on rollercoasters started to build up in my stomach. The man seemed to detect my discomfort and settled me back into his arms.
"Ichido, anata wa baunsu o osorete imasu ka?" the man whispered, softly poking a finger against my nose.
I did not know what the hell he was saying, but I assumed it was something about me and bouncing. I hated bouncing. I would be sure to express that from now on.
The finger he had pressed against my tiny nose finally rose and ended up resting on my soft baby chest. My hands went straight for his one and brought it up to my mouth.
My instincts were acting in full swing, not even giving me the chance to fight against them as my body automatically shoved his fingers into my mouth. He did not seem too bothered by it, he didn't even bother to try and take his hand out of my drooling, gummy mouth. He let me chew softly on his fingers, fully knowing that he could not get hurt by my toothless maw.
I continued to unwillingly suckle on his fingers, my body still under the conceived notion that fingers could provide milk.
Silly body, fingers do not have milk!
God, how I wished that my infantile body could comprehend simple logic. It would make the next few years so much easier.
I think the man had enough of my chewing because he softly plucked his fingers out of my grasp and probably wiped the gross saliva off on his pants.
Not that I could blame him; I would have done the same thing. I grasped for his shirt and clutched it dearly. Whoever this man was, his body had practically imprinted on me. My instincts trusted him with my life. Me on the other hand, I still didn't know him. I didn't want to make any broad assumptions because for all I knew, maybe this guy was a male nurse or something.
He patted my arm that was practically attached to his shirt and moved to stroke my cheek. He caressed it lightly with his thumb, his forefinger resting on my forehead.
"Boku wa kimi no Otou-san," he whispered tenderly, continuing to pet my face.
Otou-san... Otou...wait. This man is... he's...
My father.
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I'd learned that I was not alone when I came into this world when I left the hospital.
It was simple to figure out once my two parents had to leave the hospital with one completely silent baby, me, and another bawling infant. Apparently, he was a boy and his name was Izuku. The only reason I had found out his name was due to the fact that my parents could not stop babbling about the two of us.
Every second it was either "Ichido", which I had figured was probably my new name, and "Izuku". I did not mind all of the attention at first, but it got extremely tiring when I could not understand what they were saying about me for maybe the millionth time.
At first, I didn't like the lack of being in a hospital. That smell of antiseptic that I had familiarized during my few-week stay was gone and my body didn't appreciate it. Thus, I felt extremely uncomfortable at home and didn't want to do anything without a lot of coaxing. The only thing that could convince me to drink my milk or fall asleep was my father's presence. His fireplace aroma had grown on me while I was in the hospital and made me love him almost instantaneously.
My mother, on the other hand, had a lot of struggles with me whenever father was working. If she wanted me to go to sleep, she had to haul out one of my father's coats from the closet and pretty much dump it on me. His coats were basically brimming to the edge with fireplace-smell and I couldn't help but pass out at the level of comfort.
To get me to consume milk, she had to wrap me around in one of my father's scarves and make me chug the milk while I was mentally incapacitated by the familiar odor. The only way to get me to do what she wanted was by using some sort of clothing from my father to get the job done.
It was when she started to breastfeed both me and my brother that this dependence on my father started to ebb away.
It was also then that I had first met my brother.
Our mother had decided to kill two birds with one stone and feed us at the same time, just so she could get her other work done and keep our small family financially stable. I could have said that it was unfair to the two of us that she didn't want to give us attention, but I thought it was okay because of the fact that I didn't want to live in a cardboard box for the entirety of my new childhood.
Oka-san, I had decided to call her that from now on mainly because I thought it would be good to adjust to my new culture, had picked me up from my crib and my brother from his. My sight was still blurry from not being developed enough, but I could start to make out different shapes and colors in my unfocused vision.
I saw the huge peach-colored glob with green around the top that I had come to know as our mother and another green-black blob with some peach-color near the bottom that was foreign to me. My instincts, as well as my own curiosity, wanted to find out who this newcomer was and if they were friendly or not.
Before I could act on my thoughts, my Oka-san started to feed the both of us on what I assumed to be the couch. I had the right, my brother the left. It was when I had accidentally kicked him with my jello-like legs that he made his presence known.
His reaction was more or less predictable. Baby gets hurt, baby cries. It was a simple formula that made children way too easy to please or upset.
Oka-san was slightly upset with my behavior, even going so far as gently hit me on my thigh even though it wasn't my fault that my cartilaginous legs were as easy to control as octopus arms.
My brother was wailing, Oka-san was struggling to control the both of us, and I was just cluelessly sitting in Oka-san's right arm as she tried to rock Izuku's problems into nothingness. I decided to try and help her too, mostly because it was partly my fault for kicking my brother.
I reached out with my tiny hand, grabbing at his blob-figure. I'd finally managed to grasp something and I realized that I had managed to wrangle up his leg. I tried again and this time got his arm. I held on and moved my hand to the edge of his kind of chubby arm. Once I found his hand, I held it tight.
His panic seemed to subside after a minute of just holding. I held him, not stopping for a moment. He seemed to finally notice the sentiment that was inside the gesture and squeezed my hand. I squeezed back.
Oka-san seemed to be infatuated with our sibling cuddles and put us on the couch to run and get a camera. The signature snap of the device was heard as well as a blinding flash to make our little faces visible in the frame.
It was small, but I was sure we made a friendship that day. I finally had the sibling that I had always wanted in my previous life.
If only I had known then that this friendship would open the door, a door to a much darker future than I had imagined
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Translations:
"Boku wa kimi no Otou-san." = "I am your father."
"Ichido, anata wa baunsu o osorete imasu ka?" = "Ichido, you're afraid of bouncies, aren't you?"
"Konnichi wa" = "Hello"
Ichido means "One time" or more precisely "Once" in Japanese. There is a reason for this name, but it can be explained later in future chapters.
"Oka-san" = "Mom" or "Mother"
"Otou-san" = "Dad" or "Father"