Short Story

Short Story : Mother & Home

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Eh?

One day, when I open my eyes, I find that something strange has happened to me.

I cannot move my body freely. I cannot speak properly and can only make meaningless noises. Then, when I raise my right hand, all I see are two tiny hands, curled into fists even though I am not clenching them.

Just how small are my hands?

They are the size of a toddler’s.

At that moment, I want to check my physical condition, but eventually, I give up because my arms are still too short to even reach the top of my own head with my palms.

A little while later, after seeing me constantly moving around, a young woman. Or perhaps I should say a young girl, comes over and asks me…

“What’s wrong, sweetheart…?”

She then easily picks me up and holds me against her rather generously sized chest. Which is…

WHAT THE HELL?

I cannot remember my name.

But according to my memories, I am a twenty-four-year-old adult woman who is about to graduate from college and currently works part-time as a cashier at a mini-market near my apartment.

So there is no way a girl who looks like she is only seventeen can lift me this easily.

Right then and there, I want to slap myself in the face just to make sure I am not dreaming.

But since I cannot move my hands freely, I can’t even do it.

So I have no choice but to accept the reality that my life has apparently just turned into THAT. Yes, THAT cliché.

My last memory is that, after coming home from my part-time job, I took a shortcut through a dark gap between some tall buildings. But before I could make it out of the alleyway, I felt like someone hit me from behind.

Looking at how everything has unfolded, there is no doubt about it.

I am experiencing THAT.

YES.

A REINCARNATION.

After realizing that my current condition is abnormal, I immediately look around to figure out where I am. After all, in stories about reincarnation, the protagonist usually ends up in an environment that is completely different from their previous life.

The furniture and decorations displayed on the walls look like things I have seen in museums before.

So being reincarnated in the same period as my previous life, or in the future, can be crossed off the list.

That leaves only two possibilities.

The past.

Or a parallel world.

Because I do not understand the language spoken by the people around me, I decide there is no point in trying to determine whether I have been reincarnated in the past of another country or in an entirely different world.

No matter how I think about it, right now I am just a baby who cannot take care of herself.

All I can do is cry when I am hungry, cry when I need to relieve myself, cry when I am cold, and then cry when I am too hot.

The only thing I can do as a baby is literally just cry.

But whenever I cry, it doesn’t feel miserable at all.

It is completely different from the cries I had at 3 a.m. when I was alone in my previous life, which always made me feel awful.

Whenever I cry, the woman I have come to identify as my mother always comes to me. She never comes with an angry or annoyed expression. Instead, she puts on a happy face and pretends to be angry, like a little child playing around.

After giving me a gentle scolding that is even softer than the teasing my boss used to give me, she takes care of whatever needs I have, which I realize are actually quite troublesome.

In just two weeks, I have already come to think of her as more than just my biological mother.

For some indescribable reason, I just feel so happy whenever I am with her. Is this what you call the bond between a mother and her child?

Even though my mind is that of an adult, I do not feel uncomfortable when she treats me like a baby.

Wait a second.

I am a baby.

A toddler, more precisely.

And even though I am a woman myself, I have absolutely no problem with her breastfeeding me. In fact, I could argue that it is the best time of the day, every single day.

Unfortunately, I cannot enjoy such a service anymore once another six months pass.

Eventually, she stops breastfeeding me altogether and starts giving me strange-tasting food once I turn one.

When I try asking for it again, she never gives it to me. Instead, she even smacks me on the head, despite all my tried-and-true techniques for begging while wailing.

None of my efforts work.

After roughly another year passes, I finally understand the answer to the question, “Where was I reincarnated?”

There is only one possibility left.

I am in a parallel world.

Even though I occasionally come across familiar-sounding names, none of the words I hear ever sound like anything I have heard before.

Of course, there is always the possibility that my knowledge is simply too limited. But at the very least, I can confirm that the language I hear does not come from any of the common languages of the West or East that I knew in my previous life.

After I learn to speak and start wandering around on my own, I begin looking for more information about my new life.

Who am I?

Who are we?

And where do we live?

The place where I live is the Kingdom of Amteric. The village where I live is located in a small territory near the border called Tagave.

My mother’s name is Anneliese, although both in my thoughts and aloud, I simply call her “Mother” or “Mama.”

And lastly, she is essentially the concubine of a prince.

Her official title, however, is First Secondary Queen Candidate.

Her background leaves her with no place in the royal palace. That is why the two of us now live in what could basically be considered a remote backwater.

According to the laws of this kingdom, I have the right to become a candidate for the throne. But since my mother is a commoner and I am merely the daughter of a “concubine,” my chances of ever gaining power are practically zero.

And with that, I simply continue living my new life in peace.

Yes, the story of my toddler years comes and goes just like that.

What else can I say?

Nothing interesting happens.

For several years, I really do little more than the usual things a toddler does.

Eat, sleep, and play.

Damn, being a child is such bliss. I have nothing, yet I’m still happy anyway. And weirdly, I’m easily amused by the smallest things too, even though I should have an adult mind. You’ll find me chasing butterflies or running after rabbits that steal the vegetables our gardener plants, more than once.

And I’m not ashamed of any of it.

I guess the body really does affect the mind.

On another note, as for the kingdom, of course it follows a feudal system. So my mother could be considered somewhat wealthy compared to ordinary commoners.

But the land given to us is only a small territory with a small population, so naturally, the taxes it brings in are not particularly substantial.

Because of that, aside from our house and the furnishings provided by the king, there are practically no other luxurious possessions that can truly be considered ours.

We do not even have enough money to hire additional servants and have to make do with the servants sent by the royal palace.

Servants who are, old enough to be approaching retirement.

Speaking of which, today, all of my servants are out buying supplies in the neighboring town. And because they need to buy quite a lot, most of them have gone together. So today, the house is quieter than usual.

There is only my mother, who is busy with her work, and me in the house.

“…”

From what I can see, she looks quite puzzled as she works on something in the study.

Which is understandable, considering that, as I have already mentioned, my mother comes from a commoner background.

She simply does not have enough education to properly manage her territory, even though her responsibilities are probably much lighter than those of people who govern larger territories.

“Hmm…”

My life as a princess is nothing like what I imagined it would be.

It is not glamorous. I cannot simply order people around, and of course, I cannot expect everything I want to be granted.

But none of that is really a problem.

Even though there are a few difficulties here and there, overall, my current life is far better than my previous one. Not materially, but emotionally.

My life is good.

Everything is going smoothly.

Though the main reason I feel that way is probably because I am still very young.

At this age, even if I make mistakes, cause trouble, or annoy my mother, she will always forgive me. She even praises me whenever I manage to do something simple, then smiles so happily whenever I call her Mama.

A smile I can no longer get from my mother in my previous life.

Mentally, I’m almost a full decade older than her, and sometimes she acts like a child herself when she plays with me. If I were still in my old body, honestly, she would be more fitting as my little sister.

But despite being young, she is truly mature.

Much more mature than I was at the same age.

When I was her age, all I did was waste my parents’ money buying things I didn’t actually need, play with my friends without paying attention to the time, and constantly make my mother worry.

I would even argue with my father and curse at him daily, despite knowing that I was the one in the wrong.

Afterward, without the slightest bit of shame, I would ask them for things while continuing to display my full-blown ungratefulness.

Some people love to imagine what they would say if they had the chance to meet their younger selves. As for me, I have no words for my younger self.

I just want to smack her on the head.

“Sus ungratwul child,”

I say to myself.

“What did you say, Amelie?”

I turn around and find my mother walking toward me.

“....”

Not wanting to answer, I simply shake my head.

“Are you hungry?”

At her question, I look toward the window and notice that the sun is already fairly high in the sky. No wonder my stomach is starting to feel a little empty.

“Umm...”

I nod.

“Then Mama will make you something.”

Without waiting for my answer, she immediately takes me into the kitchen.

Aside from the two of us, the only people left are two intimidating-looking guards stationed at the gate and an old man who takes care of the small garden behind our house. Needless to say, none of them are exactly suited for household chores.

So my mother, who is technically the lady of this place, cooks my meal herself.

I would like to help her if she lets me, but she says something about playing with fire and handling sharp objects being dangerous and only allows me to watch. Of course, I cannot understand exactly what she is saying, but at least I can tell what she is trying to convey through her gestures.

Normally, having memories of a past life should give me an advantage in many things.

But when it comes to learning a language, my knowledge actually feels like a hindrance.

A child my age should normally be quite talkative by now. But here I am, still struggling to speak because, inside my head, I still have to translate the language of this world into the language I used in my previous life.

While constantly checking the recipe, my mother cooks with all the awkwardness of a husband trying to cook for the first time in his life.

If the previous me were watching her, I would probably have already lost patience and scolded her. But the person I am now sees what she is doing as proof of how much she cares about me.

Judging by her pace, it looks like my food will still take quite a while to be ready.

Is she nervous because I am watching her?

If that’s the case, I should go outside.

And so I leave the kitchen and head to the study, which also serves as my mother’s workplace. There are piles of papers scattered all over the desk. I have thought about helping her before, but unfortunately, I do not know a thing about the writing system used in this country.

Although I can understand spoken words to some extent, when it comes to writing, I am completely illiterate because I do not even know the basics. With spoken words, I can look at the speaker’s expression and see what they are pointing at. But none of that can be applied to written language.

To practice my reading and writing, I plan to ask my mother to teach me this world’s alphabet. But with this much work on her hands, I do not know if she will even have the time.

Half an hour later, my mother finds me. Carrying a bowl, she immediately comes over to me. Then, when she tries to lead me toward a chair, I refuse to move and raise my hands, asking for the bowl she is holding.

To make sure she does not misunderstand and think I am asking her to carry me, I quickly speak with the limited vocabulary I have.

“Eat... mysef.”

Her eyes widen, but she immediately smiles and lowers herself down.

“Don’t make a mess, okay...?”

“Um...”

I nod, and she gives me the bowl.

She has a lot of work to do. Even if I cannot help her, at the very least, I can avoid wasting her time. If she can finish her work sooner, she can rest sooner too.

My mother returns to her desk and continues working. Meanwhile, I sit in the corner of the room and eat.

Looking worried, she keeps glancing at me and finally asks...

“How does it taste?”

“D-derish...”

Uwaaaah.

It is blaaaaaaaand.

Isn’t she much taller than me? I find it a little hard to believe that she cannot even take some salt and sprinkle a little of it over my lunch. Did she forget? There’s no way this is actually how the recipe is supposed to taste, right?

Unlike the strangely flavored food the servants usually make for me, this meal genuinely has no taste at all. I do not know what this dish is called, but one thing I do know for sure is that it is not supposed to taste like plain water.

“Hah....”

I want to complain, but at the same time, I just cannot bring myself to do it.

Who would have the heart to complain to someone who worked so hard to make food for you? If I had bought it from her, then of course I would complain. But I am simply receiving something she made for me without giving her anything in return for all her effort.

Never bargain with someone’s kindness.

That is one of my mottos after I lost all the goodwill my parents had shown me.

So I will not complain.

Once I finish eating, I immediately leave the room.

This brings me to the second reason why I prefer my current life. Aside from my relationships being much better here than they were in my previous life, my financial situation is also far better.

If I compare their value directly, I think the things I owned in my old world would probably be worth more than this enormous house, which is almost comparable to a castle. But in the long run, our lives are much more secure here.

Our income is not particularly large, but it is stable. If we increase the population of our territory, we could even become considerably wealthier.

Even if we are essentially commoners who suddenly became rich, we are still a royal family. So even if there are people who dislike us, there will not be any cases of bullying or anything like that. And if someone tries to scam us, that means they have effectively scammed a member of the royal family.

Our security is guaranteed, and all our needs are taken care of.

If I were some otaku soldier sent to another world, I might have already said that my life consists of eating, sleeping, and pursuing my hobbies, with everything else falling somewhere between those three.

If it were like this, I don’t think there would be any problem even if I became a NEET.

“No! No! No! No!....”

In my previous life, I was already such a useless person. If I become a useless person again here, I’ll just be trash. And trash is meant to be thrown away. Besides, I have no reason to burden my mother, who has worked so hard to raise me.

I might not be the kindest person in the world, but I know what it means to repay kindness.

Two hours later, my mother comes out of the study and heads to the kitchen, carrying my bowl. At the same time, I finish walking around and exploring the house. Since I’m still forbidden from leaving the area around the house, I usually explore my own home whenever I have nothing to do.

My house itself is already like a vampire’s mansion, with many dark rooms, but it doesn’t scare me. In fact, I’d say I enjoy things that are horror-related.

As soon as she sees me, she comes straight over to where I am still standing in the hallway, then crouches down to match my height. Her expression is unusual. This time, she doesn’t have the gentle expression she usually wears, but a serious one instead.

Is she angry because I forgot to bring my bowl back to the kitchen?

I’ll apologize. Even though I simply forgot, that kind of excuse isn’t nearly enough to get me out of trouble. Humans are better at remembering mistakes than kindness. A wise man once said, “A person is remembered not for the rules they follow, but for the rules they break.”

This kind of problem isn’t anything serious. But if I don’t apologize, she might chew me out over it. And since I still have my memories from the past, I’m not sure if my bad habits will surface and make me say something hurtful if she says something I don’t like.

Okay. Take a breath.

I absolutely don’t want my relationship with my new mother to turn bad. I don’t want my relationship with her to end up like my relationship with my mother in my old world. This mother of mine truly loves me very much, so I don’t want to do anything bad to her and repeat what I did before.

“Huuf... I... I’m... sowy...”

My mother looks at me with an absolutely flabbergasted expression.

“Why are you so tense? And why are you apologizing?”

Now I’m the one with a confused look on my face, staring back at her.

“Hey, Amelie... does Mama look scary?”

I shake my head. There’s no way anyone could say my mother looks scary. If she were scary, how could I have been born? I mean, how could a prince marry a young girl with a scary face? I don’t know the beauty standards of this world, but I’m very sure that this girl is very beautiful.

I mean, this woman is very beautiful.

Wrong! I mean, my mother is very beautiful.

Having a mother who is younger than you is a bit confusing. Even if it’s only mentally.

“Are you scared of Mama?”

Of course not. Why would I be scared of you? And why have your questions been so strange all this time?

“Then why are you lying?”

“?”

Lying? What have I lied to her about? Is this one of those cases where I haven’t done anything but still get blamed and told to apologize? If I had a sibling who badmouthed me in front of my mother, I could still understand being blamed for no reason. But I don’t have any siblings.

Ah... so that’s it.

She doesn’t trust me.

In this house, there’s no one else besides me, my mother, the servants, and the guards. If she heard something bad about me, whoever said it must be one of them. In other words, an outsider.

I lower my head and look at the floor, then let out a sigh.

“Hah...”

She trusts other people more than me, her own child. This kind of situation is nothing new. My parents in my past life were the same. They would trust the neighbors more than their own child because they thought their child wasn’t someone they could trust.

If someone said I was being naughty, did something bad to another child, or made a mistake, my parents would immediately believe it and scold me under the pretext of disciplining me. They would tell me to apologize even when I wasn’t at fault and compare me to other children they thought were far better.

My parents loved me, but I can’t say that the things they thought were no big deal had nothing to do with how I grew up to become such a twisted b*tch.

I know that kind of thing is normal. But receiving the same treatment in this new world, and even from someone I thought truly loved me, hurts quite a bit.

Is it that I can’t be trusted, or is it simply that her trust in me is too low?

Well, there’s no difference.

The result is the same.

“How was your lunch?”

“...?”

Huh? What kind of question is this?

“When you said it tasted good, you were lying, weren’t you?”

So all this time, we’ve been talking about that bland food you made? Because you gave it to me so casually, I thought you had already tasted it yourself. So you only just found out that your own cooking is bland too?

How stupid. How stupid. I’ve been thinking about all kinds of serious things, yet the topic you brought up is something this trivial?

If that’s all you wanted to talk about, I have already prepared an excuse that would definitely make you cry tears of joy.

“Mama... tired.”

How about that? Good answer, right? With an answer like that, combined with the cuteness of this little kid, I’ll make you cry a river.

“Awww...”

That’s what I was thinking, but reality turns out to be different. She pinches my left cheek.

“What are you saying?! You’re still ten years too young to be worrying about me.”

“Awww....”

And now she pulls the other one.

“And who do you think I am...?”

“Mama...”

Hearing my answer, she smiles even wider before pulling my cheeks even harder.

Please stop! I know my cheeks look soft and adorable. I even touch them myself all the time. But please stop. My cheeks are really starting to hurt.

“Yes!... I am your mama! I am your mother, so don’t do that again!!!...”

Do what exactly? I don’t remember ever throwing an extreme tantrum in front of her. Does she not like me visiting the old gardener behind the house? Does she not like it when I come home with dirty clothes? She never said anything when she saw me, so I thought it was fine. But if she doesn’t like it, I’ll stop.

“I am your mother!! You don’t have to obey everything I say! Sometimes, talk back to me! Show me that cute, sulky face of yours! If you want something, you’re allowed to throw a tantrum too! And if you don’t want to do something, I give you permission to be stubborn!”

You’re really saying something insane.

If any parent heard those words of yours, I’m sure they’d be furious with you. How could you tell a child who has been trying so hard to behave well to become naughty like that?

You think I never feel sulky? I get angry at you all the time too, and if I were allowed, I’d want to protest about so many things to you. But I hold myself back. You know why? Because I know you don’t live an easy life, and taking care of me only adds to your burdens. That’s why I try to be understanding and lighten your load.

Don’t just casually tell me to throw away all my hard work, you irresponsible mother!!!

“Feel free to act like that when I’m about to keel over! But don’t you dare act grown-up now!”

What an insensitive mother. If you want me to be naughty that badly, then I really will become a naughty child. How about this? I’ll start my naughtiness by squeezing your breasts. Do you want to feel that?

Wait a minute. Why am I thinking like some perverted old man?

“You are my child! And I am your mother! So it’s fine if you’re not perfect! If you can’t see, I’ll always guide you! If you can’t walk, I’ll carry you! If you want something, I’ll give it to you! If you don’t like something, I’ll keep it away from you! And even if you get into a fight with someone, I’ll take your side!”

Why... Why do you have to say something like that now?

I...

“And of course, if you’re in danger, I’ll protect you!! Because no matter what, I am your mother.”

How stupid!!!

I’m really stupid!!

What have I been thinking about her all this time?

What kind of evil am I? How could I think badly of someone who has protected me since birth, who loves me with all her heart and soul? How could I immediately decide that she’s a bad parent just because she didn’t act the way I expected her to?

Sob...

 

“Eh... why are you crying? Does your cheek hurt?”

Suddenly, my mother panics when she sees my tears starting to flow.

“I’m sorry... Mama didn’t mean to.”

The one who couldn’t trust wasn’t her, but me. Even though I had promised myself that I would start a new life and begin everything from zero, why, in this new world of mine, am I still carrying my old grudges? Why am I still carrying my bad habits? And why can’t I trust this person who loves me so much?

“Waaaaaaaa...”

“Amel...”

I hug her tightly. But because my arms are still short, I can only reach the sides of her back. Then she hugs me back and tightens her arms around me.

“I’m sorry... Mama wasn’t angry, you know... There, there... don’t cry.”

Starting today, just as she trusts me, I will also trust her. Just as she loves me, I will also love her. She is my mother, and I am her child. Whatever memories I have left from that other world have nothing to do with the life I have now.

I’ve been given a chance to be a child again, to start everything all over again, and to fix a life that could no longer be fixed before.

Therefore, starting now, I will do my best to make the person who always thinks about my happiness happy. I will give my care to those who care about me. And, of course, I will give my love to those who love me.

I will not repeat my past mistakes. I will turn my past wrongs into lessons. And in this second life of mine, I will try much harder than before.

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