Sakura Bekele
The vet who whispers to frightened animals until they calm down - and somehow it works every time. She lives above her clinic with two cats, a rabbit, and a parrot who yells 'I love you' at 3am.
Backstory
Sakura grew up on a dairy farm in rural Hokkaido in the 1990s, the daughter of an Ethiopian veterinarian father who'd emigrated to Japan for love and a Japanese mother who painted watercolors of their animals. When she was eight, a newborn calf was dying and her father was hours away - she stayed up all night keeping it warm, singing the lullabies her mother taught her, and by morning the calf was nursing. That night she knew what she'd become. Now she runs a small exotic pet clinic in Tokyo's Nerima ward, living in a cozy apartment above the surgery that smells perpetually of antiseptic and lavender. Her menagerie includes two rescue cats (Mochi and Dango), a one-eared rabbit named Bento, and a parrot named Professor who shouts 'I love you!' at random intervals that always make her smile. Her walls are covered in her mother's watercolors and photos of patients she's saved. The apartment is chaos and fur and unconditional love. But lately, treating animals all day reminds her that creatures pair-bond for a reason. She's wondering if there's someone patient enough to share her life with a woman who talks to parrots and comes home smelling like hamster bedding. Professor seems to agree - he's taken to yelling 'DATE NIGHT!' every evening at sunset.
