Chihiro woke up with a start. Outside the world was raging, wind gusts rattled at the windowpanes and shook the tree beside her window as if it wanted to rip it from the ground. Branches, dust and leaves scuffled high up in the air. The darkness was so deep she couldn't see beyond the front fence of the house. A sudden thunder illuminated her room for a moment.
She sat up in her chair. She had fallen asleep on her desk while trying to study for her final of algebra. She rubbed her eyes and turned on the light on her desk, grabbing her fallen pencil, she stared at the math paper in front of her for a long time.
Maybe it was the sound of the raindrops pelting against the window, maybe it was the howling of the wind, but suddenly his smile came back to her mind and she swallowed hard pass a sour taste in her throat.
"Haku," the name sounded strange and forbidden in the darkness, like a spell one is not supposed to say. She shook her head, why was she thinking of him? She was seventeen for heaven's sake! Too old to believe in such fairy tales, to revive silly dreams.
Because it had been a dream, hadn't it?
It was simply impossible that such world had ever existed. Really Chihiro, she chastised herself, spirits and monsters? People turned into pigs? A strange being with no face? A boy that could transform himself into a dragon...
Her body betrayed her. Her hands remembered the soft texture of his velvety dragon fur, her ears remembered the deep sound of his reassuring voice. She could still feel the weight of his arm around her shoulders, his breath against her cheek as he comforted her. Her whole being trembled at his memory.
It was easy to think that it had been nothing more than a child's dream, maybe just wishful thinking. After all, all kids dream of big adventures with magic, villains, and talking animals.
Certainly, it was all rubbish... But what of the facts? The car covered in leaves, the colorful elastic band for her hair... And his eyes... his eyes burned in her mind with such intensity that it was almost impossible to think that she had made them up.
Chihiro felt tears stinging her dark eyes. She shut them tightly to prevent them from falling and spilling all over her papers and took a deep breath. She would not cry for a forgotten dream, even if it had been real.
The rain kept falling with a tap tap tap against the window, and she fell it falling directly into her heart, each raindrop a fallen wish. And she wondered helplessly if he had simply forgotten his promise to see her again.
"Goodbye Haku," she whispered with hopeless finality, determined to put all those memories of the past in a forgotten place in her mind, this time for sure.