Nobody understood her like he did. It was as simple as that. Just one little fact, that even to the densest of observers was obvious.
He never realized he could feel this way about a person, especially a human girl. Love was not in his vocabulary. For some reason, though he had a soft spot for the girl.
"Don't look back. No matter what, just don't look back." How it ached for him to tell her that. How much he wanted to beg her to stay with him. How he wanted to hold her in his arms and never let her go. It didn't matter though. She had to go with her parents, and he had to figure out a way to break his contract.
She would never admit it, but it hurt to hear him say to not look back. She wanted to stay there with him, and all of their other friends, but she knew that she had to go back. So she listened to him and did not even think about looking back. She crossed the bridge with her parents and made their way to their new home.
Every day he worked hard, so that when she returned he would be ready for her. It was never a question of if in his mind that she would, because if he didn't have that to look forward to his heart would break into tiny little pieces. He finally became a sorcerer, but he didn't learn from Yubaba. Instead he traveled to swamp bottom and learned from her twin. He was welcomed there, and that was where he planned to make his home.
She worked hard. She made sure that she lived life to its fullest, after all one of these days she would leave and never return. She never hesitated to say what she felt, and everyone knew that. When her novel of her travels in the spirit world became a best seller she was surprised. She hated to have to put it under fiction, but she doubted people would believe it if she called it her autobiography. So there it went, and from there people all over the world read it. Every day she gets fan mail from her avid readers about how it was such an awkward ending, or how they couldn't wait for the sequel.
She couldn't tell them that she wasn't able to write it because she didn't know how it turned out. So she just said that she liked to leave it to the imagination.
It was obvious to their friends that they missed each other. No question about it he wanted her home. Her friends knew she had somewhere else she wanted to be, but they had no clue why. They couldn't wait until they were reunited, if only they could stop with the moodiest.
It wasn't until the government decided to begin construction in that area that she returned. She knew it would be her last chance to see him again. She had written several other books that were one day turned into movies by some people that worked in an excellent place, Studio Ghibli, if she remembered correctly. Her hands were tired of working. They were getting old, as was the rest of her body. She had never married, never had a child. She couldn't without him. She let her brother take care of making sure the family line was continued. She doted on her niece and nephew that was the best thing about being filthy rich from her books; it was the ability to spoil them rotten to the core.
So she made her way up the hill and through the tunnel. As she made her way through it was as if she was growing younger and younger. She felt herself turn back to twenty, still young but not quite as young as the last time she was here. She began to run, because she could feel his presence.
That was where they found her body, right outside the opening. In her hands was clutched a note, saying that this was one of the few places that was left for the creatures of the forest, both animal and spirit, to dwell in peace. She didn't say it out loud, because if she had it would have gone on ignored. Instead she allowed them to find her.
That was where they buried her. Construction never happened.
He was sitting on the river bank. He was facing the bath house, and was playing a flute. As he played the water in the river grew higher or lower, moved quickly or slowed its pace to a trickle. When she giggled behind him he whipped around and enveloped her in the fiercest hug ever.
"Oh I missed you so much. You have no idea what your leaving did to me. I love you Chihiro."
"Oh Haku. I missed you as much, if not more. I wished that I could have stayed with you forever. I love you so much."
He pressed his lips to hers chastely. Instead of continuing this train of thought they separated and he took her hand in his. Together they crossed the river into happiness.
"Will you ever leave me again?"
"Never"