"There's a fire in my brain and I'm burning up

Oh my, oh my

Keep running for the sink but the well is dry

Oh my, oh my

Every word I say is kindling"

Chapter 1: Curses

I am in a unique predicament, one that is more fictional than factual.

You've probably read it all before if you're like me. Digging your hands into the reincarnation genre and wondering what it is like if you woke up into the stories we read, what it be like to talk to the characters we both love and hate within the pages. The most important that most of these fictional pieces try to conquer is to why, why is the protagonist brought to this world?

Some change the villainess into a queen, others try to make the world a better place and others just hunt down their favorite characters. Whatever reason, it was made for those to self-indulge, to escape reality.

I was once, one of those types of people. Really, I still am. Hiding within books of all sorts of magical worlds just to escape the suffocating feeling that has been swelling inside me daily. To forget that I, myself have found waking in the story of a very rich school and a handful of very crazy students. In my last life, it was to escape the suffocating feeling of the repetitive depressing world I lived in.

My new life, it been once a story I had truly adored in my last life, finding out that this is where I been reborn out of all the stories had been a massive disappointment. Like who wouldn't want to wake to a world of chakra or magic? I wanted to be strong, I wanted to be amazing. Not in some rich family trying to circle through the demanding world of work, the boring kind.

All I got given was a start in an orphanage with a brain that can sponge information like it was water you drink daily. I guess the brainiac I became was my compensation for being reborn into such a boring world, that what I want to believe. That I've been given some sort of clique cheat everyone gets when given a new life, mine being my smart academic brain. It wasn't an overly excessive skill to have like many other reincarnates stories I have read, it was a pretty tame gift to have been given.

So let's start at the beginning, where I was first born before I knew I was in a story I once knew. To be brutally honest, my early baby, toddler years were hazy and dream-like and it took me a long time to even fully come to the conscious notion that I had been reincarnated, just that I was a little boy and my favorite caretaker was Carol.

Carol was the one that was a constant and persistent person in my early years. She practically was like my mother figure in my early years, feeding, changing me, and keeping me company as I grew crazy over being bored, majority of the time. Who wouldn't be? An adult mind within a toddler is going to get easily tired of seeing and doing the same things in and out.

That once I was able to move by walking, climbing I was out of my crib and head already in a book across the room. I was upset when after all that struggle to get over the bars that had haunted me for the last short years mockingly by keeping me from doing anything was not the challenge I thought it would be, no, my biggest obstacle was going to be learning a brand new language.

I hadn't realised that this whole time I had been spoken to in Japanese. Mainly because everything for a good portion of my life felt like I was underwater, that as when I developed everything just sounded normal as if I had been spoken in English too. It was both a surprise and also something I was terribly upset over as I look over the symbolic symbols.

Stubby fingers touch the soft binding of the spine, listening as other cribs with babies babble or snored away in the backgrounds. I felt tears prickle my eyes and I couldn't help the thoughts. I bet I will be just as useless at learning as I was in my last life.

I wasn't a loud Cryer, just messy with the snot running from my nose. I couldn't control my feelings and I hated it, I didn't like it showing through, exposing me to everyone. With my tears it set off the other babies within my vicinity, it was long after I was swooped up in Carol's arm as she rocked me. If I had been at an older age, I bet I would've been scolded.

Her brown eyes linger down at me, I couldn't help but to think that they were beautiful.

There were many times in my toddler years I found myself within her arms, ripped away from the book I had tried to read because sadly for her, I found where the library is. She found it strange at times how intelligent I was for my age though sometimes she'll chuckle and read it, if it was a children's book I had picked up. I was sad when she wouldn't read the hobbit to me though, like come on lady! That is a classic. Plus I was getting very burnt out of 'We went to the shops' or 'Billy went potty.' like come on, give me something filled with wizards, elves, and adventures or anything that isn't some kind of basic baby stuff.

She blocked off the light novel area because she found that I would go way too often to those particular books. I think she thinks I go there for the pretty covers. They were, but really I had been an avid light novel girl in my past life, I had enjoyed the many translated volumes I could find online. It felt invigorating that I was able to read more without needing to find someone needing to translate. Did I forget to mention? My fear of not being able to learn to read in the language was something that was brushed off quickly. I found grasping it easier than I thought it would be, it felt like someone had blessed me. I had cried when the words in the books started to make sense.

And so Carol's life became both harder and easier with me like all I wanted to do was read. I did read continuously and as I found I could learn quicker than I could before, that I was reborn a genius of sorts, I read everything, not just books topics I loved, I dipped into everything. History, sciences, gardening, cooking, anything and everything I could get my hands from the bottom shelves I would read when I could, often being taken off me by Carol once caught. She had really freaked out when I had been caught reading a book on human antimony at the age of three years old.

I think I heard her once mutter "Why do I get left with the strange ones?"

At five, more of my peers join me in the library. Before I mainly had been around the older children and carers, with Carol being the main controller of the books I read. They didn't interact much with me, mainly because I was always too busy with my nose in some book. Those who wanted a quiet space sat around me, either reading or colouring in some book that they had, kicking their legs in the air and humming.

We rarely talked, just sat down in our places, and kept each other's presence as reinsurance. We kept it up for months, that their humming became a thing I almost couldn't live without, it was soothing and relaxing that when they got adopted, I felt like something was missing. Their tunes, them kicking their feet into the floor every so often, as if in some beat and them scribbling into the book, sometimes giggling was all gone. Gone. It left me wondering, what it would've been like if we talked at least once.

Eventually, I got used to the noise of others, but I tried not to rely on it, not to be comfortable because most of my peers were adopted, leaving me buried within written words for company. I heard many days of others crying, knowing someone was forced to say goodbye once more.

Carol slipped herself beside me, she heard me slam my book shut, it was getting harder for her to find me expressing myself like I did a toddler beside moments like these. She slings her arm around my shoulder as she softly sighed, "What's wrong, Tyler?"

I tried to calm my nerves, I took a deep breath. "Nothing," I muttered.

She eyed me with a knowing look. "You rarely stop reading for nothing," she remarked.

I look over the other children crying as one of them kept saying 'sorry,' to the others, as if somehow them being adopted was their fault. "Because shouldn't they understand by now what environment we're in? That no one should stay here forever. Eventually, we all are going to have to say goodbye?"

Her eyes widened before she patted my head, "Tyler, not all the other children can control their feelings like you." She says, "They all know, they really do."

I nodded, knowing I was being a bit childish over the matter. "I'm just tired of watching them cry," I whisper at her side, clutching her sleeve. "Because shouldn't they at least be happy, their friend going to a loving home, right?"

She chuckled, "Who said they're just sad tears?"

I grip my book tighter in my other hand for I could not say anything to that. "Tyler," she inquired, asking for my attention. I look up at her and she smiles. "It's alright to cry, it's fine to miss others, you don't need to hold back."

I shook my head, "I don't miss anyone." I denied, through the little voice within would say otherwise. I miss home, I miss mum and dad, I miss my family, I miss so, so much.

She pulls me closer, her fingers grazing gently through the silver threads of hair. "Remember Ai, the girl who stuck your side with a colouring book?" She murmurs to me, I nodded my head as the image of soft raven hair flashes across my eyes and deep grey eyes that sparkle under the glow of sunlight. "Even if you don't say it, I know you miss her. She had been too scared to say goodbye but she left this letter for you."

I widened at the idea of a letter, a letter for me, and this whole last few months I never was told. "Why, why di-"

"I was waiting for you to ask me about her or to say you miss her," she told me. "Yet you never did."

"I'm sorry." I admitted, "I do miss her, I just know, there's no point making a fuss."

"Tyler, you can-"

"No, I...can't do that." I gave her a sad smile. "I miss people in my own way. I don't need to make a fuss to do so."

When I got the letter, I kept it under my pillow at night. It wasn't an extraordinary thing or anything, but it had been someone I had cherished for a short time as they did me. That was hard to find within these walls with my peers. The letter was just a colour in page from her colour book of a dog and a poorly scribble of our names and a heart in the corner. The normal thing you would see from any five-year-old.

As I got older, so did my peers and with age came discrimination. They had been already finding me strange and different while little and as they started to form more opinions at the ages of five to ten, they started to question me for multiple things that Carol took with ease.

"Why do you read all the time?" Because I like reading.

"Those are girl clothes, You shouldn't be wearing that." Who said skirts are girl clothing only? When I was a woman I wore men's clothing and rarely got questioned on it.

"Tyler, you never hang out with us, why?" Because I don't know how to be like you.

I found myself often being pushed about by others when the adults aren't looking, girls often pulled my hair when they went by, especially when one time I tried tying my hair up. They didn't like that. Not all my peers were like this, but you always had some.

I often found myself hiding with the bookshelves, blending in with the scenery so that they couldn't find me easily. If not there, I was underneath the bed with a torch shielded by the bedsheets, and often in the day, a cleaner was around. I gave them a fright the first few times they found me there.

Among the adults, I had been dubbed the "bookworm." Some that interacted with me often found me scary at times and I have heard a handful of times, "Creepy one." from their mouths when they thought I wasn't around. Carol always told them off, though even she would admit I was strange at times.

Mainly when I would ask questions from textbooks made for those ten years older than my physical age. I didn't think there would be consequences for these actions however I was wrong. The main thing that had really freak her once was when I was able to show her how to use the mobile phone she had, it was one I knew well from my past life even though I had mainly used it around the same age I was now, being that it was soon flip phones, blackberry's and common touch screens came around not long after.

I miss a good touch screen phone.

It took a week for her to look me in the eye again after that. I didn't try to show my knowledge much after that, it is one thing for being intelligent and wanting to learn, there another for just knowing stuff you wouldn't really know at that age.

I don't know how to do this whole reincarnation thing, all the ones I read were in times where technology didn't even exist besides the basic camera at times or magic had replaced the scientific kind. I had no guide in this familiar semi-realistic world, that was a couple decade behind the one I had grown up in originally, in a completely different country. It was just something I had to learn on the go.

The backlash from this situation wasn't just the carers' wary treatment of me, it had further spread the discomfort to my peers and I found the only place I could hide away from them was the toilets where I can lock the door and keep my eyes off me. Thus, this was where I found my second friend within the orphanage.

I had been reading away on top of the toilet seat quietly as feet outside the toilet cubicle came in and out every so often. Mostly it was me and my book. I had heard one of the doors slam as loud cries pulling me out from the part of the story, the main protagonist almost confessing. I was a little upset at being stopped at such an important plot point.

Yet they cried and I pushed past my slight annoyance as I worried over them, sneaking into their stall and wrapping my arms around them. Pigtails of orange strands grazed my eyes and nose as I tried to pat their back, their much bigger hands clutched my back and pulled me closer as they cried into my shoulder, not really caring who was comforting them but just wanting to be held at that moment.

Slowly, they unclutched their fingers from my shirt and wiped their eyes, and snot with their own sleeve while they took shaky breaths. I took a tiny step back to take note of the person I came running to, a girl probably a year or two older than me stared back up at me. We're still very close, almost nose to nose that I couldn't help noticing the way their green eyes glimmer under the bright lights that reflected off the white walls around us. Freckles, almost like stars scattered across her cheeks, and I couldn't help the sickening feeling in my stomach looking at her, as the simple thought why couldn't I have been reborn as beautiful as you?

I shook it off the darken thought and instead tried to lift the corners of my lips into a friendly smile, though it more likely looked terrible considering she burst into laughter at the expression I made. I chuckle a little too, mainly in embarrassment. Eventually, I found my tongue, "Why, were you crying?" Not subtle, I know but I was five for heaven's sake. Plus an antisocial five-year-old who all they did was read, we don't do subtle.

She squeals a little, mainly from the factor she has been caught, she looks wary, probably expecting me to say something mean or teasing. Instead, I waited, albeit awkwardly, until she found no other words leaving my lips, just my hands on her shoulder as a warm weight. She slapped her tongue in thought before finding the courage to say "Don't you ever wonder why we are here?"

I nodded, "All the time." I question why I remember a life where I was surrounded by those that love me, why I remember my mother holding my dear, why I remember being a girl. I wonder all the time, why am I here?

She looked relieved by that admission, "I wonder why my parents left me here, why they couldn't have kept me, am I a terrible person?"

"No, no. You can't be a terrible person as a baby," I told her softly. This orphanage only took babies and raised them until they got adopted or they could live for themselves. "Sometimes, if they don't have what is needed to take care of you, that sometimes they have to decide on if love alone will be enough."

"But isn't love enough?" She asked, "Isn't that all you need?"

"No, love maybe something great, but it doesn't always put food on the table, it doesn't keep the home warm, it doesn't give a baby an easy life," I told her carefully. "Love can only do so much."

Her eyes widened and tears started to sprout from her eyes once more. "So, they love me so much, they gave me a better life?"

"Yes," I whisper as we hug once more. "That's what I'll like to believe."

She and I became good friends, when it was between class periods within the orphanage or the evening after dinner we would find each other. In the beginning, Jade would go out of her way to find me in the corners of the library or within one of the toilet stands, one time she even climbed the wall from the stall next door when I wanted to be left alone and I refused to open the door. She didn't take a no for an answer and found her own way in, even if it did end up with a seven-year-old on top of me and my book across the floor.

We did laugh. We cried and yet with time I found myself wanting to find her. Between classes and food times, we would usually hang in the library when it rained, sharing books between us as we read chapters each to the other. If it was a nice day, Jade would drag me into the garden under a tree and we would read or try, and fail miserably, to climb the tree.

In the evening, we'll gather into one of the living room spaces together as the staff put on the old, ancient-looking radio. We weren't allowed to touch the radio, if you did, you got a good smack which both Jade and I learned from experience. The radio looks like something you'll find from the 1950s that I was a little surprised to see working so well the first time I saw it. Though with time, it just became part of the scenery that it looked more strange if it wasn't there instead. Jade usually likes to sing to the songs played on the radio, hench why I was brought more frequently in the evening to listen to the music playing, the channel was an oldies radio, most likely due to Carer station here preferring that generation of music.

Jade would get me to sit with her on one of the little couches, huddling us close to each other as the song played, she would sing the ones she knew by heart, having listened to them on repeat the last few years. I would listen to her, sometimes hum along as she let the evening drift with the music. The days passed with routine, our hands always locked together, we were practically glued to each other.

until one day, Jade got adopted. It had been a year with us being friends, my first real friend in this life, and she was going to be somewhere I won't be able to reach for years. Even then, what was there and guarantee that she'll remember me when it comes to that time?

I didn't cry when she told me, I just asked her one thing as I clutched her hands in mine. "Promise me, Jade, that you'll live the best life you can live?"

She smiles with tears trailing down her cheeks. "I promise."

Then like the gentle breeze in the wind, she was gone, no longer was she within a strand of hair width from me. No longer could I gaze at freckles cheeks, lime green eyes as I leaned my head on her shoulder. No more of her singing in the evening as we huddled around the radio, everything had gone cold without her breathing warmth into the room.

I cried into the bedsheets for the rest of that following week that even the others around me decided it was best to leave me alone. I started to take books to bed with me so I had something to cuddle beside me for comfort, the books even came with me on our old favorite couch where we would listen and sing to the radio. Noise eases the sadness a little, the comfort of a big book half my size gave me the feeling someone was there beside me.

At six, I lost my companion and dear friend within my home however I did gain a penpal.

Even though Jade was no longer physically about to drag me around the orphanage, she still sent me letters monthly in which I would always reply. I felt lucky that even though she now had a mum and dad, she still found time to send me a handwritten letter. It was interesting to hear about her daily life outside these walls, the stories of a normal public school, and the new friends she had gathered. In a way, I couldn't help but think I had befriended the main protagonist of this world.

She did feel very much magic girl material to me. Though the image itself did make me laugh. Each letter she wrote me, stay safe within my draws where I could lock it with a key. Though Carol was the one who held said key, she let me have them locked away from other preying hands. I sometimes found it strange how fancy this orphanage was, that I would sometimes forget that it was one.

With the absence of Jade, I found myself talking to Carol more often than I had in the majority of this short life. Sometimes we would settle together in the library, if I was brave enough, I'll ask if we could read together. Other times we sat together in silence as she watched over the other children. I came to notice early on that I was one of the children under her watch, alongside few others. Meaning why out of most carers, Carol was the most consistent.

One day, as we sat together Carol asked me a question, one I wouldn't expect from her or anyone to ask a kid. But then again, I was a very abnormal kid at times. Considering that within that moment of time, I was reading a book on the theory of quantum leaps. Definitely a normal book for a seven-year-old. I had huffed when she nudged me for my attention, I had gotten on an interesting page and didn't like not being able to finish it.

"Tyler, if I could tell you why you were left here by your parents, would you ask me to tell you?" she questioned softly.

"No," I answered her once the shock wore off. "Sometimes the truth can just be as painful."

She didn't say anymore after that besides ruffling my hair, which brought the sliver, grey strands to my eyes. I was reminded once more of what I looked like. I didn't like it.

She didn't bring up the topic again and I didn't ask her about it either, we left it be in the past. We didn't talk about much, most of the time me just asking questions about her as any real normal kid would. I learned that she was in her late twenties, that she didn't care for relationships though I had a nagging feeling that wasn't the real case. I had noticed her eyeing some of the other ladies within her own age group. She also found it great that I didn't care much for gender normalities, seeing that I often wore skirts and blouses than just the basic boy attire here.

Carol felt very ahead of her time, it made me feel a little happy to know I wasn't the only one with things you have to keep tightlipped about. It wasn't something I would wish for, but it made me feel less alone in being an oddity. She was one of the carers I knew I could always talk to without judgment. One day, when it was just us, I found myself blurting out to her "I'm not a boy."

She seemed surprised by this confession before her lips tilted down and her brows creased together. Her fingers found their way into my hair as if to comfort me. "Then what are you Tyler?" she asked softly. She understood what I meant, I felt relieved.

"I'm," What was I, not a boy for sure, am I a girl? I don't feel like one. I don't know. "I don't know, I just know I'm not a boy."

"That's fine, You got time to discover yourself," she answered me. "Just be careful who you tell, ok?" her hands dripped down to my shoulders as she squeezed them softly.

"I know," I whisper back. "That's why I only told you." She pulled me close into a hug and I held her back. I knew the world wasn't so accepting, not yet at least. I was thankful I had Carol raising me.

A gentle guiding hand within my life.

Time once passed like the flickering of pages once more, I found myself in one of the places I used to cuddle up with Jade in the library. It was a place where you can be shielded by the towering bookshelves and the wall behind held massive painted glass windows that let the sunlight come back through with coloured lights across the floors. There were a handful of areas like this inside the library and with the other bookworm kids, these spots were a favourite.

It had just passed my Eighth birthday with the usual orphanage celebration of cake and song. This year I got a present that wasn't the usual books or clothes, from my precious penpal Jade had sent me a stuffed teddy fox in the mail. The lines, 'If I had to subscribe to what type of animal you are Tyler, I'll say you're more like a sly fox than a cuddly snow bear.' had left a warming sentiment.

That fox stayed clung to my side, its paws always in my own hand. Most children had teddys of some kind left to them or donated. I had never been given one, mainly due to my calm nature nor had I vocally ever asked for one. The Staff had been surprised by my taking a liking to it, but the ones who found me strange at times found this adorable. They sometimes played along when I was found reading to the toy fox and felt comfortable to ruffle my hair before shooing my classes.

So, back to sitting in the library and a mass of books stacked around me as I read and read, humming a song that I heard the night before. I came to meet the person who was going to change my life, to pull me away from the walls I had forever known as home.

That's when I met Sousuke Honyaku.

"But the smoke clears when you're around

Won't you stay with me, my darling

When my walls start burning down?" - Curses by The Crane Wives

Extra 1

Soulmate AU: A black stain where your soulmate is supposed to touch you for the first time, bursts into colour when touched by a soulmate. (Not canon, just random fluff since it's been such a long wait.)

Tyler had always found it upsetting that their mark lay across their cheek, when it finally appeared at the age of eighteen. Did they upset someone? Did they get into a fight? Their brown, damp eyes glaze over the protruding stain before trying to find the make-up within the cupboards under the sink.

They have years of covering bruising, so this shouldn't be any different and with practice ease they covered it. They knew, like themself that others would probably think the worst of the mark. Mockery was something they wanted to avoid today at most since it was the holidays and they wanted to spend it with their friends. They also knew their friends would tease them miraculously.

Tyler sighs as he got themself ready for the day, throwing on a flannel and jeans, stuffing on some canvas. They tie their hair up into a bun with the ease of using just chopsticks. Slipping out the door they find themselves smacking right first into a person's chest outside the door, they tumble over as the other person had seemed to rush through the door.

They notice orange hair and freckles, as the other twin laughter could be heard from above. Tyler tried to pull themself up quickly away, flustered by them entwining on the floor. Tyler found himself tumbling back down as Hikaru pulled them back down by the legs, Tyler yelped.

"To think, you've been by my side the whole time," Hikaru murmurs as he reaches his hand to their cheek, as he notices the colours shining around them. Tyler felt like a tomato, by all the blood rushing to his cheek as Hikaru chuckled at him. He wipes away the makeup with ease before kissing his cheek. "I'm going to keep you closer."

"Hik-Hikaru," Tyler began to try and say anything but Hikaru merely took their lips with him.

"Come on, Hikaru, You could've waited until I was out of the room!" Kaoru complained.

Notes: This is a rewrite of Insatiable And Unhealthy Appetite For Books, with some time and space from it I found it had too many problems, alongside reading a good abundance of reincarnation andrebirth stories, I found my own had too many holes. So here we are with a rewrite, changing some elements and expanding on my characters, mainly Tyler's own world.

In this version, Tyler has been reborn as a boy, I remember a comment in my original version saying I took the easy way out of Tyler not having a chest, so I thought on it, realised there barely any stories about girls being reborn boys and how that might influence someone. So this version of the story will have a handful of changes due to this element, however, I hope you still love Tyler as you did in the original for comebackers!

On top of I will be writing little extras at the end of chapters using different AU's so you can see some of the characters you love a little early, plus to see Tyler in different pairings/friendship situations. If you have any you'll like to see, leave feedback with your suggestion!