The countryside's embrace: a boy's journey of healing and discovery - Chapter 1
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- The countryside's embrace: a boy's journey of healing and discovery
- Chapter 1 - It's not easy to be reborn
To Sugayama Sora, this world had been a suffocating place ever since he was born.
It wasn’t in a mental sense, but in a physical sense.
Sora was a weak child from the moment he was born. So frequently did he run a fever.
His small body was always heavy, and his movements were dull. Even when he did nothing, his lungs felt cold every time he breathed, and occasionally he would cough. If he coughed, his face and body would become hot from the strain, and if it happened often enough, it would eventually turn into a chronic fever. That was Sora’s daily life.
He visited the hospital many times due to his frequent fevers, but the local doctor’s diagnosis was always just a cold, and concluded that it was common in children and that he was just a weak child.
Whenever he had a fever, his mother, Sayuki, would nurse him, but as it happened twice a month ever since he was born, her response gradually became more haphazard.
After all, she had three other children, one of whom was Sora’s twin. Of course, his mother was very busy. However, if she were to focus on the twins and neglect the other children, she would also receive complaints from the older children.
Inevitably, whenever Sora had a fever, he was given medicine, had a cooling sheet placed on his forehead, and was told to go to sleep and leave him alone.
(Well, it can’t be helped. It’s boring, but it’s not like it would be any different even if my mother was here.)
Even as a child who was about to turn three, he thought about such mature thoughts while enduring the fever. Fortunately, he was able to maintain his appetite even when he had a fever. With the exception of meals, he could eat normally no matter how high his fever was, so his recovery was not that slow. He knew that he would be able to get up again in two or three days. However, Sora learned after being born into this body that it was quite difficult to eat normally.
(I’m hungry… Why is this body so inefficient?)
It had only been an hour since he finished breakfast. Yet Sora’s stomach was already growling in protest. He wished that his appetite would decrease since he was just lying down, but that had never happened.
Sora’s breakfast today consisted of two rice balls and miso soup with vegetables. He also had two egg rolls, two sausages, and two cherry tomatoes. It was probably more than enough for a normal child under the age of three. But for some reason, it wasn’t enough for Sora at all.
His twin brother, Riku, ate the same amount with him, but left the cherry tomatoes because he didn’t want to eat them, and didn’t finish the miso soup. Sora gratefully accepted it, but it didn’t fill him up at all.
Sora had been sick and hungry for almost three years since he was born.
Fortunately or unfortunately, his parents thought he was a normal child with a weak body. That’s because he always endured his hunger in silence.
(Is it my fault…because I’m…me?)
Whenever he had a fever, he always thought about such things in his room.
His twin brother, Riku, was a perfectly normal toddler, and unlike Sora, he was very healthy, so he thought about such things even more. He couldn’t help but feel that there was something different about him and Riku, who were supposed to be twins, in terms of their inner selves.
Sora had vague memories of his past life. It wasn’t a clear memory of who he was in his previous life, but he had enough memories of being an adult and his ability to think to make him feel out of place as a toddler. He didn’t know if this was something special, but because of this, Sora had enough sense to endure his hunger.
Sora awakened to his memories of his past life when he was two years old. It was on a day when he had a fever and was sleeping alone in his house, as usual.
When Sora woke up from his shallow sleep, there was no one in the house. His father was at work, and his mother was probably shopping or something. His older brother was in elementary school, and his older sister and twin brother, Riku, were in daycare. Sora was the only one who didn’t go to daycare because his body was extremely weak.
“Water…”
When he got up thirsty, the water jug his mother had left him was almost empty. It couldn’t be helped since he had drunk from it several times. Sora got up unsteadily and headed for the kitchen.
He walked over to the sink, but of course it was too high for him to reach.
(I can’t reach it…my throat is so dry)
He thought about it with a fevered mind. He wanted to drink water no matter what. But he couldn’t reach it.
After thinking for a while, Sora came up with a solution.
(The bath, I should be able to reach it there.)
He went back to his room, took a cup, and then headed for the bathroom.
He went out into the hallway through the open door. All the doors were open, making it easy to move around. It seemed that his mother had cleaned up after him.
He walked unsteadily to the bathroom, and when he managed to open the sliding door, he could see the faucet at a low level.
(That’s good. I’ll just…turn the hot water off and use the cold water.)
He moved the temperature adjustment handle to the cold side and switched the water from the shower to the faucet.
And when he pressed the lever, water came out without a problem. He sighed in relief, took out the cup, filled it up, and brought it to his mouth. As the cold water passed smoothly down his throat, he felt as if he could finally breathe. He continued to drink two more cups of water, and his stomach filled up a little, so he turned off the water and Sora slowly returned to his room.
As he lay back down in bed, his eyes fell on the clock on the wall.
(It’s half past two…Mom must be shopping. She must have thought I was okay because I was sleeping.)
Sora thought that far, and then suddenly realized something was wrong.
(Something’s wrong…why do I understand these things? Why am I predicting my mom’s actions? Why can I read the clock?)
Until yesterday, the numbers on the wall clock that made no sense were now telling me the time. As I looked around the room, I could clearly tell that what I had thought were just random designs were actually letters and numbers.
(…Why do I understand these things? Or rather, I…I…am I…)
Sora looked up at the ceiling in confusion. It felt like the whole world had suddenly become clear, and his little head felt like it was about to explode. He closed his eyes and endured the dizziness, breathing shallowly and quietly.
After a while, as he lay there quietly, the pieces of the puzzle began to fit together in his mind, and he was able to understand a little bit about his own existence.
(So…I’ve been reborn. This state is what people call having memories of a past life, right?)
But no matter how much he thought about it, he couldn’t his name from his past life or what kind of life had lived. he seemed to the have the. inking ability of a two-year-old, and a little bitof knowledge about the world around him.
(I think I was just an average guy in my past life…or something like that, but I don’t know. But I don’t want to remember how I died or anything like that, so this is fine.)
According to his knowledge of a past life, children who have memories of a past life are a common topic of discussion. Sora concluded that he must be one of those children.
(I heard that most children forget about things like this when they get older…so for now, if it helped me get a drink of water, that’s enough for me.)
He chuckled to himself, thinking that maybe he had remembered out of desperation because he had really wanted a drink of water.
(In stories, I’ve heard of people using their knowledge of their past lives to do all sorts of amazing things…but with this weak constitution, that’s probably impossible.)
Besides, Sora had been born in Japan, which seemed to be very similar to the world he had lived in before.
There was no way he could have any useful knowledge.
(There’s no need to be called a god child or anything like that and raise the bar for my life…I’ll just leave things as they are.)
In time, his consciousness would probably merge with Sora’s, the child, and he would become a proper child. With that in mind, Sora decided not to worry about it anymore and went to sleep. His head was still a little confused, and he was feeling very tired.
(If I had to remember anything, I wish I had known how to make my body strong…)
Just before he drifted off to sleep, Sora couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed.
And so, several months had passed since Sora had regained a faint memory of his past life.
Even though his memories had returned, there was no change in his daily life, and Sora continued to live the life of a sickly toddler, often bedridden.
His twin brother, Riku, ran around energetically every day, and his siblings, excluding Sora, often got into fights. Recently, Sora and Riku had grown so differently that they no longer looked like twins. Sora was almost always mistaken for the younger brother.
(Actually, I’m the older one.)
Riku, who was now almost a head taller than Sora, had recently started treating Sora like a younger brother. This made him a little resentful. The memories of his past life that had returned had not been of much use to him so far.
(Well, I can drink water, I can go to the toilet, and I can read picture books by myself…)
These things made him a little happy. But he still had to wear diapers because he couldn’t get to the toilet in time when he was sick in bed. As someone who had memories of his past life, he was a little embarrassed, but his consciousness had merged with Sora’s enough to accept that this was just the way things were for a toddler.
(I want to get strong as soon as possible…and I want to eat more.)
His body still made him feel hungry very quickly, even when he was in bed and not moving.
(I eat as much as Riku, or even more sometimes, but I’m the one who’s always in bed and can’t ask for more food…)
He sometimes thought that if he didn’t have any memories of his past life, he would have thrown a tantrum and screamed that he was hungry. There were days when he thought about being more demanding, but his self-control made him give up. Instead, he often stole sips of water when his mother wasn’t looking to ease his hunger. Sora was still always sick, and always hungry.