My sister and I were growing up without any problems and receiving lots of love from our parents, I was currently 5 years old while my sister was 2, my mom and dad already let me out of the house to walk around, but even then, they still told me not to go too far away so I always stayed relatively close to home, another thing that has changed is that now I no longer have to pretend that my speech is slurred, now that I am 5 years old, I think it is the perfect age to stop pretending, another reason I made this decision is that it was honestly tiresome to pretend all the time whenever I needed to speak.
And that brings us to today, I was looking for some kind of game that I could play with my sister, although she is still only 2 years old this will be good to help Anna in her thinking and concentration, while thinking about this I make my way to the kitchen where I find my father sitting at the table.
"Daddy, can you help me with something?"
As soon as I called out, he turned to me and placed me on his lap.
"Sure Ren, but what exactly do you need my help with?"
As soon as my father asked this, I began to elaborate to him what I wanted him to do for me.
"I want to make something so I can play with Anna, so I thought I would make a game, I wanted Dad to help me with that"
"Well I don't mind, but I need you to instruct me how to do it"
After that my father and I made our way to one of the rooms in the house where we were storing wood.
"Alright, what should I do first Ren?"
After my father's question I pointed to one of the logs in the room and the axe.
"First I want you to cut this piece of wood and make it into a square shape"
Following my words my father does what I asked and soon the piece of wood turns into a square, it's not perfect but it looks pretty good, it's pretty close to what I had in mind.
"Is that good?"
"Make it a little smaller"
After that my father makes it even smaller looking even more like the board I had seen in my previous life.
"That's good, now I need 24 round pieces that fit inside the squares"
As soon as I said that my father picked up a small piece of wood and a knife, seconds later he showed me what he had made.
"That way?"
"Yes, exactly like that, now I just need 23 more of these pieces"
After that my father started to make one piece after another while I painted some of them black with a piece of charcoal, as soon as we finished, I wiped the sweat from my face and a slight smile broke out on my face seeing that it turned out exactly as I had imagined, in fact it was even better since we didn't have the necessary materials to make the game, i explained the rules to my father and soon we started playing a game, 5 minutes after we started the game, I won a complete victory against him.
"That is a pretty interesting and fun game, but where did you get the idea to make a game like that from?"
"Nowhere, I just thought of making a game and this idea came to my mind"
I lied to my father, for a start I don't intend to tell anyone that I died and was reincarnated here, although it is true that I have the memories of my old life this is a life that has passed, here and now I am and always will be Ren.
***
Another time had passed, I was now 7 years old while Anna was 4, I spent a lot of time playing Checkers with Anna, we had a lot of fun playing together, the game became so popular that I and some other children would gather at my house to play, it was at one of these gatherings that we decided to play at the front of our house, while we were playing, I hear a voice that didn't sound like any of our friends or the neighbors.
"Hey you kids, what are you doing?"
The one who asked this after slipping into the middle of our wheel was the man who came to our small town to sell things, it was the merchant.
(By the way, today was the day he came, right?)
I thought, then immediately replied the man as I continued to play against my opponent.
"We are playing Checkers"
"Checkers?"
"Yes"
After that the man kept looking at the game as if he was thinking about something.
"Hey, would you guys mind if I played a game of this so-called Checkers?"
After the man's question I looked at the people who would be playing and saw that none of them seemed bothered by the idea.
"Alright then, you can be next"
As soon as I said that I captured the last piece from my friend winning the game.
"Damn, as usual you are good at this"
Said my friend leaving while a sad look surrounded his face.
"You can come now sir..."
I was about to ask the man to sit down but I remembered that I didn't know his name.
"Ahahahaha, I was so intrigued by this game that I forgot to introduce myself, my name is Bernard"
"Likewise, my name is Ren"
After my words Bernard looked at me surprised for a few seconds before returning to his normal posture.
"What happened?"
"I'm sorry if this sounds rude, I was surprised for a moment since you didn't seem to be that well versed in etiquette"
"Hmm? What do you mean by that?"
After my words again Bernard seems surprised by something.
"Don't tell me you haven't noticed?"
"Sorry but I still don't know what you are talking about"
(I just introduced myself as every Japanese would introduce himself, was that so strange?)
I wondered wondering what all the surprise was about, I don't think I introduced myself in some grandiose way or anything, I think I introduced myself like any ordinary Japanese person.