Nothing Can Bring Our Glory Back
"What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind." (Imitations of Immortality, Wordsworth)
Time passed in the bathhouse was a fickle thing, too unreliable to depend upon. Days blended into one another until years elapsed without change to the agenda or customers. The same routine repeated, no different today as twenty years ago. Age seemed unimportant; the seasons' passage was the sole indicator of such. Life there never ended, never found refuge for a moment. Without the hope for breaks in the monotony, age was more depressing than anything else- especially when the temptation of one's past life haunted their dreams. Many decided against remembering about the painful past and so forgot everything, including what they valued the most.
Haku found some temporary escape in Yubaba's dirty work. While he wanted nothing to do with the business, he was irrevocably caught in the web without an escape. When he was in a particularly optimistic mood, he might remind himself that the work kept his mind engaged. That way, he didn't fall into a further monotony and retained some sense of the world. Though his name had long slipped his mind, he doubted that many forgot the events almost sixty years ago. The anniversary always gave them a bitter reminder about the disgusting acts humans preformed.
Sometime during the afternoon hours a terrible atmosphere clung to the air and roused the bathhouse's inhabitants from their slumber. As custom, Haku was among the first to investigate the out of the ordinary event as Yubaba's lackey. Fifty years later, he still shuddered at the memory. Trapped in the Spirit World, news traveled slowly unless some direct god or spirit involved passed through the bathhouse. They had little knowledge about the massive war humans waged, caring only that nature was in an irreparable state again. Business had been rather sluggish, if he recalled correctly.
And it only worsened with the arrival of the bathhouse's temporary tenants. That day, two people staggered through the town, across the bridge and into the bathhouse, carrying two heaps of bloodied, charred flesh unrecognizable as living. The blood fell to the floor in grotesque patterns, staining everything an almost black red. The people- one boy and one girl- were dyed in the color and too frantic to speak, too tired to do more than collapse. As he barked orders to the frozen slugs and frogs, he heard two simultaneous responses so alike that one person might have spoken in reality. "War," they whispered under labored breaths.
Spirit, god or otherwise, the two mortally injured people stood no chance of survival. The living two were unharmed, if exhausted physically and emotionally. That raised the question: why bother with the effort if the others were bound to die anyways? Perhaps, Haku had considered during the long hours waiting for them to pass, their friends wanted them to die in a place away from humans. The bathhouse always served as a sanctuary, never as a burial ground. The morbid atmosphere permeated the place for weeks afterwards as news trickled in little by little. Exhausted gods told their tales about the war.
As for the bathhouse's tenants, when they woke the two were hardly in a state to function. Duty called eventually, and life returned to their pallid faces. They were called Toyo and Kyo, the spirits of two famous cities in Japan. Their friends were once cities as well, Hiro and Saki, they'd said. The simple names didn't baffle anyone, but the visitors were given a fair amount of respect. Their lives were tied to their people, so it was natural that the spirits and gods detest them somewhat, but this was also not their choice of birth. To deal with humans for so long and intimately was a great feat.
The two visitors left two months later saying that they'd abandoned their people long enough and that the Westerners were coming. Haku watched them cross the lively town in the dead of night, so much like humans that he half expected them unable to continue past the river. But they boarded the ferry and that was the last he saw of them for nearly fifty years. Life began to decline into its previous state once more. With it came discontentment. But the inhabitants of the bathhouse present that day never did forget the grisly scene, if only due to their hatred of humans.
Fifty years from that day, Haku recognized that slightly different change in the atmosphere. For a moment, he paused in a back hallway and recollected his senses. So much time elapsed that he almost forgot what the source of that change was and the people it brought. The memories returned clear as yesterday and he rushed to the lower levels wondering what calamity happened this time. The other workers were slower to comprehend the situation, frazzled only because a guest passed out at the front doors. Few recognized the boy, though when Haku arrived he noticed he hadn't aged a day.
While his forgetful mind grappled for the name- alias- given to him fifty years ago, he arranged for a room to be reserved for their unexpected guest. Yubaba allowed it only because the boy had access to a great sum of money and she wasn't the cruelest person to exist. Some grumbled complaints from his boss later and Haku was sitting before the boy, wondering just how to fix this problem. With the boy's body consumed in twitches and labored breathing, he found no way to help besides keep his temperature normal and stimulate his circulatory system.
Days passed and Haku checked back every now and again to ensure that another guest hadn't died on their premise. Toyo, as he remembered, held onto his life for a week before the symptoms broke and he lapsed into a quiet sleep. It was two days later that he woke fatigued and weak, but alive. Haku had allowed his path to cross Toyo's quarters twice a day during his errands, knowing that Yubaba would not be happy with a corpse inside the bathhouse for any extended period of time. During one run, he noticed that the boy had moved from his still position.
"Are you feeling alright?" he asked softly, knowing full well that 'alright' didn't quite cover the situation. Toyo started at his voice though his head had been turned towards the door. Thinking that this was peculiar, Haku shuffled into the room and knelt beside him. The boy stiffened, but seemed convinced that no further harm would come to him now. "My name is Haku. You came here fifty years ago, right Toyo? Do you remember?" Haku hadn't expected the boy to forget things as easily as the inhabitants of the bathhouse did. Predictably, Toyo nodded and fell into a pensive mood.
"I remember you…" Toyo muttered hoarsely, having difficulty breathing. Haku had nothing to offer, but he seemed unbothered. Shaking his head lightly, Toyo fell into concentration. Finally, he moved his trembling hand across the sheets, searching for something. The action perplexed Haku until the boy's fingers found his knee and his head turned a margin. Then, he made the connection right before the boy realized it with growing horror. "My…my eyes are opened, aren't they? But you're right there, and….and I can't see you! I can't see anything!"
Haku swiftly calmed his hysteria before something else went wrong with his health. No one had a solution for whatever caused his pain in the first place. The last thing he needed was an angry Yubaba and for Toyo to relapse. Eventually, the boy quieted and closed his dark eyes. "That incident at the train station…" he whispered in increasing awareness. Haku settled onto a cushion even though he had a mission to carry out. Sometimes people needed an ear to listen to them. No one had been there for him, but he felt no need to leave Toyo alone.
"Someone, someone released something on the train. It was a chemical called, called…sarin. A lot of people inhaled it, went to the hospital and I…" Toyo paused, recollecting his muddled thoughts. Haku excused himself for a moment and came back with a hot teapot. The boy found a teacup carefully and raised it to his lips without much trouble, the motion probably instinctive after so many years. "I was working. My boss said to go to the hospital, but I refused. Why waste medication on someone who won't die anyways? So I thought that I'd come here. But I didn't think that it had these effects.
"All those years ago, when I left I promised myself that I would return under better conditions. I guess I broke that promise…but so much happened since then. America occupied the country for a long time and now this, from our own people…" Toyo settled down his teacup and lowered his body back into the futon. Curling up, he already seemed to be drifting into sleep. Haku gathered the cups and pot, turning to leave when he hesitated and turned back to the boy. Yubaba probably wouldn't care, as long as he was willing to pay.
"When things have gotten better, why don't you pay another visit? Even the gods need to rest sometimes; you aren't much different," Haku said, exiting the room before Toyo answered. He was late and needed to complete that errand before dusk. If he saw Toyo in a few inconceivable years, then he would know his response. After all, if fifty years passed in the blink of an eye, what was two or three more? To Toyo, maybe that was a hefty amount of time, but that had never been the case to Haku, wherever he came from.
According to his prediction, three years later another stranger came stumbling into the bathhouse. This time, it was not two destroyed cities or one injured by terrorists, but a mere human. The residents of the bathhouse were not so quick to forget the previous incident and raised alarms instantly. They hadn't forgotten what humans had done to the gods, the spirits and the others. Haku again investigated the incident, but was pleasantly and horrifyingly surprised to discover that he knew this person, too. The memory was faint, about a lifetime ago. The horror that had been present sixty years ago washed out that other important memory.
Still, he knew this girl from somewhere, knew her better than he knew himself. This time, he took more drastic actions. Yubaba settled for the spirit of a human city staying temporarily. Humans were another story altogether. There was nothing more he could do than provide her a means of living and give her hope. All the while, the nagging memory of a promise he made recently slipped his mind. The exact wording was lost to him, too fleeting to recall. For a moment he forgot the name of that person he looked after for so many days.
But Yubaba was becoming desperate to upstage her sister and Haku, unfortunately, took on that task like all the rest. A day before he left, he recognized the strange atmosphere quicker than three years ago. Cursing the bad timing, he hurried to the first floor and gauged that he had about two days until the heavy rains set in. Tomorrow he would be leaving and after that he had to worry about getting Chihiro home. There was no time for social visits, even from an old friend. Toyo, he realized, was not much of a friend, just an acquaintance. But he made a promise, just like he made one to Chihiro.
"I guess I always come under really bad circumstances, right?" Toyo said softly, an actual smile on his face. The sight was new to Haku. Previously, all he'd seen were strained smiles that tried to assure Toyo that everything was okay, never a genuine one. The boy shrugged and made a careless waving motion. "It's okay. We can talk another year; this year I'll just enjoy the baths. I've already heard about the human here. Do you know her?"
"So you've recovered now, your sight included? Don't tell anyone, but I've been trying to get her home. I have a lot on my hands now," Haku admitted, motioning for Toyo to follow him to a room. This time he was a paying customer, so Yubaba didn't have to screech and ramble at his presence. Wondering what the wording that promised a different time to talk was about, he asked, "Another year?
"Oh, I only get one year's vacation per year and I've had to do double time for the train incident. That's what I get for leisurely spending my time here. So I haven't gotten a vacation in about seven hundred days. I'll definitely return next year, when you're not so busy, okay?" Haku nodded automatically as he slid the room's door open. Then he hesitated, remembering that he'd wanted to escape this life at last. Chihiro, he felt, held the key to his true name. If and when he recovered it, he didn't want to step foot into this bathhouse again. But he didn't want to ruin Toyo's one holiday and flashed him a small smile before he left to prepare for Yubaba's mission.
First, he had to show Chihiro her real name so that she could remember his. Toyo would be long gone, but with the human world changing so often and quickly, he doubted that the boy really would return in a year. And this was evidently more important than a simple chat over tea.
True to his word, Haku- or Kohaku as he'd remembered- didn't return to the bathhouse except to null his contract when Chihiro left. Toyo again slipped from his mind. After he canceled his apprenticeship, he wandered the Spirit World. Since his river was long gone, he had no reason to return to the harmful human world where so many tragedies and calamities occurred. One day, before too much time passed, he wanted to find Chihiro, even if she forgot him. He wanted to return the favor that granted his freedom. But he didn't want to have to remain in the human world.
Five years passed, he estimated by the turning of the seasons. Chihiro was no longer a child. She would start to question her childhood fantasies, but still cling to them for another year or so. Haku drifted among the clouds, over the familiar bathhouse with its billowing smoke. He reached the river-field in less than a minute, hovering for a moment. The anniversary of that day made him anxious, something he hadn't felt in awhile. As his form shifted and scales gave way to skin, he stepped onto the grass that so much resembled a wavy, jade ocean. Even if he could not pass the gate for fear of being trapped in the human world, he could go as far as the station.
The walk was pleasant and he found himself before the old red establishment before long. His soft footsteps echoed against the walls until he entered the large waiting station, covered in a fine layer of dust. Outside light filtered in from the windows above, casting lazy streaks across the space and over benches. If Haku hadn't taken the time to glance over the seats, he would have missed the figure sitting quietly against a wall. At first, he felt that familiar atmosphere he'd ignored in the breeze of the wind intensify as he walked closer.
Then, he remembered that genuine smile on a worried face five years ago and the strange adventure that transpired afterwards. It took him a moment to grapple for the name as the person waited patiently; he appeared no different from the last time he'd seen him. The name was on the tip of his tongue when the boy spoke. A wistful look overcame his demure features for a moment. However, his leg never stopped tapping incessantly at the stone floor in impatience. He'd grown accustomed towards activity and busy days and nights. Even if his mind wanted patience, his body said differently.
"I've been waiting for you every year since five years ago. I think she's been waiting, too. Time passes a lot differently, a lot slower in the human world, you know? But I'm glad you finally showed up. It's a good thing my boss never knew that I spent my vacation sitting in a train station for twenty-four hours." Toyo breathed a soft laugh as he stood and brushed away the dust. A smile settled on his face again as he motioned to the exit to the human world. "Do you want to go see her? I can bring you back."
Haku nodded, aware that he was being incredibly rude but unable to talk. The dedication Toyo took to his word amazed him. He expected the boy to have given up, when he remembered him at all. There wasn't even a trace of anger or irritation in his demeanor as he led the way into the human world. He was a very forgiving person. Haku didn't admit that he'd forgotten the boy until now. Toyo was not fleeting- he was always there, wherever he stayed. Chihiro was human, to fleeting for him to forget.
They entered the human world and he immediately sensed the horrid affects of pollution. Sympathetic, Toyo allowed him time to rest before he started down the path. "I'm afraid that I can't drive a car looking this young. It's really annoying, but at least the scene's nice. We can cut through the forest, I think. Her house is upon a hill." Haku merely nodded, wondering if he should actually confront her. It had been so long and she wouldn't have remembered her visit to the Spirit World. The seeds of doubt grew in his chest as he followed Toyo through the trees.
"Can I ask you something?" Toyo said suddenly as the stepped over a fallen log. Haku gave his consent, too preoccupied with his thoughts to care. Absently, he heard Toyo talk. "What will you do when she…passes? Humans don't live forever. I've seen a lot of my comrades' deaths. As a general rule, we cities and nations don't make too many attachments with humans. It's too sad. But, even we don't last forever…" Haku broke off his worries and lifted his head to the slumped boy ahead of him. His memories were instantly taken back to that day some sixty years ago.
"I don't know," Haku admitted, lifting a hand to encourage the boy along. With a soft, barely audible sigh, he continued. Haku had plenty of time to think about that. Humans were not welcomed to the Spirit World, alive or dead. He no longer belonged in the human world, not with a solid connection to it. And while Chihiro would grow old, he never would and while he would love her just the same, one day she would die. Then what was he left with? For a moment, a thought occurred to him, but he silenced it. That was asking far too much of Toyo.
The last thing Haku wanted was to take advantage of that kindness and patience. But Toyo smiled, wistful again and spoke his thoughts. "It's okay. I don't mind being used. That's what we cities were created for anyways. We've no real control over our people any more than Japan does. They just use our resources to further their goals. Not that you're a bad person," he added hastily. "But I wouldn't mind keeping you anchored here for a single day out of the year. I have responsibilities of my own, after all."
Haku's incredulous expression must have been noticed by Toyo, because the boy offered another smile- a smaller, sadder one this time. "I would do it. I owe you two life debts, after all. One for giving my family the proper burial they deserved, even when there was hardly anything to bury. The second is for helping me after the Subway Sarin Incident. And human politics have been almost quiet in recent years. I hope it lasts." Toyo slowed as they emerged from the forest and faced a sharp sloping hill. At the top sat rows of houses and at the tip, one blue house. Haku knew she was there.
His guide settled against a tree and curled up, embracing his knees while tilting his head towards the sky. A peaceful countenance overtook his features as his eyes closed. With one last grateful glance, Haku started towards the hill. When he got there, he didn't know what he would do to convince Chihiro that the events of five years ago had been real. The key, he felt, rested in her inner strength. Though he may act as the trigger, only she could unlock those memories. Confident that something would work out, he walked up to the house.
The initial confrontation had been a flurry of confusion and caution. Indeed, her personality and being hadn't changed much in five years, even if her appearance had. That hair tie, he noticed, remained on her person throughout the years. Something within Chihiro kept her from tossing the old item away, for which he was immensely glad. When she absently touched it from force of habit, something resonated in her mind. Needless to say, everything did work out in the end. But when the sun started its descent beyond the horizon, he knew his time was up.
"You really do have to leave." It was not a question. Haku gave her his apologies and promise to return again next year and if not next year, then the one after that. She understood, though it pained her to admit it. She was not the child that whined incessantly anymore when situations fell out of her favor. Proud, Haku gave her one last firm hug before he started down the hill, without a glance backwards. The waving he knew was there comforted him enough that he had no regrets.
Toyo moved barely a muscle in his absence. When he woke with a lazy yawn, he muttered that he hadn't slept so well in years. Haku voiced his eternal gratitude, which the city brushed off as they reentered the darkening forest. "I wanted something to end happily for once," he commented. Haku accepted this answer with a nod. How many happy endings did such long-living beings experience? Amazingly, Toyo never came off as cynical, as many might appear after living the life he led. Really, Haku didn't know the boy enough to judge his tempers or attitudes, but had a feeling that there were few illusions about him.
When night fell, he took the ferry over the river back into the Spirit World. Toyo had departed when they arrived at the gate, again muttering under his breath about work and such. For Haku, this meant another long year in waiting. In the meantime, he wanted to settle somewhere quiet- in a small little village perhaps, where no one minded a lost dragon looking for a place in the world. There was plenty of time. The human world's time, after all, passed much differently than here.
The routine became a quaint, enjoyable thing so much unlike the monotony at the bathhouse. The small village Haku found refuge in didn't mind his stay as long as he worked- and worked he did, without complaint as was custom to him. When that day rolled around, he waited at the train station until Toyo came, unchanged as always, apologizing about his tardiness and muttering about his current boss and politics Haku had no notion about. Each time they arrived at the forests' edge, Toyo remained behind while Haku continued up that hill. Eventually, the forest diminished and Toyo instead took to hiding behind some random house.
Never once did he ask to meet this person Haku was so dedicated to, and not once did Haku find curiosity written over his features. Toyo, he found after two short years, was a good, reliable friend, complacent and baffling at times. With such friends, his long existence eased into a content state. And as the nature of such things went, nothing did last forever. The years passed, each starting and ending the same, with varied results in between. Then, after more indiscernible time passed, Haku stopped returning to the human world. He'd fulfilled his promise for as long as possible.
As Toyo once mentioned, visiting graves brought too many unwanted, depressing memories. And as for the city, many things had happened to him. Sometimes he disappeared for a year or two at a time when Chihiro was still alive, caught up in politics and the world Haku didn't understand. Always, he returned, even when his debt had long since been fulfilled. Haku found out once when he passed over the gateway, and felt that strange atmosphere again. For a moment he almost disregarded it, until he remembered the past seasons and came to a windy landing.
Nothing had changed inside the train station, not to the structure and not to the people within it. At least, the outward appearance didn't change. Haku was definitely more jaded now, a little more antisocial than before. As for Toyo, he was unsure about- if he had changed, as always he showed no signs that it bothered him. Haku wondered if he'd always been like this, far in Japan's past, when Haku had been a river. Not once did they ask each other about personal matters beyond work. Toyo was almost a business colleague, in a sense.
Each year afterwards they sat together at the train station, each waiting for something that would never arrive. Then, one year, the routine broke. Toyo started the conversation with a peculiar sentence. "I come here to forget who I am. It may seem selfish, but I am only human." Irony dripped off his words, but in a sense Toyo was human, having lived among them for far too long. Haku tilted his head towards his companion as he spoke, not comprehending. He did think that it was selfish, of course, but to voice that opinion was rude.
"For a long time, I wished I knew who I was," Haku said softly. Even nowadays he reminded himself each day that his name was Nijihayami Kohaku Nushi, the god of the swift amber river. Chihiro gave him his name back, gave a purpose to his life. He would be damned if he forgot it again. For this reason, he avoided places like the bathhouse as if they were plagues. Toyo could never forgot his name so easily, not when it was written on every map of Japan and all across the news and city itself. He didn't value his name as much as Haku did.
"Each year, I pray that I might forget my name and remember my real one," Toyo said in a whisper now, his voice breaking. Startled by the sudden shift, Haku turned to face the boy and found his posture slumped. A soft well of anger bubbled inside him at his carelessness and disregard for something Haku so sought after. The heartbroken manner in which Toyo held himself dissipated some of that anger. "Hiro and Saki don't care about their predecessors. Not enough to ask much about who they were, at least. They're convinced that they are mirror images, but they are not.
"The past Hiro and Saki were my brother and sister. They may look identical, but they are completely different people." Toyo paused and sighed, then straightened as if to drag his mind back on track. "Tokyo used to be known as Edo, before the Westerners came and ruined our society. It's not that I'm not proud of our people now, but…I'm not proud of what we made of the power the Westerners gave us and we cultivated.
"From what Kyo told me, Edo was not another person. She remembers when we were young and I wasn't called Toyo. Everyone in our family seems to remember except for me. In the last, bloody days of the Bakumatsu the last shogun fled the capital. Someone had been assassinated there recently. When Kyo found me, I was unconscious and when I woke, I no longer remembered being Edo. Somehow, I thought that Edo was my predecessor. When I came here during the Second World War, I remembered some strange things, of memories that weren't anything I remembered and yet belonged to me.
"So when I returned in nineteen ninety-eight, I didn't want to lose that sense of forgotten times. I wanted to recover those fleeting thoughts because they belong to me," Toyo finished quietly. Haku mulled over his story for a long while. It made sense, even though he'd forgotten who Kyo was. The fact that the boy withheld this from him for countless years irritated him, but he supposed that it didn't really matter.
"Did you ever find them?" Haku asked. Chihiro found his forgotten memories and he wondered if Toyo needed the same. Then again, he had an extended family. Surely by now he would have recovered them. For a moment, Haku felt a bit guilty for what he'd been doing for years. Toyo dedicated his single vacation day to helping two people he didn't know. He spent the rest of his days helping his city. Only in recent years did he come for the company. Haku hadn't been there for the rest.
"No," Toyo said, short and brief with a tinge of sadness. Sympathetic, Haku offered him a smile and clasped a hand over the smaller boy's. He'd been there at Chihiro's side when she passed, courtesy of Toyo again. The city managed to escape the office he worked in for a few hours to allow them some time together. It was time he returned that debt, because at the bathhouse he'd only been doing his job. That didn't mean that he wouldn't have helped under normal circumstances, but he couldn't call that a debt.
"Suffering doesn't last forever; sadness doesn't either. And once you've experienced something, it never leaves your heart, even if you have forgotten it," he said. Mildly surprised, Toyo turned slightly towards the dragon with a slight shimmer in his eyes and smiled a very small smile. His lips trembled and for a moment, Haku saw the struggles he'd faced with the burden of so many lives under his wings. "I promise it won't last."
"I'll take your word for it," Toyo said softly. Then, slightly amused and half in distress, he said, "I think I'm causing a depression. I should stop this, shouldn't I? Thank you for your kind words. Perhaps next year I might remember."
Rosy golden light filtered through the windows above their heads and covered the room. Dusk was about to descend upon the land and as was custom, Toyo would be gone soon and Haku flying away somewhere. They both waited for something each year, something that would never come to pass. At least, Haku didn't think that his wish could come true anymore. As for Toyo, he knew that the truth was somewhere inside him, just as it had been for Chihiro. So the next year, he arrived to the train station late, without fear that the ride might come before he did.
Toyo almost looked as if he didn't expect Haku to show, but the emotion was quickly covered. He seemed to be a person who hid behind masks more often than his real self. To be fair, Haku professed that he did the same when he wasn't around Chihiro. And now that time had passed as well. He was not so sure what he wanted besides change. For so long his life had been about monotony, then came along the occasional person to add conflict to that life. He found himself missing that conflict.
And an eternity in the Spirit World where time did not belong sounded very undesirable. Admittedly, he missed the human world, or what little he remembered of it. Things changed there, even if it changed for the worse. While humans were detestable creatures sometimes, they also brought a certain joy that no one in the Spirit World offered. So, that day he asked one last favor of Toyo. The city gladly granted it.
The next year, he found out why Toyo forgot his former life, why he always hid his true nature from himself and the world. He came to know why worry and anxiety always overcame the boy's face even in the most relaxing times. He had already learnt to love and now, he learnt how to understand people. He never forgot his name again, but sometimes, he forgot his anger at those who ripped it from him.
Notes/References:
To transition back into the regular world of writing from NaNoWriMo, I celebrated with this story. Compared to the rough and ruthless novel writing, this was a relaxing day at the park. But it needs a bit of explanation.
• The idea for this story came from when I watched Spirited Away again, a month back. Around the same time, I was very into Hetalia (and still am), which is a short anime and manga about personified nations of the world. Though the story is presented in a very allegorical and comedic manner, it can be interpreted as much, much darker due to the nature of the topics. So, I thought about the crazy, bloody Bakumatsu period of Japan and wondered what might become of the confusion following the renaming of a capital? This idea that spirits come to rest themselves at the bathhouse seemed like a good way to explore this.
• As for the time difference which doesn't match up, all I can say is that I forgot in lieu of the plot. So to rectify that a little, I imagine this: time passes differently in the Spirit World and for those in it. Who's to say that this is impossible? In a world where lamps walk, people turn into objects and animals, and spirits walk freely, it might not be too far-fetched. I hope.
• As for naming: Toyo is obviously Tokyo; Kyo is his 'twin' sister Kyoto (the relationship between these two cities can be described as such); Hiro is Hiroshima; Saki is Nagasaki
• Since Hiroshima and Nagasaki were razed to the ground in WWII, and built from the ground up, I imagine that the people representing them would also have been decimated.
• The Subway Sarin Incident really happened in 1998. The after affects to those only injured by it, was blindness among other things. It can cause seizures and such.
• In this story is that it is important to have someone to help you along your path. For the better part of Haku and Toyo's relationship, they were about 'you do a favor for me, I do one for you', but that isn't what friendship is about. So Haku needs to overcome his sadness about Chihiro; Toyo needs to recover the precious memories he held dear to him. Finally, they figure out that they only leave open more problems by paying each other favors.
• About Chihiro- I really like her as a character, but she's only human. And we humans will die one day. So I wanted to also make a story where she lives and dies, and that's the the ending isn't as happy as you'd have liked it to be, but remember that they did get a better part of her life to spend together.