Chihiro and Haku, Melissa Nichols [readnow TXT] 📗

The blaring, annoying noise woke her from her usual but hypnotic dream. Feeling her dream slip away, Chihiro Ogino rolled over, intending to hit the off button on her alarm, but missed. Still hidden under the covers, she hit the alarm again and once again missed. Growing increasingly agitated, her fist came down on the beeping device until it crashed to the ground. Thankfully, the impact shut it up. Chihiro sighed in relief, then resignation as she sat up to yawn and stretch as she faced her hand drawn memory of an old friend, his eyes as kind as they had been the last time she’d seen him.

Maybe today’s the day he’ll come for me. She thought, feeling hope and joy rise. I hope so. I miss him so much.

In the eight years since her return to the human world, Chihiro had prepared herself as much as possible for the day when Haku, spirit of the Kohaku River in the human world, would fulfill his promise. While in school, she had studied her way from the lower half of her year to the top of the year three semesters ahead of her previous classmates. Also, she had gotten a job as early as possible, hoping to gain experience in employment rather than the money. Being of a legal age, 18, she was now fully responsible for herself, even though she had been ever since she was thrust into the foster care system a mere few days after her parents deaths seven years ago. But, she wasn’t fully on her own in her house. As a condition to living as an independent, her supervisor had demanded that she rent out the extra rooms in her house to other foster care independents. Her options, at that time, were few. If she refused, she would be moved into a foster home, and then perhaps a foster house. In other words, she would be moved away from the gateway into the spirit world, and away from Haku. If she accepted, then she wouldn’t be living on her own, but at least she would remain near Haku and the gateway. She didn’t have to think about her answer and now, three years later, she was glad for it.

Her housemates understood that one day she might call and say she wasn’t returning. Thankfully, they’d stopped asking questions. Because of this, they were now mostly self-sufficient. All of them held good grades, kept their rooms clean, did their chores without prodding and those of an age legal to work held jobs and paid their share of the living expenses, as well as their school tuition’s, even pitching on for the younger one’s educations, too. For Chihiro, this meant she could leave at any given moment and not have to worry about how the others will get along without her. In fact, she had even prepared them for after she was gone. She deliberately withheld her share of the living expenses. Of course, she explained why, that she wanted to be sure they would be alright if she didn’t return and she wanted them to figure out how to pay the expenses without her share. They understood and accepted it. But Chihiro had no need for the money she earned from working. So, she consistently made advance payments on each of the younger children’s school tuitions. That way, with the time she had bought them, the older ones could figure out a new financial plan to cover the children’s tuitions when she left without too much threat of the children being evicted from the school.

At her work, she was one of the most respected waitresses. Her boss explained that he had never seen a worker with as much work ethic as she, always early, never late anymore, never argued or broke any rules. She always gratefully accepted the days off she had earned, but never asked for more than that. She had even been offered the position of general manager multiple times, but she always refused. Her reasoning was simple. As a waitress, she could call in and quit at any point. As a manager, she couldn’t. She would have to give two weeks’ notice and help in the interviewing process for the next general manager. She wouldn’t have forewarning for when Haku finally came to get her, so she avoided situations that would require notice.

With a sigh, she fell backwards on her mattress and looked up at her ceiling, which she had painted to mimic one of her favorite drawings of Haku. She loved going to sleep and then waking up to him watching over her. It made her feel safe, even though she knew it was a painting she had first drawn, and not the real Haku. She closed her eyes, only to bring them open again when she heard familiar shouting. She sighed and got off her bed and grabbed her robe, running down the hallway towards the kitchen when she smelled burning eggs.

As she’d suspected, two of the housemates, Utau and Kyo, were arguing over the proper way to cook eggs, the cooking eggs forgotten in the too-hot pan.

“Good morning, you two.” Chihiro greeted them as she grabbed the proper spatula from the utensils drawer, turned down the heat on the eggs, and then started trying to salvage the eggs.

“Good morning, Chihiro.” Utau and Kyo replied in unison.

“I’m sorry for ruining the eggs, Chihiro.” Utau whined, her voice heavy with unshed tears. “I wanted to make today easier for you, as congratulations on your promotion.”

“Utau, don’t be silly. The eggs aren’t ruined. And I appreciate the thought, but I don’t think I’m going to take the promotion.” Chihiro laid her hand on the 17 year old’s shoulder, the eggs safe for the moment. “With all of you helping with the living expenses, I don’t need the extra money. Besides, I like my job as it is.”

“Oh. Alright.” Utau seemed to sag a little, clearly saddened by her breakfast attempt having been made in vain.

“But, I’m touched you would try to make breakfast, Utau. Now, would you please go wake up the others? You don’t want to be late for school.”

Both Utau and Kyo ran to their respective sides of the house, leaving a grinning Chihiro in the kitchen to make the breakfast.

Two hours later, Chihiro was in her car, finally alone. All eight children had left for school, leaving their guardian free to follow her plans for today. A great deal of those plans included her usual trip to the nearby abandoned train station, which was the gate between the humans and spirit worlds.

She couldn’t count the number of times she had travelled down this path, but she did know every rock, tree and shrine. She also knew the train station just as well, perhaps even better than her old schools. As such, it was a little comforting when she sat down on what she considered to be her bench, readying her sketchbook and pencil as she did so.

It didn’t take long for her to decide what to draw, and once she started, she didn’t notice a single thing. She didn’t notice the movement of a creature in the rafters above her, making its way out of its den in an old, now hollow, clock mount. She didn’t notice as it watched her and made its way to her front, to see her face. Of course, she couldn’t see the creature. It was invisible to humans, its body shadowy and wispy so that it more or less resembled a storm cloud that was holding too much rain. This creature was more ghost than matter, so its breaths were barely audible, its paws didn’t burden the rotten rafters at all.

For Chihiro, all that mattered was this drawing, and the occasional glimpse out to where the field of the spirit world once was. All she saw was a boarding platform, which meant the gate was still closed. A stab of disappointment hit her as she turned back to her drawing, adding a new emotion to the complexity of the picture.

For the ghostly creature, what mattered was a human was in his gateway. This was a very rare occurrence, but he recognized this particular human. Ever since he had taken over the duties of protecting this gateway eight years ago, just before her first visit to the spirit world, she and her parents were the only humans he had ever seen, always sitting where she was now and drawing as she waited for something.

Miles away, Haku, spirit of the Kohaku River, was flying in his dragon form over the landscape of the spirit world, downhearted. He hadn’t caught a single glimpse of Chihiro since he had sent her back home. He had been trying to, at the very least, stay near the gateway as much as possible so he’d notice if she came back. But, since he didn’t know what had happened to her after the last time he has seen her, he was also at the Kohaku River, which hadn’t been fully destroyed as he’d thought. Instead, the water had simply moved underground.  He didn’t know if Chihiro had been to the river, or even knew that it still existed, but he couldn’t rule it out, since the gateway and the river were his only means of seeing into the human world.

He was coming back from a trip to his river and, as usual, there had been no sign of Chihiro for the entire two weeks he had been there. That’s why he was so downhearted. He missed Chihiro but he hadn’t seen any glimpse of her for eight years. That’s why he could barely sleep at night. He missed her, and he was worried about her. His protective instincts were strong, and he was forever worried that his chance with her had already passed them by. She was human, and so very susceptible to the many dangers of her world. She could easily have fallen prey to disease, an accident or a wild animal, and he wouldn’t have been there to protect her, even if spirits were able to enter the human world. So, that’s another reason why he haunted his river so much. When he was connected to his river, he could pick up the odd conversation spoken by couples by his creeks. He prayed he’d hear anything regarding Chihiro, even if it meant she was dead. He couldn’t stand this not knowing! He needed to know what had happened to her, how she was faring, alive or dead.

As was normal for him, he turned toward the gateway and landed directly in front of it, disappointment once again swimming through him. All he could see was a wall. When the gateway was open, he could look inside through a doorway, which is why Chihiro and her parents were able to get through to the spirit world eight years ago. Knowing he hadn’t missed her, he settled down for a very long wait. As he waited, he remembered is adventure with Chihiro.

Eight years ago, Chihiro and