In an instant, the darkness faded away. Her vision flared up as if the lights had suddenly turned on, making Ryoko squint. As time passed and her vision started to focus, she could see that there was an unfamiliar, porridge-like dish before her and a spoon in her hand.
“Urgh!?”
With the grunt that escaped her lips, the spoon fell from Ryoko’s hand into the bowl, splashing the porridge onto her clothes. The spoon bounced out of the bowl and onto the table, leaving a trail of porridge on the otherwise spotless surface of wood. As Ryoko remained frozen, unable to grasp the situation, a woman’s quiet sigh reached her ears. Ryoko slowly turned toward the sound to find a woman in her twenties, her brown hair tied up in a bun, chuckling. Her large, slightly downturned brown eyes were adorable. Ryoko imagined that the average man would feel the urge to protect her.
Her movements were swift yet precise. She produced a napkin, wiping Ryoko’s face and clothes as she slid the porridge bowl away. After cleaning Ryoko up, she picked up the strewn spoon and placed both the spoon and the bowl onto the tray atop a nearby serving cart. Finally, she wiped away all of the spilled porridge.
“There! All clean,” she said with a smile. She knew that toddlers generally wanted to eat on their own but usually struggled to do so.
The cause of the mess on the table, on the other hand, Ryoko herself knew nothing about her current situation. It was like a lightning bolt out of the blue.
“Ur? Ura...? Urgh...?”
First of all, she couldn’t form any words. The only things that came out of her mouth were meaningless noises. When she tried to move, all she could manage was barely wiggling her arms or legs. Her hands and fingers didn’t move right. Ryoko turned toward her right hand, only to find a pale, tiny, baby-like hand instead, opening and closing much more slowly than her brain commanded.
What’s going on!? Is this a dream? Am I dreaming!? ...Wait, wait, wait. Let’s stay cool, Ryoko. I’m a woman who’s got what it takes.
Ryoko controlled her panic with this mantra. Her mother, incidentally, had always told her that anything she “had” was pointless without putting it into practice. Ryoko turned to her left. Another pale and tiny hand moved just as she commanded it, albeit just as sluggishly as her right.
Am I dreaming about the reincarnation fantasy comic I read? Or that one novel? I think I played a game like this, too.
Ryoko recalled the comics, novels, and video games she’d been into lately. A lot of them were in the reincarnation genre, where a high schooler would wake up one day in another world, for example. Romance would inevitably ensue with all the hotties inhabiting said fantasy world, of course. A reincarnated protagonist usually had unimaginably good looks, Olympian-level strength, or incredibly powerful magic... Sometimes a faithful childhood friend would take a leap of faith, or a stoic knight would struggle with his romantic feelings toward the protagonist, and even the villain could fall for them...
Making the villain fall for you was actually a lot of fun. There better be a sequel to that one... Wait, Ryoko. This isn’t the time to dwell on sweet memories. This is a dream, remember!? I have to wake up and go get the game I pre-ordered...
Putting the breaks on her racing thoughts, she slapped her cheek with one tiny hand. She heard a flat plap, and she was greeted by the impression of a soft cheek. Cheekums, more like. Because that sounded softer.
It’s so soft... These are bona-fide cheekums! They might be softer than my niece’s.
Ryoko’s family consisted of her parents and her two younger sisters. “Three’s a crowd, especially with girls,” her parents used to say. The middle sister had married before Ryoko had a chance, and she already had a daughter. Ryoko’s niece (and her parents’ first grandchild) was as precious as an angel. Ryoko reminisced fondly of the times she and her sisters had to stop their parents from spoiling her niece too rotten. Her niece had started elementary school that April and had been putting Ryoko’s sister and her husband through the ringer by entering a sort of rebellious phase from growing up a little too fast, like many girls do. For some reason, though, Ryoko’s niece never gave her aunt any trouble, other than throwing a tantrum because she wanted to stay over at her auntie’s condo whenever she came over. It was only trouble because Ryoko had to hide all sorts of questionable “materials” that would lure her niece down the same rabbit hole she had gone down. Ryoko couldn’t help but hope that her precious niece would not follow in her footsteps. If her niece should choose that path, however, she was the kind of auntie to fuel her obsession, full force.
“Now, now. What’s the matter, Lord Herscherik?” the brown-haired woman asked with a smile.
This woman was the one who had just cleaned up the mess Ryoko had made. From the title she’d used, Ryoko guessed that the woman wasn’t her birth mother.
“Ah...”
Ryoko tried to apologize, only to end up making some cute sounds. Sadly, she couldn’t form words.
“Are you all done with your meal? Or are you still working on it?”
With that, the woman placed a steaming bowl that she must have just prepared onto the table. She took a scoop of the porridge with a clean spoon and blew on it a few times to cool it before bringing it to Ryoko’s lips. It was a simple dish, like a rice porridge with sweet potatoes mixed in. Ryoko felt a sudden hunger for it and chomped at the spoon. The porridge itself was a little bland, but the potatoes were sweet with just the right amount of salt.
“Is it good? Do you like it?”
“Ugh!”
Ryoko tried to answer the woman but could still only make unintelligible baby sounds. But the woman seemed to understand since she scooped another spoonful of porridge and held it up to Ryoko’s face. Just now realizing how hungry she was, Ryoko began taking one bite of porridge after another.
I’m like that baby bird I used to have...
It was a little weird comparing herself to a baby bird, but her hunger wouldn’t let her stop eating. After cleaning out the bowl in a flash, an unmannerly burp escaped her mouth. The lady smiled and wiped Ryoko’s mouth with a napkin before picking her up out of the baby chair and setting her onto the luscious carpet, placing a stuffed dog next to her.
It looks like Kuro.
The stuffed animal was a black dog, about as tall as her. It reminded Ryoko of the large black dog she had when she still lived with her parents. The dog was called Kuro, and it always obeyed Ryoko’s orders. Ryoko gave the stuffed animal an experimental pet. The silky fur felt soothing to the touch, and she immediately liked it. In fact, maybe the woman had placed it here because it was the baby’s favorite.
After watching the woman place the bowl onto the serving cart and wheel it away, Ryoko looked around the room. She was obviously not in her condo. In fact, the room was bigger than the entire floor plan of her condo combined. It had a medieval European style to it, like the ones described in fantasy novels. Come to think of it, Ryoko remembered that the woman who was just with her was wearing a maid’s outfit she had often read about in these kinds of books, too. The room was wrapped in a calming emerald wallpaper and held a canopied bed. All the furniture was evidently well-crafted, even to the untrained eye. Ryoko couldn’t help but make some calculations in her head to wonder how many months of her salary the shining leather sofa alone was worth. There was also a fireplace in the room with the portrait of a blond woman above it, painted in a pose similar to a world-famous painting by a particular Italian painter. She recalled a print of the painting that hung on the wall of the art room back in school, and some ghost stories that her classmates told about it.
I wonder if her eyes move at night...
The thought made her shudder. Ghost stories made her more than uncomfortable; she would have preferred death over living through one. Ryoko turned her head to look around some more but ended up losing her balance and falling on her back. The expensive-feeling carpet protected her from any pain, comfortably embracing her as she fell. With warm rays of sunshine coming through the window that lead to the balcony, Ryoko could feel herself being lulled to sleep. Just when she felt the urge to take a nap, Ryoko came to her senses.
There’s no time to nap!
Ryoko struggled to get up, rolling on her back. In her toddler body, she couldn’t lift herself up using her abs alone. She might have had just as much difficulty in her original mid-thirties body with a pooch, though. She managed to push herself up and surveyed the room, only to yield no additional discoveries. She observed her own body once again: tiny hands, stubby arms and legs, a plump belly.
What a babe. Baby, that is.
Ryoko pondered.
What was I doing before I ended up here?
She crossed her shortened arms and frowned, trying to recall her memories from when she inhabited her original body.
I stayed late at the office, even though it was a release day. It was pouring rain when I left...
The off-season downpour and the blinking walk sign. The blaring horn. The white light. The sky and the ground. A dull thud. Screams... Then, darkness.
Oh, right.
Ryoko reached her cold, hard conclusion.
I died. In a car accident.
Ryoko accepted this fact; she had no other choice. Ryoko was reminded again that this was a common situation in many of the comics, novels, and video games she’d enjoyed. Some high school or college student in modern-day Japan dying from accident or illness, then being reborn into a fantasy world, carrying over the memories of their previous life... A reincarnation story. The protagonists of reincarnation fantasies would save (or conquer) the world, enjoy a life full of romance, etc.
I didn’t think I’d end up in some light novel situation. And in my thirties, no less...
Ryoko fell back onto the fluffy carpet. In this toddler body that she couldn’t easily move, just sitting up was a workout.
...My mortgage is null and void, at least, now that I’m dead.