At a Second Glance

by technogeist

-Intro Chapter-

Chihiro scrambled up the hill, slipping a few times in loose stones, slick from the morning dew. It was almost dawn, and she had to get back to her house in time to get ready for school.

A red flashlight swung from the belt loop on her side; she had left to search for the tunnel entrance early that morning when it was still dark. It had been five years since she had left the Aburaya, but she still clung to the fact that it existed. She had her hair tie from Obaa-chan as proof of it, though it only served as a bracelet now.

Five years had been enough to change her, and yet keep her the same. She still held on to the promise she had made on her leaving the spirit world desperately, despite the fact that she knew that she would never see her spirit friends again. Pushing her secret deep inside of her, she inadvertantly snuffed out the determination and optimism she had shown during her adventures with the spirits. Her face had lost the round look of a little girl it had while working for Yuu-baba, and she had sprouted a good five inches. Her personality had matured from a whiney little girl to a hardworking teenager, starting from her job cleaning the furos at the bathhouse with Rin.

'It's back there somewhere,' Chihiro thought to herself as she crossed the street at the top of the hill, hoping no one looked out of their windows at that moment. 'It can't just be gone. I need it to be there.'

She didn't know why she had gone out that morning to search for the tunnel. She hadn't done that in months, and the forest was as familiar to her as the back of her hand, with the amount of searching she had done over the years. It's not like she had a chance of finding the entrance anymore, and even if she did, how would she explain her sudden appearance to her friends on the other side of the gate? She would have no reason for staying, and could not be employed for a short enough amount of time to not be missed in the human world. Chihiro felt trapped between her want to return to spirit realm and the need for her to stay in the human world. It had been much too long, anyway. What if they had all forgotten her over there?

For the first year or so after the Oginos moved into the little blue house at the end of the street, Chihiro completely devoted herself to studying. She never made a real effort to make new friends at the new school, and gave up after a short while. They would never understand her, she thought. They could never actually know what she had done or where she had been, so she plunged herself into her books, trying to fill the empty void that the loss of an entire world left. Haku…Kohaku had inspired her to try to be something more than what she was. Feeling as though she could never compare, she tried to become as knowledgeable as she could, using her spare time to look up books relating to her experiences on the other side of the tunnel. Maybe there had been others like her.

She had waited a sufficient amount of time before deciding that maybe Kohaku unable to leave the spirit realm to visit her, and began to look for the entrance herself. Her parents could never know about her being gone in the forest so often, though, with all the problems they had been having with their marriage since the move. It would only serve as another big issue to them, a crazy daughter. So, Chihiro did all of her searching while they were either asleep or away.

She had never even found the path. Not the tire tracks, or the statues, or 'the little houses', as she so fondly remembered calling them while her father recklessly drove them into a separate realm. It was as if that world had never even existed.

Chihiro shook herself from her thoughts and quietly opened the front door, wary of how it creaked when you pushed it too far. It was unlocked, as she always left it when she went out to the forest. Sneaking in and out of her house was a simple thing after all of the sneaking around Yuu-babas office. Off go the shoes, the socks stay on. No one would hear her that way.

She scaled the stairs deftly, avoiding the third one up, which was in the habit of giving a shotgun like retort when stepped on in the wrong place. On the inside, her house was a mixture of traditional Japanese and western design. It was a split-level with hardwood floors, sliding doors, and a large bathroom with a tub that faintly reminded Chihiro of her bath cleaning days. Pulling her bedroom door aside gently, she entered her room and finally exhaled the breath she had been holding since she had opened the front door.

After checking the digital alarm clock that she kept on her dresser, she found it was actually only 5 in the morning. The sun had been coming up earlier now that it was getting on to mid spring.

"More time to sleep…" she mumbled, and slunk back under her pink and yellow quilted blanket.

For a moment, she lay completely still. It was comfortable in her bed, all curled up in the big soft blanket…but something didn't click. Something nagged at her mind, telling her a piece was missing, so she needed to remember. It was déjà vu in the worst way.

She narrowed her eyes. When she was out in the forest (Kohaku's forest, as she had come to call it), all she could think about was where the entrance to the spirit realm could be, or the path that led to it. She hadn't wondered why she was looking or why she had woken up, only that she suddenly had an incurable urge to go find it.

Chihiro shifted to move her arm out from under her and rubbed her eyes with the heels of her palms. She racked her brains for whatever it was she couldn't remember, idly wondering if there was a point to what she was doing. All of this thinking was getting to her.

"Okay, so first…what woke me up?" she inquired the ceiling while she rolled over to lay flat on her back, any chance of getting back to sleep completely gone now. Her eyes slid over to the small blue dream catcher that hung over her bed. She had put it up a few weeks after returning to the human world when she started having nightmares. Sometimes she dreamt of her parents being eaten by the customers of the Aburaya, other times of Haku dying before she could even attempt to help him, and sometimes just general memories of the Aburaya which left her feeling empty and meaningless when she woke up.

One of the beads dangling from the body of the dream catcher reflected a ray of light from the newly risen sun into Chihiro's eye, grabbing her attention again. Only…the blinds of her window were closed, and her lights were off, for fear of waking her parents when she returned. Chihiro glanced to her window and back up to the dream catcher. Sitting up, she reached a tentative hand to the bead and touched it

Dozens of memories of her time in the spirit world flashed before her eyes, and were gone in an instant. It was a dream; a dream had woken her early that morning.

She had dreamed of falling from the clouds with him. Kohaku. He had smiled, and she cried and held his hand while plummeting towards the ocean, feeling infinitely save despite their predicament. It rained dragon scales, and there was something else…there was something else in her dream. There was something important he told her while they flew back towards the Aburaya, and Chihiro didn't —couldn't—remember what. It was like remembering a song without being able to think of words, or even the tune.

"Kohaku…"

She pinched her eyes closed and reminded herself that she had been ten when it happened. Five, almost six years had passed. Kohaku must have forgotten about her by now, and it wouldn't matter if he didn't anyways. Chihiro would grow old, while he stayed in an ageless state forever. It was time enough to try to get on with her life, and she knew it.

So why was it so painful, still?

A/N - This is my first attempt at fan fiction, so any type of advice would be appreciated. If you see any grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, or gaping plot holes, please drop me a review and I will do my best to fix it. Love!