wooooosh. heyo. :B i recently rewatched kamikakushi, and totally fell in love with it again. it has such beautiful music as well! anyhow. This is the story of Chihiro, in the .view of a classmate, for this chapter only though. I might probably write the next one in her own p.o.v. :B if i do write about her journey back, i hope that i will be able the capture their characters well. otherwise it's just weird. :/ so anyway. ENJOY. :3

{stickypolkadots.

She was sort of strange and quirky. Barely spoke, and was solitude's best friend. But she didn't seem to mind. She seemed to like the peace and quiet. She seemed so mature for a ten-year-old. She was often seen staring out the window, as if waiting. Waiting, waiting, for something or.. Maybe, someone. Sometimes you could even see a tear trickle down her cheeks. Her eyes were so deep, and anyone could tell that she had something heavy burdening her heart.

Somehow, she'd become like 'good luck' charm. Who knows who started it? They would say that if you heard her voice or saw her tears, good luck would be upon you. It was really silly though. Some people even commented that maybe she was a goddess or angel. It was sort of a joke, but deep down, they wondered if it was true.

I wanted to get to know her. She seemed so distant, with many secrets locked in that small body of hers. I wanted to know what happened to her that caused such an emotional scar. I got the chance when we were eleven.

I got into the same class with her, and like fate (laughs) brought us together, we ended up sitting together. On the first day, she barely took notice of me, which was kind of expected already. I knew that if I wanted to know her better, I had the take the first step.

"Hi! I... I'm Rikka. Nice to meet you, Chihiro." I'd grinned at her. She had turned and looked at me, her brown pigtail bouncing, her eyes widened in surprised, like I was the first person to speak to her. Maybe, I was.

"Hello," She'd smile kindly.

We became closer (I think) as time passed. She spoke more often to me, hinting about herself. Well, actually she didn't really talk to me, she would just say something, not directly, but I could tell she purposely said it just loud enough for me to hear.

"I don't belong here." "I miss them..." "I hate this." "I wanna go back." She would say, quietly, like a whisper. Sometimes, she would state names. But the most often one was definitely "Kohaku...".

We had conversations, but mostly it was all started by me. But there was one time she started the conversation...

"I need a marker." She'd suddenly said, twirling her pigtail in her hand, and peered at my pencil-case. I watched her actions, sightly bewildered at her suddenly statement. It wasn't like those times where she seemed to be talking to herself, but this time she seemed to be talking to me.

"Eh? Here," I had offered an ordinary orange tipped marker, but she shook her head, seeming a bit exasperated. The entire day I could not stop thinking about what she meant. She might be looking for a special coloured marker, but since she was a transfer student, did not know where to get it.

"Chihiro, what's your favourite colour?" I asked her after school ended. My best bet would be that the colour she wanted was her favourite. She had looked blankly at me for a minute, then smiled nostalgically.

"Greenish black... It was a beautiful colour," Her eyes had wandered away from reality for a moment before snapping back and waved goodbye to me, walking away.

The next day, I gave her a marker. The shop I went to had colours of all different shades, and there was a few greenish-black ones, but I picked the most beautiful

Turns out? Jackpot.

"Eh?" Chihiro had looked at me in surprise when I told her I had something for her. She'd stared at the marker in my hands, before gasping in surprise as nostalgia rushed through her eyes. She took the marker from me, with a quiet thanks, and stared at it for the entire lesson. I knew it was the right colour, and I felt proud at giving her something that she was extremely pleased with.

She aced in arts, mostly because of her wild creativity and imagination. During the time we sat together, she drew, coloured way too many pieces of art for me to count

I'd watched her draw, and drawing by drawing, I felt like I'd been introduced to each individual character. There was this boy with peculiar shoulder-length hair,

which was filled in with the marker I gave her. Most of the time, this boy had a dragon by the side, who resembled each other almost perfectly. There was only time I'd thought out loud while she was drawing another piece.

"Are they one?" I barely gave it much thought, resting my head on my arm, thoughtlessly commenting. She turned to me suddenly, and gave me a slight smile as if saying 'yes'.

Then there were an old woman with a dark blue dress, a black figure with a painted mask, but from the drawings, the expressions on the mask changed frequently, so I decided that it was its face. Then there was a lady in salmon work outfit, with flowy waist-length hair. Oh, not to forget the six-legged man. There were many, many more.

"Are they real?" I had once commented, because her imagination was so wild that I began wondering that there might be a place with all these inside. She smiled in response. She never used the word "yes" in the entire time I knew her though. *laughs*

"Do you believe in... Spirits? Gods?" One time she had asked me, which then brings me to the topic in which she asks very deep questions. I remember feeling nervous, because this question would either make or break our relationship.

"Emm, what kind?" I'd asked very carefully, as if I was treading in a glass valley, trying not to hurt myself.

"River... Kohaku..." was all she responded. The second word was much quieter though. I'd searched up. There was a Kohaku River, and from what she asked, she probably was saying that the Kohaku River had a spirit. Cool, and weird though.

Then suddenly, one day, she disappeared. Just like that. Her parents were devastated, and I was in a state of confusion and hurt. I'd thought we were close friend, but she never told me that she would disappear. On that day, I'd walked and walked aimlessly, reminiscing about our short relationship. I'd somehow arrived at a small path and wandered in, not thinking much about it.

As I walked, I could see a red tinge at the end of the path, peaking my curiosity. I stared at the red building that was slowly coming into form as I got closer. I stopped in front of an odd statue blocking the path and examined the red wall with a black tunnel. The red paint cracking and slowly peeling off.

"How odd," I'd say out loud, now looking at the strange mossy statue that honestly kind of looked like a penguin. Then, I noticed a picture at the foot of the statue. Curiosity got the better of me, and I had bent over, picking the picture up, which I suddenly realised that the word 'Rikka' was written neatly on a post-it stuck to the picture. "Chihiro?" I immediately recognised the style of drawing and her handwriting.

As I examined the picture, I could see all the characters she had previously drawn before. The big building, that apparently was a bathhouse. It was beautifully drawn and coloured with markers. But this time, she had drawn herself in it. She stood beside the dragon boy, gripping his hand. I had smiled at that, somehow knowing that she'd gone back to the one she loved. In big cursive letters, 'Thank you, good bye.' was written at the bottom of the picture. I guess she won't be coming back then. I knew that there was a real place with these 'spirits' in!

Smiling, I'd stood up, almost leaving when I caught sight of the tunnel again. Then, it all fit perfectly. The 'other world' was probably through this tunnel and she was back where she felt she belonged. I walked back home, pleased and satisfied that she was happy now.

When I had gone back to school, my classmates asked me about Chihiro. "Hey, you were close with her right? Where'd she go?" "I heard she disappeared!" "Did she leave home?" At this, I'd smiled and simply said, "She went back home." And it was true.

Chihiro went back to where she belonged, her home.