Kays Translations

Chapter 2: Reincarnated in Modern Japan?

A few days have passed since then.

And I was convinced.

Unbelievable as it may seem…. I really did become a baby.

I have become a baby.

No, of course, I have wanted to redo my life more than once or twice. In fact, I would do it all over again if I could. I used to love my old stamp life, but I was never truly satisfied with it.

But normally, if I was going to start my life over, wouldn’t I start in middle school or high school?　

Why start from just being born?

There was no way that any complaints could reach anywhere and I was drinking from my mother’s breast. I don’t know what it tasted like. I think I saw an article on the Internet once that said that babies can’t distinguish tastes because they haven’t developed a sense of taste.

My newborn tongue hasn’t grown up yet.

I hope it will grow soon. With this body, I have no other entertainment than sleeping.

My stomach is full, so I take my mouth off the breast.

She lifted me up and gently patted me on the back.

“Can you burp?”

If you were to say this to a grown man, it would be nothing more than an agitation, but a baby’s body can’t even burp by itself.

When a baby sucks breast, it seems to take in air with it, so its stomach fills up with air after eating.

If I don’t burp it out, I feel sick and cry.

A few seconds of being hit on the back by my mother.

“Gefu.”

“It’s great now that you’ve burped!”

I was praised for burping. I was so happy.

Moreover, burping made me feel more comfortable, and I couldn’t help but smile and let out a squeal.

My mother laughed at me when she saw that.

What a good life.

In my previous life, if I had burped in public, I would have been called “gross,” and if I had laughed without knowing what it meant, I would have been called a “creep”.

But hey!

Here, I am praised for everything I do, and if I laugh without meaning, my mother will laugh along with me. What should I call this if not happiness? I am so glad to have been reborn!

I was about to be relieved, but then I remembered something my mother said to me and I almost started crying. Those words “I pray that this baby will reach the age of three safely”.

It’s true that a baby’s body is fragile.

If they get sick, their lives may be in danger.

But this is modern Japan. There’s no doubt about that.

When my mother thinks I’m asleep, she is sometimes close by touching her phone and I have heard TV-like noises from far away.

That’s why I wonder.

Why is she praying for me, saying things like ‘safely’.

Babies’ bodies are weak and they are more likely to die compared to adults.

However, the mortality rate of babies in Japan is not high. It is rather low.

The reason I know this is that in my previous life I worked for a printing company, printing leaflets, advertisements, posters, etc. for local companies, and one of the jobs I had was a job from a hospital. The job was to create posters to alert the public to baby deaths.

I still remember it because it was a job I did fairly early in my career.

I wondered if maybe this body had a pre-existing condition or something, but if it was a baby that had a life-threatening illness, it would be in the hospital, not at home.

And what’s more, if that prayer was just one time, I wouldn’t be so worried about it either. My mother prays like that every time after she puts me to bed.

I feel uneasy when she does that, no matter how much I’m a grown man inside.

And when I have a baby’s body, I can’t control my anxiety and cry. So, I’d like her to quit such things as much as possible.

“Please….. I wish Itsuki will make it past the age of three safely.”

I was just finishing a breastfeed and was dozing off when she said that and I freaked out.

“Fu!”

My mother’s face suddenly changed color when I let out a cry.

I thought that her anxious face was showing that she was worried about me, so I tried to hold back my tears.

Then my mother gently patted my head and said

“You were able to hold back your tears. That’s great!”

She praised me.

Ahhh…. Life as a baby isn’t so bad.

I was happy to get praises no matter what I did.

“Let’s go to bed.”

“Ah!”

But it’s not without its problems.

In this state and in this outfit, there is nothing to do.

In other words, I have free time. Lots of it.

I thought that even a baby could at least watch TV, but I soon realized that I was wrong.

This house is apparently quite spacious, and I, the baby, have my own room, where there’s no TV, no smart phone, and not even a tablet.

I’m kind of passionate about education. As a modern person who has become accustomed to information overload, it is boring for me.

Of course, my mother reads me picture books and stories before I go to bed, but even if I listen to Cinderella, Snow White, or Hansel and Gretel….., I’m still bored.

I know all of them, or rather, every time I hear them, I think, “Oh, I remember that one…..”

I want to hear new stories. I want to watch cartoons and stuff. But with my body, I wonder if the cartoons they show me are for toddlers. Like Anpanman?

I was about to go to sleep, thinking that if I could only manage to have some free time, my life would be great.

I was about to go to sleep when a thought occurred to me. …… Come to think of it, I haven’t seen my father since I took on this form.

It’s been a few days since I took on this form.

The only person I’ve encountered is my mother, and I haven’t seen my father. Or rather, I hear voices other than my mother, but they are all female voices. I am the only man in this house.

It must be inconvenient for a woman to live alone in such a big house.

And that too with a baby in tow, albeit an adult on the inside.

I’ve never raised a child, but is it possible to live in such a big house and not even have the help of a grandfather or grandmother?

Hmmm. I don’t know, I’ve never raised a child…..

Not only have I never raised a child, I’ve never even had a girlfriend, so I really don’t know what it’s all about.

So I just stop thinking about it and go to bed.

It’s a baby’s prerogative to sleep as long as they want without worrying about the time.

Just as I was about to let go of my consciousness, I felt a severe fever coming on from my lower abdomen.

What is this… abdominal pain….?

The next moment after I thought of such a leisurely thought, a ding! and an intense pain that seemed to echo in the pit of my stomach and an unbelievable fever hit my body.

“Hogyaa! Hogyaa!”

I involuntarily began to cry, unable to bear the pain and fever.

Then my mother, who was standing beside me, changed her expression and took me in her arms.

“Itsuki, are you all right? Itsuki!”

“Fugyaa!”

Pain! It hurts! It hurts! It hurts!

What’s this! It hurts too much!

The pain and heat I felt when I died.

A pain no less intense than that assaulted my entire body.

My breathing stops. My vision is blurred.

Death.

The word came to my mind again.

“It’s okay. It’s okay! Mother is here!”

The fever is killing me, and in my spinning vision I see my mother desperately holding me in her arms.

I hate it. I don’t want to die.

I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die!

I thought I had escaped from that pain.

I thought It would be better if I didn’t have to die anymore!

“Aah! Why is it that only when that person is not around……!”

As I listened to my mother’s words, I strained every part of my body to escape the pain.

It worked.

With a sickening sound, the heat that had been coursing through my entire body was released from my buttocks.

The next moment, the heat that had been in my body until a few moments ago seemed to have receded.

My vision was calm. It was as if I had been having a bad dream.

……is it over?

I let out a sigh of relief, and at the same time my mother’s expression changed and she changed my diaper.

“I see you survived the ‘Magic eater’. Good job. You really are a good boy, Itsuki.”

My mother burst into tears.

I tilted my head at the word “magic-eater,” which I had never heard of before.

“Uu.”

I couldn’t help but laugh at the sight of her shedding tears while looking at my poop.

Previous chapter | TOC | Next chapter