Disclaimer: Spirited Away does not belong to me

Always With Me
by: Hime

Chihiro is almost positive that her new house is haunted, except for the fact that she's also almost positive that ghosts do not exist ("except they do, they do!" a voice calls out joyfully from somewhere behind her, but since the sound is so faded, as if coming from the opposite end of a long, dark tunnel, she easily pays it no mind). However, ghosts would explain the reason why suddenly she and her parents cannot stand the thought of eating pork (a pig ghost perhaps?), the uneasy feeling that someone or something is watching her (watching over her) or those strange dreams with the slightly older boy with straight black hair and blue-green eyes, right? "There are no such things as ghosts," her parents tell her and chuckle over the fact that their daughter is "so young, so cute. My, I wish I had an imagination like hers when I was her age! Anyway, chicken is much more healthier then pork!" They are of absolutely no help. She frowns and finishes her dinner of oyako donbori.

Maybe it's aliens, Chihiro wonders a few months later. That would explain the missing time she and her parents experienced on the road to their new home and perhaps aliens are the reason why she and her parents cannot eat pork anymore. Wasn't there a bunch of disturbing reports involving aliens and farm animals in America? Does this mean that the hair band she had mysteriously acquired came from outer space?

Chihiro carefully thinks over her new theory before she forgets about it in the rush of being a new student in a new school. Soon, the lie about being allergic to pork comes easy to her lips when she goes out with her new friends and she gets used to the feeling that someone is watching her so that she doesn't even glance around her empty room anymore when she changes her clothes each morning and night. Life is settling down around her, common sense and growing up dull those childish musings.

She still dreams about that boy, though.

Every time she dreams of him, the first thing she asks is "Who are you?" He looks at her with those calm green eyes and smiles. "You know who I am."

She shakes her head in disagreement, "But I don't," she protests ("except you do, you do!" the voice cries out, louder in her dreams then when she is fully awake), but his expression never changes and instead he asks her what's going on in her life; if she passed that test in English she had been dreading, if she had managed to make amends to Yumiko at school, if she is enjoying her life so far. She starts off embarrassed—everything about her life is so normal, so uneventful, what's the point in talking about it?—but he seems so genuinely interested in what she has to say, she ends up pouring over what happened since the last time she has dreamed of him. In return, he gives her advice and someone to complain to. Once, years after she had first began dreaming of him, she told him she sometimes hated being allergic to pork—"Do you know how hard it is to eat at a restaurant without pork being involved in the cooking process somehow?"—and he had looked at her with his pleasant smile but she had the weirdest feeling he had been laughing soundlessly at her words.

There is no gradual shift from dreaming of him to waking. One moment he is smiling at her and telling her they will meet again and the next, she is staring at her light-dappled ceiling, the morning sun peeking through the gap between her curtains.

She always wakes up with tears in her eyes.

She doesn't dream of him every night. Sometimes, weeks can go by before she sees him again, though that stopped happening after she stopped telling him about the few dates she would go on with boys from her school. ('He can be so childish sometimes,' she thinks to herself, tossing her head in some irritation. Her ponytail swings and brushes against her back before it settles down again.) He has never aged in all the years she has dreamed about him, but of course he wouldn't. He's not real, so how could he grow up?

But Chihiro has and will be leaving for college soon. Somewhere deep inside she worries that she will never dream about him ever again if she leaves her definitely-not-haunted house. But then she remembers her hair band and tells herself, 'Well no one has disproved the existence of aliens anyway' and is comforted enough to go to sleep.

The night before her twentieth birthday she dreams of him. This time his smile is much wider then normal, almost as if he's excited about something. For the first time, she starts her dream with a different question. "Did something good happen?"

If possible, his smile grows even larger.

Just as she had deviated from her normal dream script, so does he when he tells her "Happy birthday," and waves to her in goodbye. She stares at him and asks, "Aren't you going to say 'we'll meet again'?"

Still smiling, he replies, "Why? You just said it for me."

Chihiro is now twenty and it's been five months since she's last dreamt of him and now when she wakes up, it's not with tears in her eyes but with the taste of something bitter on her tongue.

She lies in bed and stares at the hair band she now wears on her wrist. The morning light glints off the sparking fibers woven together.

"Liar." She says out loud, softly, so not to wake her roommate. She will be glad when the semester is over and she can go home to mourn in private.

Her mother proclaims that her ceremonial kimono looks wonderful on her while her father takes photo after photo. Chihiro wants to shake her head in some exasperation but is somewhat afraid that if she moves her head too vigorously, her elaborate hairstyle will come undone. She wonders if her mother chose this style on purpose, so Chihiro would have to be careful of how she carried herself that day. She had always been somewhat a tomboy all her life.

"Take care!" Her mother calls out to her as she sees Chihiro off at the door. "You only have one Seiji-no-hi in your lifetime, so enjoy yourself!" Her mother waves to her gaily as Chihiro steps into Yumiko's compact car.

It's cold and Chihiro wishes that she were wearing a few more layers under her kimono. She rubs at her nose absently as she walks across the temple grounds alone. Yumiko had looked at her with pleading eyes, and Chihiro smiled and made an excuse, leaving the girl and her boyfriend alone together. Unexpectedly, she sneezes and stops for a moment, rummaging in her small drawstring bag for a package of tissues that she's sure her mother tucked in there for her. She's startled when a length of white cloth appears before her face like magic.

"Oh!" she says, and accepts the handkerchief without thought. "Thank you." She looks up and stills as she takes in the person before her. He's a little taller then her with almost delicate features and bright green eyes. His black hair is shiny and smooth, gathered neatly at the nape of his neck. His traditional haori and hakama looked both elegant and handcrafted.

Looking into his shining eyes and seeing that smile on his face, memories of a dragon flying, of freefalling hand in hand, of a river's gentle embrace come to her in quick flashes, causing her heart to pound almost painfully. With eyes made bright with unshed tears, she smiles both in welcome and remembrance and now she moves and embraces him with shaking limbs and sighs in contentment when he embraces her back.. She can finally hear clearly those mysterious voices for the first time while awake ("Kohaku, Kohaku!" They cry out joyfully into her ear) and decides for once to listen. The first thing she says to him as they stand together in the material world is, "I love you."

.:fin:.

…somewhere, a voice calls, in the depths of my heart / may i always be dreaming, the dreams that move my heart…

Seiji-no-hi: On the second Monday of January, Japan celebrates a public holiday called "Seiji-no-hi" (Coming of Age Day). Although young adults reach the legal age on their 20th birthday and from there on are entitled to vote, allowed to smoke tobacco, purchase alcohol etc, and have all of the rights and responsibilities of adulthood, local governments hold special ceremonies on "Seijin-no-hi" to mark the rite of passage. (Information taken from http/ www. yamasa. org / acjs / network / engli sh / newsletter / thingsjapanese24. html)

Note: The word Kohaku is also Japanese slang for "love confession" which is why Chihiro tells Haku she loves him at the end. Sorry for the pun...

Also, the title and the last italized part are from the song "Always With Me," the english translated version of the Spirited Away theme song.