Hey! Yay! My first Spirited Away fic...and it turns out to be the longest thing I've ever written. It's somewhat AUish. Songfic to the song My Immortal by Evanescence. Anyway, a more detailed summary of this...
Five years after Chihiro leaves the Spirit World, she finds a way to get back to the Spirit World. Haku goes back to the regular/human world with her because he doesn't want to have her leave her family just so she could stay at the Spirit World. Two years after he comes back, Haku is diagnosed with leukemia...but he dies a year after taking chemotherapy. Now, Chihiro is haunted by his spirit. What happens? Please read and find out!
Disclaimer: All the wonderful characters belong to the wonderful movie director Hayao Miyazaki. And this wonderful song belongs to the wonderful group Evanescence. And the uh, plot is a bit similar to the book called Don't Die, My Love by Lurlene McDaniel. So please don't sue me ^_^
NOTE: (~~~) means the beginning/end of a flashback...and just like to mention there is only one flashback here.
My Immortal
~*~*~*~*~
It has been two years, two years ever since...
Chihiro grimly looked out the window of the bathhouse. "Haku..." she silently mouthed his name again. Silence. Suddenly Chihiro's shoulders started shaking and she broke into tears. "Haku!" Chihiro uttered through the tears. "How could you just leave me like this?"
"Chihiro?" Lin's voice came floating through the door. "Is something wrong?"
Chihiro bolted up and quickly wiped away the tears with the back of her hand as she called out, "Nothing!"
"Chihiro?" the door opened and Lin came walking in. "What's going on?" she paused. "Are you thinking of him again?"
It had been ten years since the first time Chihiro left the Spirit World, five years since she had been able to travel back to the Spirit World and two years every since he disappeared from her world...
Fresh tears formed around her eyes. Chihiro swallowed hard and tried to speak...but the usual lump that appeared whenever she thought of him formed at the back of her throat. Unable to speak, Chihiro sat back down into the chair and started crying again.
On a sisterly impulse, Lin knelt down next to Chihiro. "Chihiro..."
"Chihiro..." the bathhouse worker hesitantly asked. "What's wrong?"
Chihiro seemed to cry even harder but she made an effort to speak between the sobs. "I'm sorry Lin. It's just, I don't think that I still realize he's..." she paused, thinking of a euphemism. "Gone," Chihiro finished.
Lin gently patted Chihiro on the back. "Chihiro, he's gone. It's already been two years. Please - " Lin abruptly stopped talking as Chihiro started crying even harder than before. Lin silently sat on the ground next to Chihiro; and let her cry.
When her sobs subsided, Chihiro finally spoke up again. "It's not that. I've told myself to move on for the last two years." She gave a ghost of a smile to Lin. "I seemed to have lost the will to go on in life without him." Chihiro sighed, exhausted. "Though I don't know how I've gotten through these years: graduating high school; actually getting into college and staying there." She stood up and walked to the window. There was a long pause before Chihiro started talking again.
"He was always there for me," Chihiro began in a soft distant voice. "He was like my anchor, holding me down whenever I was about to float off. He was a part of me..." Chihiro trailed off into silence.
(A/N: heh, I think that I stole that line from Mizura Volphen's fic, Red River...yea, she knows in case anyone of you guys think you can make Mizura sue me ^_^)
"I'm sorry..." Lin whispered. Then she gave Chihiro a wistful smile. "He was dear to me too...and I miss him too." She said softly. "I'm fine, I guess. But...what about you?" she asked, her face full of concern. "Are you alright?"
Chihiro nodded her head, smiling sadly. "Yeah, I'm fine. It's just every now and then that I get all emotional." she quickly assured Lin, in hopes of being left alone for a while.
Luckily, Lin seemed to read Chihiro's mind. She stood up and walked to the door. As she rest her hand on the sliding door, Lin turned back to Chihiro. "Well, I hope you are telling me the truth." She jokingly told Chihiro. "But please, for your own sake, please don't linger on Haku forever. You have a life to live. We all love you. Don't waste your life away." She added before she quietly slipped through the door.
"That isn't the first time that I've heard that, Lin." Chihiro said to the door, her voice hollow.
Suddenly her knees grew weak, and Chihiro collapsed back into her chair. Staring out into the ocean, Chihiro smiled wistfully. Then looking down at her hands, a tiny silver drop of tear fell from her cheek as she whispered a single word.
"Haku."
/I'm so tired of being here/
/Suppressed by all my childish fears/
*******
Two weeks had passed ever since Chihiro's conversation with Lin. Now it was the end of the 2nd semester of her sophomore year at the University of Tokyo and Chihiro was about to puke at the thought of going back home, where her parents would poke and prod her for the next two weeks.
Chihiro was running around the corner, hurrying from her last exam back to her dorm to finish packing, when she went SMACK! into something very solid, yet very soft.
"Oompf!" Chihiro cried as she fell back onto her back, the books in her arms flying everywhere.
"Wow...I'm terribly sorry." A deep masculine voice gasped as the owner of it made a move to catch her but missed as he himself lost his balance and flew forward, landing just two inches away from Chihiro.
Chihiro, by then had painfully sat up using her arms as supports. She winced at the pain biting into her ankle and the burning sensation in her leg. She slowly sat up straight, gingerly moving her leg, making sure that it wasn't broken. Meanwhile the other student had been babbling his head off.
"Oh my god. I'm so terribly sorry! I didn't mean to...I assure you that it'll never happen again...I just didn't see you...lemme help you with those books." Finally finding something useful to do, he crawled around picking up Chihiro's books.
"So you're Chihiro." The just-moments-before-distraught young man said in what suspiciously sounded like a sneer as he pointed to her neatly written name on her books.
"Yes." Chihiro answered cautiously, grimacing as bouts of pain exploded from her knee to her feet. The searing pain in her leg got worse.
The anonymous student just threw Chihiro's books at her feet. "For all I care." He coldly informed her. "You can go rot in hell."
Chihiro was shocked at his sudden change in behavior. "Wait a minute." She called out to the person now stalking away.
He suddenly stopped and turned back to Chihiro. "Well, think," he commanded. "We went to that same high school. Tokyo High School." He paused for a moment. "You might not remember me, but you should remember that there was an Achievement Award that was handed out during graduation."
Chihiro thought for a while. Yes, she remembered that award...she was the one that won it that year. She had worked so hard during that one year so she could get through high school to college and maybe help get Haku off her mind all the time...but it hadn't...
"Yes I do remember..." Chihiro slowly responded. "But why do you care about that award?" she asked. "It's only a piece of plastic that says my name on it!"
The young man snorted. "That's what you say." He snarled. "Do you know how hard I freaking worked just so I could win that award like my two older brothers?! Do you know what it means to me that a puny girl won that award over me?!" he stopped to catch his breathe. "My dad beat me to an inch of my death." He whispered in this horrible voice.
Chihiro recoiled in horror. "That terrible!" she cried.
He gave Chihiro a bitter smile. "What else would it be? Moreover, do you know why else everyone was counting on me to win that award? Because my parents won it, my brothers won it...of course I needed it! Do you know how damn close I was to winning it? Do you?!"
"No." Chihiro whispered as everything in front of her starting swirling into one big mass.
"Well, I'll tell you!" he snapped. "I was the first runner-up for the damn award. The first runner-up! Do you know how the hell I felt that day, when they announced your name, not mine?!"
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" Chihiro apologized over and over again, while clutching her head. How did she suddenly get this huge migraine?
"Well, there's nothing you can do about it." he said icily. "And there's nothing you can say to me that will make me feel anything other than contempt for you." With that, he flicked Chihiro off and regally walked away.
Chihiro's head start hurting worse and worse. It was almost like someone was jabbing a knife into the back of her head, twisting it and finally attempting to pull it back out. It didn't help that everything looked like colorful blob.
Haku. Chihiro silently called out as the edges of her vision went black. Help me.
*******
Chihiro dragged her eyelids open. A white ceiling came into focus.
"What the..." Chihiro would've bolted up it was soon forgotten when her leg flared with pain.
"Chihiro, lay down." A somewhat familiar hand pushed Chihiro's shoulders back to the bed.
Chihiro's eyes bugged out. "Mom! What are you doing here?" she was shocked. Why was her mother here? Wait...where was she? Chihiro looked around. "Hold on..." She looked at her mother. "Where are we?"
Her mother patted her hand reassuringly, though it didn't feel very comforting to Chihiro. "Chihiro, you must be more careful." Chihiro raised her eyebrows and stared at her mother strangely. What the heck was going on?
Before her mother could go on, Chihiro interrupted. "Mother." She said firmly. "Just tell me where I am."
"The Shinkokami Hospital," was the prompt answer.
(A/N: Oh, btw, I just borrowed 'Shinkokami' from TP/Tamora Pierce ^_^...only for now...)
Chihiro blanched. Why here? This was the one place she hated more than anything in the world. "Why am I here?" she asked.
Chihiro's mother gave a huge sigh. "They found you on campus unconscious. Turns out you somehow sprained your ankle. Your father and I didn't want you at the campus infirmary so we brought you back home to get proper treatment." She gave Chihiro another sigh. "What I don't understand is how in the world did you sprain your ankle. Would you mind elaborating when your father gets here?" she raised her eyebrow back at Chihiro.
Chihiro didn't answer. Instead she asked, "When can I go home?"
Her mother seemed plenty annoyed by all the questions her daughter was asking and the lack of answers she was getting. "Whenever your doctor says so," She answered in a clipped tone. Then she closed her eyes and prepared herself for another flood of questions, but when nothing came, she looked over to her daughter and noticed that Chihiro had fallen asleep. Shaking her head, she stood up and turned off the lights before leaving the hospital room.
*******
Once she was absolutely certain that the footsteps disappeared, Chihiro shed the charade and opened her eyes. She blankly stared at the ceiling. This place, this hospital, was the one place that brought her the most pain.
Suddenly a breeze floated through the room. Chihiro was startled. She had been sure that her windows were closed. A quick glance at the windows indeed told her the windows were closed. This scared her. Was it a figment of her imagination or was this something supernatural? Like ghosts...
Chihiro felt the hairs at the back of her neck rise. She fumbled with the little touch pad bed-control at her side. She managed to get into a half-sitting position, since her foot was sticking out, it wouldn't permit her to sit up entirely.
Again there was a zephyr, this time harsher and colder. It brought in a scent that Chihiro would never forget; a misty scent of pine and the sweet taste of crystal-clear freshwater flowing from the mountaintop. She practically choked on her tears. Chihiro buried her face into her hands, releasing all the tears that had been barricaded until now.
"Oh Haku," she said to the air around her. "Why do you keep doing this to me?"
/And if you have to leave/
/I wish that you would just leave/
/Cause your presence still lingers here/
/And it won't leave me alone/
Then she was alone again. Chihiro was pretty sure that it was Haku visiting her. It was long-gone now, but the tears kept spilling over. She couldn't stop them.
It hurt too much. Her heart was shattered into thousands of pieces. Just seeing the hospital brought back painful memories, being in it was worse...living in it was going to be unbearable. The pain...it hurt so much that Chihiro found it hard to breath. It would take forever for someone to gather every single piece of her heart and put it together again. It was a wound that Chihiro would carry for the rest of eternity.
/These wounds won't seem to heal/
/This pain is just too real/
/There's too much that time cannot erase/
Chihiro suddenly reminisced something that a dear old friend had told her. Nothing that happens is ever forgotten even if you can't remember it.
"Zeniba." Chihiro whispered. "You're right."
Oh, the memories. They came flooding back. Back to the one day that changed Chihiro's life forever.
~~~
It was noisy. Babies were wailing their heads off, toddlers were screaming if they weren't sleeping and people were arguing.
Haku gently squeezed Chihiro's hand in a reassuringly. He smiled as if to tell her everything would be ok. Chihiro weakly smiled back and went back to her staring contest with the dirty floor.
The floor eventually would win, so Chihiro gave up. As her mind wandered, Chihiro noticed that Haku was still holding her hand. Poor Haku. Chihiro thought to herself. It must be so hard for him here. She carefully scrutinized him. His hand was bony, he was terribly thin and he had lost a ton of weight. However what was the worst was his face; it was shallow and gray, void of any life except for his amazing jade-green eyes, but even those were dull. Chihiro tightened her grip on Haku's hand. He glanced over at her and gave her a ghost of a smile. She could see the fear in his eyes.
They were at the Shinkokami Hospital; only two years after Chihiro found a way back to the Spirit World. Haku had come back to her world to live there since he was unwilling to let Chihiro leave her own parents and life to stay at the Spirit World.
But about a month ago, Haku had been experiencing the symptoms of the flu, despite the fact that it was summer. He often woke up to bad dreams at night, only find his sheets soaked of sweat, his glands were swollen and whenever he got a cut, even something as simple as a paper cut, his blood would not clot, it would just bleed on and on. Then Chihiro finally managed to convince him to pay a visit to the doctor.
Haku looked around the waiting room. There were so many people that it was almost terrifying. So many people that needed help, and he was among them. Haku felt Chihiro grasped his hand more tightly. He turned towards her and tried his best to muster up a smile. Chihiro, the person that he loved the most. She was caught between whatever was hurting him. Though he didn't know what it was, Haku knew this: that it could do a lot of damage, cripple him, leave him helpless, or even kill him. It tore his heart apart whenever he had to leave Chihiro. But now, if he left, there was no guarantee that he would return. Haku had lost his dragon form and most of his magical skills when he'd left the Spirit World. There was nothing but his human body to fight this killer. He knew that it wasn't enough.
Suddenly a clear loud voice floated across the room, cutting through all the noise, snapping Haku out of his reverie.
"Nigihayami Kohakunushi?"
Haku felt Chihiro give a start. "That's us." He heard her say in a fake cheerful voice. She stood up. When he made no move to get up, she gave his hand a tug. Haku sighed and reluctantly got up to follow Chihiro and the nurse.
They went up to the 2nd floor, with the general medicines. The nurse stopped them at the door that said "Dr. Nirohima".
"Wait until he calls you in." The nurse told them as she started walking away.
"Thank you." Haku heard Chihiro quietly say to the nurse's back.
They sat in silence for the next five minutes. It was deafening. Chihiro sneaked tiny peeks at Haku's tense face. Finally a stiff voice rang out of the office.
"Mr. Nigihayami?"
The two of them wordlessly stood up and stepped through the door into the cozy looking office. It was like a regular doctor's office. There was a cot on one end of the room with all the equipment hanging from the wall. The other side of the room consisted of a desk, chairs, and a couple of plants and décor.
An elderly man stood up stood up from the mahogany desk. "Hello." He greeted Chihiro and Haku. "I am Dr. Nirohima. Please take a seat." He gestured Chihiro to the chairs in front of his desk. Then as they sat down, he settled back into his own soft armchair. "Now." The doctor started as he pulled out a sheet of paper and uncapped his pen. "What seems to be the problem?"
Chihiro glanced over at Haku and gave him an encouraging smile. Haku returned it with his own little half-smile. He took a deep breath and started talking. "You see, it all began about a month ago, when I started having these dreams. I would often wake up from them screaming." Haku paused for a moment before he resumed with his explanation. "Only to find that my sheets had been soaked with my sweat."
The doctor nodded as he furiously wrote down all the information Haku had told him. When he was done, he looked up and inquired, "Anything else?"
Haku nodded. "For the last two weeks, my glands, like the ones on my neck," he pointed to them. "Have been swollen."
"Like when you have the flu." Chihiro quietly added.
Dr. Nirohima glanced at Chihiro. "I'm sorry." He took of his glasses for a moment to rub his eyes before he asked, "And you are?"
Chihiro felt dumbfounded for a minute. She mentally kicked herself. "I'm...uh...Haku - "
"Sister." Haku interrupted, finishing Chihiro's sentence. He gave her hand a squeeze as if to tell her to go along with it.
Chihiro swallowed hard and forced herself to meet Dr. Nirohima's eyes. He regarded her with careful and warm brown eyes. "What's your name?" he gently asked.
"Chihiro." She answered.
Dr. Nirohima smiled at her. "Don't worry about your brother. He'll be fine." He reassured her.
Chihiro gave him a tiny nod as he turned back to Haku. "Please continue Mr. Nigihayami."
Haku's grip on Chihiro's hand loosened up as he started talking again. "Whenever I got a cut, even a tiny paper cut, it kept bleeding and wouldn't stop for a really long time. I got dizzy a lot especially after I got a cut or something because of the loss of blood." He paused.
The doctor felt him hesitating. "Go on," he said warmly.
Haku nodded and took a couple of deep breaths before continuing. "And lately I've been pretty tired and I wear out really easily."
Chihiro noticed that as Haku named his symptoms, Dr. Nirohima had visibly paled. The old man frowned and started shuffling through his notes.
Then the doctor stood up and motioned Haku towards the cot. "Can you sit here for a second?" he quietly inquired as he took out a stethoscope from his desk.
Chihiro quickly helped Haku to the cot. There he sat until Dr. Nirohima came around and placed the stethoscope onto his chest. "Breathe deeply." Chihiro heard the doctor say to Haku.
She quietly fidgeted as the doctor briskly examined Haku. He first listened to Haku's heartbeats, then asked him to open his mouth, and checked his blood pressure before taking Haku out into the hall. Before Chihiro could follow, Dr. Nirohima asked her to stay in the office. She sank back into her chair as she waited for them to come back.
Five minutes later, they did. Dr. Nirohima came in frowning. "So," he peered over his shoulder to look at Haku. "You are 107 pounds?"
Chihiro felt her insides tighten as Haku quietly replied; he was so thin! What had happened?
Haku sat in back into the seat next to hers as the doctor went back to his chair behind the desk to write something on the papers. Then he started shuffling through his papers again.
Chihiro felt like they had been sitting there forever. The doctor must've gone through his papers five times at least. Chihiro, somewhat impatient by now, started lightly tapping her feet.
Finally Dr. Nirohima stood up with a haggard look on his face. Haku spread out his arms as if to ask him, well? Dr. Nirohima let out a huge sigh.
"Follow me you two." He said to Haku and Chihiro. "I need to take you up to the 5th floor for an even more detailed analysis."
Chihiro's heart sank. What now? She thought as she got up to follow Haku and Dr. Nirohima. They walked into the elevator. Haku and the doctor were quietly standing as Chihiro curiously examined the map of the hospital. Her eyes widened as they moved to the layout of the 5th floor.
"Oncology?!" she exclaimed. Haku and Dr. Nirohima jumped at the sound of Chihiro's voice. "Since when does Haku need to go see an oncologist?" she asked in disbelief. "He doesn't have cancer!"
Now Haku looked momentarily confused. "Wait." He frowned. "Where are we going?" he asked the elderly man as he too looked over at the map of the hospital.
Dr. Nirohima was spared answering Haku's question as the elevator came to a stop and the doors slid open again, revealing a long hallway of doctors and nurses bustling by. "Follow me." Dr. Nirohima ordered.
Chihiro and Haku followed the doctor like little baby ducklings. They walked till they reached Room 523. Then Dr. Nirohima told them to wait outside before he slipped into the brightly lighted room with a masked doctor talking to a little girl in the bed.
The two doctors conversed in the corner of the room. They seemed to be arguing about something. In the end, it looked like Dr. Nirohima had won. He gave the other doctor the folder that he had been holding and left the room to meet with Haku and Chihiro.
"We wait here until Dr. Ousaki comes out. She's the head of the oncology department." Dr. Nirohima explained to them.
Haku gave the doctor a tiny nod before he leaned back onto the wall as Chihiro found something about the ceiling very fascinating. They didn't have to wait very long, but it felt like forever since no one made the effort to spark up a conversation. Finally, the door slid open and a pretty young woman stepped out. Everyone opened their mouths to speak but before anyone could get a word out, she cut in.
"Please wait until I'm done reading. Then I'll answer any questions that you have."
Haku pursed his lips before slipping his hands into Chihiro's. Chihiro gently smiled at him as she rest her head on his arm. Dr. Nirohima went through some other papers that he was holding.
Silently, Chihiro carefully observed Dr. Ousaki for any reaction. The head oncologists' face went from pale to sheet white and her knuckles were showing from her now iron grip on the papers. "I can't believe this..." Chihiro heard her whisper. "Dammit, another kid with cancer!"
"I want to get a CAT scan of Mr. Nigihayami right away." Dr. Ousaki suddenly loudly said in an extremely tight voice. "And after that," she paused, raising her head to meet everyone's eyes. "A bone marrow aspiration."
Haku's eyes snapped open. "What?!" he snapped.
But Dr. Ousaki was already talking to a bypassing nurse.
"Haku." A quiet voice said from his side. He looked over to see Chihiro looking straight into his eyes. "Haku." She repeated. "What's going on?"
All he could do was shake his head; he didn't know what was happening, but when a nurse started leading him down the opposite hall, he sent Chihiro a pleading look, however she was already running to catch up with the nurse to bombard her with questions.
"Excuse me?" Chihiro asked, timidly.
"Yes?" the nurse stopped and turned to face Chihiro.
"What exactly is a bone marrow aspiration? I already know what a CAT scan is."
"It's when they take out a tiny sample of your bone marrow and then the doctors will find your white blood cell count and test your bone marrow for cancer cells," The nurse shrugged. "Dr. Ousaki can probably give you a better explanation, but I need to send you to the CAT scan center right now."
"Thank you." Chihiro gave the nurse a weak smile before the nurse started walking again.
Chihiro felt faint as she fell behind to walk beside Haku. They silently followed the nurse down the hall to a pair of metal doors. The nurse pounded on the door with her fist until a middle-aged doctor wearing a white lab coat opened it. He automatically slung an arm around the nurse's shoulder.
"You know, you don't have to kill the door. Maybe there's a reason it's there." The doctor smiled weakly as he joked to the nurse.
SLAP!
A bright red hand mark appeared on the doctor's cheek.
"Shut up Niroshi." The nurse calmly retorted, her face slightly red. "That should teach you not to grope the nurses in this building." Then she motioned towards Haku. "This young man needs a CAT scan. Send the results to Dr. Ousaki as soon as you can." Glancing back at Chihiro, the nurse gave the doctor that she called 'Niroshi' a warning look. "And if I ever find out that you've groped this young lady, then your life is over, got it?"
"Wait a minute." The nurse commanded as Chihiro started to follow Haku. She pulled out a blank form and handed it to Chihiro. "Fill this out," the nurse ordered as she thrust the packet of papers and pen into the bewildered the Chihiro's hands.
Before Chihiro could anything, the metal doors clanged shut. Sighing in resignation, Chihiro picked up the pen and did her best to fill out the papers.
Just as she was finishing up the forms, the doors opened again and a pale looking Haku numbly walked out. Before Chihiro or Haku could say anything, the nurse started down the hall again.
"Follow me." She told them in a gentle voice.
The nurse stopped at a big spacey room. "Wait here." She told Chihiro with a kind smile as she pulled Haku through a door into another room.
Chihiro stiffly sat in a chair. There was no way that Haku could have cancer. He came from the Spirit World where no one ever got sick. He was a god, wasn't he? "No!" Chihiro whispered furiously to herself as she clenched her tiny hands into fists. "He can't! There's nothing wrong with Haku, he just has the flu!" Chihiro stubbornly attempted to convince herself. Suddenly a tear trickled from the corner of her eye down her cheek.
"Chihiro?" Haku suddenly appeared before her.
"H-Haku?" He had come out of the room without Chihiro noticing. "Wha...where..."
"The nurse and doctor are in the other room." Haku told Chihiro while carefully looking at her with his emerald orbs. "What's wrong?" he asked, his face worried.
"I don't know," Chihiro told him sadly. "I just..." More tears came washing down her face. "I just wish this wasn't happening." She buried her face into her hands. "Oh god..." Haku heard her say. "Please tell me this is a nightmare."
Haku felt his heart stop. This was one of the few times in his life that he felt so helpless, when his godly powers can't do anything and no words could comfort Chihiro.
"Chihiro..." he started, but then stopped. Chihiro turned away from him. Please, gods above, Haku desperately prayed. Please make this turn out all right. He looked at the shaking form before him. Haku slid into the seat next to Chihiro.
Chihiro started someone rested their hand on her shoulder. Chihiro didn't have to turn around to see who it was. She'd recognize that hand from anywhere. Chihiro felt Haku wrap his arms around her. She relaxed and leaned back into Haku's chest, letting the tears flow freely down her cheek. "We'll get through this." she heard Haku whisper into her ear.
Chihiro twisted around until her head was resting on Haku's shoulder. "Promise?" she asked, looking up to his face, the tears on her face slowly drying.
/When you cried I'd wipe away all of your tears/
/When you scream I'd fight away all of your fears/
Haku practically jolted at the sense of deja vu. Seven years ago, when Chihiro left the Spirit World, they promised each other that they would be reunited. "Promise." Haku reluctantly promised, slowly bringing his hand up to Chihiro's cheek, wiping away the last trace of her tears. Well, Haku thought to himself. Last time turned out all right. We're together again, after all.
Chihiro, obviously satisfied and somewhat happier, buried her face into his shoulder.
Haku tenderly looked down at Chihiro, a small smile playing at his lips. If Chihiro was happy, he was too. Sighing, Haku lightly rested his chin on top of Chihiro's head and tightened his arms around he slender and frail body. Chihiro slightly shifted as Haku felt something soft slip into his hand. He gently squeezed Chihiro's hand and whispered the three words Chihiro would remember forever.
"I love you."
/And I've held your hand through all of these years/
/But you still have all of me/
~~~
Again, a tear trickled down Chihiro cheek, but this time there was no Haku there to wipe it away. Chihiro wistfully stared out the window. The sun was just setting and the sky was a rainbow of reds, oranges and yellows, slowly blending into the more pastel colors, light blue, violet and indigo. Somewhere in all of that, Chihiro could see the shape of a dragon.
"Haku," Chihiro stretched her arm out to reach for the window, but her common sense stopped her. What am I doing? Chihiro thought to herself in horror. "Haku's gone! Don't think about it anymore!" she said aloud.
Chihiro bowed her head. Of course, that day at the hospital, this hospital, Haku had been diagnosed with leukemia, a form of cancer that disrupts the production of blood; causing the body to create abnormal white blood cells and decreasing the production of red blood cells. Haku took chemotherapy to get rid of the cancer but the medications had a different effect on him than it would've had on other people. Maybe it was because he was a powerful being, or because he came from the Spirit World. Nevertheless, the chemotherapy had taken a huge toll on both his heart and body. Then after just one year of taking chemotherapy, Haku suffered a massive heart attack...something he barely survived and only departed two days later.
Chihiro sat there, still grieving. It wasn't fair. Why was Haku the one who got cancer? Why did he die? Was there a reason or were the gods just playing a joke on them?
Suddenly Chihiro heard a burst of noise in the hall, near her door. Quickly Chihiro lowered her bed back down and closed her eyes just as the door opened.
"Chihiro. Chihiro, wake up!" Chihiro heard her mother call out in the sickening singsong voice that she hated.
Rather than go through the troubles of pretending to wake up, Chihiro just opened her eyes and asked, "What am I doing here?"
Her parents looked surprised, but the doctor right behind them looked like he was laughing behind his mask. Chihiro tried her best to refrain from rolling her eyes as she impatiently asked her question again. "What am I doing here?"
Her mother was the first of her parents to recover. "Chihiro, don't you ever do that again." She ordered. "You nearly gave your father and I a heart attack!"
Chihiro felt her heart tightened at her mother's choice of words. "I'm sorry, mother." Chihiro quickly apologized before repeating her question yet again. "So what am I doing here?"
Her mother opened her mouth to speak but the doctor suddenly cut in.
"Hello, I am Dr. Nasami. Apparently you sprained your ankle. You'll be here for a while until you can walk again. Don't worry!" he misinterpreted the horrified look on Chihiro's face. "It's only a minor sprain. You'll be able to do everything you could do before this just fine when you get better."
Chihiro tried her best to look reassured. "That's great!" she said in a fake cheerful voice. "But when do you think I can go home?" she casually asked. The doctor looked at her. "I mean, I have classes soon." She quickly explained.
"Oh." The doctor thought about it. "For you, I'd say one or two weeks." He answered.
Chihiro slowly soaked in his words. Here?! Why another time?! Why here?! Chihiro wanted to shout out, but her parents interrupted her.
"Chihiro!" her father's loud voice boomed. "What happened?"
"I ran into someone and then I fell down." Chihiro nervously told her father. Well, it's not really a lie. She told herself, but she also knew that it wasn't the entire truth.
"Who was it?" Chihiro father demanded to know. "I'll go give whoever it was a long talk. Who would knock my dear Chihiro down so hard that - "
Before Chihiro's father could say another word, the doctor smoothly said, "Mr. and Mrs. Ogino, I suggest that we leave your daughter alone for now. I'm sure she would like her rest now."
Chihiro gave the doctor a grateful smile as a nurse bustled her parents out of the room. As they left, Chihiro suddenly noticed an IV line hooked up onto her right arm. Curiously staring at it, Chihiro had a funny feeling in her stomach. Why was there an IV line attached to her? There was nothing to put in or take out of her body was there?
"Excuse me." Chihiro stiffly moved her left hand towards the doctor, a big frown on her face. "But why is there an IV here?" she motioned to the IV line.
Dr. Nasami looked at her strangely. "Did you know that you had a large cut on your leg?" from the surprised look on her face, he took it as a no. "Well, from the looks of it, it looked like that you cut up by a knife. By the time, your parents had brought you here, you already lost quite a bit of blood so we had to give you a transfusion."
Chihiro frowned even harder. Since when did she get cut? She remembered it hurting a lot. Biting her bottom lip hard, she thought back to when she ran into that guy. Her brow knitted. She couldn't get over the look on his face when he told her his story. Suddenly she gasped.
"It was the guy that I ran into!" Chihiro cried. "I remember seeing something shiny flying out of his pocket." She told the doctor. "It must've hit my leg when it flew out of his pocket."
Dr. Nasami nodded again. "Probably." He agreed as he stood up. "Listen, you need your rest. Go sleep for a while." The doctor suggested.
Chihiro nodded and sank back into her bed as the doctor silently left the room. A nurse quietly padded over and slipped a syringe into the IV line and Chihiro felt herself fall into dreamless bliss...
To Be Continued
Dedicated to my wonderful friend Mizura Volphen: I'm so sorry for taking so long on this fic!! X_X *sigh* do you know that you are the only reason why I'm actually working on this? I originally would've dropped it into the trash if only I wasn't working on this for you. Feel special! I actually have inspiration these couple of days, so I'm working on some stuff. ^_^ WAH! Me want my Dragon Knights hehe.
Yea, I know the song is cut in half...don't worry about it...
Gah! Please don't like...kill yourself reading this...or blind yourself...everyone gets so mad when I create 10-20 page fics ^_^;;. Please R & R!