Dying was exhausting.
Reincarnating was somehow worse.
‘You’d think the universe would give a normal guy a break after his heart gives out,’ I mused, trapped in absolute darkness.
‘Maybe a nice void.
A comfortable, temperature-controlled purgatory with decent Wi-Fi.
But no.’ Instead of a peaceful afterlife, I was currently experiencing what I could only describe as being shoved into a warm, incredibly restrictive meat tube.
Actually, let’s skip the gritty birthing details.
Let’s just say waking up as a newborn baby is the ultimate cosmic scam.
‘Why is it so bright?
And why does my head weigh ninety pounds?’ I complained internally, desperately trying to lift my face off a soft surface.
I was just an average, everyday guy in my past life.
My biggest daily struggle was deciding what to watch on streaming, and now my brain was spiraling in sheer, unadulterated panic.
The problem?
My physical vessel was a squishy, entirely useless potato.
I tried to roll over to get a better look at the room.
Instead, I just violently shat myself.
‘Well, there goes my dignity,’ I thought bitterly, letting my ridiculously heavy head fall back onto the mattress.
‘I guess that’s one way to assert dominance.’
Being a baby is a logistical nightmare.
It turns out that having the cognitive function of a grown adult doesn’t mean a thing when you lack the neck muscles to look left.
‘I just want to crawl out of this wooden prison and go back to sleep,’ I complained to myself.
‘Too bad my current maximum lifting capacity is a single, brightly colored block.
And even then, my only instinct is to try and eat it.’
Suddenly, a colossal shadow eclipsed the blinding light above my crib.
‘Giant!
Hide!’ my average-guy instincts panicked.
I tried to flail my arms in self-defense, but it came out as a happy, gurgling wiggle.
“Aww, look who’s finally awake,” a massive, incredibly gentle voice cooed.
A giant face hovered over me, complete with warm, kind eyes, soft brown hair tied loosely back, and a smile that immediately neutralized all my panic.
‘Okay, never mind.
She brings milk and clean diapers.
We like her,’ my lazy brain reasoned, relaxing my chubby little fists.
She reached down, her massive hands scooping me up with terrifying ease.
I was hoisted into the air, completely at her mercy.
“Grisha!
Come look!
He’s making that serious little face again,” the woman called out, bouncing me slightly in her arms.
‘Grisha?’ I paused, my tiny, underdeveloped eyebrows furrowing.
‘That name sounds way too familiar.’
Heavy footsteps echoed across the wooden floorboards, and another giant entered my limited field of vision.
He wore glasses, had a neatly trimmed beard, and carried an aura of perpetual, exhausting stress.
He looked like a guy who desperately needed a vacation.
“He’s very observant, Carla,” the man said, adjusting his glasses as he peered down at me.
“Much quieter than his brother, that’s for sure.”
‘Carla?
Grisha?’ My panicked brain kicked into overdrive, rapidly connecting the dots.
‘Wooden houses.
Pre-industrial clothing.
A doctor named Grisha and a mom named Carla.
Oh, you have got to be kidding me.’
I wasn’t just in some random historical era.
I was in Attack on Titan.
The literal worst tourist destination in the multiverse.
‘A world where giant, naked cannibals treat humanity like a casual buffet,’ I mentally groaned, feeling a massive headache forming.
‘And I’m just a normal dude who used to complain about walking up three flights of stairs.’
My internal panic was abruptly interrupted by a sharp, sudden kick to my ribs.
I slowly turned my heavy head to the left, looking back down into the crib Carla had just lifted me from.
There, wrapped tightly in a blanket, was another baby.
He was red-faced, angry at the world, and currently punching the air as if the oxygen had personally insulted him.
“Eren is going to be a handful,” Grisha sighed, affectionately rubbing the angry baby’s head.
“He never stops fighting, even in his sleep.” ‘Eren.
Eren Yeager.
The suicidal blockhead himself.
And he is my roommate.’
Wait.
If Carla is my mom…
and Grisha is my dad…
and Eren is in my crib…
I am Eren Yeager’s twin brother.
This is a sick joke.
I stared down at the angry potato aggressively kicking his blankets.
‘Do you have any idea how much work you are going to be?’ I directed my thoughts at him, utterly exhausted just thinking about the next fifteen years.
‘You’re going to scream at Titans.
You’re going to get eaten.
You’re going to try and destroy the world.
And I’m going to have to somehow survive sitting right next to you without having a heart attack.’
Eren suddenly stopped punching the air, blinked his large, intense green eyes, and let out a loud, demanding wail.
Carla laughed softly, gently placing me back down next to the screaming menace.
“Shh, Eren.
Your brother is right here.
Kai is going to look out for you,” she whispered, tucking the blankets securely around us both.
‘Kai.
So that’s my name.
And no, Carla, I am absolutely not looking out for him,’ I thought stubbornly.
‘I am going to sleep.
I am taking a nap for the next ten years until the Colossal Titan kicks our door in.’ Eren wailed louder, his tiny fist accidentally smacking me right in the nose.
My everyday-guy brain just felt incredibly annoyed.
I didn’t have any cool combat reflexes to parry it, I just got smacked in the face by an infant.
I sighed, a tiny, baby puff of air escaping my lips.
‘Fine.
I’ll make sure he doesn’t die.
But only because if he dies, Mikasa is going to be depressed, and sad people are incredibly exhausting to be around.’
Growing up as a normal guy trapped in a squishy baby body was genuinely miserable.
My mind wanted to eat junk food and avoid responsibilities, but physically I was limited to drooling, burping, and staring blankly at the ceiling.
‘It takes so much effort just to sit up,’ I complained to myself after a month of baby imprisonment.
‘I tried to do it today and just flopped over like a sad pancake.
Eren, meanwhile, is attempting to bite the wooden bars of the crib.
He has no teeth.
It makes absolutely no sense.’
Months passed in an agonizing blur of mashed peas and humiliating diaper changes.
I tried to maintain whatever was left of my dignity; whenever Carla changed me, I would look away, projecting an aura of absolute stoicism.
‘Do what you must, mom,’ I would think, staring blankly at the wall.
‘My pride is already gone anyway.’ Eren, on the other hand, fought every single diaper change like it was a battle for the fate of humanity.
He would kick, squirm, and scream while I would just lie there quietly, wondering how many years it would take before I could legally move out.
‘If I just start walking in one direction, maybe I can leave before Wall Maria falls,’ I fantasized, chewing on my fist to soothe my teething gums.
‘No, wait.
That sounds like way too much cardio.
Napping is easier.’
By the time we learned to crawl, the differences between us became painfully obvious to everyone, especially our parents.
Eren was a pure force of nature.
He crawled with intense purpose, usually heading toward something dangerous, like the fireplace or a sharp corner.
I, however, found myself crawling like I was trying to sneak to the fridge at 3 AM.
I stuck to the shadows out of pure habit.
‘Okay, mom’s not looking.
Time to grab that dropped piece of bread under Grisha’s chair,’ I would narrate in my head, dragging my belly across the floorboards.
“Kai is…
very sneaky, isn’t he?” Grisha noted one evening, watching me silently slide behind a bookshelf to avoid being put to bed.
“He’s just cautious,” Carla smiled, though she looked a little unnerved by how I was peeking at them from the shadows like a tiny, chubby raccoon.
“Eren tried to fight a stray dog today,” Grisha sighed, aggressively rubbing his temples.
“He’s one year old, Carla.
The dog was terrified.”
‘That’s my brother,’ I thought from behind the bookshelf, happily chewing on the stolen bread.
‘Zero survival instincts.
One hundred percent unbridled aggression.
I am going to have to keep a very close eye on him.’
My lazy brain was already dreading the future.
‘Maybe I can just hide behind him when the fighting starts.’
‘No,’ I decided, swallowing the bread crumb.
‘Carla would cry.
We protect Carla at all costs.’ Suddenly, two massive hands reached behind the bookshelf, effortlessly hauling me up into the air.
“Found you, little hider,” Carla giggled, gently poking my nose.
‘Well, I tried,’ I thought lazily, giving up instantly and letting myself go completely limp in her arms.
As she carried me to the bedroom and placed me in the crib next to an already-snoring Eren, I stared up at the wooden ceiling.
‘This world is a literal death trap.
Giant monsters are going to eat everyone we know in about nine years,’ I stressed out internally.
‘I have no magic powers.
I have no system that grants me instant godhood.
I don’t even have basic stamina.
I’m just a guy.’
Eren rolled over in his sleep, his tiny arm flopping heavily over my face and blocking my vision.
I didn’t even bother moving it.
I was way too tired to fight back.
‘Yeah,’ I thought, closing my eyes under the weight of my brother’s chubby arm.
‘We’re definitely going to need a miracle.
Or at least a really good hiding spot.’
‘But that sounds like a tomorrow problem.
Right now, I just need to sleep.
Growin
g this much hair is exhausting.’
_____________————-_____________
Slaps the side of my phone until it finally works…
Typing_In_My_Sleep here!
Great news, everyone: the new fan fiction is finally, officially up!
First off, a massive apology to @Black_Dragon157 for keeping you waiting so incredibly long for this one.
I actually had the chapters cooked up, but I ran into a really frustrating issue trying to get my drafts to sync with the app.
Apparently, the technology was just as exhausted as I am and decided to take a forced vacation.
But the technical difficulties are over, and the story is live!
Please go check it out, and if you enjoy what you read, please show some support!
Navigating this platform as a newbie author while trying to survive my anatomy textbooks is a wild ride, and your support genuinely helps and means the absolute world to me.
Alright, the app is working, the chapters are out, and my eyelids are drooping.
Retreating to my pillow now—catch you in the next
one!