Chihiro was the best on the team, at least, Haku thought so. She was as graceful as a lynx but she had the strength of a rhinoceros and she took dives like a penguin.

When Chihiro's team won Haku gave her a shy hug of congratulations and muttered a few laudatory words. Even with a red face and her hair slicked back with sweat she was still impossibly exquisite. But it trouble Haku she was no longer the little girl he had met at the bath house, of course, he knew that she wouldn't stay the same forever, but it seemed she had lost a part of herself. Chihiro had grown up without him and Haku was hiding a small fear that, somewhere along the way, he may have lost the girl who saved his life with nothing but the power of her love for him. He was also upset to find that Chihiro seemed to have got by just fine without him when all this time the thought of seeing her face again was all that kept him going through the long years.

But Haku didn't know about the lonely nights Chihiro had spent staring at the sky, falling asleep sitting on her desk with her head resting on the window pane straining her eyes with the hope of seeing the swish of his white tail. He didn't know of the times she had cried thinking he would never return, thinking that perhaps it had all been a dream after all and he didn't even exist. He also didn't know that she had visited the park again time and time again but found nothing there at all, no clue that the bathhouse even existed at all.

But they were together and that was something. Well, it was more than something, for Haku, it was everything.

After the game the girls spent a good deal of time running about in and out of the sprinklers. Haku watched Chihiro like an artist watching his model. Her movements were no longer the awkward and disjointed ones of a child; now it was as though everything she did was in slow motion. Unfortunately her father's car pulled up before Haku even had a chance to tell her how beautiful she was.

Fortunately Chihiro was on top of things and had a plan.

"Dad," she said walking up to his window, "do you think you could drop us down by the river and we'll walk home from there?"

He gave her a look which should have accompanied a request to become a drug dealer.

"We'll be back in time for dinner," she said, before he could even utter his first disapproving syllable, "and Haku has never been here before so it would be nice for him to see the river."

"Well, I suppose, as long as you're back well before it gets dark," he said, sensing a trap.

"Of course we will be."

So he eventually acquiesced with a long list of conditions and dropped them off at the water's edge.

"Want to go for a swim?" Chihiro asked giving him a mischievous look.

He thought about refusing but Chihiro had already jumped in fully clothed and at the sight of Chihiro swimming in soaking wet clothes Haku forgot every word he knew so he meekly removed his shirt and joined her.

"So, what are you going to do?" she asked him, standing in the waist deep water.

"What?" said Haku, still having a lot of trouble concentrating on anything except Chihiro's wet netball uniform.

"I mean, now that you're free, are you going to get a job? Go to school?"

"I don't know, I guess I hadn't really thought about anything except seeing you."

"But where are you going to live?"

"I, I don't know."

"Well, if it was up to me you could stay at my house, but I don't think my parents would be too thrilled with the idea."

"Right, well, I, I guess I…"

"Well, we don't have to talk about that now," she said climbing onto the riverbank, "I'm getting out, it's freezing."

Once they were lying in the sun drying themselves Haku felt his insecurities overcoming him again.

"Is something wrong Haku?" Chihiro asked, looking at his confused face.

His answer was a long time coming back, "I just, I don't feel like I know you anymore."

"Well get to know me then, that's why you're here isn't it, you can't have expected me to be the same after all these years."

"No, that's not what I mean, of course I knew you would be different, taller, older, I just, I don't feel like you really missed…"

"Haku, I'm still the same girl, and I still feel the same way about you that I always have."

"And how do you feel about me Chihiro?"

She blushed, "I, I think I love you Haku."

"Only think?"

"Well I don't know, I mean, until a few hours ago I had almost given up hope completely that I would ever see you again but, well, when I thought it might be you at the front door this morning I swear I almost had a heart attack and when I saw you standing there I thought I might be dreaming again."

"Again?"

"I can't count the number of times I dreamt that you came to see me, only to wake and find an empty room."

"But Chihiro, you never came to see me either."

"I tried to, don't you think I tried? But there was nothing there, I had no idea where I could find you."

"But, Yubaba said no one had tried to cross the threshold since you and your parents."

"And you would trust Yubaba over me?"

"No, I just, I really thought you had forgotten me."

"I told you this morning Haku, I never stopped looking for you in the sky, I never stopped wishing that you would come for me."

"I'm sorry."

They sat in silence for a moment and Chihiro started to absentmindedly braid her hair while Haku lay on his back staring at the clouds.

"Haku?" Chihiro asked, her words full of doubt, "Do you love me?"

He sat straight up and looked in her eyes.

"Chihiro, how could you even, of course I love you!"

And with that he leapt at her and finally did what he had been dying to do for years. He kissed her.

Chihiro had never been kissed before and she felt suddenly as though she were flying. After a few perfect moments Haku withdrew and before either of them had a chance to speak he had transformed into a dragon and they really were flying.

And oh the feeling of flying again, Chihiro had forgotten the absolute perfection of gliding through the air on Haku's back. And in just that one moment it was as if no time had passed at all.