Where am I?

I floated mindlessly through the darkness, feeling weightless. Are my eyes even open? Or closed?

Am I... dead?

No, that can't be. I was just riding the bus to school when... there was a bunch of beeping and honking... and then...

What happened after that? I must've blacked out. I wonder if there was a car accident or something. I probably just fainted. This must be some kind of lucid dream, and I'm in the nurse's office right now, resting.

That has to be it... I mean, what else could this be? True, I've never had a dream quite this lucid before, but it's not like I'm in the afterlife or anything. It's not like I'm dead.

Right?

...

Geez. I really can't do anything here. Do I even have a body right now? None of my limbs are reacting. It's quite warm here though, wherever "here" is.

Ah- what is that?

All of a sudden, I was blinded by a radiant white light, and the darkness melted away, leaving me in a cold and blurred place.

Faint sounds (human voices?) muffled around me, and I felt myself being moved around. God, I can't see anything. Everything was just a flurry of blurs. Where am I now?

Suddenly, I was placed into some kind of warm cradle, almost like... like human arms. But that's ridiculous, it's impossible.

Finally, my hearing sharpened, and I heard a soft female voice humming a nostalgic tune from above. Craning my neck up to see the source of the familiar melody, my vision focused and I was met with the face of a beautiful woman with long, silky chocolate-brown hair and startlingly rich deep green eyes.

Her humming is so beautiful. And why is that melody so familiar? Where have I heard it before?

I blinked out of my trance, taking in the situation. This woman is currently holding me, humming softly, almost as if- almost as if she were holding a newborn baby...

I wanted to laugh, but my clogged up throat prevented that as I swallowed nervously. What the hell is this? There was a sudden banging noise, and footsteps rushed over to us.

Although I couldn't quite see or hear perfectly yet, I could make out the figure of a man standing in a frantic position in front of the lady, asking her something quickly in a familiar sounding-language. Why is he wearing a lab coat? Wait, before that, who even is he?

He took a seat next to her and gently draped a blanket over her shoulders, gazing at me with soft and proud eyes. From this close, I could see that he had ruffled raven black hair and dark indigo eyes, as well as a scruff of an unshaven beard on his chin.

"Kimi wa subarashī yo, Miya. Kare wa utsukushī. Watashitachi no musuko wa utsukushī yo," the man said in a language I finally recognized as Japanese.

As a seasoned weeb, I could pick out a few of the words and translate them to English- "kimi" is you, "utsukushī" is beautiful, "watashitachi" is our, and "musuko" is son.

The question is, why are they speaking japanese, and why am I here? What do those few words that I picked out mean? "Kare no namae wa?" the woman asked in a melodic voice. Her japanese... it sounds a bit off. Maybe she's a foreigner? Her voice is gorgeous. She could be a great singer. Wait, this is not the time for that.

The man chuckled. "Anata wa watashi o shitte imasu yo, Miya. Watashi wa sono yōna koto wa tokuide nai yo. Demo kimi wa kitto subarashī namae o omoitsuku to omoimasu kara."

"Jaa... shibaraku kangaete ita namae de ikimasu. Akio. Soreha 'akarui' to iu imi de, watashi no sukina kisetsu, aki wa 'aki' desu. Akio Rei," she said with a smile.

"Kanpekina no namae dayo! Kare ga aki ni umarete irai, sore wa tokuni fusawashīdesu ne," the man agreed with a bright smile. I don't really get what's going on, but there's a lot of "Aki" and "Akio" going on around.

"Welcome to the world, Akio, my son," the woman said softly. My eyes widened as I finally heard a language I recognized. So this woman is English? But besides that, she... called me her son? Akio?

...What the hell?

And thus, I came to the conclusion that I, Harley Edwards, a 16 year old female attending high school, had been reincarnated.

As a guy. With a beautiful mom and a strange dad. What the hell, God?

2 years later, I came across the first mirror in this lifetime. It was a large one hung up in my dad's office. While he was busy writing something down in stacks of paper, I wobbled in and it was the first thing that caught my eye.

I hadn't seen what I looked like yet, so I was damned curious. And this house... or rather, mansion (as it turned out, my parents were quite rich), didn't really have any reflective surfaces that I could reach.

Making my way over (my dad appeared to be too busy to notice me) I placed my tiny palms against the glass to stand up straight and stared at my reflection.

I... wow, I must've inherited my mom's features. Even I have to admit that I look really similar to her. I had the exact same shade of rich chocolate-brown hair and deep green eyes, as well as her pale, creamy skin and overall bone structure.

I squinted, looking closer. I don't think I have many of my dad's looks... oh wait, there's that beauty mark on my left cheek that my dad has too... I wonder if-

All of a sudden, large hands grabbed my armpits, and I was lifted up and placed in someone's lap. Glancing up with wide eyes, I saw my dad's grinning face. "Aki-channn! Did you find your papa's office?" he cooed, tickling me lightly.

Unable to resist, I giggled, and my dad spun around in his office chair in the large room, holding my laughing baby self up. "Aki-chan! Where are you? Aki-channn!" my mom's voice called from the hall outside.

"Over here, Miya!" my dad called, setting me back down in his lap. My mom entered the room, smiling when she saw the two of us. "There you are! You ran off somewhere when I was about to give you your lunch veggies!" she said as my dad handed me over to her.

"Did you want to see papa?" she asked, raising me into the air. I smiled, making grabbing gestures with my chubby little hands. Ha, maybe I should've been an actor as Irene.

She and my dad laughed, setting me down on the soft shag rug. They both took a seat next to each other, leaning against each other.

My eyes softened. Maybe this life isn't so bad after all. After all, back then, I was alone... but now... I have them...