Courting the River Maid Collection
Imaginary Friend, Middle Names
By LadyRainStarDragon
Rain doesn't own Spirited Away. Hence why this is on a fan fiction website. I am just a fan, maybe that explainswhy I sometimes feel likesomebody's waving me around for their enjoyment.
In this 'flower' in the Courting bouquet that's building here, Chihiro and Lily are seven, placing this after the Kohaku River was buried, but before she got Spirited Away. For the confused, 'Underwater Savior' details my version of how Haku's river got buried, and 'Rivers Never Die' unearths it again.
Brown hair and blonde hair gleamed in the summer sun, adorning the heads of two children who had managed to sneak away from their parents for a little while. Like always, they sat on the grassy field to contemplate the line of earth that represented where the river once flowed. It was mostly grown over now, but there was still a thin line, and the grass had a different texture to it. Pink flowers dotted the field here and there, looking just as careworn as the forest around the former river.
"It seems like forever, doesn't it?"
"I just wish I could have said good bye to him."
"At least you got to meet the river spirit, Chihiro."
"But he's gone now. Dad killed him."
"You know, mom always says that spirits don't die. Maybe he's just sleeping somewhere, waiting to be woken up and for the river to be dug back up."
"Like Sleeping Beauty?"
The seven year old Chihiro tried to image Haku as Sleeping Beauty. It was a ridiculous image. For one thing, she had never seen Nigihayami Kohakunushi lie so still. Even when he would stand stock-still, either his hair or robes would be ruffled by the breeze. She didn't think he would have taken too kindly to the comparison either, he seemed pretty jumpy whenever the topics of discussion had turned to appearances, love, or that kind of thing. She would never forget his response one day when she had asked if there was a Mrs. Nigihayami Kohakunushi. The sheer panic as he looked around had been interesting. He had veiled it well, but his eyes always gave everything away.
If he was sleeping somewhere and waiting to be woken up, she would give anything to bring him back. She needed to know, needed confirmation of his existence before her mother had her way. She was already forgetting things about him, pressured not just by her mother, but the kids in school too.
Silence fell over the two, neither really feeling like running and playing since the river was gone. With the demise of the river, seemed to have gone all of their energy, vanishing like summer butterflies.
"Mom says he was just imaginary, you know. She thinks I made him up because I spent so much time with Ji-san when I was little."
"Do you think he was imaginary?"
"No, but I don't know anymore. I'm getting less sure of what I remember every day. There are times, when I think mom may be right, that maybe he was just someone I created to ease my loneliness and sickness."
"Does it matter if he's not real? A friend is a friend, right?"
Blue eyes locked with muddy brown eyes that were giving up all but the very last bit of grey in them. Chihiro's mother was slowly succeeding in making her wildish daughter conform to her very tame wishes, tirelessly extinguishing the light that had once burned so brightly. Lily was alarmed to see how uncertain of herself her best and only friend was becoming, and wondered what her life was like when she was not with her. Mrs. Ogino had always scoffed at fairy tales and magic, and Ogino-daitoku's rituals that the girls found so fascinating.
"You're right, Lily. If you're half Japanese, why don't you have a Japanese name?"
Lily shrugged her shoulders, causing shoulder-length waves of gold to sway like sunset river currents like some swore they could still see where the river had once been. They contrasted pleasingly with the blue T-shirt that she wore.
"My middle name is Rumiko. Dad was born in America, but wound up being adopted by a family that had been friends with his. Don't ask me, because I still don't understand the story. Anyway, they made my first name to be Lily, because Mom had a dream about lilies shortly before I was born."
"Pretty, much nicer than my middle name."
"What's yours?"
"Pearl."
"That . . . just doesn't seem to fit. It's in English at that."
"Yeah. Mom and her love of American Culture."
Silence settled once more over them, as light and comforting as the golden mantle of sunlight that kissed their shoulders and warmed their backs as they gazed wistfully where once they could have swam.
"There you are Chihiro! You had me worried sick!"
The girls jumped in their startlement, like two fishes that had been pulled roughly into the fishing boat and desperately attempting to return to the sweet river.
"If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times Chihiro! Stop wandering off to look for this 'river man!' He is imaginary. There are no spirits. Let's take Lily home, then we are going to have a little talk."
Something stretched a bit thinner inside of the little girl. She couldn't bring herself to repeat the words that she knew her mom wanted to hear. Like Lily said, did it matter if he was or wasn't?
"Yes mom."
The girls followed the woman to the car that her husband had gotten her last year, an ugly and boxy thing. Morosely they buckled themselves into the back, only whispering to each other when Yuuko was concentrating on driving. Neither child saw the green snake who had sadly watched them leave the former river bank, nor had they heard Maiden Snake's hiss to not give up hope.
"Tell me about it later, 'Pearl.' If she gets too harsh, I'll tell mom."
"If there is a later, 'Rumi.' I don't think that will be for a while though."
The scarred landscape rolled past their tired eyes. They knew that they would be sick again soon, but the fresh air was worth it. If only they had been able to play in the water just once more though, then they could have been completely happy. It wasn't long before they had pulled up in from of Lily's home, and Chihiro's mother had escorted her to the door and exchanged words with Mrs. Tanaka. She dreaded her mother coming back, already knowing what her mom was going to say. It was always the same.
"Times change Chihiro. I don't know why you loved that nasty river so much, especially when you almost drowned in it, how it almost took you for itself. The 'river spirit' doesn't exist Chihiro. He was in your imagination the whole time."
As always, Chihiro never replied, only kept staring out the window where a line of blue and white had once coiled under the bright sun.
'If Haku was imaginary, then why does Ji-chan still talk like he was real? Is Ji-chan crazy too?"
Midnight currents wearily traced along the white moonlight of the young man's haori, the buried river detained at the desk that had been provided in his rooms for his use during his extended stay until he was hale enough to return to whence he had come from. In the absence of the air's movement, he seemed to be frozen in a state of concentration, although it was not on what was currently before his eyes.
Nigihayami Kohakunushi, commonly known as Haku or Kohaku unless you were his friend Ten, sat at his desk located in the Spring Realm beneath the spring that had fed his river. One would think, that since his river was no longer accessible to the Human World, that the paperwork would slow down. That would be wrong. He still had just as much to do, except he was now cooped up in the Headwaters unable to go to either branch.
What hurt the most was that his most prized treasure was unprotected in the above world from the good intentions of her parents. Slowly, her mother was covering up Chihiro's inborn innocence. The eyes that had once been rather grey were swiftly becoming very brown as doubt began to gnaw at the child's mind. However, there was no way he could stop it. If he allowed her to see one of his puppets, especially in a weakened and transparent state, she would only be certain that her mother was correct. If he didn't, she would still slowly forget him. His only hope was that subconsciously she would remember how he had been there for her.
He had been staring at the same contract for ten minutes now, and had still been unable to wrest his worries away from the fragile little human child. Somehow, he would find a way to return to her, to protect her as he had sworn.
'Don't forget me, Chihiro.'