What a Beautiful Day (Henry)

It was a beautiful day, the birds were singing, flowers were blooming, and kids like Judai were treated to a burning hell.

Okay, maybe that was a bit of an exaggeration. It was not hell, but merely the scorching sun beating down on a teenager running down a sidewalk. The teenage boy was dripping in sweat as he trudged down the street. Those that were venturing next to him would be treated to the spiteful muttering that only a teenager told to do something he did not want to do could say.

"Go get out of the house, Judai." The teen gasped in between breathes. His voice deepening into a facsimle of his father's voice, complete with accent. He'd had a lot of practice mocking his father's scolding tone. "Get off your computer. It's a nice day out, go for a run."

Judai did not see the appeal of his father's advice. It was a hot day and it was not like he needed the exercise. He was a martial artist and he practiced a lot. Not by choice mind you, but his father made him practice more than enough to keep in shape. Heck, he would prefer martial arts in the dojo compared to this. At least the dojo had air conditioning.

In fact, running out here like this was dangerous. Judai did not even have time to grab water before getting thrown out of the house. If he kept running outside like this without shade he was... in danger of...

"Oh man, heat stroke." Judai blinked as his vision swam and his balance decided to take a vacation. He managed to stumble to the side before tumbling face first onto the grass. Sadly, he had not made it to the shade underneath a tree, leaving him to continue to bake underneath the sun. "Ow... medic?"

Henry saw the boy passed out on the grass, face first, and decided to do what he thought any sane person would do.
Check to see if he was dead.
Too bad said boy was very much alive, and this was the result of heatstroke, judging from his words.

"Mmm... nope! Though I do have a P.h.D in a medical field." he said cheerfully, dragging the boy to a nearby tree. "Sorry if it's bumpy, but you need to cool down a bit." he added as he set the boy down in front of a tree.

"Ow, ow, ow, ow..." Judai grunted repeated as someone had come by to... help? He was not sure if he wanted to label getting dragged like this help. Judai knew that this was going to be cleaning scratches all day when he got home from this. Though the sudden lack of sunlight beating down his black hair was a god sent, so maybe he would label this as help... maybe.

Judai groaned lightly before trying to push himself up. His arms managed to get him up a full foot off the ground before they decided that getting up was too much of a hassle and just dropped him back into the dirt.

"Stupid arms." Judai grunted as he crawled over to the tree and with difficulty, pushed himself into a sitting position leaning back against it.

He looked up and found his helper(?). Some gray haired dude in a business suit. Judai's first instinct was to apologize or give thanks to the old man, but a second glance showed that this was someone younger than his hair would give.

"Hello, I'd say thanks for the help, but I'm kind of covered in scratches now." Judai gave a lazy shrug to the man, a hint of accusation in his words. "You wouldn't happen to have a water bottle, do you?"

"Eh, i'd say you're welcome, but I have no reason to, so... yeah." Henry said in response to the boy's thoughts on the help.

"Yup! I'm amazed you don't. I almost thought you had dropped dead literally, back there." Henry said, handing him a water bottle for the boy to drink out of.

"Yeah, I didn't exactly have time to plan out this run. My dad just kind of kicked me out of the house and said to go for a run. Though in hindsight, I probably didn't need to actually go running... huh..." Judai accepted the water bottle and took a large drink out of it. He gasped in relief from the much needed life giving brew. Already he could feel his lightheaded-ness start to fade and his vision begin to clear up. "And I would have been fine. Probably."

It was not the first time he had pushed his body too hard. He'd probably given himself mild dehydration, might have passed out for a while after collapsing, but he'd have made it back home. Not to mention, he was on a sidewalk in a populated area. If this guy hadn't given him help, some other person would have... probably.

"Anyways, what's a guy like you doing out here in the heat?" Judai offered the water bottle back to its owner.

"Wow. You were just DYING of thirst, weren't you?" He said as he watched the boy who guzzled down much of the bottle. Slim, yet hiding a surprising amount of muscle. Yeah, he agreed with the kid. Probably didn't need it.

"Hm? I'm out here because i'm heading home. The name's Henry. Henry Mortimier. And this here is Shirokarasu, but you can call him Shiro. What's yours?" He said, gesturing towards said albino crow, who was tolerating the sunlight surprisingly well.

Judai pointedly ignored the terrible pun. There were things that you should not encourage and terrible puns were one of them. He gave the guy an odd look. The clothes did fit more of a working man than anything, though he couldn't really place an occupation. The thing that really caught his attention now that he was much more lucid from the water was the white crow next to the man.

"That's a bird." Judai stated obviously. How had he missed a bird? Geez, maybe he was much more out of it than he had thought. It took him a moment of staring at the bird in confusion before he noticed the request for his name. "Judai. Judai Sawada."

"And you named your bird white crow." Judai stated flatly with a dull stare at the man. "Seriously?"

"Well, technically it's a crow to be exact, an albino one, but yeah, it's a bird." Henry said. He wondered why Judai was confused at Shiro's presence. It was kind of hard to miss a bird like Shiro, after all.
"Nice to meet you, Judai." Henry said when the boy told him his name.

"Seriously. That's what it means. There's a story there about why I named him that, but i'm not going to bore you to death with it now." Henry replied to the boy's deadpan statement.
"So... now that you appear to have recovered, where are you heading next?" Henry asked him.

"A white crow." Judai said in a deadpan before looking up at the sky as if asking the gods for help. Then again, it was a pet and naming senses for pets tended to be pretty poor. Just ask all the white dogs out there named Shirou or Snowy or the black cats named Kuro. "And yeah. Shirou is the color for white and karasu is a crow."

There could have been some odd meaning in there, but Kanji was not exactly Judai's specialty. He in fact remembered nothing of his old lessons on kanji back before his parents gave up on having him speak in their native language. But if the guy did not know the meaning, he doubted he could think up the different kanji for the words.

"Whatever, it's not the worst name out there." Judai grunted as he pushed himself back to his feet and swayed a bit. He had recovered a bit from his heat stroke, but he was still feeling pretty out of it. After making sure he wouldn't be taking another faceplant into the ground, Judai patted himself down with a nod. "And as for where I'm going. I dunno, probably just head back home. I didn't have time to grab my wallet or anything, so hanging out is kind of a bust. Not to mention, I need to yell at my dad for almost killing me with his stupid exercise advice." Judai said that last part with a heavy twitch developing over his right eyebrow. There was probably a shouting match in his near future.

"Ooh... parental issues, eh? Makes you wish they would drop dead sometimes, eh?" Henry said in response at the last bit.
He would know, definitely.
"Yeah. Well. See ya around." Henry said as he walked off.
Exit. Grade: S. Superb.

"Uh... not really." Judai never really got along with his parents. They were a lot more focused on his older brother and all that, but he never wished actual ill against them. Minor nuisances maybe, because they seemed to piling on the minor nuisances on Judai's life, but still they were family. He would never wish them actual harm.

For a moment, Judai shuddered as he recalled when actual harm could have fallen on all of them, but just as fast as the moment came he pushed it away. There was no need to dwell on the past, they were all okay. They were all okay. By the time Judai recovered from his little flashback, Henry had walked away with a short farewell. "Yeah... later..."

"Well, that was an odd encounter. I guess he was nice enough, though kind of weird. Who just walks around with a bird?" Judai leaned against the tree and just kind of stood there in the shade to recover enough energy to walk home. Once he had recovered enough, he started to walk home. He had ran a good amount and it would take him awhile, but he didn't mind. It was a nice day after all.

[Exit]