Rainbirds

Sadness alone can’t harm anyone. It’s what you do when you’re sad that can hurt you and those around you.

Remember this, Ren. Sadness alone can't harm anyone. It's what you do when you're sad that can hurts you and those around you.

When you ask too much of others, of course people will start to fail you.

I had no idea why I was being so patronising. Perhaps I couldn't believe true love existed at our age. Our classmates who claimed to be in love were mistaking excitement and fuzzy feelings for love.

The trouble with emotional pain is, you can't see the wound. But it's still there. It's real.

Keiko Ishida had fallen into an irreversible sleep. Even a tsunami couldn't wake her from her eternal dream.

A screeching noise came from above, shattering the silence. I saw a flock of black birds high above me, but they weren't moving. They were suspended, frozen in the air. Time had stopped for them. I wondered if they would ever fly again, or would they remain there forever? The gray clouds in the distance moved closer. They sky was getting darker, but the birds were still as stone.

A flock of black birds flew by, screeching loudly. Passing through he clouds, they soared into the distant sky. "Do you know what kind of birds those are?" I asked. "They're a type of cuckoo," Honda said. "In Australia, they're called rainbirds. They're thought to sing before stormy weather--it has something to do with their migration patterns." So those were rainbirds.