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Chapter 5
The Pebble Waltz

Louise was definitely on a roll. After years of plotting—decades, perhaps—things were finally coming together. Her craftsman had made her cunning, beautiful, and deeply ingenious. Where Baron excelled at good advice, she surpassed him with a stubborn vindictiveness that made her all the more worthy to stand beside Death, admiring her own handiwork.

The night hugged them in a dark corner of Tokyo, separated but following the wrong targets. Death had to wonder why Louise flushed after the brown-headed quiet girl from the restroom. She had departed from her prom date, and was wandering down the Tokyo streets alone. Her green dress glittered, her heels echoing clips through the alleyways. She didn't look frightened despite her location, and that somehow bothered Death. Chihiro, he called to his mind. Not scheduled to die for… he pursed his lips together tightly.

Louise twittered to herself softly, a smug grin crossing her beautiful face.

Death gave her a cautious glance. "What are you giggling about?"

She opened her white Gucci purse and took out an embroidered snuffbox.

"Just say no," Death mocked.

"Hun, I don't need substance to make me feel good," she purred and opened the box to reveal three shining pebbles.

He scrunched his nose. "Rocks?"

"Oh, these aren't just rocks my dear," Louise tsked. "These are pebbles harvested from an extinct river."

"So they're river rocks?"

"Yes." And she giggled again.

He blinked. "I think you lost me."

Quick to cease her laugh, she scowled and took a grayish-green pebble out of the snuffbox. In between her first finger and thumb, the pebble sparkled peculiarly, with some sort of dust or sheen. She whorled it around in her fingers. It almost glowed. "The river was called Kohaku."

Realization hit Death like a brick wall, and he gave a horrible groan. "Oh no! Don't pull the spirit world into this—please. Yubaba hates me."

"That's not my problem."

"But I am your superior," he snapped. "And you will not—"

A cell phone began playing I Say a Little Prayer For You.

Chihiro sudden paused. She searched in her purse, and pulled out her cell phone. "Hello?" she answered. "Oh, hi Mom. Uh-huh, I'm on my way home…" Absently while she listened, she twirled an errant loop of brown hair around her fingers, and looked up at the sky.

"I don't see how drawing her into this makes your plan any wiser," Death whispered to his accomplice. "Ingenious, yes, but is it timely?"

Louise snapped closed the snuffbox, and curled her fingers tightly around the pebble in hand. "Fine, Mr. Dickie Downer, if you have a better suggestion, I would absolutely love to hear it, but oh—what's that I still smell? Failure. From your last exploits."

Death grimaced.

"So, while I relish in my approaching victory, can't I have a little fun?"

"With a rock?"

She rolled her eyes, "Watch and learn, you simple, simple man." With the pebble tight in her first, she pulled her Gucci onto her shoulder again, and sauntered on down the sidewalk towards the preoccupied young woman.

Chihiro was sighing, telling her Mom that she didn't want to pick up a package of lentils this late at night, when a figure clipped her shoulder. She stumbled back, startled. "Oh, I'm sorry—you!"

The beautiful woman from the bathroom gave her a long look. "Do I know you?" she finally asked, feigning obliviousness.

"From the bathroom! At the—" She was cut short by her Mom's demanding attention, and quickly lost track of her thoughts. "I'm sorry, I have to get going."

Louise held up both white-gloved hands—quite vacant and spotless—before shrugging the young woman off as a nuisance, and sauntering on her way. "Have a good night," she purred.

When Chihiro was about to bid the same, she couldn't find the woman anywhere. And her mother began screaming at her on the phone. "All right! All right!" she told the phone. "Lentils! Got it!"
Carelessly, she flipped closed the phone and craned her head around the dark sidewalk to catch a glimpse of the woman, but she was long gone. Scrunching her nose in confusion, she agitatedly shoved her cell phone back into her purse, and heard something foreign clink against it.

I hope I didn't break anything, she winced, and thought nothing else of it as bought the lentils, and brought them home to her awaiting parents. Her Mom and Dad sat around the kitchen table, drinking coffee and waiting up for her to get home. As she took off her shoes, she could feel their eyes on her, and their wonderment.

Where's Machida? their eyes asked.

"He had to go home early," was her quick, and obviously fake, reply. She set the bag of lentils on the counter and made a break for her bedroom upstairs. "I'm…going to bed. Goodnight!"

"Goodnight," her parents chorused. She closed the door to her room, sighed, and slid down the door into a sitting position. She closed her eyes, memories of bathhouse dancing across her eyelids like a film projector. A bitter smile crossed her lips. They were from her dreams, they had to have been. Dreams from her childhood, so long ago. Sometimes, she liked to fool herself into believing that they were memories instead, so beautiful and lucid that they coated themselves as dreams to keep her company, so they wouldn't fade. It would be nice, she told herself, and blinked open her eyes again.

Out of reassurement, she took down her hair and twirled the glittering ponytail in her fingers. She liked the way it felt, and the way it sparkled as it hit the moonlight. This was made by your friends. Standing, she moved over to the open window, and felt the breeze finger through her hair.

Fantastical things never happened to her, she had to keep telling herself. Dreams did not come to life, and nor would they ever.

But that name, that sound, made her heart flutter. It felt like a key to a locked door, or a kiss to some long-forgotten enchantment.

"Kohaku," she whispered to the new spring wind. And, somehow, she knew she wasn't alone.

The last of the students and their dates spread out from the gym, gallivanting off in different directions, on foot and mopeds and limousine cars. They spread out, until only a few blotches of wilting gowns and wrinkled tuxes remained.

Hiromi caught up with her best friend halfway across the parking lot, and looped her arm into Haru's. As a pair, they looked tired and sweaty, their hair fallen and their makeup ruined, but there were these smiles on their faces that outshone the shine on their noses. The young sandy-haired best friend twirled Haru around and said in an announcer voice:

"And here we have two of the most beautiful women in all of Tokyo!"

She mimicked a roar through cupped hands, and threw her hands into the air. She swung Haru around, who threw her hands up too and took a great sweeping bow.

"Thank you, Thank you!" Haru said between bursts of giggles. "I'll be here all week!"

"But what about the after party at Chen's?" Tsuge whined, tagging along behind, and rubbing out chicken wing stain with his finger on his powder-blue tux. Beside him, Baron fished for a handkerchief in one of his inside pockets, and gave it to him. "Thanks man," Tsuge said gratefully.

"You're welcome," Baron replied, and migrated his eyes to Haru, twirling in her sparkly gown, in the lamplights on the street. He admired her, and wondered how lucky he could ever be to be with a spirit like her.

As if sensing his gaze, she twirled to a stop, and smiled back at him. He was too lucky, he realized. Much too lucky to deserve someone like her.

What if she finds that out too? a voice whispered in his ear. What if she realizes that all you're ever good for is advice?

Baron felt his stomach go weak.

"Tsuge!" Hiromi whined, "Why are you back there? C'mon and join the party!" She reached back her hand to her boyfriend, and the black-headed boy went running. He swooped his date up in his arms and kissed her cheek, and she complained that he was getting chicken wing sauce all over her dress.

"To taste you better, 'Romi!" He kissed her again, and spun her around in the lamplight, and Haru clapped in time. Expectantly, she trailed her eyes to Baron, and held out a gloveless hand.

"Well?" she asked gleefully, "Don't keep me waiting!"

Baron stared at her outstretched hand, and the promise for when he took it. What it would lead to. What would happen, eventually. In that moment, he saw what life he had pave out before him, and circle around Haru like a ball of tangled yarn.

Can you ever see yourself in her life? Really? the voice pressured.

"Baron?" she faltered slightly. Hiromi and Tsuge were waltzing farther and farther away. Another moment's delay, another second of hesitation, and they would be gone.

Can you live up to her expectations?

Can you?

You'll always be a statue, even if you don't look it.

But Haru loved the statue anyway, he knew.

Baron outstretched his hand too, and took hers, and pushed the small foreign voice to the corner of his mind. Like that time in the Cat Kingdom, when they danced so very elegantly before the Cat King and his servants, he waltzed her down the sidewalk, he spun her and kept hold, and forgot to let go.

And, like all those years ago, he wore a mask.

Who's to say you'll be what she wants ten years from now?

Humans change, Baron knew, but even as a human he would not. Ever. His body would change—his hair would gray and his eyes would dull—but Baron Humbert Von Gikkigen was as unchanging as Death himself, and he couldn't bring himself to tell Haru the exact same.

And Haru, however open and trusting she had always been, would have refused to believe it anyway.

Louise hummed a tune, slow and melodic, and took Death by the arms, and waltzed him around an abandoned grocery parking lot. Her rose red lips parted, and she sang. Beautifully, whimsically—like an angel, her soft golden hair in cascades around her face.

Death tripped after her. He wasn't in such a happy mood. "How much longer until you plan works?" he asked impatiently.

"Oh, I'm not very sure," she said between her song. "A year?"

"A year?!"

"Two, perhaps?"

"Gah!"

She kissed his cheek and hummed a soft laugh. "What's your hurry? You have eternity to wait."

He frowned. "You have a point…"

"A year for you will be a second—a minute, perhaps. For me, it will be a small price in my life." She made Death spin her about, and glided into his chest. "And for Baron? A year will be an eternity."

"How are you so sure?"

Her eyes sparkled like sly rubies. "You'll just have to wait and see."

Continue, or no?