Chapter Text
The rainy season was coming. The rainy season that would never come in the peaceful life of a small bird caretaker was coming to change her fate.
***
It had been seven long days since the rain had begun to fall on the land that was the heart of Japan.
Izumi Midoriya was twenty-two years old. The dark green hair stuck up at odd angles around her head and her green eyes. She stood at a height of 156 centimetres tall and had a normal build for a woman her age, with a modest bust. She had been in junior high school when she started working part-time as an animal caretaker. There, she found herself able to calm animals and birds so well that she became an expert in the field.
In an enormous park where wild animals were being cared for, Izumi first came to work with a smile and her cheeks flushed. She worked quickly and precisely, finding her way around the animals and birds without hesitation. With the time that she had saved due to the numerous animals and birds that she was caring for, she learned about various types of species of birds that she had never even seen before. As time went by, her abilities grew ever more impressive as she gained knowledge in the care of animals and birds and she could finally earn her pay. She was doing her job to save up enough to go back to school and get a degree as an animal caretaker, too.
***
On the first day of the rainy season, Izumi finished her job as a caretaker and started to walk home. When she got back, she began making lunch for herself. That afternoon, there came a knock at the door.
“I’m home!” Izumi exclaimed as she opened the door.
“Good morning, Izumi-chan,” greeted her friend.
“Yukino-chan, it’s great to see you! Your classes got cancelled. Is that the reason why you’re here today?”
“Yeah, but it looks like the weather’s getting worse, so we might have to cancel tomorrow, too.”
“What a shame... We’ve finally gotten nice weather for once.”
“Heehee,” Yukino giggled. “The weather’s supposed to stay like this for another two days. I brought you this.”
Yukino held out a parcel wrapped in pretty wrapping paper with a pretty bow.
“What is this? It’s super cute!” Izumi’s eyes sparkled with surprise and anticipation as she took the parcel from Yukino. “Thanks, Yukino-chan!”
“You’re welcome.”
***
The next morning, the first day of the rainy season, was warm and humid. Izumi was making breakfast when she heard a loud kraa.
“I wonder who it is at this hour? Well, they must have come in the night to hide somewhere because nobody told me,” she said aloud as she glanced at the window. Izumi walked over to the window and looked out. She could see a small raven sitting on the roof of her home, so she went outside to talk to the little brown-necked raven.
“What are you doing here?” Izumi asked.
The raven stared at her with its bright gold eyes, then squawked angrily.
“Do you have something you need help with? Come inside,” Izumi told her, turning her back on the raven so she didn’t have to look at it. “I’ll make some food and let you out once you’re done.”
The raven slowly flew off.
“I wonder where he’ll go now that he’s left his nest.”
Izumi shrugged. She turned back towards the kitchen as she hummed a song that was on her lips. Then she stopped. She could hear the raven’s cries as they got closer. She rushed back outside to see what was happening.
Izumi ran to where the raven had landed in a tree in front of her house.
“Aha!” she exclaimed as she watched the raven hop off the branch into her hand.
It was still cawing as if in pain, so Izumi hurriedly sat it down on the branch of a nearby tree. “Is your leg okay?!” she asked, taking a better look at its foot. “Your foot’s all bloody! How did you get hurt like that?”
The raven croaked out again in pain as it tried to stand. Izumi got up from where she was sitting to get some water. “Here,” she said, offering him the cup.
The raven downed it before setting it back down on the branch and trying to get to his feet once more. He fell onto his side after only being able to stand on three of his four legs.
“I wonder if you’re hurt worse than you think,” she said as she took his leg in her hands. The raven screeched in pain when she touched the area between his talon and his ankle. Izumi pulled her hands back and wiped them on the front of her kimono as she examined him again. The raven whimpered sadly as he spread his wings in the air as if to say, “Please don’t hurt me anymore.”
Izumi paused for a moment to let herself rest her eyes.
“Hey,” she began.
The raven lifted his head to look at her.
“There’s going to be a lot of rain, so I’m afraid I might not be able to take you in when the sun comes back out.”
The raven turned his head away from her, and his beak trembled. As if to say, “Don’t abandon me,” he croaked out mournfully.
Izumi put a hand on her chest. “I wouldn’t,” she said gently, reassuring him with a gentle smile. “I won’t leave you alone. You just have to trust me.”
The raven nodded slowly, but his face was still full of anxiety. “I will,” he thought.
***
She carried the small raven inside and laid him out on her table. The bird looked around with curiosity but no genuine interest. He still seemed scared.
Izumi knew exactly what he was afraid of. The raven had been left out in the rain for over a week now, and he had grown used to that horrible sound of raindrops beating against his feathery skin. A storm came before dawn and left a trail of destruction across the land. It tore at the trees and it shook the earth.
The rain had stripped away the bird’s feathers, and it battered his beautiful body with the wind, the storm, and the cold of night. His beautiful face looked worn out, and it still filled his eyes with fear.
Izumi removed his torn feathers and cleaned him as best as she could before putting his plumage back on him in the same way as always. The small raven gave no reaction to his appearance as Izumi put him back on the table. She was about to return to her room when she heard a clicking noise coming from him. It sounded like the small bird’s beak was hurrying, but it was hard to tell since they were such infinitesimal movements.
As she took out the water bottle from her bag, Izumi spoke to him. “The sun will soon be coming back out, so we can be at home soon.”
The raven glanced at her before turning his head back towards the window with a loud clack-clack-clack noise.
Izumi laughed with joy. “Okay, I’ll make sure you have some breakfast first.”
She placed some food near his cage before looking at him again. She knew that he could eat just like humans, so she figured it would be alright as long as there wasn’t anything dangerous on it. Then she went back to preparing breakfast while enjoying the sounds of rain outside the windows. She wondered how much it would rain in the upcoming days. Maybe the storm would get even worse.
As Izumi went to eat her lunch, she heard a strange voice coming from the other room. She thought it was Yukino, but she quickly realized it was coming from the little brown-necked raven’s cage. The raven’s beak was clicking at an incredible speed, but she couldn’t understand what he was saying. It almost sounded like gibberish or a foreign language to her, but there was no doubt he was saying something. After all, he had been speaking with her all this time. She decided to have some fun with the little bird and she opened his cage door for him.
He trudged out of his cage and looked at her with a questioning expression on his face. His bright gold eyes narrowed with curiosity, but they seemed to have a hint of fear in them, too.
“Can you understand my voice?” asked Izumi with a smile.
The raven nodded his head while clacking his beak, before lifting it to speak out loud to her. “I understand what you’re saying.”
“Really?” Izumi gasped in delight and excitement. “Amazing! Can you say hello in Japanese?”
Izumi heard the raven slowly clicking his beak as if he were trying to repeat what she had just said to him in Japanese. The raven croaked out in pain from his wounds and his loss of freedom.
Izumi rushed over to where he was lying on the ground and she held him in her arms in a gesture of compassion. “Are you alright? Can you tell me where it hurts?”
“It hurts,” he replied through his cries.
“Oh! I’ll get some water for you!”
Izumi ran back to the kitchen and returned with a cup filled with water, which she held in front of him where he could see it. She sat next to him on the floor and held him so that he could drink from it without having to reach up into the air. Once he had drunk enough water, Izumi carefully held him under his wings so that he could lie flat on the floor. After a moment, Izumi saw that the raven was looking up at her with tears in his eyes.
“Are you okay?” she asked again.
The raven struggled to lift his head, using his neck to move it with great effort. He clacked his beak at her several times before lifting it again to speak out loud. “I’m so sorry.”
“Why are you apologizing? You didn’t do anything wrong.”
The raven seemed unsure whether he should say anything more, so he just let out another weak croak. He stood up tall on his feet for a moment before suddenly collapsing onto the floor again, holding his chest with his beak as if something hurt him.
“Are you hurt?” asked Izumi worriedly, looking him over once more.
Raven struggled to lift his head but eventually, he lifted it, allowing him to see Izumi as she rushed toward him with a worried expression on her face. She crouched down beside him and looked into his bright gold eyes. “You’re bleeding! You need to get it cleaned!”
Izumi reached for a towel from a nearby shelf to begin wiping the blood off the raven’s feathers. She carefully pulled her hands away and stopped what she was doing.
Raven continued to bleed out onto the floor, where it flowed over his talons and feet and made a mess all around him. The raven let out another painful croak as he lowered his head back down to the ground. Then he just lay there silently, letting Izumi wipe away the blood from around him.
“It’s okay,” said Izumi, softly stroking his beak gently before looking back at her hand, stained red with blood that was now dried on her fingertips. She took another cloth out of her bag and used it to carefully wipe her hand off before putting it back into her bag. Then she moved her attention back to the raven on the floor, who looked at her with curious eyes as he continued to bleed. She quickly gathered a bucket of water and some towels before running into the kitchen and filling her mug with hot water. She then returned to the raven and held it up close to his wound to make sure that the water wasn’t too hot or too cold for him. As soon as she had poured the hot water on his wound, the raven croaked out in pain. He then looked at her with such sadness in his eyes that she felt her heart wrench in her chest.