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Re:life; prologue (3)
🕑 Added 2025-03-09 21:51:22 +0000 UTC*[Monica’s Apartment – Living Room]
Danial sat down on the couch next to his uncle Jack, listening to fake stories of war, knowing full well that Jack never went to war. Still, he had to pretend that he was listening, nodding as he saw him picking food from his teeth when Monica came.
“Dad, please, don’t pick your teeth out here! And if you’re gonna put your feet up, why don’t you sit…” Monica couldn’t finish the sentence because Phoebe yelled, “Monica, leave him alone!”
This gave Danial the opportunity to leave his uncle’s side and go to the kitchen to drink some water, only to see Joey trying to rush Rachel.
“Will you hurry up?” Joey said a little loudly and then continued, “Did you not hear me before when I said all of Jeneen’s friends are dancers, huh? And they’re gonna be drinking *a lot*!”
“No, I did, but tell me again ’cause it’s so romantic,” Rachel said sarcastically.
“You’re moving too slowly! Can’t you do it any faster?”
“Joey, no, I can’t! ’Cause I don’t want to screw it up. Otherwise, everyone will be like, ‘Oh, do you remember that Thanksgiving when Rachel screwed up that trifle?’”
He drank his water while listening to the rest of the conversation but didn’t linger there much longer because he already knew the trifle was screwed up. Instead, he went to see if he could rile up Ross some more and get him to stop stalling.
“Ross, I told you, if you don’t tell them, I will,” Monica said.
“Okay, fine!” Ross said and stood up just as Danial arrived. He was about to mock Ross when Joey came.
“Ross, can I talk to you for a second?” Joey said.
“Can it wait a second, Joey? I have to tell my parents something. No, it can’t? Okay…” Ross went into the guest room.
Danial just scoffed and looked at Monica, who was sitting on the ground, and sat beside her.
“You know he’s just gonna keep stalling, right? If you want to clear all this, you’re gonna have to do it yourself,” Danial said to Monica, who just sighed.
“I know,” she whispered.
“And are you sure you want to tell them about him? You could dump him now, and I’ll have you meet one of the finest surgeons in the U.S.,” Danial teased a little, only to receive a smack to the back of his head.
“Don’t meddle in the affairs of adults,” Monica told him before she stood up, ruffled his hair, and went to talk with Phoebe, leaving him alone with Chandler.
“It’s like in her eyes I’m still a six-year-old kid,” Danial mumbled.
“You’re not?” Chandler tried to start a conversation with him by giving a sarcastic comment.
“I don’t know what she sees in you. To me, you’re the insensitive dork friend of Ross… So let me tell you something,” Danial looked at him and said, not acknowledging the sarcastic comment thrown his way.
“I am a prodigy, and I am already one of the top surgeons in NY before even completing my residency. So I know the human body very, very well…”
“Is this going somewhere, or are you just bragging?” Chandler interrupted him with sarcasm again. Still, Danial just continued.
“…so let me warn you now: If you break her heart, I will break you, I will rearrange your organs in a way that even Joey would know is wrong—and no one will know how I did it.” Danial looked Chandler dead in the eyes and said this with utmost seriousness.
Chandler tried to deflect sarcastically again, but seeing Danial looking him dead in the eyes freaked him out a little, making him stand up and run to Joey, who was asking them to come to the table.
Danial didn’t really want to do this, but Monica was really the only reason he did it because he considered Monica the only family he had left.
She was always the one who stood by his side ever since his parents’ death.
She was his older sister, so he had to make sure Chandler was in line.
‘Since when did become the overprotective brother’ I wondered in my head
Still, it wasn’t a bad thing, this was real life after all, not a sitcom…
“Hey, and if anyone wants some help pretending to like it, I learned…” He tuned out Joey, who was explaining to them about the dessert and how they should act, etc.
“Yeah, I’m not paying for those acting classes anymore,” he heard Chandler say.
The door to the apartment opened. Rachel and Ross came inside, and Joey again started rushing Rachel into serving the dessert.
“Okay, everybody, it’s trifle time!” Rachel said in a sing-song tone.
“So, Rach, this is a traditional English trifle, isn’t it?” Phoebe said. “Yeah” answered Rachel
“Wow, so did you make it with beef or eggplant?”
“Beef.”
“I can’t have any. You know I can’t eat beef. Ugh!” Phoebe said, stood up, and went into the guest room trying hard not to show a smile….
“You know I don’t eat dessert right after dinner either. How about you give my piece to Ross? I’m sure he’ll be delighted,” Danial said as he smiled sweetly before going into the guest room too, leaving the rest to fend for themselves.
---
### **[Guest Room]**
Danial entered the room only to find Phoebe reading his draft of *Harry Potter*. He had bought it from the market of the company during his birthday session—this issue was sold by one of the best versions of Rowling for a sizable sum.
“What are you doing?” Danial asked.
“Oooh, oh, you scared me. Is this your book?” Phoebe replied to his question with a question.
“Hmm, yeah, this is the first book of a series I’m planning on publishing soon. I’ll give you a copy when it’s done,” he told her.
“Hmm, okay. I was going to take a quick nap, but you can join me if you want,” she said with exaggerated eyebrow movements while licking her lips while putting the draft away.
“No need. You can take your nap. I have some things I need to read,” Danial refused and sat on the other side of the bed, took some papers out of the bag, and started reading.
---
### **[Post-Dinner Chaos]**
Phoebe didn’t really take a nap. She just laid down for a while before she woke up and went out of the room.
“Rachel, come here!” Phoebe called, and Rachel was soon in front of her.
“I was just starting to take my Thanksgiving nap, and I had another dream about Jack.”
“Oh, Phoebe, do I wanna hear this?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Let’s see… I dreamed that we were gonna get married, and he left to fight a fire, but then I went to a nightclub and I saw him kissing another girl.”
“Oh my God, he dream-cheated on you!”
“Yeah, but then Jacques Cousteau came and kicked his ass for cheating on me. It was so cool, and then he took me diving, and that’s where…”
Danial went out of the room and interrupted her a little, but she soon continued telling her story while he went to sit at the table in the kitchen.
“Ross, let’s go,” Monica said.
“Oh, yes, about telling Mom and Dad… I was thinking maybe write a letter…”
“You know what? That’s it. You’ve had your chance!” Monica said as she went towards her parents in the living room
“Pffttt!” Danial tried hard to keep himself from laughing after seeing Ross’s reaction.
“Mom, Dad, Ross smoked pot in college!” Monica told them directly.
“Whaaa” “what?”
“You are such a tattletale!!” Ross said to her while making a face.
“Mom, Dad, remember that time you walked into my room and smelled marijuana?” Ross asked them.
“Yes,” they both answered simultaneously at the same time while giving Chandler a judging look.
“Well, I told you it was Chandler who was smoking the pot, but it was me. I’m sorry.”
“It was *you*?” Aunt Judy said in a disappointed tone.
“And Dad, you know that mailman…”
Monica and Ross continued their back-and-forth, joined by the entire gang except Danial, who just sat there, amused by the spectacle in front of him.
The news of Ross’s divorce reminded him that he forgot most of what happened in the show he watched before his reincarnation. True, he had an eidetic memory, but that only worked on his memory of this life and not his past life memories.
Watching Ross squirming under his parents’ disappointment was a pleasure, really.
---
### **[Balcony – Midnight Smoke]**
After Jack and Judy left with the gang, Danial went onto the balcony to smoke a cigarette and think about how to proceed with publishing his new *Harry Potter* series.
He thought about using his actual name this time, but it just didn’t work for him. He was a surgeon, and he liked being a surgeon, so he deleted that idea as soon as it came and decided to do the same thing he did previously and publish it under his pen name: **CONAN**.
That way, the book would sell faster because of his already established massive fan base from his *Toy Story* children’s book series and *Sherlock Holmes* series.
“What are you doing? Since when do you smoke? Give me that!!!” Monica’s voice came from behind him, and she pulled his ear too, making him give her the cigarette.
“Relax, will you? It’s just one cigarette every now and then, and I have my detox formula, so it’s all good,” he told her, but the pointed look she gave him clearly said she didn’t like it.
“What can this detox formula even do to cancer?” Monica asked.
“Well, it’s not for cancer per se. It just breaks down the toxins in the body and blood and makes them exit with your pee and sweat,” he explained in the best way so she could understand it.
“There’s such a miracle drug?” she asked with enthusiasm.
“Yeah, I created it. It’s the powder I gave you for your birthday.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that earlier!!!” She raised her voice and went out of the balcony into the kitchen, with Danial following her.
“I still have it in here somewhere,” she kept saying while going through the cabinet. “Aha! Here it is!”
“Yeah, just a spoonful into a glass of water. Wait for it to dissolve and drink it,” Danial gave her the instructions.
“Okay, okay,” she mumbled while doing what she’s told. “Don’t think I forgot about you smoking mister! I will still give you a piece of my mind, miracle drug or not!!”
………….
