Emerald Eyes
The Spirit World is an awful place to be lost, especially for a young ten-year-old girl who hasn't found her place in the world yet. Chihiro curls her fingers into a fist and presses them against her mouth, trying to stifle the sob welling up in her chest. She crouches in the grass, trying to make herself smaller and inconspicuous like she has so many times when she was younger and hiding from the monsters: maybe if they don't see me, they won't hurt me. The spirits spilling off the boat coming into port are eerie, disorienting, and frightening, and she has no idea where her parents are. Where is her father? Her mother? They can't really be pigs, can they?
Footsteps pad through the grass and suddenly a boy is swimming in her vision, eyes glinting green in the moonlight. He is solid, substantial, unlike Chihiro, who is quickly turning translucent.
He offers her a berry. "Eat it. It won't turn you into a pig, I promise," he reassures, and holds her until she swallows. He holds up a hand and lets her test her solidness for herself. His palm is warm and gives way a little, and when he looks at her Chihiro swears it's as if he can see right through her, even though she knows she isn't see-through anymore.
So when Rin says he's Yubaba's henchman and warns Chihiro not to trust anything Haku says, Chihiro's face falls. What she has seen from Haku isn't the mark of somebody bad. She remembers the determined set of his chin as he guided her across the bridge, the way his body tensed when he sheltered her from view of the circling bird-spirit-woman. She remembers clutching his shirt, begging him not to go: "I don't want to be alone again. Please," and his eyes, shining as he explains, "I've known you since you were very little."
Later, he proves himself to truly be kindhearted when he takes her to see her parents. He offers her food, afterwards. He holds her close when she cries, big fat tears dripping everywhere, and Chihiro is thankful because it should be her mother or father holding her like this, but they're pigs and she's all alone. Except Haku is there, handing over her real clothes (her human ones—she presses her face in them and tries to remember how she smelled before she came here, to this bath house) and providing solace with his words. And when he tells her, "It's funny—I can't remember my name, but I remember yours," she vows in that moment that she will return all these stolen favors. She will remember for him, somehow.
A lot happens in between the next time she sees Haku, and nothing prepares her to see him bloodied and seething, some frenzied animal. But she holds his mouth closed and makes him swallow the river spirit's pill, because he made her eat that berry all those days ago, and when she sees him turn back into a boy she sighs with relief. He will be okay, Chihiro tells herself, and then she heads out to return Zeniba's seal because she doesn't think she can bear sticking around in case Haku dies. But he can't die, he won't—Chihiro refuses to imagine those green eyes of his dimming and staying closed forever.
There's a knock on the door later that night, at Zeniba's cottage. Nothing prepares Chihiro for the elation that hits her like a wave when she sees Haku standing there, his dragon eyes bright with recognition.
There's a flash of memory while she sits on Haku's serpentine back and Chihiro remembers.
There's a burst of scales, peeling off in the wind, and suddenly she's freefalling, but she's not as scared as she should be because she just helped Haku remember his name. And the feeling she gets when he presses his forehead against hers and squeezes her hand is like a flock of butterflies taking off in her stomach, a mob of paper angels slicing through the air, a burst of scales scattering in the wind.
There's Haku's hand in hers as he leads her away from her triumph against Yubaba, and suddenly Chihiro is filled with doubt. "Will we meet each other again?" she asks.
Haku turns to her and smiles. "I'm sure we will. Now go."
There's a boy with emerald eyes and a gentle smile, and Chihiro's heart breaks a little as she lets go of his hand.
o.O.o
Five years pass too fast. Chihiro sits tapping her pencil against her cheek in a classroom with countless other students, and it's all she can do not to drift away into a daydream.
There's a boy in her class, with a friendly smile and deep brown eyes. Her mind, for some reason, reminds her they aren't green, but when he offers to walk her home she accepts anyway.
He starts doing it more frequently and even buys her flowers, and her daydreams start to flit to him instead of the usual ones—the ones that involve a dark-green-haired boy who turns into a dragon sometimes. And when he takes her hand she only has a brief flash of other ones, warm and surprisingly strong, before she jolts back to the present and squeezes his hand in return. Five years is a long time, Chihiro thinks, and she resigns herself to the fact that Haku is probably never coming back.
There's a boy with shaggy brown hair and deep brown eyes, and when he kisses her Chihiro feels a rising, tumbling feeling in her stomach. So she kisses him back and thinks (thinks) she's in love.
o.O.o
The grass is long and tickly around her, but Chihiro isn't laughing. She's heaving long, ugly sobs, and can't for the life of her remember why she's crying. She keeps waiting for someone to put an arm around her, but no one does. Figures, she thinks bitterly, because she was abandoned a long time ago in favor of a prettier face who didn't space out from time to time, who didn't wear beat-up sneakers and sketch the same picture of a dragon over and over again, every broken pencil tip representing another broken promise. You said we'd meet each other again.
Suddenly there is an arm around her shoulders and a hand brushing the sticky, matted hair away from her face, murmuring, "Chihiro."
She looks up with startled eyes and feels small and ten years old again, except she isn't—she's seventeen and…and he looks older, too.
"Chihiro," Haku repeats, eyes searching and smile the slightest bit sad. "I'm sorry."
"For what?" she whispers, because it's hard to think of anything when Haku is back, green eyes and all.
"For not coming sooner," Haku answers and envelops her in a hug, crushing her against his chest. He is talking, his voice that same, soothing cadence. "It took a while to work out a deal with Yubaba and find a way to manifest myself in your world, but I'm here."
"I'm here," he repeats, softer, and Chihiro wonders if he's having as much trouble believing it as she is. It's been so long, she thinks.
"I missed you," she blubbers instead, collapsing into him and pulling him closer because he was there to comfort her in her time of greatest need and somehow he's here again when she needs him most. She should wonder how he does it, except she knows that the simple answer is magic; it's magic that he's here at all, it's magic that he can still make her feel this way after so long.
"I missed you, too. More than you could imagine," Haku says.
There's a boy with emerald eyes exuding quiet strength, and when he cups her face in his hands and kisses her—gentle, like leaves drifting to the ground, like flowers swaying in the wind, like wind ruffling her hair—Chihiro knows (knows) she's in love.
A/N: Sorry if it's kind of confusing/abstract. This is my first Spirited Away piece but I couldn't get a few lines out of my head so I threw them all into a story and I'm sorry if it sucks. :-/ Constructive criticism/opinions of any kind are welcome and greatly appreciated! Thanks for reading! :)