The Satori Chore by Selia Ascrala (most important books of all time txt) 📖

to talk. Again and again she pushed herself into my visual field, smiled at me sweetly, stroked and kissed me. Again and again I heard the words "Kaasan (mama)", while she pointed a finger at herself. However, I refused to say anything and purposely made the typical baby sounds. Which sounded extremely wrong in my ears. But I felt rebellious.

 

I wasn't stupid. I knew it was Japanese, but I doubted that we lived in Japan. I had heard her often enough speaking English. I understand some languages. I loved languages. Furthermore, she also looked Asian. She was young. And pretty. I wondered how I looked like. In my previous life I was blonde and had brown eyes. My name was Kristin. It sometimes happened that I forgot about it, which made me a little scared. I didn't want to forget my old life and tightly clutched an iron grip onto my memories.

 

At this moment I lay around on a big bed. I was bored and no one was here that would have been able to observe me. So I flailed my arms and legs experimentally back and forth to test how much control I had gotten. I did this every now and then, but a baby's body was something very frustrating.

 

Somehow I managed to turn on my stomach. And then I tried to support myself with these arms. Orientation turned out a little tricky with these fleshy and knobby baby arms, but somehow I managed doing so. I sighed in relief and glanced around. I didn't exactly know how old I was, but I'd find out when we celebrated my first birthday.

I saw something moving in the corner of my eye.

 

There, at the edge of the bed.

 

Then there appeared a small head with tousled black hair behind the edge of the bed. He also had these Asian eyes like Kaasan. I had often seen him and had found out that I apparently had an older brother. He couldn't be much older than I was; at least 9 months were in. We weren't twins. He had these baby-typical full cheeks, which grandmothers would love to pinch. And if I was honest, I'd also like to do it once. Sadly though, it wasn't possible at the moment, because he had never been close enough.

 

He looked at me curiously, to which I tilted my head to the side. He then tilted his head also to the side. So to annoy him, I chopsily poked my tongue out at him. Hey, don't judge me, I was an adult medical student trapped in a baby's body. I couldn't possibly do nothing and vegetate away forever. Though to my surprise, he started laughing happily and somehow managed to pull himself on the bed, pulling me into a hug afterwards.

"Imouto (little sister)," he said completely satisfied and planted, to my great horror, thousands of wet kisses all over my face. I squealed in disgust and tried to push him away from me, but he was older and therefore stronger than me.

So I resorted back to hit him with my open palms right in the face, which couldn't be severe, since I was still a baby.

"Baka (fool), baka, baka, baka!," it blurted out of me. Hello? For me, this was a life or death situation. He was crushing me!

 

Thank God, our mother came rushing into the room and pulled him away from me, leaving me gasping for air.

"Urusai (be quiet), Kiho! You'll hurt Kihomi," she said lovingly to him. My heart softened at that. She really was a great and lovable mother.

"Gomen (sorry), Kaasan. Kiho likes Kihomi very much!," the little tyke said, looking at her with determination. "Kiho will never hurt 'Homi. Kiho will protect her."

 

Oh Gosh. Please don't. I wanted to be alive at least a bit longer.

 

She gave him a kiss on the forehead and then turned to me. She examined my face, as she often did, and I examined hers. At least in a staring contest I didn't want to lose. But then she mumbled something. Something that made me freeze inside.

"This aware gaze..." The next moment she smiled again and enthusiastically said, "Did you hear Kihomi? Your Nii-San (older brother) will always protect you. You are in really good hands, my little star." I swallowed nervously.

Then something seemed to dawn on her. "Wait, you said your first word ... And it was..." Her face changed from excited to surprise to terror. I laughed diabolically on the inside.

 

In the following months, nothing extraordinarily special happened. I warmed a little up to my new family; how could I not?

 

To the wet kisses from Kiho I always replied with a "Baka!" Whereupon a palm of mine had to land in his face. It had become a daily occurrence, and somehow it didn't seem to bother any of us anymore. Not that it ever had bothered him anyway.

 

Time passed and we grew. I taught myself the art of crawling within the shortest possible time; New possibilities presented themselves to me. I was naturally curious. But from the worm's-eye-view everything looked so much larger. So I taught myself how to walk, too. My brother and mother were very surprised when they saw me walking for the first time; celebrated it with me extensively, though. At that time I had turned purposefully to Kiho, grabbed his round cheeks with both of my hands and pinched them, laughing.

 

"Ow, Imouto!," he had squeaked, startled.

 

Weeks passed, then months, and finally my fourth birthday flew past me. Kaasan truly cared a whole lot about us. She was a great mother, and I felt really sorry that I had made her life so hard at the beginning. I later found out that she had to also take care of Kiho the same time, who couldn't sleep because of my crying. I had just turned one, when I found out about it, and one day, as compensation I had decided to look her in the eyes as she looked back into mine, and pronounced my second word. "Kaa-san"

She deserved it. She was a good mother. One of the best mothers. And even though I missed mine infinitely, I was glad to have Kaasan. She deserved it.

 

She had cried. But out of joy.

 

Kaasan had noticed early on that I was smarter than what I let on. At first she just read stories to us that seemed to get more complicated. Later she'd put exercise sheets in front of us, whom we solved together with her. When I compared my sheets with Kiho's one day, I surprisingly noticed that I had a lot more difficult tasks. Of course they weren't difficult for me, still, that was the moment I realized that nothing escaped Kaasan.

 

However, the peaceful times should soon come to an end.

 

I just rubbed the fatigue out of my eyes and stepped out of my room when Kiho suddenly appeared out of nowhere, giving me a wet kiss on the cheek. Of course, he was doing this on purpose now, to tease me. He was five I was only four. It sort of became our daily ritual, a weird way in that we showed how much we cared for each other.

"Ewwww, Kiho-nii, you baka!," I exclaimed, reflexively slapping my right palm in his face.

"Oomph," he made and then stopped laughing, rubbing the side of his face, that was now red. "Sorry, Imouto. I couldn't restrain myself. Good Morning!"

I smiled at him and nodded. "Morning, Nii-san. Let's go eat something before Kaasan takes us to kindergarten."

What I felt was great about our relationship was that we didn't quarrel like ordinary siblings over trifles. After all, I had never been a small, annoying sister and he somehow loved me incredibly from the start. Of course, I explained and taught him some things when Kaasan wasn't home. He seemed to love the fact of having an exceptionally intelligent younger sister. Protected me as a result even more in kindergarten of other children.

Not that it would have been necessary.

He had this protective instinct of a brother. In some way it was sweet...

 

And I finally knew what I looked like. I also had this brown-blackish hair, like my brother. My eye colour was brown, not black as Kiho's. But mine. Kristin's. The shape of my eyes ... slightly Asian. One could see the shadow of my Asian heritage. But still, at the first sight a frown had crept itself on my face.

 

As we entered the kitchen, I immediately noticed that something was wrong.

Kaasan was standing ashen-faced in the kitchen, steadying herself with one hand on the countertop. At first glance, she only looked thoughtful, but my eyes were trained enough to recognize the panic behind her irises. Also, normally the television and the radio were turned on with the latest news. This time everything was silent.

 

What had happened?

 

"Kaasan?," Kiho worriedly asked; apparently our mother only now broke out of her stupor and noticed us. She quickly put on a fake wide smile and tried to calm Kiho and me down.

I played along for the time being, since she had Kiho convinced, but watched Kaasan attentively all the time.

 

Some time later, when we had finished breakfast and it was time to go to kindergarten, something quite unusual happened. As Kiho remarked that we were going to be late to kindergarten, Kaasan was kind of nervous again.

She smiled at us uncertainly, tucked black strand of hair behind her ear and finally said: "There is no kindergarten today. How would you like it when we do a day of movie watching instead, here at home? Hm, how does that sound, my little stars?" Of course, Kiho rejoiced and exulted as if he had won the lottery. I was watching the situation unfold before me with narrowed eyes.

 

But when she turned away she mumbled something that probably wasn't meant to be heard by me, something that only got me more confused.

"And there won't be any kindergarten from now on."

 

It was on a Friday morning, when it happened. Kiho and I were alone at home because Kaasan had gone shopping for food. She no longer took us with her outdoors. And every time she went outdoors, she seemed to be anxious.

 

She had even bought a safer alarm and door after a group of people gathered in front of our apartment, shouting unintelligible things all over the place. They had knocked on the door and friendly asked if Kaasan could open the door, but she had only tightened her grip on us by her side.

Cold sweat rolled down her forehead as she bent down to us and said, "You are smart kids, my little stars. Do your Kaasan a favour and hide in the closet upstairs if something should ever happen, yeah?"

 

Kiho and I had looked at each other with wide eyes, but he was more scared and took my little hands in his firmly.

But this time, no one knocked on the door and kindly asked to open the door. This time an angry mob hit the door, trying to enter. Crazy laughter was heard, then angry exclamations. Stones were thrown against the windows, but they only caused small cracks.

 

I knew that soon they'd no longer remain small.

 

If I was honest, I was scared. Scared to death.

 

I didn't know what was going on and didn't know what to do. My eyes filled with tears, but I tried to hold them back and stay strong. For Kiho had already started to cry.

"Imouto, Kaasan said..."

Kaasan said. I nodded confidently at him, but felt anything but. My racing heart felt as if it would burst out of my chest at any moment, my lungs filled with too much oxygen, my breathing became so irregular that I was afraid I'd start hyperventilating, or that my lungs would implode.

 

This was ridiculous. So very ridiculous. I was the elder one here, mentally at least. And yet I was frozen on the spot and felt Kiho pulling me into another room and finally closing the closet door behind us.

What was happening here? What did these people want from us? I looked at Kiho