Archive of Our Own ^beta

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The Sun.

Bright, Loud, Eyesore, Too Hot.

Warm, Light, Lifebringer, Beautiful.

Feeling the Sun on your skin, warming your clothes, bringing colour behind your eyelids is always a treat. Sometimes you decide to just lounge on grass, pavement, rock, cloth and just soak it in, the feeling of the suns rays. Sometimes you mourn that fact that it’s much harder now for you to get a tan the natural way. Sometimes you laugh in joy at no longer having the risk of skin cancer, which your grandpa suffered from, or sunburns, which most people have experienced.

Most all of the time you’re thankful for it, for the Moon, and the Stars, and the grass, the rock, the Sky itself for being in place in its blue-purple-red-orange-white-grey-almost-black glory.

With all its different positions in the sky, the sun looks different in each one. Staring at it with your eyes turned Special you feel you can enjoy it much better than most Humans are capable of, and you can’t wait for an eclipse, Lunar or Solar, to be able to see those too.

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Winter as a human was- torn between two, as it always is with humanity.

On one hand, you have fond memories of the winter; of breath-turned-fog, of glittering fresh snow, of soft sparkling snowing skies, crystal frost, elegant white trees, hot-drinks, winter-outfits, -christmas, -new-years, -family-home-hearth. 

On the other hand, your winter also had it’s bad points; the freezing dry air, sharp in your lungs, not being safe to go outside, dirty snow, depression, snow-ins, black-ice, -less-light, -frostbite, -loneliness-sickness-cold.

And yet. 

In this body of yours, the cold bothers you not, not unless you want it too. You don’t drive, and almost-slipping is nice, the ice shines. Dirty snow is a forged path, and frostbite and sickness and the outside a forgotten threat. 

Where summer is hot and smothering, winter is a sharp, cold, mistress; but a mistress she is nonetheless. You love them both, and spring, and fall, rain, shine, windy and all. They’re all so nice, from the aesthetics to the texture to the ambiance to the feeling. 

You think you might have a preference for winter, being the season in which you were reborn, but all seasons are good to you, all of them with hidden aspects capable of being viewed and felt and lived the moment one takes a moment.

You being who and what you are, can always take a moment.

The joy in being constantly able to appreciate it all is indescribable, and you think to yourself that humans are so pitiful, to only be able to experience it all a handful of times before they forget, or die, or don’t have the time. 

You will always be able to have the time, you will not forget, and you do not intend to die for eons yet. 

You are a curse named Mahito, and you can do anything you want.

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Something that you realized from the start of your rebirth is that you don’t need food to stay alive.

Despite finding a familiar place in Starbucks, in a country you’ve never been in before, the perceived issue of food continued. They didn’t seem to implement mobile orders yet in this country, that you're hesitating to call Japan. It’d be much harder to get a warm drink than you thought.

Of course, during all this waiting and all the previous walking, you’ve yet to really be hungry. You just had a craving is all. And when- well, it’s winter during this time, but you’re not very bothered. Though that might just be because it’s a mild winter.

In any case- there’s a warm sweet drink that hasn’t been claimed yet and therefore now belongs to you that you need to claim. You probably aren’t even lactose intolerant anymore, not that that’d stop you in any life, but it’s nice to jot down weaknesses-that-no-longer-are.

Whatever happens after you grab your drink doesn’t include making people think there’s a levitating drink making its way to the door, and you’re thankful.

It’s after you’ve found a book-carrying building (is it a shop? A library? Who cares it’s got manga you can look at) and settled yourself in a little nook with your drink that’s cooling and books you’ve relaxed with that you start trying to think up actual answers. 

Is it multiple hours too late? Well, no. It’s only too late if you had to do it earlier. Nonetheless, nobody could see you, and you wanted to enjoy being capable of enjoying, again. If you took some fries from some tables and tried some things you’ve never had, all the more power to you. 

But sitting here, time moving from mid-noon-morning to evening, with nothing but a couple treats and a drink in your metaphorical stomach, you wonder if you have to eat at all, or if maybe your stomach just doesn’t send signals for when it’s hungry. You’re still wide awake as well, and though coffee never worked on you Before, you're pretty sure it doesn’t work for as long as it’s been.

‘Do you need to sleep?’ Is honestly in this moment a bit of a less important question then ‘Can you?’. 

The library/bookstore seems to be closing so you put your things away, put your finished coffee in the trash, and then find yourself a nice place to lay down, soft ground. You would’ve appreciated some blankets, but you’re not cold, and your clothing is baggy enough it works fine. 

Sleep finds you easy enough, you are glad it didn’t change its loving embrace.

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Reincarnation into a different country isn’t something everyone goes through.

Ideas written down in books are nothing more than truths in different worlds, not necessarily the truth for yours. So if you decided to take nothing in this, similar but still different, world for granted, could anyone really blame you?

And so therefore, everything you see is both normal and yet also subject to your interpretation. If humans have a tangible energy that you are capable of noticing now where you couldn’t Before, then that’s a difference. If these humans feed this energy to the new species (multiple or just one you don’t know, you can’t quite tell yet) then who are you to tell them not to? Maybe it’s a cultural thing, maybe them not reacting to them is a case of something like reactions to slaves, maids, or house elves ‘not to be seen, not to be heard’.

Maybe if you hadn’t been human Before you would look like them, these grotesque children. Maybe you would think like them, no better than animals with no natural predators. Maybe you would feel like them, absent of complex thought or feelings, of happiness or contemplation or sadness or serenity.

You don’t know yet, and shamefully you still lean away from properly interacting with them, for they truly are what you, still, consider ugly. It doesn’t help that you can’t tell what, if any, reasoning they have for what they do. 

You are still optimistic that you’ll learn how to properly treat them, that they aren’t as monstrous as they look. If not naturally maybe you can teach them, you know some psychology.

But not right now, not today. 

You are still focusing on the beauty of the world, you can’t quite take its ugliness just yet.

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Libraries are much more enjoyable in this new reality. 

You in fact Do Not need sleep, nor food; though you’re pretty sure that might be because you supplement any necessity your body has with the ambiance energy that people give off, but you’re not sure so really who can say. 

In any case, Before libraries were nice as an establishment, if a bit annoying to your specific purposes.

Now, with the pesky restrictions of things like “working hours” and “not being a morning person” out of the way, you’ve been practically living in the building, reading anything and everything you want with anything you want to read them with. 

You’ve managed to amass a decent amount of things if you do say so for yourself. Everything you need to be comfortable (it’s all luxury items, not a single necessity). All to live your best literature life as you’re currently in the mood for. 

Though you have been eyeing some craft things, you don’t have much place to put them (you could- hmmm…), something for later. 

Right now, books!

You’ve read translations of Japanese works before, (and this is definitely Japan) so you are a bit more aware of common cliches and story narratives than if you were reading say, Russian literature, but as always, something translated will be different from the original work. With your language repertoire increasing by one, with others improving at a faster rate than Before, you can now more properly appreciate the Japanese language with its homophones and separate character meanings and overall nuances and beauty.

It also makes for some… interesting notes about some of the works in the isekai genre you’ve been reading, but bad literature can be entertaining as well! It’s like a study on the bare bones necessity of a genre really.

Plus the tech! Computers are available and they’re just, on all the time, even through closing hours. With the help of some lightly liberated earphones, you can listen to music again! YouTube videos, music, news articles-.

Oh wow. 

At first your interest was taken because of the news talking about this terrorist attack on both Tokyo and Shinjuku, on Christmas Eve of all days. It was recent, just a couple days before, it’s not even new years yet, and damage was pretty extensive it seems.

But then, you actually see the date, as in, the year.

2017.

Inconspicuous, small, in the corner of the article as usual.

It felt a bit mocking.

The whole date, Dec 24, 2017 also felt familiar. Or maybe 2018?

…

Has Spotify been launched yet?

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Searching it up, you are quick to find out that Spotify does indeed exist in Japan near the end of 2017. You can’t exactly pay for it anymore, not having a legal identity as you do (-are you going to need to get good at technology? man), but Spotify has that free option that you set up for yourself. (Well, an email first, you're going to need to get good at tech you just know it)

It's a pleasant surprise to see the difference different cultures can have on something as simple as signing up for an app, you barely recognize any of the artists Spotify asks you to pick three of. While you enjoy BTS (you’re already fidgeting with excitement of potentially listening to familiar songs again while also listening to them for the first time and understanding), you don’t exactly want to only be recommended kpop. You pick some new names, you pick whatever’s familiar from what shows up, and you search up a couple of artists who don’t. Thankfully they mostly also seem to be doing what they were doing in your world, same songs and everything. You count your blessings.

An introductory playlist is offered, you accept.

Bliss

(The endorphins cut any proper thoughts out real quick)

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After immersing yourself in music for a good chunk of time (hours. You’re positively gleeful, you don’t even need necessities after all that), you switch your queue to transition into instrumental music as you muse to yourself.

So you're in the past huh? Well, not the Past, You correct yourself. This world just happens to be a bit behind your old one, that's all. 

7 years behind.

…

Stocks?

No, no, you shake your head, that’d require money, which you don’t have, and presumably an identity, which you also don’t have (though the email is a good step). No really, you should be treating this more seriously.

Right? 

Do you really have to though?

What could you even do with this? You only have foggy memories of big events of the past 7 years, most of it focused on the… mess that America was at the time. 7 years ago, you were a minor! Now you’re in an alternate universe, 7 years past, with the only useful information being on media that's going to be coming out in the future, plus the occasional historic event going on in the world that you most definitely could not just, stop or prevent?

(or could you?)

… 

(no, you couldn’t)

It makes you feel a bit bad, but it's not like it’s like That future is even guaranteed to happen. Take this terrorist attack, you didn’t know anything about it Before (though you didn’t know anything about japanese news Back Then), did this even happen Before? 

(Something about that date still seems familiar, but you just can’t place it)

If the history is different, the world is different, the future is different. It is what it is and life goes on. The world is complex, and your studies in humanities (uncompleted as they were) know about the importance of context and the spiderwebs that connect everyone to everyone to everything to everything. You’re not about to murder the ‘bad’ people(humans) of the world; who are you to judge someone’s overall contribution to the world as good or bad? You, who only ever heard about something if it was big enough to have everyone talking about it? You, whose main source of news is from second hand sources, friends and hearsay? Absolutely not, uninformed action is not something you want to be a part of.

(And at least if it all goes worse it wouldn’t be your fault, just how the cards were dealt)

It's decided then. You’ll keep doing what you’ve been doing, enjoying your life, living in the  present. And if you make bingo cards of what you remember from the future, well, it’s one way of coping. You’ll comprise it of meme-speak and references that nobody understands but you, plus you’ll keep it on your person so nobody will see it anyways. It'll be interesting to keep track of what stays on track, like data collection, or something.

(And maybe it’ll be funny, in the way tragedies are funny, seeing another world crack at the same seams your old one did. It’s fine because it’s not you anymore, you’re not human anymore-

-and it's not your problem anymore)

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It took you a bit to really realize and think about it, but after the second time you decided to sleep, you realise waking up that you don’t have a toothbrush. ‘Course then you take note of the fact that your mouth actually feels- okay? It doesn’t taste like strawberries and rainbows, but it also doesn’t taste like it hasn’t been brushed in- ever. Neutral.

Your teeth also feel pretty straight, well aligned, and maybe a bit more sharp than a regular persons. You don’t think that makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint, given that you don’t really need to eat, but sure. 

You could probably find out more by looking into a mirror, but you’ve been avoiding that successfully so far. 

Your hair is the same dark still, but your wrists have something that would be ‘frankenstein stitches’, if not for the fact that it's a bit more like a raised skin tattoo, then actual thread stitched into your skin. You’re paler than you honestly think healthy, even for a white person, if you even are one. 

Thankfully you have yet to need to go to the bathroom, or else there really would’ve been no escape from seeing your reflection. What if you didn’t have one anymore, like a vampire? You really don’t like that thought, but it's the alternative that keeps you away.

(What if you look like you? What age would you look if you did? What if you didn’t? What if you're like the original Monster, thy Adam, made up of many different, beautiful, people yet still looking wrong, Other. You’ve been able to pretend that this new lease on life has been for the better, but what if-?)

You aren't ready to face (ha!) that just yet, so you practice self-care in letting yourself adjust a bit more to the different country, different needs and anatomy, before going after the less important things like your looks. 

Looking at the bright side, you probably won’t need to worry about cavities anymore!

(you can, and will, be both relieved yet regretful at your decision later)

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One thing that you kind of regretted back Before was how stationary you were, with the amount of social activities you participated in shrinking as you aged until they stopped completely. Things like sports, and community events, learning and practicing different hobbies, you kind of regret not doing more of it. 

You can't really participate in things like team sports anymore, and it's not like you can be very social at socials either, but hobbies, now hobbies are something you can do. 

There was reading, hence the library, but you didn’t want to be sucked into it like you had been Before. So after a day, or two (or three?), you searched up a generic question about ‘learning how-tos near me’, found an art studio offering a simple lesson for beginners, and went off to crash the event without anybody knowing. 

The lack of presence of your -you’re pretty sure it’s a different- species is really quite interesting when interacting with humans perceptions.

It’s as if you’re both Other and yet also invisible; personally you think it's like a mix of invisibility and regular peoples minds not wanting, and therefore not being able, to acknowledge the presence of those things like you. 

You’ve been testing just how the invisibility thing works, trying to gain understanding of what they think they see. Other than standing in front of a person’s view and them not reacting at all, you’ve noticed that if you stare hard enough (looking them in the eyes), they’ll look away, which brought you the question if it was invisibility at all.

It’s, you’re likening it a bit to the Mist from Percy Jackson here but, if you grab something big within their sight, it's almost like their brain loses interest in it, they look away, they don’t react when it's moved, they seem to forget it exists or ever existed in the first place, with same thing happening when you let go; they act like its always been there, they integrate it with the scenery and there is no difference. 

Of course, when it's something noticeable, something Off, something that just plain isn’t easily integrated in the expectations of the people (like a trash bag in the middle of a clothing store), then it seems to have ‘only just now been noticed’. The Object then becomes ‘presumably placed there in a moment of others distraction’. Though on camera it’s evident that the object just ‘appeared’, people tend to believe that it was a clever hacker or some such messing with technology, as if messing with human perception weren’t just as easy, if not easier.

Not that the latter description much mattered, you came to do art, you wouldn’t be intrusive about it, there's no reason to leave a garbage bag here and even if you did, it honestly might just be mistaken for contemporary art. Nobody would pay attention to an extra (or missing) art canvas in a room filled with them. Even if nobody could see who was working on it, it would be evident someone was and the progression of it is generally enough for most lightly curious people to mind their own business when it comes to the artist.

Let’s just say in advance that your plan worked and that it was glorious. During winter it always seems as if here are two types of people, those who want to fit the theme and paint winter, and those who want to paint what they are missing and paint summer-springtime. The class you were sitting-in on decided to do a bit of both, as you were painting something the instructor called the “Winter cherry blossoms” something that people could travel to go see in… you forget honestly. You didn’t really know what she was talking about, so obviously you’d have to pay close attention to the instructions later to be able to create a nice image that’d be based on the beauty of the “Fuyu no sakura”.

You’re sure it’ll be beautiful.

…

And well, since they bloomed in winter, and travel for you was as easy as picking and finding your chosen mode of transportation, you might decide to go. To be able to see it, with your own eyes, that which the painting is based off of, seems to be an experience you won’t regret having.

Of course, first you ought to actually paint the picture huh?

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The painting lesson that you’ve decided to walk in on isn’t actually a painting lesson, per se. It was an activity aimed towards adults, and it was more of following the instructions the instructor would give you, through which you would end up with a, hopefully, pretty and unique painting. Interesting, and perfect for staying in the moment and appreciating the activity, though you do wonder if maybe there was a way to do it online? Perhaps a podcast or video, like that painter Bob!

Something to perhaps consider at a later date as well, what a day of inspiration!

Once you get to the room, it’s light, cheery. It’s open space, and all the easels are individually spaced, which is convenient for you. You pick out a space that’ll give you a nice view of the instructor, while also being easy enough for others to ignore. It’s a nice spot, cozy and protecting your back.

You’re actually quite a bit early, one of the first ones here, and you watch the types of people who decide to show up. A group of adult friends, married couples, a trio of girl friends, a couple of people that came alone, two elderly grannies who came together, and that’s only half! It’s a diverse group. 

Seeing people who came here to enjoy themselves and create something beautiful, is in itself beautiful in your eyes.

After everyone’s arrived, gotten settled, taken off their coats and winter wear, it becomes time to start. The instructor calls everyone to attention and does an introduction, with her name and a what we’ll be doing today, usual stuff. 

She shows the room the painting she’ll be giving the instructions for. 

You can’t see it perfectly from the distance, but it’s a very pretty scene, with pink trees over a body of water and above that an open sky. Tinted pink ambiance as the petals spread towards the space above and below. You’re already invested, and you’ll be putting all of yourself into this painting. 

With your focus completely on this, as the instructor starts, you do nothing else other than listen and paint.

Wet your brush, water on canvas. Mix some of your white with a little bit of red, white with blue and other colours of the sky. Broad strokes along the canvas in these places, put this colour here, blend together to make smooth transitioning. Mix these to get this, freestyle this however you want. Go along this, and add that to this in this particular way to make this effect. You can also do it like this for a different look. Make the branches contrast in this way if you’d like, and don’t worry too much if you don’t like it. We'll be covering it in more petals and moving the branches into middleground by doing this. Feel free to do as much of that as you’d like, and the next step will be doing this to better mimic the water. Do it to your satisfaction, and then we’ll move on to this next aspect. Finally, take some time to finish it up, and add any details. 

Thank you for your time and patience, your art piece is done, though feel free to add to it later at home if you’d like. …Feel free to write your name… or…

You stare at what you’ve made. Your eyes flicker to what others have accomplished.

Your chest feels flickery and fluttery and like it’s squeezing, a shiver goes along your shoulders and back, in a good way. You sit back and you stare.

You(and everyone else ha)’ve made a (individual, unique, together, apart) work of art. 

You’re in love.

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Your (baby) painting is light, angelic. Pretty pinks with sunset colours, the sun brushes past with pale-yellow, the sky still awakening with its baby blues and the pink pink pink of the background, the trees, the petals colour. Dark branches caress the pastel dots as the water shimmers back a mirrored-different reflection. 

Your branches had been a bit more rough and thick then you’d like, but they look nice after you added small red dots of unopened blossoms on their sides, crawling blooms, and quiet innocence and you’re in awe.

The woman on your right has added more trees than you did, while the elderly man a little further in front on your left has a more purpled sky with his wife having more vibrantly red-pink petals to go along with the gorgeous gradient that she made of her main two trees and their leaves.

You turn and look and you can see the individual strokes the people closest to you made while painting, can see what it is they did to make the lines seem like movement-(you did the same thing after all). And it’s- it’s all so good. It’s- a thousand words wrapped up in one painting, of which there are dozens, all saying something similar yet different, all in one room. Every single one of these was made by one person, you realize, alone yet together, every single one made by one person trying their best to interpret someone else’s words. And they’re all exclusive, never to be seen exactly like this again, even if, even though, our instructor does it all again in an hour, they’ll all be individual and original and spectacular and loved.

Your chest feels like it's about to burst. Yes yes yes, it seems to scream. This is beauty, this is passion, this is living.

Painting and fluffy pink skies and every experience being different even when similar. The pressing of your lips together as your eyes burn as your chest does.

The sun on your skin, the vastness of the moving night sky, the scent of nature and the warmth of apple on your tongue; the creativity of human.

This is it. This is what life is for.

…You’re never letting anyone take this away, you decide. It’s like Enlightenment. 

You are going to experience and live as much as you can and as much as you want. Nobody will lock you up, or stop you or otherwise prevent you from doing what you want, everagain. 

…Because you died once, and it wasn’t pleasant. 

And maybe you’re more spirit than anything now but so help you, -whatever passes for a god, for the universe, these days- nothing, No Living Thing, will be able to stop you from living as you wish now.

(...more beings should burn like this.

Unheard chains lock into place, for this double-borntorn soul of endless potential, Beloved in their own way, to live for as long as they wish and want, with lust for life like this.)

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Needless to say, you really enjoyed the art session. That trip to visit the real life cherry blossoms? Totally going to happen. 

Well, eventually.

~~~

Coming out of the art studio was a mystifying experience, with the sky and the street signs brighter, more in focus. It was like the world was a bit more complete, more… present. Something like confidence was in your body now, the world a little safer, a little bit more ‘yours’, to live in and enjoy.

You feel, settled might be the word.

Settled enough you think you can tackle one of the ‘issues that need to be investigated’ on your list right now. You ponder it as you wander down the street, eyes still catching on those unfortunate uglies that you’ve been exceptionally ignoring so far. 

Your list has so far been divided on things concerning yourself and things concerning this new world you’ve reborn into. 

Things about yourself such as: your reflection [not completed], whether you need food [No], can you eat food [Yes], if you need sleep [No], if you can sleep [Yes]; the absent minded cataloging of your body’s looks [pale, stitches, taller-], cataloging other physiological or psychological changes [better memory, better language acquisition, similar maturity levels, no need for processing of food or drinks-]

And of the things concerning the world, more broad and less pressing at the moment but still important, are things like: similarity to previous world [in progress], the location and time [Japan, near end of 2017], the cultural and social norms [in progress/hiatus], pervasiveness of technology in society [good enough], What the Uglies are [not started], plus a couple of other things of more fantastical nature relating to that [isekai into a piece of media?]

You're thinking about what you might want to tackle when you almost bump into someone. You manage to swerve just in time but it was close. With your Art in your hands held like a non-squishy, unwieldy baby, it’s gotten a bit more difficult to navigate the streets. 

The bag you had previously acquired isn't exactly big enough for it, and it’s-, well it's not a burden, (never a burden, it's a gift) but you don’t want it damaged. Lugging it around with you isn’t going to work out great.

It’s for the exact same reason you can’t leave it anywhere though. It could get dirty or get taken, or damaged!

What to do?

You need a space of your own, for your things if nothing else, and the library just won’t cut it.

Oh, well that answers what you’ll need to tackle on the list then. Getting a place of your own. [not started|in progress]

And after that… well might as well finally get a phone and the rest of the luxuries you had wanted right?

You needed a way to take photos yesterday.

(Coming out of that art studio was like waking up from a dream, no longer passivity in your veins but drive; you have things to do and you want to do them. 

You are aware, and you are Awake)

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Technology has been something you’ve been sorely missing since waking up, something that you think is a product split between addiction and convenience.

Ignoring the addiction you’re almost completely sure most modern people have for their phones/tech, there's just the sheer convenience that a phone has that you’re missing right now.

Like the internet, portable music, photos. A portable camera.

You’ve been wanting a way to take photos since just about the moment you woke up. 

And even if you don’t really need them anymore, all the other non-tech regular human luxuries, like a living space, have also been missed, just a little.

So! On the list of what you need is: a phone plus relevant technologies, a temporary place to call yours, and to finally pull yourself together to look at your own reflection! Just to start.

Phone first.  

It’ll be incredibly helpful, with its camera and map and internet access. You don’t need to be able to call or text, nor do you need cellular data. They’d be helpful, but there’s no real good way to go about getting that just yet, so just a phone and its needed appliances are fine. Plus earphones, for your music of course. It’s been a small miracle that you leave the library at all with how the computers have been your only source of Spotify. Having soundtracks for your life is just, the best way to live life you swear.

After that, getting yourself four walls and a roof.

Looking up residences, or hell, abandoned warehouses that can be fixed up in order to squat there would probably be fine. As long as you take precautions to make sure nobody will frequent the space anytime soon, and tuck away your things in hard to reach or see places, you’ll be golden. As-is your short term solution for your baby- your painting, same thing- was just to place it in a small library where it wouldn’t look out of place. It’s making you antsy just thinking about it. 

You need to go shopping for a bag big enough for it soon, but temporary solution it is.

Looking at your reflection is- its more for what it represents than anything else.

You’re invisible with extra steps to the human population. You don’t know why, not from a scientific perspective, but you’re pretty sure it’s because you’re related to the uglies Others instead of humans. Despite, presumably, looking more human then what the Others tend towards, it’s an instinctive understanding.

From the very beginning when you first woke up, you knew that you weren’t human anymore. Your time afterwards only reinforced it. 

But you're still holding back. You still see yourself as who you were Before, and you don't want to see the new You who you’ll be for the rest of your life. 

Other than a casual inspection, eyes only, and easy tests, you currently have no idea what your body’s like. You don’t know what your face looks or feels like, not even how your arms look sleeveless, nevermind the rest of your body! 

It’s willful blindness. And while you maintain that it was best for your mental health in the first few days of being alive in this foreign world, it's not necessary now. You feel more settled into this universe, and at this point the idea that there might be some nasty surprises about your body that you don’t know about yet is starting to become more stressful than fine.

Mental health before all else, if it's a bad idea don’t do it, and if you have to do it, try to accommodate. That's what you always try to keep in mind. That, along with your lifelong, pff-lifelong, motto of ‘It could always be worse’ that’s seen you through thick and thin.

If you have to look in the mirror, then you’ll chose when you’ll do it, and where. After all, if you’re going to do it, then it’ll be in an environment suited to the vibe. No public bathroom is good enough for that, this is an important event! Even if it would fit with cliches, you want something else, something more.

Probably. 

…

Ok, so the temptation to recreate one of those high school movie scenes like a melodramatic teen looking at themselves in a bathroom mirror is, maybe rising to actionable degrees. But, you definitely deserve better! This is an important discovery and moment in your character arc! The temptation is there, but you won’t do it. You won’t.

Plus phone first right?

Right.

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How did you end up here? You silently despair. 

Because here you are, after telling yourself you’d get your beloved electronics first; here, you, are. In front of a semi-public bathroom door. One of those individual ones, for wheelchair users and parents with children. Because you wanted to experience the movie moment without being interrupted, and because it was accurate. So you chose this, instead of just breaking into someone's house. It can lock from the inside. It’s got the set up you wanted, which you checked very carefully as to not get a glance from the mirror beforehand. Yes. Here you are.

You resist the urge to bury your hands in your face.

Deep Breath.

You decided on this for a reason. The apple store you’re planning to take from has full glass panels that you can't avoid. And honestly even the moment you see a turned off screen it’ll spoil you in the most unattractive angle possible, you just know it. You had a moment of belated relief when you realized your luck that the computers in your library were always on, and that by some miracle you hadn't clocked yourself already on some random shiny surface. 

(That was followed by a moment of panic on if you even had a reflection, though a hand check above a phone proved you wrong quick enough (after making you panic even more for a moment))

Anyways.

You made a decision. You’re here, and you chose to be dramatic for a reason! If you want to do it, you will! Nobody will stop you! Certainly not yourself! You are a new person in a new body, you’re even invisible! NO shame allowed in this life, if you want to recreate a dramatic teen movie then you will!

Setting your shoulders, you grab the knob of the door and, closing your eyes, you go in.

Close the door, fumble to the sink.

It’s tentative, slow but not ungraceful. 

You grab the corners of the sink space, note for the second time how it's a bit short for you.

Take a deep breath in, and let it out, open your eyes to face yourself (ha) in the mirror.

The first thing your eyes land on is your nose. Or, well, more like the stitches that go along the bridge of your nose, from one side of your face to the other. And then your nose. And your eyes, your mouth, all the features coming together and well-. 

Well damn, you look pretty attractive, if you do say so yourself. And also pretty weird.

That's getting a bit ahead of yourself though isn’t it.

Your stitches. As you lean in closer to the mirror, you note that they look stylistic, just like the ones around your wrists, with two pairs of stitches aesthetically spaced out, one pair on each cheekbone. Asymmetrical.

Your nose, despite expectations, is narrow and pointy. Definitely not asian looking like you had previously assumed, which you hadn’t exactly been looking forward to, too different from Before.

Well, it's similar enough now.

Your eyes are heterochromatic, one eye purple, the other a dark grey. The purple you’d describe as royal, the type you’d imagine roman emperors wear. The grey is like steel, or like concrete, which you don’t mean uncharitably. 

Despite the colour change, your eye shape remains similar. Double-lid, one eye length between them, a bit downturned but overall pretty nice.

Your lips also suit you, not too wide, not too small. Good for smiling, and you even look good frowning.

You’ve gotten lucky twice, or is it just that you haven’t gotten unlucky? To be okay with your general appearance is a gift you feel isn't often seen, so it's nice to be able to cherish that again.

Even if your looks don't really coincide with the average citizen very much, it's not like there'll be anybody to call you out for it. Your hair won't draw attention at least!

...

Those eyes, paired with your nose and your stitches though. You don't look just foreign, you look exotic. 

You look like a cospla-

You look like a story character. 

You watch with slight detachment as your reflection purses their lips. 

You look like a story character. 

It’s not a new thought. You liked to read isekai stories, Before. It's a popular story trope, along with the I woke up as the [X Character]! trope but-. 

But.

Well, you admit that your ‘backstory’ isn’t dissimilar to some Main Characters you've read, but you do disagree with your disposition. 

(You weren’t interested in reaching great heights in your last life, and goodness knows that hasn’t changed now. Living quietly but fully would be great, and you know that usually with that sentiment it’d mean you’d get roped into things with acquaintances-turned-more, but wasn't that usually in medieval fantasy worlds? Plus, not to jinx anything but you can’t really see yourself getting along with some of the character arc-types that tend to show up in stories like those. Nevermind that this is Japan, much more likely for it to be some power fantasy type story-)

Well, let it just be said that it’s a thought that has been around your head quite a couple times. And maybe it’s a bit ironic, that only now looking into the mirror do you consider that maybe you got put into an anime. 

But god which one?

Let's think. Black haired characters with stitches, black haired characters with stitches, and purple eyes? Grey eyes?

The closest you can think of is Dabi from Bnha, but for obvious reasons that doesn’t fit. You’re trying to think of animes placed in Japan, but your brain is only giving you fantasy world animes like Naruto and Promise of Neverland, the one with the little orange haired girl with demons that eat people for intelligence? Is that even the name? There's that Demon Eater show, but that took place in the olden era why would you be- honestly at least there's no chance you’re in Attack on Titan yikes- wait, what's that one? Tokyo Ghoul? You think there was a character with scars there, maybe purple eyes but white haired wasn’t it? Nah it's not that, ghouls look like humans by necessity. Your head's spinning in circles like it’s staring at a fill in the blank question on a test that you aren't well prepared for. No answers in this head of yours, empty of all usefulness.

You have a lot of animes in your head, not a lot of them particularly favoured, none of them helpful right now.

And what if it's not an anime? What if it is a manga or manhua like you thought before or something? You can remember so many of them but not a lot of them have been consumed in entirety, you only know the basics what if-! 

Alright this is getting out of hand. 

Are you really going to just, assume that you’re in a piece of media because you look like an atypical pretty boy, while part of a species that isn’t human, looking suspiciously human? Yes- no! 

While granted, that does sound like an interesting premise to an anime, it certainly isn’t ringing any bells, and honestly with stitches like these you’re not looking likely to be the protagonist to it anyways. Maybe in a dystopian apocalypse video game with science malpractice elements though. 

Anyways.

You promised to yourself that you’d take this time to view yourself and think without filtering, you’ve done that. But if looking at the mirror for the past, what 10 minutes? isn’t jogging your memory, then you’ll just have to let it come to you. 

Besides, you really do need to get your phone and things. You can think about it more while doing that if you really need to.

Hopefully it’s not too important. Don't jinx it.

Hopefully you’re just a normal non-human person who got isekai/reincarnated/transmigrated, a very popular story trope, into this slightly different, but definitely non-story world!

...yes definitely.

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Eager as you are to get tech (occupational hazard of someone who used to be chronically online, you end up missing your phone, who would’ve guessed), it doesn’t mean that you’re rushing towards the store. 

You are, in no life, athletic for no reason.

And you like looking at the streets! This is a relatively new area, and while you are trying to keep track of where you’re going, that doesn’t mean this isn’t a journey as much as a quest, you know?

Walking the streets and not needing to be deliberately blind to your reflection in the glass is surprisingly refreshing! Seeing yourself from different angles and just kind of being aware of how you look for the first time is nice, and goodness knows nobody else is capable of it. 

Looking at the stores, you’re reminded of the cultural differences your new home has. New years is a bigger holiday here than it is back home in the West, with more shops closing the closer towards the date to celebrate.

Technically, even your library is closed for the new year. 

Also technically, it’s not really breaking in if you just get in the way employees do.

Anyways, you’re pretty sure that Apple is still going to be open, if only because ‘Big Franchise’, but given it’s New Year’s Eve, who knows.

Well, the website said it’d only close for the 1st, but you might be misremembering, or maybe read it wrong. You don’t have a portable computer to check and sooth yourself with now do you? That’s the point of this trip!

You catch sight of a particularly nice store front, not anything you're particularly interested in, but the colours go well with the visual texture. It'd have made a nice street aesthetic picture. Have you mentioned how you're looking forwards to having a camera?

The very first photo this phone will have is a portrait of your portrait, mark your words. It won’t look the same as in person, but still. Like a proud parent having a photo of their firstborn. You plan to get some art things at some point too, just as soon as you have a place to put them. Plus-ooh jewelry store!

[Closed for New Years. Will re-open Jan 4]

And now you know the first Calendar Event you’ll be putting into your phone!

The rest of your walk is similar, with you looking around at shops that you want to visit at some point or other. The difference between now and literally just hours ago though is that now that you know what you look like, you’ve maybe been paying a tad bit more attention to shops for aesthetics, clothes and fashion and such. 

Before, you mostly looked towards signs for food brands. Since those were the easiest to get your ’free samples’ from.

But now, it’s like you’ve leveled up a bit, unlocked things in this game called life. 

Unbidden your mind builds a line of thought for how it’d go if this really were a video game. ‘ Access granted to- [Clothes!] [Accessories!] [Beauty Care!], Congratulations! Once you acquire: [House.] you’ll level up again and gain access to a wider range of choices and items/accessories such as [Arts!] [Crafts!] [Furniture!] [Bed!] …[Expand]’  You're planning on getting those things too, you never were one to leave an option unexplored.

Just thinking of it, you’re getting excited about your near future again. Four walls, a room. Finally a place where you can start accumulating things like the hoarder you really are inside. Paints and canvases; pillows and blankets,  just the way you like them. A proper place of your own. (A proper territory)

You sigh wistfully, you probably even look a bit besotted honestly. You love having things to look forward to. You love looking into forwards into your future and seeing endless possibilities.

Speaking of looking forwards, you’re pretty sure that that’s that Apple Store up ahead. 

With people going inside thank goodness.

Onwards now! To music and photos and internet and art!

Chapter Text

As many things that change, many remain the same. Apple remains as minimalist, ‘futuristic’, grey, plan and uncozy as your hazy memories suggest. Slate and grey with tech laid on the tables for potential customers to peruse. For being all innovative and futuristic, Apple could make you forget you’re seven years in the past, it hasn’t changed at all.

Other than the models of course.

Looking around, to the iPads and the iPhones you- were a bit struck dumb. Because. The home button. You’d almost forgotten about the home button. Wow.

iPads have that white border still, the apple pen doesn’t attach to the iPad, the apple pen is still in its first iteration! What’s the memory on these things? That's your old phone, the iPhone X, it's the newest thing on the market!?

You are astounded right now, count yourself mildly befuddled. Nothing lets you age things like technology. And this, this ages you. 

! This means Spotify still lets you shuffle more than once for the same playlist! Yess.

At least you know which phone you’ll get, familiarity after- wait wait wait. Wait.

Uggh cameras don't capture your face! You wouldn’t be able to put a face ID password on it. 

Of course there's the question of if you could register a thumbprint too- ughh, complicated. Can you even do that with display phones?  You’ll have to check later- You’ve still got like, what five hours until the shop closes?

You quickly go to check the store hours.

The store closes at- 9 pm?! That’s super late wow.

But anyways, that just means you’ve got tons of time until you had to figure it out. It’s not even proper afternoon yet!

You’ve got hours an’ hours for fooling around, getting a handle on this times technology. Plus time for narrowing down what you want, of course. Not just playing around on the art apps, of course not. It’s all to pick out the best appliances. Of course.

You bounce a bit on your toes.

Time to see what these babies can do!

Chapter Text

You know you’re going to be debating over the phone the most, so you head over to the iPads first, towards the one shining brightly from a still-open art app. The screen shows a canvas still mostly white, with just a couple scribbles on it. Like when you’re just sampling it for a bit, mindless and simple.

You click out of the work, go to the gallery. There’s the sample artwork at the start that's pretty pretty, probably showcasing all the different features of the app too.

You know, the typical first portrait of those fancy dancy paid art apps.

This definitely isn’t a free one.

The ones after that are ones made by the people who came before you, the simple scribbles the most recent, two different mandala type designs, one work with a sketched character headshot that you’d guess either comes from a skilled tween or a rusty teen, and a very messy piece that you click on. 

It’s entirely in blue, and you’re pretty sure that it started out as a sampling, like the most recent one. There's squares and circles and lines of different shape and texture, underneath uh, everything else. It seems like at some point someone went with the highlighter, made it pretty opaque, was trying that out, and then left it all in the hands of a toddler. 

Nah, a toddler wouldn’t manage this, it’s too… continuous and everywhere, a young child then. 

A sibling, probably. You can practically see the story this picture might be telling. Older sibling tries it out, younger also wants to try it out! Look at the lines, they go swoosh and zigzag and woo-voo-zoom! They can make lines just like you, see see! They've drawn all over the eldests neat shapes and parallel patterned lines. There’d definitely be some annoyance there, but it isn’t like it’s an actual artwork, plus there's a back button if really needed. The youngest is probably a bit pouty when the older sibling doesn’t immediately burst out in praise though.

You laugh a bit and kind of come back to yourself from where you were imagining that little scenario in your head. 

Looking down at the ‘artwork’, these messy lines almost blotching out what’s underneath, you really can’t help thinking that it just looks like family. 

All of the pieces probably say something about those who made them. Or at the very least there's a reason, as flimsy and temporary as it might have been, for why they look the way they do. 

You wonder what you’re going to end up making.

Wonder what your reasons will be.