Time passed more gently than Mio had expected.
Days became weeks.
Weeks quietly turned into months.
The hurried rhythm of his previous life slowly gave way to a much slower one.
Every morning, he would wake to the smell of breakfast drifting upstairs.
Every afternoon, Reina would sit with him in the living room while soft music played in the background.
Every evening, Michael returned home carrying the faint scent of coffee and the cool breeze from outside, always greeting his family before doing anything else.
Little by little...
Those simple moments became his new normal.
---
At first...
He remembered everything.
The endless overtime.
The tiny apartment.
The crowded train rides.
Even the fluffy God of Death who had sent him here.
Sometimes, after waking from a nap, he would stare at the ceiling, expecting white emptiness instead of the familiar wooden beams above him.
Instead...
He would always hear Reina humming nearby.
Or Reo laughing as he searched the house for his missing homework.
Or Michael asking from downstairs,
"Has anyone seen my tie?"
"It's around your neck!" Reina answered with a laugh.
"Oh."
"...Right."
"..."
Mio quietly watched the exchange from his crib.
It was...
Noisy.
Yet somehow...
Comforting.
---
When Mio was around ten or eleventh months old...
Something began to change.
Not around him.
But within him.
The memories he had clung to for months...
Started slipping away.
One afternoon, he sat on the living room rug, absentmindedly stacking colourful wooden blocks while Reina folded freshly dried laundry beside him.
There was...
Something important.
He was certain of it.
Something he used to remember so clearly.
He reached for it.
Like trying to recall a dream after waking.
"..."
What was my...
His thoughts stopped.
My...
My...
The next word never came.
He frowned.
For some reason...
He couldn't remember what he had been trying to remember.
The feeling lingered.
The memory didn't.
---
By then...
Reo had already started primary school.
Every weekday morning, the house became noticeably livelier.
"I'm leaving!"
"Don't forget your homework."
"I won't!"
"You said that yesterday too."
"..."
"...I'm leaving!"
Michael chuckled as Reo hurried out the front door, school bag bouncing behind him.
Not even five minutes later...
The front door slid open again.
"I forgot my homework."
"..."
Reina sighed.
"I wonder who predicted that."
Michael only laughed.
"Go on."
"Your friends are waiting."
Reo scratched the back of his head sheepishly before rushing back outside.
Just beyond the gate, three boys waved enthusiastically.
"Reo!"
"Hurry up!"
"I'm coming!"
Mio watched from the living room window as his older brother disappeared down the quiet street, chatting excitedly with his friends.
Every afternoon...
Reo returned with a new story.
Sometimes about a race during recess.
Sometimes about getting scolded by his teacher.
Sometimes about a stray cat that had followed them home.
Mio rarely replied.
But he always listened.
And somehow...
Reo never seemed to mind.
---
As the months quietly passed...
More and more of his previous life faded.
The office became hazy.
The faces of his coworkers blurred together.
Even the name he had carried for more than twenty years...
Eventually slipped away.
Sometimes, he'd stop in the middle of playing.
Feeling as though he'd forgotten someone important.
But no matter how hard he searched...
Nothing came.
---
By the time he turned two...
The thought of another life no longer felt real.
If someone had asked him who he was...
His answer would've come naturally.
"I'm Mio."
Not because he had forgotten.
But because...
That name finally belonged to him.
---
Only one fragment remained.
Sometimes...
Usually just before falling asleep...
Two quiet words echoed somewhere deep inside him.
Ace...
...of Diamond.
He didn't know what they meant.
A place?
A story?
A dream?
Whenever he tried to remember...
The feeling disappeared like mist beneath the morning sun.
Eventually...
He stopped chasing it.
---
Life continued.
The seasons changed.
Reo grew taller.
Mio slowly learned to run without tripping over his own feet.
And little by little...
The quiet, reserved child who had once struggled to smile...
Began smiling without even realising it.