Forgotten


Author: NekoNemui

AN: Yes, this is the updated version of this chapter. I've recently been working on them all, trying to perfect them to match my new writing style. There isn't much difference to how it was before; only some added detail here and there.

Disclaimer: Chihiro rode on Haku's back to fly to the human world to be with me, but before they could make it, Yubaba dragged them back and gave them a lecture on how it was important to stay loyal to Studio Ghibli since they animated Spirited Away, blah blah blah..


Chihiro skidded to a stop. She's been running full pelt for eight minutes straight, and she was now fully out of breath due to the weight of her heavy schoolbag. Well, she blamed it on her schoolbag, but she was really just denying her level of unfitness. The straps had slipped from her shoulders, and were now hanging from the crook of her elbows; the bag itself very close to touching the concrete path. Her chocolate coloured hair was windblown; looking as it had - if not, worse than it had earlier that morning.

Chihiro grumbled as she hiked up her bag, and gasped as she felt her skirt come up with it. A breeze tickled the back of her thigh, and she quickly pushed the fabric back down, blushing furiously and looking around. Nobody was in sight. She let out a troubled breath, relieved. That would have been major blackmail material.

The sixteen year old knew that around the corner of the upcoming street was Osaka High, so she took this small opportunity to fix herself up before she walked in to class with the rest of the students. She was a girl, after all, and she always came prepared.

Putting her bag down and un-zipping the top pocket, Chihiro pulled out a flip-brush. She pushed the bristles in with her fingers and carefully ran it through her long brown hair, untangling the big clumps. Once she could move the brush downwards smoothly, she put it back in her bag, satisfied, and instead pulled out a small mirror. She tilted it so she could see her face and applied a thin layer of pink lip-gloss to her lips. She smacked them together, grinning at the shine. She also extracted a tube of mascara and swiped a small amount on her long lashes. She put the mirror away. Her mother didn't approve of make-up, so the applications had to be sneaky.

Chihiro heard the low ring of the school bell. She quickly pulled up her knee-high socks, stood up and put on her bag- careful not to bring her skirt with it, and sprinted around the corner, feeling somewhat prepared for the long day ahead.

Actually, that was a lie. Who was ever prepared for school? Especially a Monday! Chihiro shook her head. She really needed to get over the facts, and just get the day over with already.

When she reached the school gates, her hair had messed up again from people shoving past her to get ahead.

She huffed, annoyed; wondering why she even bothered as she ran her fingers through it in attempt to look somewhat presentable.

She slowed to a walk and gazed up at the tall building of Osaka Private High School as other students hurried past, determined to be in class on time.

'I'm going to be late, anyway.' She thought with a sigh.

There was nothing fancy about the school, it was just a regular brick building with ordinary windows- and, of course, the school name written across it with the logo. Somehow, Chihiro thought that private schools would be much more impressive than normal public ones, with polished marble floors and smart uniforms. She had been severely disappointed.

A loud screech from above interrupted her thoughts, and her head instinctively snapped in the direction of the sound. There, high up in a tree perched a crow. It was staring at her with a deep gaze, and Chihiro found herself feeling stupidly intimidated by it. She glared, starting a one-sided staring competition.

Sudden images pooled in her mind- images of this bird with the head of an old lady. A tugging feeling pulled at her heart, making her feel somewhat ill. She froze, and (to her own annoyance) blinked.

She felt somewhat disgusted with herself for thinking up such impossibly mutated things. She flinched and ducked as the crow suddenly swooped past her and over the building, nearly catching her hair as it passed. She felt instantly better once it was out of sight, and everything came back to reality.

Oh, joy.

She looked around and noticed two things at once. The first was that she was now the only person not inside the school building, and the second was that the Principal himself was leaving the reception, coming right her way. He didn't look too happy. Chihiro gulped, using her three seconds of freedom to mentally prepare herself for the wrath she knew was to come. Sure enough, it did.

"What on earth do you think you're doing?!" He spat, now only a few feet away.

"Um..-" She urged herself to think of an excuse, racking her brain so hard that it hurt.

"-I was just trying to look for some money I dropped for my bus ticket home tonight. I was shoved around so much trying getting into the school that it just.. fell out of my hands and I had to look for it, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to get home after school." Chihiro lied, putting on her most pitying face.

To her amazement, he seemed to buy it. His eyes softened a little as he spoke.

"Well, class started ten minutes ago. So.." The principal trailed off as he reached into his pocket. He pulled out some money.

"Take this. A similar thing happened to me when I was your age, and I had to walk home in the rain. Still the worst day of my life to this day."

Chihiro was surprised. Really surprised. Was luck on her side today? Or did God just have a really messed up sense of humour? She decided the latter made more sense. Chihiro was a lot of things, but lucky was not one of them.

"Wow, gee, thank you Sensei!" She pretended to be relieved. "I'll pay you back as soon as I can!"

"Not necessary. Now. Get. To. Class!" He roared.

Chihiro immediately straightened and sprinted for the big wooden doors of Osaka Private High School without bothering to look back. She felt guilty for taking the Principal's money like that, but if she didn't, she would've gotten a punishment for sure. After not getting one for two whole months, Chihiro felt like she was on a winning streak. So she flung the doors open and kept running, pushing the guilt out of her mind.

She passed the front office and got a harsh glare from the receptionist. Chihiro resisted the urge to glare back and ignored it; continuing to run until she reached the deserted corridors and flew up the flight of stairs to her left. Once at the top, she jogged down the right corridor and stopped at her locker. She dropped her bag to the floor where it crumpled quite unattractively, and turned to face her lock. It was a twist-code, where you start on 0, and spin the handle in the middle to three numbers that will open only one lock. Chihiro's code numbers were 2, 22 and 30.

It took her five goes before the damn thing actually un-locked. Growling in frustration and biting back a curse, she hurriedly took out her Japanese books- and her due assignment, before ditching her bag inside the gloomy, square hole and locking it.

For a long moment, she just stared at her locker, imagining how nice it would be to be her bag at that moment. Suddenly it was the greatest thought in the world. Being stuck in a dark square of 'death by boredom' seemed like a much, much more inviting idea than going to class right now.

She eventually forced her legs to move and stumbled down the hall until she reached the Year 10 Japanese room. She peered through the small window in the door, to see her class already inside, watching some sort of historical movie.

Oh, how she wished she were that damn bag.

Chihiro tried to open the door as silently as she could, but failed in doing so when the door creaked on its hinges. Thankfully, everyone was too absorbed in the movie to have noticed, and she crept soundlessly around to the back of the room. The lights were dimmed, so she could only hope to find a seat before the teacher noticed her late arrival. But when she caught her sensei's eye from across the room, he frowned at her- a warning she knew all-too-well.

The brunette looked away and spotted her friends seated at the middle row of desks.

Chihiro was part of the 'popular' group of girls at Osaka. There were four of them altogether, the most popular being Aya. Aya was undoubtedly the prettiest girl out of them all- she had the face of a porcelain doll, her body was well proportioned and she had stunning round eyes, full lips and a sharp nose that would make any girl envious. She hadn't a single freckle on her skin, and her long, curled hair reached her middle-back.

Before Chihiro had come along, there was just Aya, and her two nakama (friends) Shoko and Miyuki. Both were also beautiful, Shoko with dyed blonde curls and a skinny, yet nicely muscled body, and Miyuki looking similar but with long, dark brown hair that was so straight it looked like it had been ironed to her head.

The three girls weren't really paying attention, they were busy flirting with some of the boys in the class. Chihiro also noticed that they hadn't exactly saved her a seat, either. She crept up to them and tapped Shoko on the shoulder, who tore her eyes dramatically away from the boys and turned to look at Chihiro.

"What?" She hissed loudly.

Chihiro had to stop herself from gawking at the tone in her friend's voice. "Did you guys save me a seat?"

Shoko shot a quick look sideways at Miyuki, but not quick enough for Chihiro to be oblivious.

"Actually Chihiro," Miyuki started, answering for Shoko. "we were going to sit with the guys today. Is that cool with you?"

Chihiro glanced down and pretended to be interested with something on the floor. This was not the first time something like this had happened to her; In fact, it had happened multiple times before. They seemed to enjoy the reaction they got when they ditched her.

She wasn't going to give them one.

She set her jaw. "Yeah, that's fine. Heaps cool." Miyuki raised a slender eyebrow and Shoko just stared as Chihiro stood from her crouch.

At that moment, Aya flipped her curled head around. Had she been listening the whole time? "There's a spare seat next to Rin, Chihiro." She said in an ungraceful tone. "Be sure to say 'Hi' for me."

And then all three girls turned their backs to her. Just like that, she had been dismissed. Chihiro fought the urge to yank them all back around by their hair and instead glanced up at the seat next to Rin. Rin was a Chinese girl, and was not friendly at all. She was one of those girls you just avoided because you weren't sure if saying hello would cost you an arm. She never spoke to anyone, so it was unlikely that Chihiro would be passing on Aya's message without looking like an idiot. Not that she intended to, anyway. It was obvious that the other girl had been sarcastic.

At school lately, there had been a lot of rumours going around that Chihiro was better looking, or 'hotter' than Aya. This had caused Aya to attack her, defending her ground as only a girl can.

Chihiro didn't like it when people spoke about her like that. She just wanted to be left alone; free to do whatever she wanted without someone making a judgemental comment. Was that too hard to ask for?

I'm just a girl trying to keep her head above the water. She suddenly felt icky for taking pity on herself, so instead told herself to just keep going; to hurry up and sit down so she could do her work and leave.

Without another word, Chihiro silently crept to the back corner of the class and plonked her books down on the desk, and her butt on the cold seat. She didn't bother looking at Rin, instead she put her elbow up on the table, and rested her chin on the palm of her hand.

She sighed, her breath pushing loose strands of hair away from her face.

For the third time that day, she wished she could trade places with her bag. Screw it, she was going to put it on her Christmas wishlist and pray for a miracle.(1)


Haku stalked through the bath-house. He was tired of keeping things to himself. Since that fateful day, he hadn't told anyone about the spell; everyone at the bath-house simply thought Chihiro had left, and would eventually find her way back, so they were all just waiting, among doing their daily things.

He skidded to a stop to catch the nearest elevator, which had just opened to his right. It was crowded, but he managed to squish in as other spirits recognised him and made room. Haku pretended not to notice how they edged away from him in fear. Perhaps they were intimidated by him? He knew he would be, if he were them. The raven haired boy knew he put up an impenetrable front that wouldn't allow anyone to cross it- it was how he survived; Keeping his emotions to himself to maintain his high position in the Spirit World.

Well, impenetrable to everyone except Chihiro. He needed to speak to someone about his situation, but who? Haku carefully thought about his options.

'Lin?' he thought. 'No, definitely not Lin. She'd kill me for doing that to Chihiro. Well, technically spirits cannot be killed without special types of magic, but I wouldn't put it past her to find a way.'

He crossed her name out in his mind. 'What about Kamaji? No, he wouldn't exactly be the best help in a situation like this.'

Kamaji's name was crossed out. Haku's thoughts led from one thing to another, and soon, he was thinking of her. Again. God damn, why was she affecting him so effortlessly? That girl really had no idea what influence she'd had on him.

Literally, she had no idea.

DING!

The elevators came to a stop, and Haku suddenly became aware that he was now completely alone. The silence that seemed to radiate off the walls was taunting. He stepped out of the elevators, and walked bare-foot atop the cold tiles, hearing his own footsteps echo through the high corridors.

'What about…'

Another name was crossed out. And another, and another.

Haku groaned, and raked his fingers through his jet black hair. So far, there wasn't a single person who would be able to help him, or even listen without being disgusted by his selfish actions. Not that Haku could blame them - he'd be pretty mad, too. Chihiro had definitely left a big impression. Everyone had fallen in love with her without realising it themselves.

Finally, he arrived at his bedroom chamber, and once again, asked himself why on earth he let her go. A soft exhale left his thin lips as he rolled back onto his bed. He slapped his cheeks with both palms and left them there, covering his eyes with long, slender fingers.

He stayed like that, unmoving and lost in thought. Images of her face drifted through his mind, all the memories of those treasured moments that took place six years ago. When he'd first seen her on the bridge in the Spirit World, he'd been slightly too amazed by her human presence to remove himself from her view before she turned and spotted him standing behind her. He remembered opening his mouth as if to speak, but had immediately darkened his gaze and simply told her to leave. He couldn't deny it hadn't been love at first sight. At first, he'd just made it his own personal mission to protect her- this ten year old girl with the most beautiful eyes he'd ever seen - from harm.

It was sometime after that when his feeling for her began to stir. In fact, the clearest memory of his realisation was when she had cried so openly to him after seeing the damage done to her family. Her display of raw emotion had completely grasped his heart – the heart of someone completely opposite to herself. And that was when he realised that he had feelings for her. Because she was the only one who could make him feel like he was truly alive.

A small smile danced about his features and the little movement shifted his hands slightly. More and more memories whizzed past; almost as if his mind itself was a screen and the memories were the tapes.

The answer to his problems hit him square in the jaw when he passed over a particular 'scene'. He felt so stupid that he'd only noticed it just now. The green eyed spirit flung himself to his feet, and flew out of the door he'd passed through only minutes before. His heart raced in his chest, thundering in his ears and threatening to jump through his ribcage. He had found hope.

He was going to see Zaniba.


So, what did you think?
Sorry if it wasn't so great. But your reviews for the last chapter were very nice, and they made me feel better about this whole thing. I promise the next chapter will be up soon, I'm going to work on it for hours tomorrow night. If it's not up by the end of this week, I'm probably dead or bombarded with homework. Same thing, really.

Review, Follow and Favourite? Thank yeu

(1) Obviously she'd joking pls don't take that seriously.