It had been six years since Satsuki and Mei had seen Totoro. Every day since, they talked about their adventured with the giant fuzzy spirit and all the fun they had. But eventually, Satsuki grew up and somewhat that forced Mei to as well. Their days of frolicking around in the lazy summer sun were over. Satsuki was almost finished with high school and Mei was close to starting middle school. Spirits and soot sprites and magical trees were for little kids.
Or so they thought.
"Come on, Mei! Hurry up! I'm leaving in ten seconds! If you want a ride to school get down here right now!" Satsuki hollered from the front door. She heard stomping and indiscernible shouting coming from upstairs and her little sister emerged in her school uniform, tugging on her pigtails. She grumbled about not being able to finish breakfast and have time to properly fix her hair as she slipped her feet into her loafers and slung her school bag over her back, grabbing her school shoes.
"Well that's your fault for sleeping in," Satsuki retorted as she opened the umbrella and the girls scampered down the path to the road and down the muddy road that headed to the school.
As they walked, Mei pulled from her school bag an onigiri that Satsuki recognized as the one she made for Mei's lunch. She smacked Mei's hand and Mei groaned.
"But I'm so hungry still!" she whined.
"You'll get your baby fat back," Satsuki replied. Mei grumbled again (as she had an irritating habit of doing) and put the onigiri back into her lunch box and zipped her bag shut.
They arrived at school and Mei scampered to the middle school while Satsuki met up with her friends. Kanta came strolling over and pecked Satsuki sweetly on the cheek before lacing hands with her and walking into school with her. She put her loafers into the cubby and slipped on her white school slippers. Kanta walked her to class and as people passed by, friends of the couple said their hellos in passing.
"So Satsuki," Kanta said as they walked into classroom 6B. Satsuki took a seat and looked up at her boyfriend and smiled.
"What's up?"
"I was wondering if you wanted to go into town and catch a movie with me," he asked, leaning against the desk next to her. Satsuki smiled.
"Sure. You pick this time. I picked the last one," she chuckled. "Gosh, what a bad choice," she added, clapping a hand to her forehead. The movie she had picked had been a cheesy horror film by a novice filmmaker. It was a wonder how it even made it past the drawing board.
The other students started to pile in and the teacher walked in. Satsuki reached for her bag and unzipped it, shoving her hand in, searching for her pencil case. She jumped back and yanked her hand out, shrieking in fright as an eruption of black puff balls were displaced as she shoved her hand in. Like when you stick your hand into a full bucket of water and it sloshes over the sides.
Everyone turned to look at her and the teacher walked over to her.
"Miss Kusakabe, is everything alright over here?" Mr. Iwamoto asked in an annoyed tone.
"I..uh..." Satsuki looked down at her hand. The palm of it was covered in black, what looked like soot.
"No," she whispered. It couldn't be possible, could it?
"Mis Kusakabe?" Mr. Iwamoto asked, more agitatedly this time.
"Mr. Iwamoto, can I go to the bathroom?" she asked. He sighed and nodded, and Satsuki could almost see a vein twitching in his temple. Satsuki stood and bowed shortly before scurrying out of the classroom and running down the hall to the bridge that connected the high school to the middle school.
Looking for 2C, Satsuki slowed from running and closed her right hand around her left thumb, holding both hands to her chest as she looked up at the classroom signs.
Finally finding 2C, Satsuki popped her head in and everyone looked up, including the teacher.
"May I help you?" she asked kindly. Satsuki ignored her and looked around the room for Mei. She found her at the back of the classroom, doing math problems.
"Can I help you, young lady?" the teacher asked again. Satsuki turned to her and nodded, a determined look on her face. Her right hand was still closed at her chest, but her left hand held the doorjamb as she fell to the side, using the doorjamb as an anchor.
"Can I please speak to my sister, Mei?" Satsuki asked quickly. From the corner of her eye, she saw Mei perk up at the sound of her name and the teacher nodded, calling her forward. Mei came scurrying up to Satsuki and Satsuki backed into the hallway.
"What's wrong? You never come to see me," Mei asked, concerned. Satsuki opened her hand, her fingers towards Mei, her palm wide open. Mei's eyes grew wide and she kept looking from her sister's hand to her face and back again.
"Soot sprites came spewing out of my bag like a volcano!" Satsuki whispered. Mei looked at her hand once more like it was something extremely rare.
"Wow," she said, very quietly. Satsuki looked at her hand as well, trying to comprehend why soot sprites would explode out of her backpack like that. She hadn't seen them in about six years. Ever since Totoro had left.
Though she and Mei never spoke of him anymore, both girls still remembered vividly what had happened when they first moved into the house. Satsuki told Mei to go back to class while she returned to her own class, but not before stopping at the bathroom to wash her sooty hands.
"Where did you go? You were gone for so long," Kanta asked while the two ate lunch together outside. Satsuki relayed what had happened and why she had shrieked in class and all the while, Kanta's eyes grew wider and wider.
When the two called a truce and became friends, she had told him everything about Totoro and her adventures with her sister, and the catbus and the magical acorns and the soot sprites. Everything.
"So what does this mean? Why would soot sprites be in your school bag?" Kanta asked.
Satsuki shrugged. "I asked myself the same questions," she answered. She finished her lunch in silence, listening to the monotonous drip, drip, drip of the rain water off the leaves. She stared thoughtfully at her bento and chewed slowly, trying to wrap her mind around the soot sprites in her bag.
Was Totoro really back? And if he was, why?