Be Done, Before You Go
People call her Sen in day to day life, but she can't quite remember why the nickname stuck. It just started, and nobody thought to question it.
She runs a business, an onsen. The recipes for the baths are partly tradition, partly inspiration. She's successful because she know the value of hard work- that one must work hard before they can work smart.
Day by day she sees herself in the mirror, brown hair held up in a bun by the glinting purple band that has been her good luck charm all these years. In the beginning, she'd felt focused and unstoppable. Confident that she would find friends no matter what challenges arose.
One of these friends, although she dare not call him that to his face, is the poker-faced barista at the local cafe. When the onsen had first opened he had been the first to offer a partnership in trade- his services at the cafe in return to access to her natural waters. Haku, so read his name tag.
Of course, she introduced herself. "I'm Sen."
Now his eyes glint with disappointment every time he says her name from that day forward. He brings her coffee, offers her onigiri, and again looks disappointed when she declines. She sits at a table overlooking a terraced garden with a discretely hidden shed. When she allows her mind to drift, eyes hazy over the view, her heart speeds up as though she has just run a race.
Noting that her cup is empty, Haku returns to clear away her dishware. "Are you done? Have you had all you need?"
The question is consistent - every day Haku utters it with the same cadence and the same twinkle of hope in his eye. Sen feels her heart lurch, and her knee jumps restlessly. She is not done. There is more she needs. So instead she smiles wearily, leaves her change - exact - on the tiny tray he brings to the table, and excuses herself.
Her onsen is profitable. She is regarded as a fierce and capable presence in the town. Sen finds that the success weaves its way in the strands of her identity, and that she would not part from the feeling if she could. The world makes sense, rewards her in understandable ways once she pulls on the soft pink kimono and hakama that is characteristic of her venture.
Sen owns the onsen for fifteen years before Haku suggests they throw a special event for Tanabata. She has not gone to a shrine, any shrine, in a very long time. The onsen has been a shrine for her, and the only place of solace she think she needs. Yet Haku is a reliable partner, and his own business has survived all these years. His advice deserves at least the appearance of consideration. That year, Sen returns to the local shrine to bring in the new year.
"Chihiro?" A friend from school, who'd known her back when she'd wondered where the purple hair-tie came from, stands shocked on the shrine's cobbled stone steps leading down to the river's edge. Sen feels the hairs on the back of her neck stand up, alarm rampaging through her as though seeing a specter of death. Chihiro - that had been her name, once.
That name walks with her now, as surely as air in her lungs. It does not bring back comfort, or nostalgia, or peace. She loses her train of thought when the name grips tightly, as it often does on windy days. Haku picks up his coin tray from her table at the cafe, noting with amusement that it contains a plastic card imprinted with her name as though she were some foreigner afraid of counting the necessary yen.
"Chihiro? I thought you were Sen." His eyes glint with amusement at her discomfort, and she thinks for a moment that she cannot tell if he is truly good or evil.
She shrugs, hoping that what is becoming an identity crisis is not apparent on her face. She would not have her reputation tarnished with self-doubt. "One lives within the other, my grandmother would say." A memory of characters peeling from a page shivers through her.
He does not shrug, his expression does not move. Sen is reminded of staring down an animal waiting for a treat. Waiting. Haku is waiting. Then she realizes that he has asked her something, and it could only be his usual line. "Are you done yet? Have you had all you need?"
"No." The answer is true, as much as her own vehemence surprises her.
The question and her answer join her own name in taunting her. The combined weight of them counter her satisfaction in success as though they rest on opposing sides of a scale. Sen begins to wonder, what all does she need? What does she yet want before her heart will rest easy at Haku's question? Her waking hours begin to feel as though a deadline waits, a timer on a clock that she is not allowed to see. She must achieve it all before it runs out.
The pressure is not an inspiration. It is not exciting. It serves as a paralytic, and taints the tranquility of the onsen.
Dreams come. They are strange, yet familiar. Sen thinks they are old dreams, recurring over the course of her life so that she knows what each sublimation wants and how to please it. Yubaba counts her gold, fusses over her baby. Sen watches her, the fuzzy edges of sleep twisting her opulent clothes and grey hair into curling tendrils. Gold grows, grows at a rate both thrilling and terrifying.
A different Yubaba grows other things slowly. It is frustrating, yet when the image fades away Chihiro jolts awake. Her cheeks are damp with tears.
The suggestion takes root, no matter that it came from some childhood nightmare. Slow growth. Perhaps that will balance the scales for Sen. She needs something to nurture.
Sen begins many projects at once, to fail quickly at what she must. A garden, a scarf, a family.
The onsen kills all but the garden. Sen does not mourn for the failure of the scarf, but she does mourn the failure of a family. She marvels that her pride and joy, the business so entangled in her identity, serves as a deterrent for the men of the town. They will not have her. In desperation she thinks she does not need them to achieve her goal, a child could come before a husband.
No matter her tactics, no child comes.
Haku requests certain herbs be planted in the garden. Lavender is the most frequent request, as it fits well within his repertoire of coffee creations. He seems to love the garden, though Sen cannot understand why. It baffles her to catch him tending it, kneeling carefully to keep the dirt from his white apron and shirt.
Now when he asks "Have you had all you need?", she debates the answer. Some days she is busy, and her response applies only to coffee and onigiri. On sunny days when the lavender is blooming, she takes her time before speaking. Still, the answer is never yes.
Sen's hair is beginning to grow grey when the city takes her onsen. Imminent domain. The world needs more from her tiny patch of land than the mineral water creeping up from the crack in the crust below them. They explain over and over what they will replace it with, how they have appraised it's value. "You are a business woman, you must see that we have done right by you in compensation." The pile of gold grows again, thrilling.
Yet, not thrilling. Terrifying.
Sen cannot survive without the onsen. The garden, at least, is safe behind Haku's cafe. Chihiro sits at Sen's table, gazing out the window at the lavender. When Haku offers onigiri, she accepts. Eager to feel anything inside besides sorrow, she devours the rice balls, one-and-a-half bites for each. She wipes her mouth, anticipating residue from her careless approach, but finds the napkin is now only wet with water. Again her face is wet with tears.
Chihiro casts her eyes around the room, embarrassed and hoping that no other patrons have witnessed her weakness. The building is empty, save for Haku. Noticing her distress, he approaches with the alacrity of the experience server.
"Chihiro?"
"It's nothing, Haku. I didn't realize how hungry I was." He notes the empty plate, seeming to bounce on the balls of his feet.
"Ah, yes. Like before." He pauses, as though weighing his options. His expression is careful and diplomatic as always. "You know, my name also lives within another name." Chihiro laughs, as though this is a playful statement. Her own reaction surprises her - Haku has never mentioned his past, or offered to divulge anything about his life outside of the cafe to her, in all their years of working together.
She finds herself saying, "Obviously, Kohakunushi— " but cannot for the life of her remember where the words came from or why she would say them. Something tender and honeyed ripples through her, easing the pain of losing her jewel, her home, to the uncompromising march of progress.
He sits, rather abruptly, in the seat across from her. Unusual, but there are no other customers. Haku's face has transformed drastically from the polite facade she has respected and trusted over the years. The lines of age which grew in parallel to hers, the slouched shoulders that had shared the weight of her burdens all this time, begins to fade away. Most strikingly, his expression now reflects intense thirst only barely quenched. Perhaps when she'd denied herself food, he'd denied himself water.
The intensity makes her feel something. Chihiro's heart beats with a pure intention, to relieve his pain no matter the cost.
"Are you done yet? Have you had all you need?" Oh, Kohaku. His voice cracks. The question is a prayer, chanted with fervor to a spirit encased in stone, till now. Chihiro feels the scales between herself and Sen finally balance.
"Yes."