Cocksure: "presumptuously or arrogantly confident." -Oxford Languages
("The lovable narrator is back baby! Mari says she wants to keep her haircut a secret until we get to that part of the story, buzz kill. Anyway, we are back. Wow! It is going to be so boring without me. What's a guy to do? Eh, I'll see you next time.")
It had been a few weeks since the last incident and my parents were taking it well. "We only have five more hours until we get the results back from your blood test! Yay!" I looked at them too tired to say anything.
I hadn't been sleeping well lately. Ever since I realized that I had died once before, I had been doing as much research as I could. Apparently, it's called reincarnation. And to my luck, it had never once been proved possible. Great, maybe I was actually crazy.
Mom stayed behind to work in the shop because one of the staff quit. And Shun was at school, she wanted to come, but she couldn't afford to miss school. So me and dad headed off to the hospital, he seemed more nervous than me at that point.
When we got on the subway I noticed that a familiar-looking speech bubble was in the same car. I waved to him and he walked over with a big cocksure expression.
"Hey, what are the odds? I've been wanting to talk to you guys more. Do you think I could get your sister's email?" I smiled and said, "Fukidashi, this is my father, Kobayashi Daishi." I wish I could frame the expression on Fukidashi's face. It was somewhere in between wanting to die and already dead.
He bowed. "Kobayashi san. It's a pleasure to meet you." Dad being the kind-hearted man he was, said, " So you're the son of my good friend Fukidashi Hisato. He's told me so much about you, it's nice to put a name to the face."
Fukidashi looked immensely relieved. "Yes sir, thank you. Our families should get together for dinner sometime." I was a bit surprised by the one-eighty he just pulled. "That sounds lovely. Tell your father I'll call him soon to make arrangements."
And with that, we stepped out of the train and waved goodbye. When we finally arrived at the hospital I was glad that we had been able to take our minds off of everything. I was looking forward to getting it over with of course, but the distraction helped us immensely.
It took a while, we probably sat in the waiting room for about three hours. By then we were back to being nervous wrecks. When it was finally time to go, dad had to wrench his hands apart to hold the door. When we finally got settled in the room, a lady walked in and introduced herself,
"Hello, my name is Dr. Taylor. I'm here to talk about your quirk. Does that sound good?" I looked at her noticing that she looked a bit familiar. "Are you American?" I asked curiously. "I was born there, yes." She smiled warmly. I replied jovially, "Just like my papa."
Dad chuckled. "That is true, just like me." I looked around the room noticing the minimal decoration. "So Mari, it looks like you are a bit unique." I smiled. "That's what my sister Shun said!" Dr. Taylor nodded approvingly. "Sounds like your sister is pretty smart."
I smiled over at dad. "As you probably know, your quirk is very different from your mother and fathers." My feet swung back and forth as I listened to Dr. Taylor's words.
"This happens when DNA passes down but changes. Technically, it's a genetic mutation in the section of your DNA that controls your quirk." Dad looked worried. "A mutation? What else will that affect?" Dr. Taylor still seemed calm.
"You don't have to worry, we believe that the only thing it affected was Mari's quirk. There's a lot we still don't know about quirks. We can't tell you why Mari has the quirk she has, but we are confident that this mutation shouldn't make any difference in her day to day life."
She brought out a clipboard, "If you want to figure out what your quirk is specifically, then we are going to need another appointment." Dad nodded. "Of course." At that point, I had stopped paying attention.
"Can we go yet?" They both laughed. "Of course. We just have a few more things to discuss with your father." I nodded and got up to look closer at the room. A few minutes later and we were outside.
"That's good news. Let's hurry home, I'm sure that your sister and mother are looking forward to hearing it." The day passed by quickly as we headed home. I hadn't even realized that the sun was setting by the time we got there.
As we walked up the steps I realized how incredibly tired I was. When we got inside, we were swarmed by mom and Shun. "What did they say? Is Mari okay?" I smiled just wanting to go to bed. "How about you tell them the good news papa." He smiled back.
"Sure, they said she would be fine. They said a lot more than that, but I think someones a bit tired to be having that conversation." I hadn't even realized just how tired I was. My head was leaning up against dad's legs and my eyelids drooped.
"Let's get you to bed then." Mom came over and gave me a hug. "We can talk about this tomorrow." I wasn't paying attention but I got to bed in time to pass out. I was tired enough that I didn't wake up when Shun came into our shared bedroom and went to bed.
That night was a normal as every other one, filled with nightmares. But the first one didn't start out that way. I was staring through the glass at a hospital bassinet when I noticed my reflection.
I didn't look anything like myself, with blonde hair and black eyes and pale skin, I didn't look anything like myself. I looked about Shun's age, older than I had ever been in my current life, 'That's it! This is my past life.'
But before I could do anything I noticed the small baby that was about a meter in front of me. They were crying. I wanted to go comfort them but then I noticed a hand on my shoulder stopping me.
'That's your little brother," I felt an intense sorrow wash over me, "You are to take care of him while we're gone.' I wanted to object but then the dream changed. A lifetime of memories flooded through. Every moment with my brother that I couldn't remember before.
Then I saw him again, he looked about five this time. I was about to go up to him but something was holding me back. Hands grabbed at me from the darkness. Every movement added another hand, I was drowning gasping and pleading for them to let go. I just wanted to be with my brother.
I was abruptly ripped from the dream. "Mari wake up! It's just a dream." I could feel the bed underneath me as I sat up and opened my eyes. Shun stood off to the side crying softly. I noticed I was crying as well and buried my face into my knees.
For the next few minutes, everything was quiet, my muffled sobs hung in the air. "I'm sorry," I whispered. Shun sat down on the bed with me and wrapped me in a hug. "You have nothing to be sorry about." I shook my head violently. "You don't understand. I abandoned him." I started crying harder.
"Who? Mari, please help me understand. I want to help you." It took me another few minutes to get my breathing back down. I looked into Shun's glistening eyes. "I-I need you to promise." Shun held my hands and matched my eye contact. "I promise." I squeezed her hands tighter. "I can remember living a life before I was born." Shun was quiet. "Shun I can remember dying."
("Wow! *Gasp* A cliffhanger? What a mean thing to do. The narrator shook his head disapprovingly. I bet you're wondering how Shun will react. But I can't tell you. Spoilers. So you'll just have to see what happens next time. Cliff Hanger! Hanging from a cliff! And that's why he's called Cliff Hanger!")