Chapter 1: I Became Yuzu
[──Memory confusion…? That can’t be… surely not.]
[You mean… Yuzu doesn’t remember us!?]
[Kotone, your voice is too loud. She’ll hear you. You’ll make her anxious.]
[According to the doctor, it’s just a temporary condition caused by her high fever…]
[Ah. The current Yuzu remembers some things, but forgets others. She loves reading picture books, and whenever Kotone or Oba watched movies or videos, she always wanted to watch with them, right? It seems the fever caused those memories to mix with her own, and there is a possibility she can no longer distinguish them from reality.]
[How can that be… Father, won’t Yuzu be cured?]
[The doctor said it would settle down gradually with the passage of time, but…]
[Both of you, please don’t force her to remember. Yuzu isn’t physically strong to begin with; if you push her, she might get a fever again, you know?]
[That’s… true.]
[I understand. Father, Mother…]
“…………”
──Is the conversation I heard coming from the living room on the first floor.
The ones having that discussion are, presumably, my Father, Mother, Onii-chan (Big Brother), and Onee-chan (Big Sister).
I won’t say, “If you don’t want me to hear, speak a little quieter…” No, this is my fault. My room is on the second floor, but perhaps due to the fever, my throat was parched, and I had been drinking nothing but water… So, in short, I accidentally overheard them on my way to the restroom.
…I really have bad timing.
There is a restroom on the second floor too, so that’s fine, but I can no longer go get the drink I intended to grab while I was at it. Oh well.
“Even so… it’s huge.”
I tried to return to my room from the restroom, but it’s weirdly far. This house is apparently two stories, but the second floor alone has six rooms, enough for bedrooms for the whole family. The first floor has the kitchen, bath, and plumbing areas, plus a living room, a Japanese-style room, a guest room, a reception room, a study… apparently, there’s a lot of stuff.
Could it be we are quite rich? I don’t think we are mega-tycoons, but there is a sense of “executive at a major corporation” wealth. That explains this spacious house… wait? Is it spacious? I feel like I used to live in a much larger house, like a castle…
“…Is this memory confusion?”
Father and the others were saying that because of the fever, I dreamed of a fantasy story setting and it got jumbled with my memories. But even so, it felt incredibly real… Did I watch a movie or video like that?
Well, normally I suppose one would be confused or anxious like Mother said, but I don’t really care about the details.
It seems “I” was originally that kind of personality. Perhaps due to being sickly, I was quiet and not very active, but I was easygoing and unshakeable… in short, it seems I was a child who didn’t think too deeply about things. My family also seems to have the type of personality where they act as soon as they think of something, so in a way, my personality is quite proper for this family.
My Grandfather on my father’s side was apparently a serious man, but my Grandmother, who passed away the year before last, was an easygoing person. I’m similar to her in that regard, and apparently, my appearance resembles Grandma when she was young. Since I was the youngest grandchild, I was especially doted on. …That much, I was able to recall.
There are many things I don’t remember, but when I meet my family face-to-face and talk to them, body memories? Things like family names or what we used to play, those things just pop into my mind.
“Then, what are these memories of spending time somewhere else until I was eleven…?”
The “Me” in the confused memories lived in a house like a very vast castle. Yet, the reason this house and the objects in it feel excessively large is that I am currently only five years old.
Huh? Am I almost six? Anyway, personally speaking, when I came to, I had become a toddler—”Yuzu”—who is only about as tall as a doorknob.
“But I wonder why?”
Alone in my room, I tilt my head. I recognize [Yuzu] as myself, and there should be no problem with being called that, yet for some reason, I feel a strange sense of incongruity when the name is called.
I wonder what it is… In this state, can I even live a proper toddler life?
Now then! Setting such trivial details aside, since the university hospital said there were no issues, there are no issues! (Arbitrary decision).
In short, precisely because I am still a toddler with little experience, my fictional memories and original memories are confused. So, if I just gain more memories, it will work out somehow, or something like that!
…If only I were a normal toddler.
It’s strange for me to say this, but because of these memories of odd experiences, I am strangely un-childlike.
I mentioned experience up to eleven years old, but do I have other experiences too? Strangely enough, I also have faint memories of Yuzu up to fifteen years old.
Why? An illness? …Did I die? If so, what is the current me?
Who on earth… is “Who”?
Well, thinking about it won’t give me an answer. Still, since I have the experience of an eleven-year-old and a fifteen-year-old, I decided to act gracefully like an Ojou-sama (young lady), but for some reason, they got worried and ordered me to sleep.
Why!? I’m fine, aren’t I!?
Because of that, I am quite bored. I am incredibly bored! After all, picture books and videos have been sealed away until my memory settles down!
I came back to my room, but I truly have nothing to do. I’m tired of sleeping in bed!
With no other choice, as a part of trying to recall my memories, I decided to look at my own face in the vanity mirror. After all, my memory of my own face was fuzzy, so it can’t be helped.
“Ah~~… so this is my face?”
Reflected in the mirror was a girl in pale pink pajamas with long, straight black hair and eyes that looked somewhat sleepy, staring back at me. Perhaps it remained in this body’s memory, but I was able to accept my own face more easily than I expected. That’s really good… It would have been a disaster if my own face felt wrong.
Memories of being made to dress up in front of the mirror by Mother and Onee-chan, turning into a dress-up doll, floated up, but… I might be pretty cute?
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Is it that, maybe? Because our family standing is half-baked, we aren’t bound by lineage and can marry beautiful brides or grooms, so our features become refined? (Quite a rude prejudice).
But my eyes are a bit droopy. Onee-chan is a standard beauty resembling our beautiful Mother and is normally cute, but my droopy eyes resemble Father, or rather, Grandma?
I really do look sleepy… I see, no wonder the whole family tells me to [Go to sleep].
Well, whatever. These sleepy-looking droopy eyes combined with glossy, silky black hair might make me look like a “deep window” Ojou-sama (sheltered young lady)?
Just as I was convincing myself of that…
“Ah! Yuzu, you have to stay in bed quietly!”
Suddenly, hearing that voice from the door I left open, I instinctively turned around.
“Koto…chan?”
Apparently, I called my Onee-chan “Koto-chan.” Perhaps because I was sickly and often at home, or because we are eight years apart, she played with me more like a friend than a sister.
However, seeing me hesitate slightly to call my sister by her name, Koto-chan looked lonely for a split second, then immediately smiled and scooped me up from in front of the vanity. Powerful.
“That’s right~. It’s your big sister, Koto-chan~. Let’s go to bed, Yuzu.”
“But, I’m not sleepy.”
“Hmm… In that case, I’ll bring you just one picture book!”
Thump thump thump, Onee-chan runs out of the room to get a picture book.
Togaki Kotone. My Onee-chan, a second-year student in a private middle school. A fourteen-year-old with fluffy semi-long black hair, a rough personality, and a disappointing beauty of an Ojou-sama.
As you can see, she is kind to her little sister… or rather, she dotes on me excessively.
The reason for this seems to be that Father and Mother were busy with work, so she spent a lonely childhood with just Onii-chan, who is two years older.
The commuting maid would leave immediately after preparing meals, so Onii-chan and Onee-chan were often alone in this big house. The two of them were delighted by the addition of a family member—me—born so many years later, and they loved me immensely… is what I just remembered.
Memories around that area are still vague, but considering how much I’m being doted on right now, it seems accurate.
…Hm? I hear the sound of running in the hallway.
Koto-chan, running like a boy like that… or so I thought.
BANG!
“Yuzu! Onii-chan has brought you pudding!”
Throwing the door open with full force, a single boy appeared.
…Um, what about knocking?
The person who entered the room (without permission) saying that is mine and Koto-chan’s older brother, Togaki Oba. A first-year in private high school. A refreshing-looking sixteen-year-old, but a rough and active young master.
Excuse me~? This is technically a girl’s room, you know? Does a five-year-old have no privacy? It seems not.
BANG!!
“Brother, what are you doing!?”
Then, making a louder noise than Oba-onii-chan, Koto-chan barged in carrying not one, but ten picture books.
Um… the door hinges look like they’re about to break?
“Ah, Kotone! Reading picture books to Yuzu is unfair! I wanted to read to her!”
“You’re one to talk, that’s the pudding I was going to feed Yuzu!”
“I understand that feeling! In that case, Kotone, you can feed her half!”
“Thank you, Brother! In that case, you can read half the books!”
“…………”
The two exchange a firm handshake while shouting. Are they on good terms or bad terms? Well, I guess their sibling relationship is normal.
Leaving that aside. Pudding, huh…
“Pudding is… I’m okay for now.”
“What did you say!? What’s wrong, Yuzu! There isn’t a toddler alive who doesn’t want to eat pudding!?”
“Oba-niisan, being rough is why you’re failing! I will feed her! Say ahhh~”
“Aaaah…!”
Koto-chan snatches the pudding from Oba-onii-chan and points the scooped spoon at me. Also, Onii-chan is noisy.
From the time I woke up until now, I’ve only had water, juice that tasted like sugar water, and tasteless porridge, so I am interested in other foods.
…I am interested, but!
“A-Ahhh…”
Unable to withstand Koto-chan’s pressure (and the sorrowful screams of Oba-onii-chan who had his pudding stolen), the pudding was shoved into my open mouth. Th-This is!?
This sensation of sweetness from sugar spreading in my mouth, cloying and lacking richness, slimy…
“It… it is delicious…”
“Right!”
“Aaaah!”
I don’t know why, but since waking up, I cannot feel any “umami” in anything I eat or drink. Also, Onii-chan is noisy.
Is it that thing where your sense of taste gets weird when you catch a cold? Even the porridge the maid made, I couldn’t feel the umami of the rice at all, and I had a really hard time finishing it. Food without richness is not delicious at all.
That aside, I’m not hungry at all, so I wonder what’s going on? With the memory issues too, I’d hate it if it were some weird disease.
“Yuzu… hasn’t your language become polite?”
“Really?”
I answer Oba-onii-chan’s sudden observation as normally as possible while trying to play it off.
My experience as an eleven-year-old… The way of speaking of the super Ojou-sama who lived in a castle might have rubbed off on me. For some reason, this way of speaking feels right.
“Now that you mention it, yes… Or rather, her demeanor makes her look like a genuine Ojou-sama.”
Wait, aren’t we genuine!?
TLNOTE:
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