Waking: Sometimes a good thing, sometimes not

William dimly became aware, some time later, that he was awake again; and the next thing he noticed was a terrible stabbing pain in his cheek. Putting up a shaking hand, he found that it was bleeding heavily and was really quite deep. There were some black feathers lying in the street, and he realised he had been attacked by some sort of rabid bird. An uneasy flash of reminiscence took him back to the boarding school and the black feathers in the bully's room; but he pushed it from his mind.

Staggering to his feet, he wiped his face on his sleeve and was disgusted to see a smear of blood there. Great, he thought. Now my shirt is ruined. He swayed a little, not really feeling in the best of shapes. He must have hit his head when he fell.

He put his hands in his pockets, trying to think, and felt a piece of paper in one of them. Automatically he pulled it out to see what it was, and recognised it as the business card Takeshi Niro had given to him. He sat down again on the doorstep he had fallen onto (it was deserted out here, probably why no one had helped him), and fished his mobile phone out of the other pocket. He punched in the number written on the card and waited for the call to connect.

"... Moshi moshi?" That was Takeshi's voice, all right.

"Hi, Takeshi? It's me, William."

"Oh! Aren't you supposed to wait a few days before calling?" Takeshi asked playfully.

"No, it's... I'm not ringing you for a date, exactly. Um. Are you at home?"

"I am now, I just got back from work."

"Do you have medical supplies?"

"... Yes."

"Right. I'll see you in twenty minutes?"

"... Well, alright... Are you in trouble?"

"I'll see you."

William ended the call and gathered up his shopping bags. He caught his reflection in a mirror across the street and sighed, ruefully. This would definitely scar.

When he arrived at Takeshi's house the door opened for him; it seemed Takeshi had been watching for his arrival from the window. As soon as he saw William's face he cursed in Japanese and went to fetch bandages and warm water, knowing exactly how to look after wounds, having suffered a few himself from years of sporting games at school. As he saw to the cut William told him everything: how the crow had attacked him, and the bully, how it seemed he could never avoid the black feathers, how he was all alone in the world.

"Listen, William." Takeshi said when he was finished, looking him seriously in the eye. "You seem to be in need of some help. I want you to stay here for a while."

Wordlessly, William nodded; and that was how their relationship began.

Memory: The morning after

In a state of confusion after last night's events, William sat up groggily at the breakfast bar whilst Takeshi was making coffee. What had happened? What had happened? This question was repeating itself over and over, in time with his pounding headache thanks to the previous drinks.

Takeshi added frothy milk to William's coffee, put it in front of him on the bar, then sprinkled chocolate on top. "Kanzen!" he said, and smiled. William thanked him. Indeed it was perfect.

"I've got to rush off to work now, so if you could leave when you've drunk your coffee, that would be great." Takeshi began to fish inside his wallet, and William wondered whether he had got the wrong idea about the nature of last night. To his relief, it was just a business card. Takeshi pressed it into William's hand, lingered, and looked him in the eye. "Call me."

"Definitely," said William, as Takeshi said goodbye.

William walked around the streets in a sense of delirium. He suddenly had the urge to buy some new clothes. He went into the nearest Topman branch,which had recently opened in Japan.

An hour later, and hands full of bags of delightful attire, he realised he was now broke. "Shit," said William.

He went into the nearest phone box, looked through the phone book, and wrote addresses of all the restaurants in town. One by one, he made it his task for the afternoon to apply for a job in each. All of them replied along the lines of "Thank you, we will take into consideration."

Safe in the knowledge that he must have burned off many a calorie in all his walking, William relaxed. He decided to go to the library, he was dying to read some English-language books; native speakers here were rather sparse. Choosing to cut through an alleyway was a mistake. The last thing he saw was a flutter of black wings and a sharp pain in his cheek.