She was waiting for a really long time. She didn't exactly know what she was waiting for, although if you were to ask her, she would probably tell you that she was waiting for something to take her far away from Earth because, in reality, whenever she thought about it that was what her mind always turned to. She was so young, and right now she felt more conflicted about whether it really happened. She usually avoided thinking about it.
But she remembered. She remembered all the suffering that she went through those few days. She remembered what true horror was. What true work was. What it was like to have everyone, every single being surrounding you, think of you as garbage. She knows what it is to have to prove herself in order to be free. But she looked past the suffering. She looked past all the tears, the panic, and the pain. Because when all of this was done, she experienced something that no other human will ever experience. She experienced freedom. She experienced being so happy that while she was falling through the sky, she didn't think of the water underneath her. She didn't think about the possibility of her death. She thought about the boy, not a boy, actually, something else, something that she didn't understand. He protected her. He was what she trusted to keep her from danger, and who, after having saved her life multiple times, she knew that she saved. And every night, she would see those grey eyes lighting up for the first time, when she saved him.
But who knows what that was. Chihiro Ogino, who was now 18 years old, was thought of by everyone as insane. Maybe not "insane," but there was definitely something wrong with her. The things that came out of her mouth, she sounded like a 50 year old or older woman who had gone daffy in her old age. She started speaking out of line and about things that didn't make sense at all as soon as she moved into her current house. Her parents were assured by therapists and doctors everywhere that it was just stress, and after seeing how people reacted to her stories she eventually learned to shut her mouth. Still, Chihiro's mother saw what her daughter had did amazing in school, but once she graduated she never bothered with university. Chihiro was gorgeous, a beautiful face, and a reasonably sized, slender body with hair that now reached her waistline, that she kept tied with a worn out purple hairband that must have been over five years old now. The boys gawked over her. She never cared for any of them, though. Her mother came up with multiple situations as to why this might be, but ultimately decided it was because she was too occupied with talking to her inanimate objects and writing letters to no one in her room, and then tossing them in the forest for reasons she never shared. As much as her mother wanted a grandchild, she supposed she would have to wait. Chihiro was a young woman, she will fall in love and have babies in the future, it was bound to happen.
Chihiro, however, was an individual. She loved her parents, but she never listened to them when it came to things such as university, sex, babies, and marriage. Her father, who was someone that she started avoiding as soon as he first brought it up, even threatened to push her into an arranged marriage. Chihiro knew and was fully adjusted to people not understanding her, but she still clung to her mother's side because she always seemed the most understanding. She felt blessed to have that one person in her life. She learned how to deal with not having friends, to having to take matters into her own hands, but at least she had that one person to lean on, no matter how insane she thought she was.
But there was that one boy. Or, god, at this point. She knew he probably didn't care as much as she did. She was told her entire time in his world, she is a weak and smelly human. She gave him a huge favor, but she knew he wasn't one who had to care about her. At first, this realization broke her. It gave her constant depression, constant nights of crying. She wanted him to come through those gates, to, at the most, let her stare at him. Yes, she loved him, but she didn't ask for much. Not even a hug, really. Just to see those stunning grey eyes was all she wanted.
She wrote to him every day. She always took care and precaution while writing, making sure her writing was legible and that she always signed off with "Love, Chihiro." just so he knew it was her. It was sort of a quirky habit she had as a child, but it grew into something that calmed her down. She never begged him to come to her and hold her and take her away, because even though that's what she wanted, he could do whatever he wanted. She asked nothing of him. She just liked to talk to him about her day, occasionally asking how he was doing in high hopes he would answer. She would write the letter, fold it into fourths, and put it in a blue envelope, as blue was her favorite color. She usually had some cute stickers of flowers and cartoons that she buys from Tokyo that she would use to tape the envelope together and when all was done, she would walk up to the tunnel let the letter go in the strong current that led into the spirit world. It was amazing, and although most of her was sure that there was a pile of her letters sitting on the other side that no one bothered to clean, she was also sure that, maybe, just maybe he has been able to read them. Maybe it made him smile, maybe he thought it was just adorable that a human, of all creatures would be so in love with him. He might have thought it was ridiculous. She didn't care. She just wanted him to know.
Once or twice, she would work up her nerve and walk through the tunnel into the foreign world behind it. She felt the anxiety eat her up by the time she was almost there. By the time she was out, she entered the chapel and saw that no letters were on the floor. However, the door on the other side was wide open, so the chance of the letters flying out into the spirit world felt high. She would have checked. She should have checked. However, at this point, there was no way she was going to make it past. She felt like something was going to jump out and take her and eat her. As ridiculous as this notion was, she never had the guts to go past that door. She couldn't even look through it into the green, grassy, beautiful paradise beyond because she knew how dangerous this place was. So, she ran in the other direction, looking behind her just to make sure she wasn't going to die. Once she was out, she'd lie on the ground in tears and not get up for hours out of guilt and temporary self-loathing.
She needed him. She has sacrificed so much for him that she felt ridiculously used. Last night was the last night she tried to work up the nerve to go past the chapel. It was snowing, and it was snowing hard. She would have froze out there if her mother didn't catch her. Chihiro was about to loose herself at this point. She wanted to go past that door. It was driving her insane. Her mother nursed her. Hugged her, fed her, told her everything is ok and that she'll be ok. Chihiro knew she wouldn't be ok until she saw him. She needed to leave. So that's what she would do.
Chihiro was brave. She knew damn well she was brave. She told herself this as she packed a small bag, just small enough to hold a few necessities, an extra jacket, soap, shampoo, deodorant, toothpaste, toothbrush, gum, if she was staying for more than a day she didn't want to be too disgusting. She left her house as soon as her parents went grocery shopping for the week. She walked to the tunnel feeling like a child. "I'm not scared," she told herself. "I'm not scared. I'm not little anymore."
She was freezing by the time she got to the gate. The current was not helping. She felt her lips become more and more numb, her cheeks felt so rosy even though she knew they were probably white as the snow surrounding her. She knew that her memories as Sen were the only things keeping her sane. She walked through slowly as she did when she was ten, keeping her eyes closed and trying not to trip over pews, and in the occasion that she did, pulling herself up and reminding herself that there was no way, at this point, that she will ever be scared again.