a/n: I've never written a fanfic for a movie before, but I was so overcome by feels from watching Spirited Away that I just had to write one. Here, I toy with the idea that perhaps everything had been a hallucination. Or maybe it wasn't. It's up to your interpretation.
"Yes, yes she has been taking her medication," her mother's voice floated in from the adjourning room.
Chihiro looked down at her hands and twiddled her thumbs anxiously. The white walls and sanitised smell of the clinic didn't help one bit in calming her frazzled nerves.
Her head snapped back up and her eyes were trained on the door as her mother and father ambled out of the room. Guilt blossomed in her chest when she saw the frustration on their faces, only to be snuffed out as quickly as it had started with anger.
They're the ones who pushed me to this, she thought.
"Let's go, Chihiro," her father gestured to her. She got out of her chair and followed them quietly out into their car.
As she gazed out at the passing scenery from her seat in the back of their four-wheeler, Chihiro let her thoughts drift back to seven years ago. Seven years ago, when she and her parents had unknowingly stumbled into the spirit world. It had been terrifying at first, and all Chihiro had wanted was to get out of there as fast as possible and to go home.
However, looking at the way things were going for her now, all Chihiro wanted was to go back where everything was so much simpler. Where life was just scrubbing bathtubs, laughing with friends and talking to Haku. Of course there was the bit about searching for her parents, but Chihiro was pretty sure that it wasn't as bad as how things seemed to be at the moment.
It didn't take long for them to arrive at their destination, a charming blue house at the edge of a hill. Flowers grew in their garden, and a row of neat little houses stood right next to them, like a row of smiling, uniformed children. Chihiro wished that the car rides would be longer, since the silence that filled the air during those times was almost therapeutic. At least, way more calming than those appointments with the town's psychiatrist.
Under her mother's watchful eyes, Chihiro pulled out a packet of pills from the medicine cabinet. The multi-coloured nature of those pills always amused her. No matter how colourful they were, those pills would never make things right again. Not while she's still in this world. She popped one of the pills into her mouth and quickly maneuvered it under her tongue before drinking an entire glass of water, which made her mother turn away at last.
Chihiro walked briskly to the bathroom down the hallway and spat the half dissolved pill into the toilet before flushing it. Then, she rinsed out her mouth and leaned against the wall with her eyes closed.
If only her parents could remember what happened seven years ago. Things would be so much easier now if they had. Telling them about her time in the spirit world was a big mistake, one that labeled her insane. All Chihiro could do right now was to continue this charade of taking her meds while she clung onto dwindling strands of hope that sprung forth from a promise made so many years ago.
