Haku felt as if all the air had been ripped from his lungs after watching Chihiro walk out of his life for the second time. He needed to be alone. He needed to think. He needed Chihiro back. He wasn't sure what he needed anymore.

It had been several hours since the encounter at the field and Haku still hadn't figured out the swirl of emotions that clouded his thoughts. He could separate them easily enough, identifying each specific emotion wasn't that difficult. There was pain, longing, confusion. Those were simple, fleeting emotions that he could lock up and ignore and then endure living with for the next fifteen years if necessary. No problem. There was, however, a particularly peculiar feeling that was more difficult to fight. It was something he hadn't been forced to deal with the last time Chihiro had left, something he wasn't even sure he wanted to fight.

Happiness. Ecstasy. Pure, unadulterated joy that bubbled from the pit of his stomach and seeped outward to the rest of his limbs. Sure, he was upset that Chihiro had once again vanished into the human world, but the feelings of despair were drowned out by the lightness he felt. She remembered him. She hadn't forgotten. She hadn't moved on.

Unable to contain his excitement, Haku let out an earth-shattering roar from the deep within his chest. The sound was throaty as his voice was still hoarse from his encounter with his friend, but was laced with an intensity he'd been unable to achieve in the past fifteen years. It was as if a weight had been lifted and he could finally breathe again. The despair he had once felt over the loss of Chihiro was largely due to the fear that she would move on. It was so easy to imagine her growing up, meeting someone else, letting all thoughts of her fantasy world slip away until they really were nothing but fantasy.

But now he knew for certain that Chihiro had been unable to forget him in the same way he couldn't bring himself to get over her. That changed things. He wasn't sure how, but he knew something was different.

Before even deciding where he was going, Haku felt his dragon begin the slow descent towards the ground. He took in the familiar surroundings and sighed inwardly. Haku knew this was where he needed to be, he just hadn't planned on a visit to Zeniba quite so soon.

Morning came all too early for Chihiro. The sun blinded her through the cracks in the curtains while birds chirped happily outside her window. Moaning a half-heartedly, the girl pulled the blanket over her head and rolled over in an attempt to snatch just a few more minutes of peace before the day began. Her sleep was quickly interrupted by the sound of her mother barging into the room.

"Chihiro, how can you still be in bed this late in the afternoon? From the way you're lazing around, you'd think that you had spent the entire night romping around outside!"

Her mother paused to dodge the pillow Chihiro had hurled in her direction before continuing her rant. "Look, I don't want you to lay around in bed all day. It's just not healthy for a girl your age to sleep that much. I want you up and out of bed before I have to come back, alright?"

The woman waited for the muffled grunt from her daughter's direction. "You've already slept through breakfast, but I should have lunch ready soon enough. Now get up Chihiro, I mean it."

After hearing her mother's footsteps fade away, Chihiro forced herself to open her eyes and remember the night's events. Everything seemed a little foggy. It felt as if she'd just woken up from an especially exhausting dream. She couldn't label the feeling as "bad" or "good", she just felt completely drained of energy. Sliding towards of the bed, Chihiro let her feet rest on the floor while she mustered the motivation to get out of bed. She had been so warm and cozy snuggled up in the warmth of her blanket that she had a difficult time pulling herself away.

Blinking away the last bits of sleep, Chihiro's gaze settled on the sneakers piled against the foot of her bed. Puzzled, Chihiro reached down to pick one up. She always took her shoes off as soon as she walked in the house. She was clueless as to why would she have worn these inside, especially since they were covered in mud and wet grass. It took only moments before memories from the previous night flooded her mind. Finding her old hideout. Sitting in the grass. Crying for her old friends. Returning home brokenhearted when nothing happened.

The girl was snapped from her thoughts at the sound of her mother's angry voice from downstairs. Hurriedly shoving the dirty sneakers under her bed, Chihiro scurried out the door before her mother became too upset.

The rest of the day passed in a blur. Chihiro felt as if she were in a daze. She wasn't sure what she'd expected when she ran to the field in the first place, but it certainly hadn't been nothing. She had just wanted some sort of comfort, some assurance that what she remembered really wasn't all just some childish fantasy. Just a glimpse of the sparkling water, a whiff of the exquisite food roasting on open fires, the sound of a frog spirit croaking in complaint. Anything would have been better than the quiet she'd been met with.

Chihiro helped her mother with the chores absentmindedly, her thoughts far away from the tasks at hand. She allowed herself to relive each precious memory from her fantasy world. While her overall adventure had been excited, she missed the smaller moments the most. Those rare moments when Haku would flash a smile in her direction. The time Rin stayed up late helping braid her hair. That day she and No-Face had nearly destroyed Zeniba's kitchen while trying to bake a simple cake. Those memories were the worst. Those were the ones that kept her up at night, the ones that brought confusion and grief and heartache when she realized that they might not even be real.

She was jerked back to reality by a loud crash as the box she'd been holding slipped from her grasp and tumbled to the ground. Chihiro sent her mother an apologetic glance before bending down to make sure nothing had been broken. Luckily, she'd only been carrying a few books and other non-fragile items, so her clumsiness was quickly forgiven.

"Chihiro, I don't know what's wrong with you. You've been acting weird all day, is there anything bothering you?" Chihiro felt her mother's worried stare bore into her back as she finished carrying her box to the car.

"No, mom, I'm fine." She mumbled, reaching down for another box. It was unusual for her mother to be so concerned, usually the woman simply overlooked any abnormalities in her daughter's behavior. It was a habit she had started after Chihiro's "silly creative" phase drew to a close. Chihiro figured that she'd put her mother under so much stress that the woman finally decided her daughter wasn't worth losing so much sleep over. It wasn't long before her mother revealed the real reason for feigning interest her daughter's well being.

"I just wanted to make sure you were feeling okay, especially since I arranged a little surprise for you tonight. It's been so long since we've visited, I figured I'd go ahead and invite Jeremy over for dinner tonight. That's alright with you, right dear?"

Chihiro froze, her entire body locking in place at the mention of her old friend. Truthfully, she'd almost completely forgotten about the boy who had picked up the pieces of her shattered world after that adventure in the forest. Ever since her family moved away when she was eighteen, she hadn't even spared him a passing thought.

"Y-yeah that's fine," she said, unable to hide the shock in her voice. "A little warning would have been nice, but I guess it would be nice to see him again after so long."

Her mother smiled, happy with her response. Chihiro stopped listening when her mother continued to gush about how charming the boy was, how she had once thought the two would grow up and get married one day. She'd heard it all before anyway. Her thoughts were instead focused on the last time she'd seen Jeremy- the night before her family left for good. The experience hadn't been a pleasant one. She vaguely recalled yelling at the boy. Slapping him. Crying for days about the way their friendship fell apart in a matter of minutes. Something along those lines.

She added Jeremy as one more item on her list of things to worry about.

"Look, Haku, we've talked about this before. There really isn't anything-" Zeniba's words were cut short as Haku stood angrily to his feet for what must have been the fifth time that hour.

"No, Zenbia, you don't get it! The last time we talked, you told me that you wouldn't bring her back because you weren't confident she would want to come back. I didn't like it, but I accepted it. It wouldn't have been fair to rip her away from her world if she had been adjusting perfectly to her old lifestyle. But Zeniba, that was five years ago! It's different now! She isn't adjusting. She isn't happy there. She hasn't forgotten us, so why is it fair that you're forcing us to forget her?"

The old woman stared at the enraged dragon pacing around in her living room. His nose flared, his fists clenched into fists, his strides angry. Haku was every inch the intimidating beast she knew he could be, yet the woman felt only pity when she met his distraught gaze. She had made him promise once before that he would stop pestering her about her granddaughter, but evidently the dragon felt it necessary to break that promise one more time.

Unable to say no to such a pitiful stare, Zeniba sighed, shaking her head. "I just know that this is going to be a bad idea," she murmured, rising to her feet with a great deal of effort. Her old age was catching up to her, and she had a feeling that the troublesome dragon and his friend were draining years off her life.

She felt Haku's strong grip around her arm, looked up into his green eyes. What she saw there almost broke her heart on the spot. "Zeniba, I know I told you I wouldn't ask again. But I really think this will work. Please, Zeniba, just give it a chance. How bad could it possibly be?"

A/N: Hi again! Now that it's summer, I finally have some more time to write. I really wanted to explore this story, but please hang in there with me because I have no clue where I'm actually going with any of it. (AKA: It might be a while between updates while I try and figure out what I'm doing here). Also, please, please, please excuse my writing for the next few chapters. It's been ages since I've bothered to write anything and I know my skills have really deteriorated over the past few months but with a little more practice all the rustiness will be gone. Thanks to everybody who reviewed the story, your comments really just make my day whenever I see them. Okay I'll shut up now, I promise to keep these notes to a minimum but I just had a lot to say.