My head filled with adorable yet sad thoughts of small Keigo observing birds as a kid.
Looking at the feathers thinking they look just like his and he gets excited about it like a little kids would. This kid had nothing but time to daydream and imagine things, do you think he thought he could talk to them as a kid?
Like what if the rare times his father wasn't home were times he was allowed to look out of the window and he tried to find all the birds. Would his eyes get all wide like watching heroes on the screen, when a bird lands close next to him?
What if he didn't know he could fly, how would he? I don't think his parents were one to tell him that, they wanted him to stay put and hidden.
But watching birds Keigo thinks he could fly free just like them, at the blue sky he rarely sees. Smell the fresh air and listen all the birds sing, they could be his friends. He could fly around with them, they would be his new family, he wants to be like them.
Do you think his mother ever allowed him to go outside to play? She allowed him to go grocery shopping with him once, sure she could let him play outside just a couple of times.. before he knew how to fly.
Keigo gets so excited to finally be out and see them up close! He looks at them fly, sing and walk closer to him at the ground, he definitely tried to talking to them more than once. Like kids often try to talk to animals, he was convinced they would understand, that they could talk to him too if they wanted to. Afterall they were both birds of a feathers, were they not?
Even if he didn't understand them, even if they didn't response. He found himself talking to a near birds around him when he started to sneak out, he didn't have anyone else, only the plushie of a Endeavor at home. But he wasn't real, but the birds around him were, and they flied just like he did on the screen.
Keigo figuring out how his wings work by observing the birds, he didn't know he could use them like that? He was sometimes afraif of moving them at all, since it would make his father mad.
But the curiosity of his wins, the natural instinct to take off like the birds he had watched outside the window. That's how he learned to fly, feeling just a little free first time in his life. Even if he got in trouble because of it, it was something he had to feel over and over again. The air felt like a home, something to escape all the horrible things that happened at the other home.
At sky he felt at peace, at sky he felt little more free, at sky he felt more safe. He was at ease even if just a little moment, for just a little moment he allowed himself to be like a bird. To hope and imagine he would be free to live just like them someday.
I can see him digging mud with his hand to find worms he could feed at them. He had seen them eating them before, he wanted to help them find food because he himself always couldn't. Like imagine him being worried they didn't eat enough just because he didn't always see when they were eating. Thinking they were starving like he himself was. (I'm going to cry.)
I can see him finding bird on the ground that wasn't doing well and he got so worried he picked them up and carried them trying to think how to help. Imagine him carrying one to his mother for help only for her to yell at him and he would cry because the bird was dying and he didn't know what to do and no one helped them.. Do you think he thought about the dead birds he would find in the forest or at street, and it stays in his mind tugging at his heartstrings for the whole day. To him it was kinda like losing a friend, he didn't really have anyone, but he talked to them in his head everyday.
Do you think he got sad when he saw young bird abandoned by their family unable to fly, and he tried to take them back up to their family only to be rejected again. He feels extremely sad and carries the bird in his small hands, giving them a taste of what it feels like to fly, since the bird probably never otherwise could on their own. He knew they didn't have much time until they would die... He had seen it before, and it broke his heart finding out that even the birds he so much adored could be so cruel. Abandoning their own child and watch them grow weaker and weaker after every night.
Keigo would try comforting the small bird, saying how he was sorry and telling how he understood how it hurt to not be liked by his own family, to not be looked after, to be mistreated. That's one reason why he felt so protective of the birds that were hurt, he wanted them to feel comforted like he never himself was, although he didn't fully realize it himself. He just wanted to help the birds, they were closest thing he would have as a friends. He wanted them to shine and sing all happy in the sky, it always made his eyes wide, it warmed his heart.
Keigo wanted to be friends with birds so bad, and I think he still somedays looks at them as an adult and feels this weird feeling in his chest. Like they were still his friends.
I think Hawks sometimes sat on a roof filled with birds, feeding them and feeling for a moment like a small Keigo again. When he still didn't know much about the world, when he didn't know all the dark things happening that he wasn't aware of.
It was feeling that was warm yet filled with sadness at the same time. Imagine how birds were still someone he would talk to in his head, they never responded back, but as silly as it sounds he still swears they could understand him at times. Or wished that they would, wouldn't it be so cool to talk to the birds flying in the same air? Have little army of bird friends to hang around?
It's okay that he can't though, birds will still always be his friends. Even if they just exist in the same air.
