Summer Birdie

F for...

"Summer!" A flash of red before your eyes. However, as soon as it arrived it left leaving you in a dark silent room. It looked like a long dark corridor with slither of light coming from what looked like a partly opened door at the other end. You continue down this corridor. Your bare feet quietly going pitter patter against the black tiles. It was so cold here.

Beep.

Somewhere in the darkness you hear it.

"...irresponsible..."

Beep.

You stop again as you hear that same noise emanating somwhere from the darkness. It wasn't the doorbell, and it wasn't the television. What was it? The door on the other end opens a little wider, the light pouring through the darkness. It was warm. A joyful laughter gently came humming through the quiet corridor filling you with such inexpressible happiness that you begin skipping towards the door.

"No good..!"

Beep, beep.

You stop as the voices and the noise was doubled this time around. You were now left with a decision. Go into the light or to wander into the darkness in search of that noise. Stepping out of the light you can feel the cold creeping towards you and nipping at your toes. The eerie silence engulfs your senses. Walking in the silent cold, you begin to feel a pain. An awful searing pain in your ankle that made it difficult to walk. Suddenly blotches of purple and green seep into your skin, they hurt so much but you can't rub them away.

"Bitch!"

The sudden sound of skin to skin contact wakes you. You shoot up right on the unfamiliar bed. The room was empty and dim, the walls washed white with stone cold grey tiles. The door adjacent to the bed was open a crack letting light from the corridor spill into the room. You pull the cover off of you and examine yourself. Wrapped in badages, a cast around your leg and a plaster on your arm. You felt a lot of pain emanating from your ankle. You remember what happen and begin making your way to the door.

"She'll be coming with me." Dad?

"We agreed that the eldest would stay with you and Chihiro would be with me."

"After what's happened do you honestly believe that the court will deem them safe with you?"

There is a long pause and the slow pitter patter of feet against the hard floors. You hear sobbing. "You can't do this, you've already broken the family-"

"Stop making this about you!" You've never heard your father so enraged before. "Think of the safety of the children, you're obviously abusing your quirk again- you reek of pheromones."

"Don't go blaming me-"

"You have a problem if you think for a second that they're safe with you." You hear the shuffling of feet from behind the door and the light sobs of your mother wherever she was on the other side. You wanted to burst out the room and hug her, to stop them from fighting but you were afraid of this new side of your parents. "Look...I don't have to repeat myself. Your actions have spoken loud enough."

You hear the rustling of a jacket being worn and the closing clicks of a case. "You have a week."

Peaking out from the door, you check that your father was gone before you appear fully from the doorway. You limp over to your mother who was sat on the bench outside of your hospital room, her body bent over her knees and her head in her hands. Silently, you give her a hug. Startled, she squeezes you back. Sobbing more violently than before. She holds you in her arms for a long time. Her warm tears trickled down her face and onto yours. As she held you her hands were shaking. You hold her tighter hoping that it would stop her hurting so much but the tears kept coming. One after another, through the night, she didn't once leave the hospital room. She held you in the bed and rocked you back and forth in her arms. Normally you would protest that you weren't a little baby anymore. Instead, you felt that maybe it wasn't you that needed it.

Soon morning rolled round, parting the darkness but today was rather grey, you feel like the colour was sucked out of the sky today even though there was barely a cloud in sight and the trees were fresh with green. The colours looked faded, dull and washed out. 

Through more sobbing and hiccups, your mother tells you that you had been asleep for a week and that the doctors didn't know if you were going to wake up again. Luckily you pulled through with only a fractured ankle and some light bruising left to heal. When you ask her about Birdie and his uncle her response was "who?"

When you tell her about the boy, you called Birdie, that you played with all summer long, the boy with the dirty blonde hair and great golden eyes with bright red wings on his back, your mother laughed and said how odd your dreams were and that she was going to miss your amazing imagination.

On the day of your release from the hospital, your mother brought you back to that warm house at the bottom of the hill. The lights were on and inside were postcards and gifts that your friends had sent to you over the summer that had just arrived, waiting to be opened on the kitchen table. As you go through it all, you see the amazing places they went to, the gifts they got during their visit and how much they missed you. On the other side of the room you could see your things all packed neatly away in boxes with your name on them. You couldn't believe what you were seeing but what made matters worse was when your mother had to explain to you where and why you were going away. 

That night, you sneak out of the house and up the hill regardless of you bad ankle. It took you longer than before but you were persistant in your venture. The house at the very end of the street was still there. You waddle as fast as you could towards it, however felt your stomach drop as you see the 'for sale' sign stuck in the ground in front of the house. You limp around the house following the curve of the hedge to your secret spot. You pull the back of the cupboard away and push open the two doors to the other side.

"Birdie?!" You cry out, hoping for a reply but nothing.

That night, as you sit in front of the mirror you try to use your quirk to look like him to prove to yourself that he wasn't just a figment of your imagination but the memory was blurry and the features were like a silhouette in mist. You felt so lonely. 

**************************************

"Flight number xxx to England is now boarding, please have tickets and passports at the ready."

Your father had gotten a promotion and was relocating to England for a project. Naturally, your brother and yourself had to go with him and were mortified to be leaving Japan. You barely knew the language how were you supposed to make friends? Now that you were going to be living there, for what you hoped would be a couple of weeks, you had to become fluent.

"You think the stereotypes are true?"

"What's that?" You ask quizzically.

"Ya'know, they always just drink tea." He laughs trying to pull a British accent that ends in silly uproarious laughter. Although you and your brother joked about it on the plane, the two of you were still anxious of the move. You watch as many films as you could on the plane, soon falling asleep for the rest of the flight. Your dreams always start and end the same. Summer skies, laughter, golden eyes and a flurry of red.