The moon was bright over a small house; the wind whispered through the trees. The stars peeked out from behind small tufts of cloud, and all was quiet. One could say it was the very picture of a peaceful setting.

Still, all was not so peaceful inside the blue house.

A young woman, maybe fifteen or so, moaned as she rolled over in bed. Her light silver comforter was twisted around her body from her nightmares. She rolled again, and clutched at the bluish bed sheets in her sleep. Though she slept, tears rolled down her cheeks.

"Haku… no…" She rolled, shivered, and jolted awake with a shriek. Instantaneously, her door slammed open, and her mother poked her head in.

"Honey? Are you all right? You sounded like you were crying." Chihiro sat up, back ruler straight, hugging the sheets around her torso.

"I ah, yes, mom, I'm fine…" Her mother frowned and quietly walked inside.

"Are you sure?" Chihiro nodded. After a moment's hesitation, Yuuko sat on Chihiro's bed and wrapped her daughter in a hug.

"You know dear, you can talk to me about anything. Are you having boy trouble? I know when I was your age -this was before I met your father of course- the boys used to bug me horribly but-" Chihiro waved her hands and shook her head.

It's not really a lie, right? He might be male, but he's not exactly a boy…

"No, no mom! There are no boys involved."

Her mother looked thoughtful. "Well, you know you can talk it over with me, if you have any problems."

"I know… thanks."

"Now then, I'm going to go back to bed, but if you need me, don't hesitate to call." Chihiro nodded, a blush blazing across her cheeks.

"The only thing I need now is my dragon." She whispered after her mother left. "Oh, Haku… I miss you." She rubbed at her nose, her eyes, trying to keep from crying.

Nearly a month after they had moved in, Akio and Yuuko had decided that they weren't so happy being out in the country. As their original house had not yet been sold, a stroke of luck, Chihiro thought, bad luck that is, they had moved back to Kofu.

She honestly felt as if she would never see Haku again.

That was what hurt most; the idea that she could never say to him 'I love you' like she had wanted since she met him. True, most ten year olds could not grasp the idea of love, but it had been different with her.

Maybe her experience in the Spirit world had changed her, left her as something other than what she was before. She laughed at herself. Of course it had changed her. Mentally and physically. She still had a scar from where one of Haku's dragon teeth had slit her arm. And after what she faced in Aburaya, it was no big deal for her to go up to someone and say 'Hello, I moved here, would you like to be friends?' Of course, she had moved again a month later, so she was back with her old friends.

Except, it seemed they didn't really know her anymore. One of them, Tenshi, had even said as much.

"Chihiro-chan, what is up with you? We never really talk; you're always too busy drawing that dragon over and over, or the strange boy. You're like, living in a dream world. I don't know who you are anymore!"

She shook her head. Reminiscing would do nothing except make her sad. She pulled her sparkly purple hair tie off her wrist and peered at it. She had never seen anything so fine in the human world, nor had she ever run into more than daily trouble. Was the strength of her friendship with Bou, Kaonashi, and Yu-bird keeping her from harm, even when in another world?

She wished she knew.

She rolled to her other side, blowing dark chocolate brown hair out of her face. Her nearly black eyes scanned the sky just as they did every night, looking for any sign of a dragon.

None, as usual.

With a heavy sigh she rolled onto her back and tried to fall back asleep.

……………….

The next morning dawned bright and cheerful, and even after the nightmare of the previous night, Chihiro felt rested and peaceful. After a quick breakfast. She was on her way to school, her hair pulled back into a ponytail with the purple band.

More than half way there her eyes fell on a strange figure. He was standing about a block down, but he had turned and was staring right at her. A shiver went down her spine. There was just something familiar about him… She shook her head and continued walking. She didn't have time to deal with peculiar people now.

So she concentrated on the looming school building and tried to put the stranger out of her mind. It didn't work, especially because he walked into her first period class about five minutes after the bell rang.

"I'm sorry I'm late." His voice had a slight musical quality to it, as if he was on the verge of breaking into song; it was a soft as silk, though it was without the oily hint of a car salesman, or the too persuasive lilt of a real estate agent. He awkwardly ran a hand through his curly blond hair while everyone stared at him. "I got caught up getting here."

Finally the teacher, Arakawa-sensei, shook her head and grinned. She liked new students. So fun to torture.

"Well, well, class." She cracked her knuckles loudly. "It seems we've got a new student." She scanned her attendance list. "You seem to be Jordan Whitney. Class, he's an exchange student from America. Welcome him." There were choruses of 'hey' and 'hi' and 'sup?' from everyone while Whitney simply looked awkward.

"Now, Whitney-kun, please, tell us about yourself." There was a clearly sadistic smile on the teacher's face.

"Uh… Hello. I'm Whitney Jordan, er, Jordan Whitney like she said… or whatever. Call me Whitney…" He swallowed. "I like tennis, swimming… hiking, pretty much anything outdoors." He shifted from foot to foot, the picture of a nervous student.

Still, as he continued, Chihiro couldn't help but think that it all seemed rather rehearsed. When he took his seat across the room, she glanced at him occasionally throughout the math class. The majority of the time she found he was looking at her.

There was something about him that was so vaguely familiar… and yet so different.

The bell rang, startling her out of her reverie.

She jumped up to take a small breather before the next teacher came in.(1) It was just so hard to concentrate with that boy there. Most students stayed in class, so the halls were pretty much empty. With a heavy sigh she leaned her forehead against the cool wall and rubbed her eyes.

How was she going to last the day, no, the year with him in the class?

She'd have to drop out, change schools, anything to-

"Ogino Chihiro." With a startled yell she whipped away from the wall and fell backwards into someone's arms. She was looking up into the frankly smiling face of Whitney. "Hello."

She wrenched herself free. "How do you know my name?" He simply smiled. His reddish brown eyes twinkled, as if he couldn't look at her enough.

"Let's just say, you're a friend of my family. But now, I don't want to spoil any surprises!" A wry grin spread across his face. "How are your friends in Aburaya?"

Chihiro gasped and her eyes want impossibly wide, even wider than the first time she had smelled a stink spirit. "What?" She finally realized what the weird feeling around him was! It was the same feeling of strangeness she got from Haku, or Rin, or Kamaji! Was he, was he a spirit?

Before she could voice her thoughts, he tapped her nose and chuckled. "You're pretty cute, you know that?" Her face went beet red as he grabbed her hand. "Come on, we've got to get back to class!" She only let herself be pulled along to try not to raise suspicion.

After all, it was highly doubtful that a teacher would believe her when she told them a spirit of some sort was harassing her.

Unfortunately, the rest of the day went about as 'happily' as the morning. Luckily, Chihiro was able to hide out in the library, so she was spared during her lunch hour.

She ran home as fast as she could without tripping, and broke her old record of three minutes. Pretty good for living a third of a mile away.

Inside her room she slung her backpack against the wall, threw her shoes off and collapsed on the bed. What the heck was she gonna do! If he knew about Aburaya as a human, then either he had gone there himself, highly unlikely, or he was a spirit.

And if he was a spirit, well… that put light on a whole new set of problems.

And, what did he mean about her being 'cute'? Well, it wasn't like she didn't like compliments, but when they were given by people she didn't know who seemed to know everything about her, well, that was a different story entirely! Ugh!

It wasn't that he wasn't good looking, because he was, in a foreign, off beat way. But, she and Haku… they shared something…

…didn't they?

She sighed deeply and rubbed her eyes. She was tired of thinking. She wanted to be doing, she didn't care what. In Aburaya, she had been scared of course, but that was much preferable to being bored out of her mind. She wanted an adventure…

No…

She just wanted… to be with Haku. That's what she wanted. More than anything, she wanted to be able to see him, to tell him exactly how she felt.

Sighing again, she stood and crossed her room to stand before the mirror. She leaned her forehead against it, letting the cool, smooth surface soothe her. It didn't help much, simply reminded her of the way Haku's skin had felt.

Cool, unblemished, clean…

It was weird, she hadn't ever really thought about it, but his skin had never had a human's warmth. It was always cool. Was it because he was a spirit, or because he was a river spirit. It would make sense. Rivers were cool, refreshing, wonderful.

"I'm in deep, aren't I?" Silence greeted her words. She turned, stamping her foot childishly.

"Chihiro, to me!"

She gasped as if someone had punched her. The voice, that voice… it had to be! She spun around, facing only her own reflection. Still she had been so sure…

"Chihiro!"

She took a wavering step forward and placed a hand on the mirror. The voice had seemed to come from the mirror, but how?

"Haku?"

Hesitantly, she placed her other hand on the glass.

"TO ME!"

The glass rippled, like water, but didn't break. Rather, fingers closed around both her hands, clasping her hands to another's. She yelped as they tugged, once, and again, and started pulling her through the mirror.

She was being pulled against gravity, upwards through her mirror, by something… And yet, she felt no fear…

The hands on her own were cool…

…………………….

(1) In Japan, they don't move class to class, they stay in the same class, same desk, and wait for the teachers to come to them. Sorry if that caused any confusion!

So, yeah, review? Next chapter we're gonna find more on Whitney, and see where exactly Chihiro went! Yay! Should be longer too… I feel so inadequate. My chapters are usually about twice as long as this… C But I wanted to get it up… Should I stay with this meager length or make my usual 5,000 word chapters for this story? What say ye?

Thank you, Draxans, for yelling 'to me' at my person so often! XD It wormed its way into my story… pfft…