CH 1

Where am I? I’m… sure I got hit by a truck on my way home from work… Yeah? I think I hear some voices.

In a daze of consciousness, I listened carefully as I collapsed into a blank space.

Was it the voice of a woman and an old man?

“I told you, I’m tired of this! I’m fed up!”

“But you’re not dead, and you can get back to normal, okay?”

“You’re a persistent old man! I’ve had enough of you! Oh, there’s a good one laying there. Why don’t you put it back for me?”

“Well, if you say so, I’ll say nothing more.”

I wondered if the woman was talking about me. As I was thinking about this, an old man approached me.

“Hey, do you want to live?”

“Huh? Well, I don’t want to die.”

“So be it. I’ll grant your wish.”

As the old man held out his hand, from the white space, I was enveloped in light, and I closed my eyelids involuntarily.

“Eh? Wait, it’s too bright!”

I shouted, and when I opened my eyelids again after the light had calmed down, I was asleep under the covers in an unknown room.

I let out a sigh as I stretched to relieve my slightly stiffened body.

“Hmmm.”

What was that? What was that high-pitched voice I just heard? It sounded like a woman’s voice.

(Huh? That’s not my voice! What’s wrong with my body?)

When I lowered my head and looked at my body, I saw two berries on my chest that were not supposed to be there.

(It’s a big one… No, it’s not. This is not the time! Could it be that I died when the truck hit me? Remembering our earlier conversation, I’m pretty sure I didn’t say that I wanted to be in another body…)

“No, at least make it a man’s body!”

When I yelled in anger, a small body that seemed to be some distance away from me jumped! I moved.

When I looked over, I saw a girl of about two or three years old looking at me anxiously.

It was just the two of us, me and the girl, in what looked like a small apartment of about 1six tatami mats.

I finally understood something… or what this was about.

“I have become a woman and have a child…”

Six tatami mats are equal to 106.75sq ft.