Written Rivers

A Home Amongst Rivers

Chapter 2: Unwanted Daydreams

Chihiro walked into the door of her shared apartment and heard something that she thought she'd never hear again in the room at the end of the hall. She could hear Rumi talking with a man in her, no, their room. This had only happened once since they moved in together, where Rumi got seduced into getting in bed with some boy after a college party and they somehow ended up at their apartment. Saying how the girls shared the room on separate futons, Chihiro walked in with Makoto that night to them drunkenly all over their futons. Rather livid, she had Makoto drag the drunken idiot out into the hallway and threw his clothes out with him, followed by giving Rumi the worst experienced hangover in her life the next morning. Rumi never got drunk or brought a boy home again. It's not that she was promiscuous or anything, it was a onetime thing according to Rumi and she swore someone spiked her drink.

But this time she had to wonder and be prepared to sick Makoto on the guy again. That's when she realized that Makoto wasn't with her, she'd left him at the apartment, so he wouldn't have let anyone but Rumi and herself in the house, at least not without them or more or less her herself. Rumi wasn't alone, but Makoto was fine with it? That made little to no sense, unless she was Skyping or on the phone with someone.

Chihiro slipped off her shoes and placed her bag carefully next to them and padded down the hall to stand just outside the door that was left slightly ajar. From the crack in the door she could see Rumi roaming around the far side of the room messing with her hair and looking rather concerned or ticked off with the frown on her face. Whoever she was talking to was out of view. Where was Makoto?

"… foolish mongrel, do not let your pride get the best of you. You say he sent you for a reason, then do your job." Rumi's voice said, but it seemed a bit off.

"I will have you know that I take great pride in my heritage and to be degraded to such a state is purely humiliating." A low male voice replied with an edge in his tone.

"I know, but you cannot let your pride cloud your judgment."

"What the hell do you think I've been doing for the last six years?" The male practically yelled. "I've been watching her for what? Some hunch that he got about-" He stopped and went silent.

The Ogino pressed herself against the wall when she saw Rumi glance over to the window then the door and head over to where she normally sat her laptop.

"Well we'll have to finish this conversation later, babe." Rumi replied with a sweet voice. "Seems we both need to cool off…"

Chihiro backed up to the front door, opened and closed it with a slight slam. "Makoto! Rumi-Chan! I'm home!" She heard Makoto barked eagerly as he came storming through the bedroom door to where she stood near the doorway, Rumi lingering out not long after.

"Hey Chi-Chan. You're back early! I didn't expect you for a while." She stretched with a slight yawn, her posture and tone different from before.

"Well, yeah, I got what I needed done early, thought I'd come home and rest up before I went to work." Chihiro smiled, lightheartedly. She raised her brow slightly at her friend. "What have you been up to? I noticed Makoto seemed to be willingly in the same room as you. That doesn't happen often." She knelt down and scratched the said dog roughly behind the ears.

"I know, right? It's a shock! Maybe he's starting to warm up to me." Rumi laughed, receiving a low growl in return. "He trotted in and laid on your futon while I was doing work on my laptop. Classes and stuff, you know."

"Maybe you're right. It's finally took him about six years to warm up." Chihiro brought Makoto's face close to hers and continued to scratch behind his ears. "Is there anything I could do to get you to stop being so mean to Rumi-Chan?" She said in a babying voice, getting a bark and a lick to the face as a response.

"I think he'll only ever be loyal to you Chi-Chan." Rumi chuckled. Makoto's response was a side glance at her with what seemed to be cocky amusement in his eyes, Rumi rebutting with a stick of her tongue.

"Stop it you two." Chihiro laughed, walking to the kitchen to prepare dinner.

"So how was your meeting?" Rumi asked, plopping on the couch after retrieving a soda from the refrigerator.

Chihiro stood from retrieving the dry ingredients from the cabinet. "Good, we were able to organize another charity event for the end of the semester and we nominated and voted for the next leaders of the club since all our seniors are leaving by the end of this month."

"Wow! That's right, you're gonna have to step down soon."

The club Chihiro spoke of was the Environmental Awareness Club that she was president of. Ever since she was a kid she felt a need to help protect and restore the environment. She felt a connection with nature and in the back of her mind she might admit it had to do with the dreams she'd been having since she was ten. Nature used to be such an important thing to humans, especially since there used to be a strong connection with the spirits, the ones that she dreamed of. That had died from society, especially with the advance in technology and the population. There was no longer a respect for nature or the spirits. It's why she took mythology as her major, to understand how things used to be and to learn more about what haunted her at night.

After she finished her finals' studying, Chihiro made her way to her job at a bath house. She was an attendant that helped clean up after the use of private baths. The bath house she worked at was rather large compared to the traditional bath houses that scattered Japan. This one had more private suites that allowed for private baths, massages, saunas, and other services alongside the traditional public bathing room. She'd been working there since she started at the university and she worked enough hours to pay the bills and still get her studies done at above proficient.

The room she was in at the moment was still a bit steamy from its previous use, causing beads of sweat to form on Chihiro's forehead. She scrubbed at the floor and walls and reorganized all the different toiletries on the shelves, checking if there were any needed refills. A knock on the door let her know that a new guest would be coming in soon. She called out an "okay" and went to the empty tub and started filling it with new water and poured herbal oils and salts into it.

She sat by the tub and watched it fill, staring at her reflection as it rose with the filling water. Her mind wandered. The image of a tall lengthy woman with long brown hair and piercing brown eyes that had a commanding look behind them appeared in her mind. She was pulling her around the large bath house of her dreams, grumbling to her about a large tub that they were being told to clean. She seemed very disgruntled as she practically stomped her feet with each stride she made down the aisles of bath stalls.

"This is clearly harassment!" The woman slammed her bucket on the ground, jolting Chihiro back to reality, the water at its needed depth. She turned off the faucet and sighed. She didn't like how often she ended up daydreaming like that. She remembered these dreams causing her nothing but grief as a child and she didn't want them anymore. Chihiro grumbled under her breath and picked up her bucket of cleaning supplies and extra toiletries and left the private suite to attend to another area of the bath house.

A/N: A peak little into Chihiro's life and how her dreams have been troubling her. And she somehow made her way back into another bath house. XD

And before you ask, Haku will be making his appearance soon, there were just some things I wanted to lay down before he did.

Thanks for reading! Please leave a review! They're encouraging and I love hearing your thoughts! :D God bless, KawaChou