Return of Sen: Chapter 7
La dee daaa! ::dances:: ROS is doing so well! I love all my reviewers!! ::huggles everyone and hands out candy::
Pegasus: ::sneakily steals some candy and shoves it into his mouth::
::flashes a glare at him::
Pegasus: ::through a mouthful of chocolate:: Whaaaa'??
::still glaring:: I think I forgot to mention when I reposted my chapters that in fact, I do NOT own Spirited Away at all. That honor goes to the legendary Miyazaki-san. ::pauses:: Although I do think it should be obvious I don't own it, since I'm posting these chapters at , which implies that their stories are by FANS. Fans who are too poor to GET the rights to these shows. (No offense to other fans! It's just usually true!) Besides, if I DID have the rights, I'd be out SELLING this fic for cash!! Mwahahah!!
On with the fic!
Silence. Darkness and silence, unbroken but for a faint scrubbing noise and the occasional sigh. It was the dead or night. Everyone was in their rooms, sound asleep, enjoying the dark and quiet. Well, almost everyone.
Everyone except one human.
Chihiro, broom in hand and hair pulled back, was cleaning. The light was on above one bath, a very small one in the very back corner of the room. It was simply covered in dirt and dust; the only person who used it was a certain human-sized god, and he only came around every hundred years or so. It was always a big to-do when he came around, but in between times, the bath went untouched. In the last three days, Chihiro had taken to cleaning it at night and sleeping during the day.
Three days. It had been three days since the terrible thunderstorm. The entire land was flooded as far out as the eye could see. Dark, angry clouds still lingered, blocking out the sun, just as bitter, angry thoughts still cloaked Chihiro's mind.
She shoved the broom through the muck. Back when she'd been a worker, she could have made the bath look presentable in a single day. However, now she was really trying to get it clean, not just to make it appear clean. She was in such a mood that she wanted to make every inch shine. Needless to say, it had been a long time indeed since anything in the bathhouse had been that clean. Chihiro estimated it would take her another week to finish. It was odd, but cleaning helped heal her raw mind. She sighed and wiped sweat from her forehead.
"Why don't you take a bath?"
She whipped her head around towards the doorway. There stood Haku; it was the first time she'd seen him since the storm. Of course, she'd had to start sleeping while he was awake to manage that. She knew some people who, given their recent argument, would have let their appearances go to seed. Haku looked just like his normal self... but his eyes... his eyes looked tormented. There was such sadness in them that Chihiro nearly forgave him in spite of herself. It was clear he'd been in as much pain as she had. However, she forced herself to stay angry. She had every right to.
"I'm not a customer," she replied curtly, turning her head coldly away form him. "These baths are reserved for customers, as you well know." She returned to her sweeping, adding as an afterthought, "Besides, Kamaji's probably gone to bed by now."
She tensed up as a callused hand gently pried one of her off the broom handle. Something rectangular and wooden pressed into hers. Unable to resist, she glanced down and saw she now held a bath token. A very nice one, at that. The faint scent of lavender drifted up serenely from it. Haku gazed down at her, unsmiling.
She shoved the token back into his hand before she could be tempted. The scratches on her face that Yui had given her in their catfight still throbbed fiercely, and she knew the herbal water would do them a lot of good. She was determined not to do anything Haku might want her to, though. "Take it back," she insisted, "I don't want it."
Haku started walking away and Chihiro decided she must have gotten through to him, so she went back to her cleaning. She climbed into the bath and started scrubbing at the bottom, completely ignoring the boy until a loud clack moments later awoke her attention. She blinked, glanced up, and saw a wooden water chute above her head issuing from the wall. Haku shut the panel on the wall and tugged sharply on the rope. Steaming, lavender-scented, green-tinted water gushed down the chute. Chihiro yelped and scrambled out swiftly before it could drench her.
"H-Haku!!" she yelled, rescuing her broom from the quickly rising bath. "What was that for!?" She tried to glare at him, but instead she ended up gasping, blushing, and reeling backwards, falling head over heels into the water anyway.
Haku was stripping down.
He watched Chihiro flop back into the water and nearly smiled; he'd guessed her reaction perfected. He raised his eyes to the second floor balcony and nodded to the woman standing there. Lin grinned and gave him a thumbs-up in response. She couldn't stand to see her two friends this way, one ignoring the other. So when Haku had asked for her help, she had immediately agreed. She reached behind her and lowered the convenient switch there. She then leaned over the rail and smirked, watching Haku finish removing his clothes.
The water stopped flowing and Chihiro's head broke through the surface, gasping. At that moment, the lights snapped off. The girl would have screamed, but a hand clapped itself over her mouth before the air could escape her lungs. She felt herself pressed to a firm, bare, distinctly male chest.
"Chihiro!" Haku's voice came next to her ear to console her before she began to struggle. "It's just me! Relax." Her head twitched as his words tickled her flesh. "Look, I'm very sorry, I really am! I know that isn't nearly enough to make what I said before any better, but..."
Haku continued speaking, but Chihiro completely missed everything around a point. she squirmed uncontrollably against his grip. Why did he keep talking?? It... it tickled her ear like no other! It was driving her insane! As she wiggled, she was uncomfortably aware of her soaked clothes sticking tightly to her body like a second skin.
...why oh why did that boy keep going on!? If he didn't stop soon, she was going to explode or something! What was so important that he couldn't stop talking for two minutes??
"...so please, Chihiro. Couldn't you find it in your heart to-" the boy continued before he was interrupted by a frantic peal of laughter. He blinked in surprise, his mouth still open from speaking.
"Stop! Stop!" Chihiro giggled shrilly, squirming more than ever. Haku simply held her, unsure of just what he'd said to make her laugh. Usually when you were angry at someone, you didn't burst into random fits of laughter at them. Unless it was bitter laughter, of course. However, this was far from bitter. It was undeniably silly. And on top of the silliness, she was starting to blush furiously. What in the world had set her off like that??
After a few minutes, Chihiro started regaining her composure. She breathed hard, her cheeks aching from smiling so hard. She leaned back against Haku, not even realizing she was doing so, to catch her breath. She remained that way for a little but longer before abruptly both realizing what she was doing and remembering she supposed to be angry at him. She started to pull away, but she hesitated. She didn't really want to. She really wanted to forgive him.
Also his arms were still wrapped around her stomach.
"Haku, I..." she tried. "Um... I..."
"Yes?" His breath still whistled past her ear and she couldn't stand it.
"I... I wanted to know what's going to happen to Yui now!" she blurted, mentally smacking herself. That boy was so distracting; that's not what she'd meant to say at all!
Haku's face fell a bit out of disappointment. "Well, once Yubaba hears about this, I assume she'll banish her from the bathhouse." Is that all Chihiro wants to know? Haku thought to himself sadly. If so... then his plan for reconciling with her had completely failed. How... disheartening.
Chihiro glanced back at him. "She'll be banished? Will she be given back her name?" She studied his gentle face that looked almost sad for some reason.
"No. Her contract will be burned and she'll be sent away along the railroad tracks until she finds a new life. But likely she'll never find her name again." He shut his eyes momentarily. "And she'll never be allowed to return here." He opened them again and gazed down at her, smiling normally except there was something off. That essence of sadness still remained.
"That's... terrible," Chihiro commented quietly. The top half of her body, which was not submerged, was starting to get cold. Goosebumps chased each other up and down her exposed flesh. She shivered.
"It's no more than she deserves," Haku declared forcefully, eyeing the bumps on her arms. Even if she wouldn't forgive him, he'd might as well go on with the rest of his plan. He almost blushed as he told her, "If you're cold, take off the rest of your clothes. I promise I won't look."
"W...what!?" Chihiro stared, her cheeks taking on the exact color of the old workclothes she was wearing. True to his word, though, the river spirit turned and faced the opposite direction before she could refused. She took a shaky breath. She was cold... what harm could it do? She slowly, nervously, pulled off her clothes piece by piece, wringing out each one, and laying them stretched out on the wooden floor. Once her body was completely bare, she ducked into the water just enough to protect her sense of decency. "Haku..." she murmured, "you can turn back around." Her face, which had been among the parts of her that were cold, was already warming up and it definitely wasn't because of the warm water.
Haku did so and smiled inwardly. Chihiro looked so embarrassed, the way she was trying to cover his chest with her arms when she was already underwater. The way she gazed up nervously at him, as if he was going to judge her or something.
...the way her pink face highlighted the scratches that were there first? He shook his head. That wasn't something to be smiling about. The scratches actually looked a bit blistered. He fished a rag out of the water, wrung it out, and reached for her left cheek. She instinctively inched back, but he took hold of her shoulder with his other hand and held her still. Carefully he pressed the cloth to the sores.
A sigh of relief escaped Chihiro's lips instantly. A mere touch of the herbal water made the constant ache disappear. She slid her eyes shut in bliss. She hadn't even realized she'd been hurting so much until the pain had disappeared. She'd been too busy cleaning, sleeping, and generally trying to keep her mind off the pain from the night of the storm.
Haku left the rag there for a minute longer, then freshened it in the water and returned it to her skin, this time to her other cheek. Another contented noise immediately left her. He smiled outwardly this time. He noticed that from that simple treatment, the scratches were paler and seemed healthier. He made a mental note to thank Kamaji for all the wonderful herb concoctions he put in the water.
Chihiro opened her eyes reluctantly as Haku removed the rag for the second time. Suddenly changing her sleeping patterns was catching up with her. Between that and the hot water and steam, she felt very sleepy all of a sudden. She let out an abrupt yawn.
The boy chuckled softly. "Are you ready to get out?" he asked. She nodded slowly, letting herself slid farther into the water. "Hold on, then. Don't go to sleep yet. Let me get you a towel and some dry clothes first." He began climbing out of the bath but was stopped by a drowsy voice quietly calling his name.
"Haku..."
He turned partway around again. "Yes?"
"My face isn't the only hurt part of me," she murmured.
"It isn't?" he said in surprise. "What else is hurt?" Does she mean her heart? he wondered. Because I definitely broke that when I chose not to believe her... But then his eyes were drawn to her lower lip... her swollen, puffy, angry red lip. He was bewildered by the fact that he hadn't noticed it until that moment. His smile returned twice as large. Chihiro was barely awake enough to be speaking, she probably didn't even know what she was saying. She wouldn't remember if he...
He dipped his finger into the water again and ran it along his own lips, coating them with some of the healing herbs from the liquid. He softly cupped his hands around her head and pressed his lips tenderly to hers. Pulling away slowly, he glanced at her injured lip and watched it shrink before his eyes to nearly its normal size.
Chihiro unexpectedly opened her mouth and breathed almost silently, "I forgive you, Haku..." Then she licked her lips and went limp in sleep.
Review Reply Corner:
(Due to the fact that the computer I type up my fics on is NOT the computer that has the ability to pull up my reviews, the Review Reply Corner is temporarily suspended. It will be back as soon as I can figure out an easier way to write replies to the reviews. My sincere apologizes to everyone. ::passes out more candy to everyone who won't get their replies this chapter::)
Author's Notes:
Well, another chapter down, and only a few left to go! Kinda sad... but hey, that's writing. I felt the same way at the end of Double Trouble, except I thought that fic was a little more well written than this one is. Sorry if you disagree, but that what I honestly think. I'll kinda be glad to get this fic over and done with. SOMEONE who shall remain nameless keeps bugging me to work on the Prophecy Books... ::cough cough:: And to her, if she's reading, I say: quit giving me crap! As soon as this fic's done!! lol. So... that's it! Please review! I love reviews! ::heart::
See you next chapter!