Chapter Text
It’s Monday. A Monday like every other. Nothing remotely special. You are walking down the streets with plenty of other humans overtaking you. Unlike most people around this time, you aren’t rushing towards school, your workplace or wherever people hastily want to go to quarter of 8. You yourself have to go to a doctor’s appointment, but that’s only in half an hour, so you have plenty of time. The reason for your appointment is nothing serious, just a rash that is spreading across your hands. Nevertheless, you find it very annoying, especially during the night when it itches the most. Hopefully it’s not some allergy against something important, like your beloved cat. You wouldn’t be able to give it away just because you body said ‘fuck this shit. I have lived with cats my entire life but now I hate them’. …Yeah, absolutely not.
Looking down at your pinkish hands, you don’t notice the half-full can laying in front of you. You trip over it and kiss the ground faster than you can react. Dirty pavement for breakfast, how great… Fuck the people who can’t even bother to throw their trash into the bin which is literally two meters away. Also, shout out to your feet for contributing to this embarrassing performance…
Absorbed in your own annoyance you don’t notice the far greater problem in this situation. The fall didn’t leave you on the safe sidewalk that you were on before, but you fell slightly to the side – to the edge of the street. You do notice eventually, though it is already too late then. The approaching driver is too tired to notice you and-
…
..
.
-It’s cold? Huh, that’s not what you were expecting. Were you perhaps missed in the last second and only sprayed by a nearby puddle? Slowly opening your eyes, you are left even more confused. Where did all these doctors come from and why do they look so shocked at you? Oh no, did you get hit and just forgot it? Based on how shocked they look, you must have been hit pretty severely.
The doctors in your field of vision change and are replaced by two regular people – a man and a woman – who you have never seen in your life before. Something those two have in common is that they are crying rivers.
You want to ask them what is going on, but all that is coming out of your mouth is a simple ‘wa’. God, please don’t say that you got so severe brain damage from the car crash that you can’t even talk anymore…
In contrast to your fear, that couple seems to be more than happy with your response. The woman… picks you up and puts you close to her chest? This doesn’t feel like the right angle. Wouldn’t your shoulders and the rest of your body be in the way? Your eyes look towards where your head would end and the shoulders would start. The emphasis is on ‘would’. Don’t misunderstand – there is a rest to your body, but the issue is that everything is so… tiny. It doesn’t look like your own body and more like the one of an infant. Well, maybe you didn’t wake up after all and are just dreaming about being some random couple’s newborn child. You certainly had worse and weirder dreams.
Unfortunately, the dream doesn’t end like normally. Your ‘life’ as this child continues and after a few nights in the hospital you go to what you assume is your ‘home’. Regardless how often you fall asleep and wake up, the place always remains the same. If this is a dream you would prefer to get different content, because being a baby is boring as hell. Your parents seem like very nice people but being a baby this age is pretty repetitive. You eat, sleep and cuddle with your parents – nothing more, nothing less. And it’s not as if you could just stand up and do something interesting since a) the control you have over your weak baby muscles is horrible and b) your parents are watching you 24/7, even taking turns with sleeping.
Never in your life did you have such a long and consistent dream. …Unless this isn’t a dream and you’re actually here, as a living baby, in an entirely different life from your previous one. Normally, you would dismiss such a unrealistic idea, but the longer you are in this situation, the more you’re starting to believe it.
If you had to choose between this being just a dream or a reincarnation, you would still probably choose the first option. You have nothing against these parents – they seem like very kind and caring people – though you don’t want to acknowledge having died in such a stupid way. Having slipped over a fucking can… God, that would be embarrassing. Also, there are a few things – like your cat – that you would miss. You weren’t even able to say goodbye…
More days pass and eventually you are forced to come to terms that there is no waking up from this. This is your life now. There’s no going back.
From what you were able to learn from your parents conversations is that your first name is funnily enough still (Y/N), it is late spring/ early summer now, you live in some city in a quiet neighborhood of Japan and you are an only child – a weird only child. Due to your mental maturity you lack the emotional outbursts a regular newborn would have. You’re trying your best, but forcing yourself to cry like a normal baby is a lot harder than you expected. At least you are decent at fake-laughing - when needed. This family is so heartwarming that you naturally laugh more often than not. Like right now:
All three of you are laying in your parents’ big bed – you in the middle of them – and are starring up at the ceiling. Your father has a simple flashlight in his hands which he points at the same spot on the ceiling that everyone’s eyes are on. Other than the light which the flashlight emits the room is completely dark. The ambience it there you guess, though you haven’t exactly grasped the point of this yet.
“Are you ready to be amazed?”, asks your mother.
Ohh, is this going to be some sort of magic show? If yes, you are absolutely ready.
A few seconds later something changes in the light. There’s a… shadow bunny in it now? The first bunny is joined by a second and a third one. All of them look surprisingly well-made. What’s even more surprising is that when you look over to both of your parents neither of them are moving their fingers in front of the light source. Both their hands are still where they were before.
Your eyes widen in amazement and you clumsily clap your hands together, laughing.
“Aww, look how much they like it, sweetheart…”
Nodding, your mother smiles back at her husband. “Of course, they are my child so they should naturally love this kind of stuff!”
How does this magic work? Maybe the flashlight isn’t a simple one like you thought and can play animations… Wanting to check that out, you reach for the flashlight and cause it to fall over, the shining end directed at your face. Overwhelmed by the sudden lightness, you squeeze your eyes shut as best as you can. Nope, there is no extra device on top of the flashlight. How those shadow figures are created remains a mystery…
Your father chuckles. “That’s not how this works, (Y/N). Don’t hurt your little eyes.”
Following your father’s advice, you continue to enjoy the magical shadow show.
You could get used to this. Your new life is so peaceful that you could forget all your previous life’s sorrows. Nothing could ever ruin this for you.