"So why, why would you talk to me at all?

Such words were dishonorable and in vain

Their promise as solid as a fog

And where was your watchman then?"

"So you can read English?"

I squealed out loud and threw the book in the direction of the strange voice. I had been truly frightened out of my skin, that when I finally looked over at the person, I couldn't help being mortified. It was one of the many handfuls of orphanage rich donors and I had thrown a thick, hundred-page hardcover book into his face.

I was royally screwed.

Laughter met my ears, as I glanced back up. He cried tears from laughter, not from the pain. I felt stunned by his attitude toward a man in a suit and tie. He always came in with a professional tight lip smile, holding his back straight, he gave the air of power when he walked around. That seeing him on the floor, crying tears of laughter as he held his stomach seemed to destroy that intimidating image he had originally made for himself.

At least, I knew he wasn't going to be mad considering his state. I couldn't help note his hair sitting atop his head in a bun, which had already become scruffy in his fit of hysteria and once he finally turned to look back at my being, wiping away the tears from his eyes, he passed back the book. He seemed more real at the moment.

I take it from him, carefully. I came to feel that his hands were two to three sizes bigger than my own, even though they felt dry and worn out, our hands touched in the exchange and he was very gentle in contrast. I felt small at that moment, wide eyes as he towers over me even when we were sitting there, it felt almost suffocating. Mainly because I felt so damn small.

We didn't say anything else, as I slowly got up from the floor and quickly tried to leave. I noticed as I slipped by him, he tried to say something to me as I escaped.

I never heard those words besides a soft,

"Wait-"

Though, that wasn't our only encounter. I came to notice him, and he always found me somewhere within my home. He constantly bothered me with silly questions.

"Tyler, that's your name right?" He asked, leaning his head against the bookshelves, arms and legs crossed.

I hummed, flipping to the next page.

He sighed as he looked around, his eyes caught the tips of the fox ears at my other side. "Oh, what is his name, your fox friend?"

I twitched. "Who said it was a he?"

"Nobody," he replied. "Then, what is she called then?"

"Who said that if they are not a he, then they are a she?"

"nobody, I-"

"Assumed. I know," I barked back, shutting the book and putting it back on the shelf. "I got classes, so for now, goodbye."

I had wished that I never caught his eye.

"Look, Kid, I'm sorry." He begged, sitting at the library chairs. It was one of the ones meant for the smaller kids, such as I. He looked funny, with his long legs squished to his chin and chest with his hands on his knees. It was like a giant within a world made for doll-size people.

"Sorry means nothing in these cases," I answered, as I filled in my homework. "Shouldn't it be more, you learned something new? That you'll try and put it into everyday practice?"

"Creepy," he murmured and I huffed. "Heh!" He spat on worry, "I meant creepy as in, as in you sound just like my father." What a strange thing to say.

I tilted my head as I let my hair roll across my shoulder. "Like... your father?"

He nodded his head, scratched his cheek. "Yea, he would say that exact phrase while I was growing up."

"Guess, it never sunk in, did it?"

"Eh! Look here Kid, it did, I just -"

"Didn't expect a kid to understand?" I interrupted him. "You assume too much. I feel embarrassed for your father."

He groaned in annoyance and I couldn't help but chuckle.

"You, both are too alike. " he cried.

I came to like his presence, mainly due to his damning persistent personality. He always found time to come around, putting himself in the most curious and ridiculous situations that left a big impression on me, that one day, as we sat upside down on the living room couch, I finally asked for his name.

He burst into the widest of smiles as if he was so happy at the simplest of questions. "It's Sousuke, Honyaku Sousuke."

"Meaning, Wise translation," I replied, chuckled at the name connotations, as I looked over his long brunette locks interlocking with my own silver hair splayed across the floor. "How ironic would it be if you work for a translation company."

"I don't work for one, my family owns one." He answered and I choked on my spit in surprise, before I took one big breath. He smiled cheekily now. "I'm the next head of the Honyaku family, I noticed that you have read many of the books we have supplied here."

I nodded, remembering the family signature in multitudes of books I have read over the years. "I'm, just, I-"

"You assumed." He answers, smoothly and with a sharp tongue. "Shouldn't it be you learned something new?" he quoted back at me.

I huffed, before our eyes connected again, golden honeydew eyes reflected me, our lips twitched before Sousuke was the first one to break and I soon joined him after. We let our laughter fill the room like music.

When I didn't hear from him after a month, I thought I was abandoned or forgotten. It felt nice to have him around, trying to gain my attention. Then once he got me to ask for his name, he was gone, I felt the bubbling in my stomach and needed to spit everything out from my lungs. I couldn't help but feel like I was being played.

Carol was the first to ease my worried thoughts, when she told me something with crinkled eyes, damp cheeks as she buttoned my shirt. I swallowed, as I reached my hand to her cheek, trying to rub away her tears. "What is it, Carol?" I asked.

"You remember Honyaku?" She whispered as she tried to straighten my outfit. I nodded my head, how could I forget him? She smiled softly. "He filed the papers for your adoption."

"Huh?" I questioned, "He adopted me?"

"Yes and today, his father is to pick you up."

"Eeeeeh?!" I screeched, as I clutched her sleeve with my other hand. "Why, why so suddenly?"

Carol only had one thing to say to that. "Well, They are rich people."

Carol made me take a small bag full of stuff I had gathered over the years, there wasn't much. A handful of books, letters from Jade, the one letter from Ai, my fox friend, and a handful of photographs taken over the years. When looking at it, I couldn't help but think how little I had in this little life.

The clothes Carol put on me weren't from the orphanage considering they felt more stylish. I tugged at the collar of the polo, "Is this a branded item?" I asked Carol, who seemed shocked I knew that. Considering we never got anything related to news, magazine, etc of the sort in the orphanage.

"Yes, it's the Hitachiin brand." She answered.

The name felt eerily familiar, yet I couldn't find the memory of why. "Hitachiin?" I questioned.

She nodded. "They're a famous expensive clothing brand."

"Then the Honyaku are really well off?" I further enquired, "Like they are super super-rich?"

"Very much so," she patted my head. "You'll never go without, Tyler."

I reached for her hand and pulled it to my cheek. "But, I will have to go without," I whispered. "Because you won't be able to come with me."

She grasped me into her arms, tightly.

We eventually let go, she stood up and took my hand one last time. Her thumb gently rubbed the back of my hand, I gripped the handle of my bag in the other and we took the steps out of the shared bedroom. I glance back, looking at the rows of beds and tables, at the end windows gleam sunlight into the room and fresh air as the curtains flutter. I knew then, I would never see this again.

We slowly took the steps down, with our hands clenched together, savoring the last few minutes together. I glazed my eyes over the yearly photographs gracing the orphanage walls as if in some way I could burn them into my memory. I stopped midway, as I caught the one with Jade and I together in the living room, singing together with Carol in the background watching us. I touched it with my hand before looking back at Carol, I squeezed her hand.

"Can I take this with me?" I begged.

She hummed as she took the frame down and removed the photograph. "Here." She whispered as I took the image gently from her, I gave it one more look before I placed it into my bag carefully.

"I will," I choked. "Treasure it."

She nodded and we reclasped our hands together. The steps creaked and groaned as if they had mourned my leaving. Once we found the end of the steps, I couldn't possibly imagine never descending them again. The whole situation felt bizarre.

That I didn't feel right, as I stepped onto the carpet and met the eyes of my new Grandpa.

The first thing I saw was his belly, round and plump like a big glass of beer. He wore cord trousers and a white button-up shirt, with glasses hanging on a chain tucked in his front pocket. He leaned down, as I stood frozen in front of him because I had thought Sousuke was tall. His father was a giant of a man, he almost reminded me of the big friendly giant. "So, you must be Tyler," He began as our eyes met eye level. I noticed, just below his eye sat a mole.

I nodded, though no words could leave my lips.

He merely took my hand and told me he was taking me home.

Home was on the rich road, on the rich street I once in my last life dreamt off but knew I was never getting, for I had always been below the living wage. I had been given a cheat, genius brain, and past memories. Lastly, I am put into the hands of the men who run their own business, living almost like kings. It felt too much, too much for someone like me. I didn't deserve this, right?

I turned to the man who took me in, his eyes shining like fireflies. He is my new grandfather and yet, as I gazed over the rose bushes in the garden, the ivy climbing up the white walls of the mansion, the fountain that sat in the middle of the drive, acting almost like a roundabout, I couldn't help but cry.

Because I did not deserve this.

The strange thing about most reincarnation fiction I grew up reading in both lives had never ever gone into the nitty-gritty details of how this would affect any singular person. I had no real base to work with but my own, and sinking my teeth into this new life had already come with inflicting emotions. Habits that I before had found themselves within my new, phrases from a different culture slip from my tongue, and confused faces would follow.

Maybe that was why I hid behind pages of information, maybe I was just coping with unfathomable things that I would never be able to ever really explain to anyone without sounding any crazier than I felt.

I sunk farther into the bathwater, listening as the water ran and dripped down at the end where my feet could yet wish to reach. I breathe in the steam as I let the feeling of being almost burnt by the crisp, clear water. I knew I was going through a form of denial. Declining the factors of this life even as I took the steering wheel, and I know accepting everything takes time. I knew and yet I felt it clambering its way up my throat.

The clear view of my skin, where I knew once in another body had scars lining it, was bare like a fresh canvas. I grew up in this body, just like the other, and yet I couldn't help feeling like I was missing parts of myself, a story no longer written or etched in a part of my skin. I had to remember I was still technically a child, though as I saw my face stare back at me, I couldn't help notice just how plain I was.

In my last life, I had been a rowdy child, curious about everything I could touch. I had been filled with scratches, scars from my own mini-adventures, I even had fractured bones. Yet I could not conjure that energy here, I couldn't find that childlike wonder with all this information already clogging up my brain.

"You have an answer for everything, don't you Ty?" Jade asked.

I shuffled my head closer to her shoulder as I yawned. "Not really, You just give me the easy questions."

"So, you don't know everything?" her hand stroke my hair, combing it between her thin fingers.

"I don't."

"Then what do you not know?"

"Many things, however, for example, When you're reborn, what part of you is now and what part of you is then?"

She hummed, in thought. "Deep Ty, but I think that's easy to answer."

"Really?" I looked up to her "then what is the answer?"

"You're both, just like your age, you're always gonna be 1,2, and 3 etc. So why is it any different if you have another life on top? You are all those years, for they are all of you."

Days passed by, weeks walked by and months graced me with their seasons as I engrossed myself within my new home. I quickly came to the normalcy of rarely seeing any of my parents, my father regularly worked away from home and when he was here, he was usually in bed asleep.

Grandpa was mainly running the Manor and family meetings, so the only time I saw him was either in my training classes or a rare dinner.

I mainly spent my time with two of the manor's staff, one by the name Jonathan or Jon for short and Hikori. They were sweet and understanding, at times they filled the silence that is now my home.

Especially since the letters had long since stopped coming.

The books piled high, the classes came and went and I wondered why the only comfort that I held was a few pieces of paper and a stuffed fox. I did cry at the beginning, but now there is nothing but contempt and a bed left empty.

I often found myself underneath it, huddled under blankets and pillows, with any book I had my hands on. It filled a hole, for a little while I felt like a baby wrapped in their mother's arms. It was and is my safe place within a home that felt like winter.

Jon often had to get on his knees and pull me out because I didn't want to leave. He often found it funny and sometimes, I had to laugh with him too.

He'll sometimes wiggle his plump nose as he smiles, trying to give me some awful excuse as to why I should leave, and I would just shake my head. Then he would reach for my arms and gently pull me out as he tutted.

Often my mornings would be like that.

That waking to the sound of two sets of feet pattering outside my door rose me from my slumber. The echo of chattering voices bickering as their words grew louder the closer they came by.

".. You're saying… that Tyler.."

I pulled myself from the bountiful collections of blankets, however, I found that only further tangled myself in their clutches, for I was curious to what was discussed of me. I rarely heard my name said besides when spoken too directly.

" Tyler has been taking his studies seriously, and has improved…" I could easily recognize the second voice as Jon's, as he began to pull the door open for the other.

I decided it was better to huddle back under the blankets after my failed attempts to free myself and pretend I was sleeping in the face of the stranger.

Yet as I thought that, I was already faced by two smiling faces. Well, shit.

Sousuke, the father I had started to forget about, was laughing in my face as Jon pulled me out gently.

"it's, it's not that funny '' I muttered as Jon began to untie me.

He smirked as he patted my head." No, it's really adorable. "

I couldn't help the warmth filling my cheeks.

And in such, he started to visit me on rare occasions such as then. No longer was he as work busy. It wasn't by much, but it was a better situation.

That's how I came to know Sousuke Honyaku, my father, my benefactor.

And also the one, who opened the doors to trouble.

I found said trouble on a lazy afternoon, under the gentle rays of the sun and the shade of an old wrinkled tree that batters its orange, red leaves at me whenever the wind pushed it.

I kept a hand up to stop its dangling annoyances, as I mouth the words written in the book on my lap.

Then without warning, one similar small body fell down atop of me and another from afar laughed at our shared discomfort.

If I understood who I had met at that moment, would have I done things differently?

Probably not.

"I'll be your keeper for life as your guardian

I'll be your warrior of care, your first warden

I'll be your angel on call, I'll be on demand

The greatest honor of all, as your guardian" - Guardian by The Worse Cover Band Of The World

AN: So, my life got busy, but anyway here is chapter 2, so yes I am still working on this, albeit slowly, but I am not giving up on this project, don't you worry! 3