Chapter 2.1 Growing Up

It's hard to describe everyday life, but anime and manga make everyday life interesting. But when you live it, many details of everyday life stupidly elude your attention, pass by in the background, do not enter your consciousness. You only know that there is a refrigerator in the kitchen, for example, or that there are spoons and forks in the table drawer. I think you know what I'm talking about.

So, for the first time since I woke up, I was in a state of near sensory shock. The thing is, I was never Asian! Japanese life is torture for the European mind in a particularly sophisticated form. When I watched anime, read manga and so on, I didn't see everything I had to dive into without preparation.

I think it's worth starting with the difference in... everything! For example, how do the Japanese wash and bathe? When we wash in the bathroom and everyone gets water for themselves, in this country it is customary to wash first and then enjoy the hot water. Why is that? And it's simple: there are stupidly few sources of fresh water in Japan.

That's it. It was wild for me, and I am sure they would have suspected something if I, a three-year-old boy named Arata Miyazaki, had not been accompanied everywhere by nannies. My adult self was drooling over the anime perfect figures of Japanese women who undress in the bathroom in all the works, even when they came to rub OYASH's back.

I hoped so, and my hopes were justified. For the first time, a young woman named Miyuki-san was in the bathroom with me. I wouldn't say she was a beauty, but she wasn't scary either. And it was in the bathroom that I realized the meaning of the word "bummer".

She turned out to have a completely boyish figure, meaning narrow hips, a very small butt, thin, unattractive legs, and no breasts. I was very, very sad, but hoping for the best.

By the way, my sad state was explained by the serious consequences of the injury (what kind of injury they are silent about) and I need time. A week later my hope faded a lot, and a month later I said goodbye to it, and probably as a defense mechanism my brain gave away the memory of the gorgeous figures of northern women — tall blondes, with amazing data.

Well, a person needs a dream to live. And in the bathrooms I simply stopped paying attention to these women, because even the most curvaceous ones turned out to be stupidly plump, which made their breasts sag, and the desire to look at anything else disappeared instantly. Even vague hints of thoughts appeared, but I only understood their direction much later, when I grew up.

The rituals of eating, speaking, talking, and literally everything else here fell under a certain code of conduct that EVERYONE followed! And even though I quickly found out that I lived in a very unusual family, it did not change anything because in Japan it is customary to behave in a certain way. Just the suffixes "-san", "-chan", "-sama" and others, what are they worth?! In short, it was very difficult and mentally difficult. Yes, and it was just lonely, but I realized that much later.

But time went by, I got involved, and gradually I lost the habit of comparing everything. And when I finally did, I realized that there was no such abyss as I had imagined.

Anime shows a lot about Japanese life, but keeps even more hidden. In fact, the same people live here, and the fact that they have developed their own standards of behavior is what makes people and cultures different from others, and that's what makes them interesting. Eating with chopsticks?

Well, not from restaurant plates, which are not very comfortable, but from specially made bowls and cups. And the rice here is not the same at all, and you can really fill up on it. Well, the fact that women aren't anime at all... I don't want to get used to that, I have completely different tastes, and my ex-girlfriend Maria (she loved to be called that) is proof of that.

Tall, with double breasts, a beautiful round ass and strong slender legs, mischievous honey eyes and a short, messy haircut. Eh, a cool girl, and she was really waiting for me — my friends never talked about suspicions (we agreed on this topic with them, I know, it's not very nice, but I had to be sure, because I wanted to get married immediately after the army). I hope she will be happy — she deserves it.

After half a year of living in a child's body, I managed to overhear a conversation that made me think a lot. Two women working at the mansion were discussing how the young master (that's what they call me here) had changed dramatically after a certain Jirou-sama almost killed him.