"Hifumi, it's good to finally talk to you like this for the first time in well over a year now, sorry about shipping you out and into your own apartment just after you started your last year of Middleschool, I mean after the fire that burnt down a portion of your house along with me and your mother having to work in Kyoto now we did what we thought was best for you at the time." Dad went onto explain for me, but I knew that already.
"No dad it's fine, it's my fault for what happened back then anyway, it was childish what I did and I wasn't thinking straight and I caused that accident that wrecked our old house." Yeah because the 'Old' Hifumi was the cause of his house getting burnt down.
To sum it up from what I can recall from his memories in particular as it was recent enough in his memories for me to remember it clearly, and basically his sister, who is now my older sister, broke some of his most priceless memorabilia from the Demon Angel ⭐️Pretty Pudgy Princess series, so I set off a bunch of fireworks in her bedroom and some of her things were highly flammable and thus my and her bedrooms were ultimately destroyed leaving us both devastated and to this day she hasn't forgiven me nor does she want to talk to me, hell I wouldn't want to talk with me if I did something like that either.
"No don't worry about it, it's all water under the bridge as an old family friend of my was able to help with the damages and later selling off the house when it was repaired as well, besides from everything I have heard about you doing in the meantime just shows me and your mom that you changed for the best, I even heard that you got your own place from the royalties of selling those mangas you made, you know I'm quite surprised from how much you could make from selling those to afford your own house!" He said seeming rather proud of me making me scratch the back of my head.
"Well…. The sales are doing good on my manga since it's one of the best in the country, but one of my friends is an expert businessman and he got me into stocks and it made me plenty of money from investing in the stock market properly, and that's how I was able to buy my own place." Nobody knows, outside my group, that I'm the real owner of the All Worlds Goods Company, so selling stocks was the reason why I have so much money.
"Then that's great to hear my boy! To say I'm proud of how you changed yourself for the better would be an understatement, when I asked Hopes Peak how you were doing in particular me and your mother were shocked beyond words when they showed us a picture of your current self, it's like a night and day difference between who you were well over a year ago!" He said which got me embarrassed a bit hearing him say that.
"Well I just wanted to get healthy is all, I know that you were worried about me and Sis's health with our bad eating habits making us both overweight, and let's just say I had a wake up call that made me want to get healthy and fast." After all the original Hifumi died from choking on some dry ramen after all, then again I still have most of his memories, with fragments of his distant memories as well as his personality traits but my other lifes experiences being longer than his life and having more of an impact on me has left a much deeper impact on who I am now as a whole.
"Well I'm glad to hear that, haaa, if only your sister could try to get healthy like you did that would take the weight off mine and your mothers shoulders." He said to me as I nodded, while not as overweight as me back then my sister is definitely on the fat side of the spectrum.
"Speaking of sis, how is she doing, I know she doesn't want to talk to me after what happened, but I hope she is doing well." I asked to which Dad just chuckled.
"She's alright, you should know how much she loves her…. Works, but if it makes her happy and pays for her bills who am I to complain?" He said which made me cringe at remembering Sis is also a famous BL/Yaoi Mangaka and Doujinshi creator, she is one of the main causes plenty of girls turn into Fujoshi's from the things she makes, but he is right it does pay well for her, even if I find that stuff disgusting.
"Well enough about that, did you just call to check in with me dad and see how I was doing? Or was there something else?" I ask him to which he chuckles a bit.
"Well the main thing was to check up on you of course but there was another thing I needed to talk to you about, it's about your future." He said sounding serious making me raise my eyebrow.
"My future? Dad if your worried about my financial situation-" But he cut me off.
"No it's not that, I know with your amazing skills your set for life, and even more so if your making plenty of money from the stock market like you said, no this is about you fiancée." He says which makes me pause for a second.
I dig my finger into my ear, thinking I have something stuck in it, "I'm sorry I didn't quite catch that, I Have a What Now?"
"Look I know it sounds rather unbelievable to you if you don't remember the time when you were a little kid but the guy who helped cover for the damages to our old house? He's an old friend of mine that I knew back in my highschool days along with a few others and you and his daughter along with several other kids from various others who I grew up with in Highschool all hung out together for a summer back in your first home in Saitama remember?" He said to me as I tried to think but it was blurry.
I wasn't fat back then but chubby would be more the correct term to call me when I was a kid since mom let me eat whatever I wanted between meals, but I do remember growing up in Saitama and that our first house was there.
I was trying to recall and then I realized something, "Was one of your friends in highschool named Issei Ichijō?"
"Yeah, me and Issei go way back, he was one of the family friends that was around their that summer along with his son, but the guy I'm talking about is Gen Tachibana and his daughter Marika." He said to me and suddenly-
*Click*
A wave of memories that the 'Original' Hifumi before we both became who we are now memories flooded into my mind as I went silent with this info entering my mind, but what I felt right now when I heard that name.
Anger
Rage
Betrayal
Those feelings were deep down to my bones from just hearing that name, and reliving those memories after remembering what had happened I can't help but feel the same way when I think about her.
"Dad…. Don't ever talk to me about her ever again, do whatever you have to but break off this engagement." I said in a steady voice but I had to hold back my anger as in this life, what she did to Hifumi set him on his path to distance himself from people in general, gain extreme weight and especially have an extreme level of hate for normal women where he could only fall in love with fictional and two dimensional characters as they would never betray his trust and never break his heart like she did all those years ago.
"Hifumi I-"
"My decision is final dad, don't ever bring her up again, I got to go." I said before promptly hanging up my phone and turning it off so he couldn't call me again.
*Inhale* "Huuuuuu….. That's not my problem and it better stay that way…." I say before calming myself down and heading back into the WcDonalds and hanging out with the guys.