Life in Vain: Jobless Reincarnation

3 – Infancy Period – II

Another month passed. Still couldn't move very much, but I was starting to get the feeling that the thing I was messing with wasn't my blood.

Since I didn't have anything better to do, I spent the days paying close attention to my senses and doing just whatever I could to pass the time.

And that's when I noticed it.

If I listened closely, whenever I moved what I thought was my blood around, I could hear another 'flow' beneath it. A second pulse. And if I paid attention, I could also feel another pulse.

After some testing, I was sure of it.

There was a slow and steady pulse in my chest and my veins. That was my heart and blood. But there was something else there too, separate from that steady pulse. A 'flow'... or something that I could move around in parallel to my blood.

Well, I said 'in parallel' but I couldn't really control my actual heartrate or blood flow.

I tried.

But I could control this weird flow. If I focused on my hand, for example, I could gather a sort of 'pressure' and put it there.

After a while, that pressure would fade and the flow or whatever would go back to normal against my will. But it was there.

I wasn't imagining it. I was sure of that. But then... what the heck was it?

-LIV-

Yet another month passed. The fourth month since I was reborn.

Maybe since I was big enough to be safely left alone, my parents moved me to a separate room at night.

I thought that was seriously irresponsible... but I was objectively a really trouble-free baby, so I couldn't blame them. After all, I didn't cry for attention, didn't cry for food in the middle of the night... and overall, I just didn't cry or bother anyone.

...Well, if that was the case then I would seriously be worried about my kid, but it seemed like my parents were fine with it. And our maid came in to check on me at night too, so it was probably fine.

That didn't bother me.

What *did* was that my pretty mom and handsome dad were going at it late into the night with loveydovey times.

Thankfully, I still didn't understand a single word. So while there was clear dirty talk going on, my sweet and innocent mind didn't understand it.

But it was hard not to understand the other sounds echoing throughout the house.

My parents weren't very quiet, you see?

So I distracted myself with trying to figure out what the heck that weird thing I could sense and move was.

Did I have heart arrhythmia? Was it just an irregular heartbeat and pulse?

No. It wasn't that. If that was the case, I'd be tired all the time. And I wasn't. In fact, I was only tired after I started moving whatever the heck it was that I felt in my blood.

Then was it a weird synesthesia?

I remembered that there were people who could taste colors, see tastes, and other weird things. There was also a guy who could see numbers as colors...

Maybe this was something like that?

Babies didn't have properly separated senses when they were born. The brain was just a giant mass of neurons and nerves that got pared down as they started making sense of the world around them.

So it was possible that I was sensing something like that. Maybe an overlapping sensory input. Or maybe since I had a developed state of mind, it was causing my imagination to have a tangible presence?

After all, a strong enough mental image was enough to fire the same neurons as a real image. And didn't children have strong imaginations?

It was possible that this feeling I had was just my brain reacting to me directing my attention to my body.

Possible. But it still felt *real* in a way that didn't seem like just imagination.

And to test out the synesthesia thing, I tried doing some mental math. Basic arithmetic, then multiplication, division, algebra...

Numbers didn't have different colors, but I *did* find out that I had a weirdly strong short term memory. Unlike in my past life, I could do a lot of mental math and follow through the steps without forgetting any.

I also tried imagining things. Like trying to see images overlapping the space around me.

That... kind of worked?

It was hard to see anything in clear definition, but I could at least visualize colors drifting around the room.

...Though none of that really helped block out my parents having their loveydovey pillowtalk.

Back to moving around that weird thing...

-LIV-

Half a year had passed since I was reborn as a baby.

Good news! I could move!

It was only crawling, but my body was coordinated enough for me to move about. And boy did I move about.

I was already itching to move since that accident where I was stuck in the hospital. And after spending so long on my back or carried around, it was absolute bliss to be able to move where I wanted to go.

At the same time though... I was bit worried.

Maybe it was because I kept practicing imagining them, but I seemed to have developed a weird thing where I could see random colors floating around in the air.

Nobody else ever looked at them, so I might have accidentally developed some kind of synesthesia... Thankfully, it didn't seem like my brain was broken or anything.

And the proof of that was...

"Heh. There he goes again. Seems like Rudy couldn't wait to get started on moving around, huh?"

"That's good. I was getting worried that something was wrong... Our son's a bit too quiet. I mean, aren't babies supposed to cry a lot?"

"Eh. Don't worry about it. I'm sure the kid's just fine."

"Dear..."

...I could understand my parents now. And listen to their loveydovey flirting.

Seriously. I didn't fault them for being so in love, but basically every conversation they had ended with them flirting.

Our maid seemed to be annoyed too since she always gave the two a deadpan stare when they did that.

Still... It seemed like I worried my parents quite a bit. But it couldn't be helped.

It wasn't like I was going to cry out just for attention or because I was bored. Even if I was reborn as a baby, I was still a grown adult. It'd be embarrassing if I cried out about everything all the time.

...Well, I might have quietly cried a bit the first few days after I was reborn due to my regrets, but I never cried out. Just silent tears streaming down my face and all.

Anyway.

Movement skill obtained! Now, to explore the world and figure out what to do with my new life...