3 Who am I?

In life every gain hides a loss, similarly, every loss hides a gain.

I was robbed of a normal life from birth, the abilities that most would possess were alien to me, the kids running around flipping on their heads might as well have been web-swinging from building to building; I could not do either.

Most of my days were spent in the hospital, sometimes I could return home but that was usually met with a quick decline in my health that my parents would not take kindly to, resulting in me being booted right back to Doctor Toby.

The gains I received from my losses were not small however, I spent my days reading; fiction or non-fiction, I did not discriminate. Language, speech, mathematics, these things that most found annoying were tiny parts of my life that I shared with those of my age and as such I cherished that normalcy. I cherished it to the extent that my expertise with those subjects went beyond normalcy, rendering me once again abnormal.

Fiction, however, was something that I always loved and never grew tired of. The beauty in the stories made me feel like my life was a part of those characters hidden in the words I read, I was not just me, a boy stuck on a bed, rather I was a connoisseur of experiences! I ran with Naruto, sailed with Luffy and swang from building to building with Spider-Man, it made me feel like I was so much more. In retrospect, that makes me sound so fucking pretentious and weird haha, but in the situation I was in, I was weird enough, why not be happy and weird instead?

But that wasn't a curse always, I regularly found myself using the skills I picked up being "abnormal" when the situation called for it, and this was one of those situations.

I was awake and had been for about 5 minutes.

Sometimes I'd do this when I felt the presence of someone else in the room as I woke, whether it was a nurse puttering away at some machine I was hooked up to or a family member visiting me, I'd be awake but pretend to be fast asleep, eyes tightly shut, not moving with an even breath.

That last part was hard to keep up though.

'Was I fucking mutilated?'

I felt my body through the sheets, it was not one I was familiar with.

My body was approximately 6'2, thin frame with wide-set shoulders… this felt like half of that.

'Not mutilation, I'm sure I can feel my feet and hands under the blanket, my head is pressed against a soft pillow and I can also feel both ears attached to me… so what's with the size? Was I hit by a shrink ray? Did Doofenshmirtz fire off an inator?'

Ugh, making dumb jokes in stressful situations was a habit I picked up from a young age, it was annoying, more so as I often annoyed myself when I did it.

Feeling no more need to pretend to be asleep, I did a "totally realistic groan" and fluttered my eyes open, right as I did so I met the gaze of the nurse who was looking after me. She was a slightly plump woman with auburn hair wearing what I thought to be pretty archaic nurse clothes, I was more used to the blue scrubs from my time at the hospital.

"Oh! You're up! Hi, sweetie, how are you feeling?" asked the nurse in a friendly tone. 

Again, the language felt like one I had no business knowing but it automatically translated and I instantly understood everything she said, testing the waters I replied with a curt "Ok."

The nurse pursed her lips and smiled before walking away, "I'll call the doctor in, sit tight ok?" she said, all but rushing away from me.

'Did I sound weird?'

I could recognise the language I was speaking as Japanese but I couldn't for the life of me understand what was happening with my words right now. I had heard of a kid who woke up speaking French after getting hit in the head, was something like that happening to me now? And even if it was, why did the lady rush away so quickly?

I thought back to make sure I wasn't acting weird and came to the conclusion that the lady was "afraid" of me the second I opened my eyes, she tried to hide the small jump she made when I groaned but I could feel it as she was quite a large lady and her jumps were not as stealthy as most.

'Speaking a foreign language, spooking a fat nurse and stuck in a bed while being half my size.' 

Frankly, there was too much shit going on for me to panic, it was odd but I took everything that happened on the chin, I was worried that I was piling it all up and I was going to break and spaz out at the situation but that probably wouldn't happen… probably.

I didn't have to wait much longer before a doctor came into the room to check on me, this man was also stout with a short stature, he quickly did some checks on my body while not sparing me a glance at all.

'These guys are really uncomfortable around me, the dude won't even look at me in the eyes!'

Keeping my complaints to myself I patiently waited for him to do his checks, after which he also basically ran out of the room, his little legs hobbling as he did so.

I quite liked my height before, even though I was bound to my bed I could chuckle at the memes that short guys had to face and I almost caught myself doing the same to the doctor as he walked away but then I remembered that I was probably even shorter than him right now.

'Am I now a member of the short king community?' I thought, trying to distract myself with a couple of jokes. 'At the very least, I'm a short prince! A short initiate? A shortstack! A short roya-'

*Creak*

The door opened to reveal a man in a robe, unlike the two I met before, he locked eyes with me and walked forwards with a gentle smile.

'Who's this gu- Cosplay?'

It took a while to register and it was difficult to keep my eyes from boggling out of my head, but the man in front of me had draped the Hokage cowl around himself from the anime Naruto, now that he was closer I noticed the hat he held between his elbow and body.

"Hello child, how are you?" asked the man in an all too familiar voice.

'Helmet dude! He's the cop! The cop's a cosplayer? The cosplayers a cop? He dressed up to meet a victi-'

"Child? Can you hear me?" he sounded out with a worried expression.

"Yes… I can." I was too confused to meet his gaze but scrutinised his outfit in the meantime, it was very high quality.

"Ohoho, I see. Are you feeling healthy?" He asked.

Finally meeting his gaze I looked at my "rescuer".

He had an aged face with tanned brown skin, the man's wisened figure was a little hunched over but in a way that commanded no less respect than if he were a younger man, conversely, it almost made him stand out more.

"I am feeling healthy… sir." I answered him.

'My voice is higher pitched' I was in such shock that I didn't realise. My voice that had just gone through puberty was once again a squeaker! Luckily, I added this to the stockpile of things I could panic over, but saved for a later date.

"Oho! No need for formalities child, you may call me Grandpa" He said with a smile that made me feel that he truly meant it.

That phrase he said unlocked a memory within me. That memory unlocked another, and another and another…

'Grandpa? Hokage? Old?!' My mind was rampant with crazy thoughts as I put one and two together.

"Child, are you sure you're ok?" asked "Grandpa".

I stayed silent, my mind reeling as I understood what was happening. In fact, the clues were there all along, my brain was probably purposefully blocking off that realisation as it was something too fucked up to comprehend.

'This is fucking crazy. No, no, no.'

I gripped my bedsheet as my heart started pounding faster. I didn't know anything.

My body, my voice, my speech… nothing. I'm not me, who am I?

"Who am I?" I managed to sound out. I didn't know why but I was tearing up, I was not prepared to handle the amount of stress that I was under. 

"Child… that is not an easy question to answer I'm afraid." said the old man. 

I felt lightheaded.

There was a pit in my stomach.

"Where are my parents?" I looked at the man and asked with a pleading expression.

I did not expect him to know. I did not know myself, if what I thought was true, I would never meet them again. I did not know anything. But I had to ask… right?

The old man said nothing but just laid a wrinkled hand on my shoulder, instantly I felt relief.

My heartbeat that was ramping up in frenzy slowed down and my mind, while still reeling with thoughts, no longer hurt as much. My vision that was darkening returned to normal, and my hands relaxed their grip on the bedsheets.

'He did something to me' I knew. I was too thankful to be shocked.

I broke my gaze with "Grandpa" and stared outside at the window that let a light breeze into the room, it was beautiful.

But it was not home.