"So look hard. It's up to you to remember which ones they are."
She opened her eyes wide at the memory and then shut them tightly. It was no help that she was lying in her futon awake, but to daydream of something so confusing made Sen want to cry. With her eyes drawn down, she thought about her parents over and over: the pigs' distinguishing marks (there were none), the manner in which they slept in their pen (the same way as all the other porkers), the tones of their grunts (low and husky)…
Would she ever remember? How would she know?
When she thought about it even more, she wondered what Haku was even talking about in the first place. Why would she have to remember herself? She surely wasn't going to take her parents home as pink, fat animals. And…
How did Haku know that she would need to remember her parents' appearances?
This is hopeless; I really don't even care anymore! she thought to herself. She didn't know who to trust, she didn't want to work, and she certainly didn't know what to think about Haku.
But then, she remembered the faraway look in his eyes the previous morning.
"You can't remember your name?"
"No, but for some reason, I remember yours."
What is my name? Sen wondered after thinking about the conversation that she and the boy had. The girl had already forgotten.
She thought about that slight smile that he gave to her while she ate his plump, oversized onigiri. Maybe… she pondered. Maybe he's hurt inside. More hurt than me…
I think he's in a place that he doesn't like, either.
A gigantic breeze blew just over the human girl's head, which nearly grabbed the makura from under her head and carried it off.
Holding onto her pillow, Sen grit her teeth and squinted. She squinted and then sat up immediately. She was very surprised to look around at all of the slug-girls and see that no one else had apparently even noticed the shifty gust.
"Oh wow," she whispered, confident that no one would hear her. "That was weird—AAAHHHHHH!!!"
The thing that bristled the back of Sen's neck felt not unlike a soft cocklebur. Unlike a spiny plant, though, this tiny entity moved. Eyes bugged out, the girl turned her head to the left and right repeatedly.
Dear God, no one had woken up yet?!
With a tug on the back of her neck, she plucked the strange object from her skin with her left hand and clenched her fist tightly around it. Her mouth hung open a little as she released her fingers from the mystery creature.
"It's black!" Sen exclaimed. (She was pretty sure that everyone in the room would remain obliviously asleep at this point, but she checked around for the final time.) Her hand was smothered in black dust, and whatever had crawled onto her from behind had disappeared.
An instant later, a black plume of soot popped up from the center of her palm! She jumped back in shock, and then peered closely through the darkness.
In the air before her hovered a dazed sootsprite.
"You! You're one of Kamajii's workers!" Sen gasped. Upon her revelation, she pounded the palm that the spirit flitted above with her right fist excitedly.
She looked concerned after realizing that her astonishment led to the small worker being ground into her hand once more.
"Oh!" She quickly lifted her fist up. The small ball of soot peeked up from her palm with teary googly eyes.
"Aww," Sen cooed. "What are you doing here? I should take you back to Kamajii."
Hurriedly, the spirit shook its entire body in disaccordance.
"No?"
It blinked.
"If you can't tell me what to do, then I'll have to bring you back to your master, you know," she explained softly. She kissed it with a small chuu, sorry for pressing it into her palm twice since it had come to her. Her lips smiled after becoming a dusty black; the sprite looked down in bashfulness after its cheeks had turned noticeably pink.
Shaking off its embarrassment, it uttered almost undetectable meeps. While Sen looked on confusedly, the sootsprite lept up in front of her face and then down to the covers of her futon. It turned back to her and then faced away.
The human girl tilted her head to the side in curiosity, and observed it keenly to see what it was trying to tell her. Instead of looking at Sen anymore, though, the sootsprite rapidly whisked around Rin's futon.
"Wait!" Sen called out to him.
The spirit didn't, and it kept on going. She couldn't follow the dark spirit with how fast it was shifting through the bodies in the room, but she tiptoed over the other employees at the Abura-ya and made her way toward the door. By some instinct, she felt it must have headed outside the room.
As she impulsively moved along as quietly as possible, it came as a complete shock when she felt her foot step on something lumpy and firm.
"Ah!!" Sen screamed; she had trodden right onto a rather small slug-girl's head.
After leaping slightly back to get off of her, Sen perspired and breathed hard. Why would no one wake up?
Grateful, though, she rushed past the rest of the sleeping workers and shut the sliding door tightly. She rested against the wall and held her stomach, glad that she'd gone past unnoticed.
"eekeee…"
Sen looked down to her toes. There, sitting happily between her feet, was the mischievous sootsprite.
"Nanda…" Sen asked. Her voice trailed off, and the sootball closed its eyes perkily. It seemed very pleased that the girl had run to him.
"Do you want me to follow you?" Sen asked it.
The spirit said nothing, but lept joyfully into the air and made its merry way down the stairs a few steps away. Sen hastened after it, not thinking about the danger it might be leading her to.
Humming a little tune as it whipped about the bathhouse, the sootsprite never once looked back. It seemed to always be aware if the human was behind him or not.
Sen, though, was running out of breath. She gasped continually, and eventually thought, This is really stupid!
Her legs gave out near the boiler room, and she tumbled to the ground.
"Huhhh…Huhh…Huhhhh…" she panted, sweat trickling down her forehead in enormous drops. She didn't have the strength to keep up with a spirit that was lighter than air.
She gulped and said to herself, "I don't care. This is crazy…besides, it can go back on its own now…"
Then, she thought about how kindly all of Kamaji's small soot spirits had watched over her shoes.
And how cutely her new friend had blushed when she kissed it.
Wiping her forehead, she pressed her hands to the cement floor. She wouldn't just leave the her dusty little companion all on his own! She would prop herself up…
"Unn!!" Her arms fell limp as well, and flabbily rested at her sides.
She almost started to cry. But just as she choked up, she heard a nearly inaudible meep in front of her.
"Oh!" she called out, looking down at the sootsprite.
With a cheerful look on its face (which, honestly, consisted of a set of eyeballs), it squeaked loudly in the direction of the boiler room.
Sen could hear a rustling sound get larger, and closer, and closer…
A whirling flurry of sootsprites had just come out of the boiler room, and settled themselves around her!
"You guys," she began. "It's very nice to see you again." She gave them an awkward smile. Were they only here to visit?
The ball of soot that had been leading Sen along loudly called the rest of its group to attention with a shrill cry. The entire cloud of them turned their attentive gazes to it.
It shut its eyes and proceeded to boldly meep at the lot, the rest of them shaking in acknowledgement. Sen had no idea what was going on.
When the lead sprite fell silent, Sen's eyes widened. At just that moment, her legs were lifted from the ground.
"Aaah! Oh, you—" she exclaimed from out of the blue. The sootballs that had surrounded her were carrying her upon themselves with long, wispy black arms. Not one of them faltered; it seemed effortless for them to whisk her weight around.
It was. After all, they lifted coal three times their weight over a hundred times every day.
They toted her through the boiler room, where the servant girl gaped at the dormant boiler man. His six upper limbs were fixed most unusually in the air, as if contorted and frozen.
Her gaze broke from the many armed, mustached spirit only as his sooty servants burst out the escape door. Sen still resting on them, she squirmed when she realized that the teeny black fuzzballs intended to tackle a daunting arrangement of steep steps along the bathhouse.
"Wha—?! Oh, no! No! No!" she hollered. "You can't!"
"Eemm-hmm!!" chattered one sprite.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!" she screamed through the first set. Her blood rushed to her head as she rode along on the spirits, who moved with amazing speed. It was just like a rollercoaster.
After the first stretch, though, Sen closed her eyes and mouth. She remembered…
This is just like when Dad, Mom and I went to Disneyland in Toukyou!
Following the happy reminiscence, she smiled the whole way down.
With a jolt, the sprites halted at the bottom. A train passed by the building, and they began to slowly make their way to the field behind the Abura-ya.
Sen grinned contentedly at her friends as they marched along the grass. They were doing so much for her…but not once had she questioned what was going on. "Guys?"
The sootsprites halted once more.
"I think I can walk now. If Kamajii finds all of you away, he'll reverse the spell. I don't want that to happen to you."
The fuzzy balls of soot lowered their eyes in unison. Sadly, they set their human friend down.
"Meee..." hummed the sootsprite that had appeared to Sen first that night.
Sen bent down to it and picked it up gently in her hands.
"Thank you," she said to it. It looked at her expectantly, so she giggled and gave it another kiss. While Sen's lips turned an even dirtier black, the sootsprite's cheeks turned a bright red once more.
"Cheemacheemacheema..." the sprites laughed. They sounded like a million miniature windchimes, all cheerfully ringing together.
With a sawa, sawa, sawa, the cluster of sootballs flew back up the flight of stairs. One little one waved its thin arm goodbye. Sen returned the farewell with a friendly beam.
The heavy door shut, and she was all alone.