A/N: Chapter 2. Chihiro reflects on what happened at the bathhouse.
"Dear Diary"
(life after the bathhouse)
by:
ViolinTides
Dear Diary,
Another day, another insult from the kids at school. I've never felt more alone in my life. I wish it were easier to make friends at school. It's only been a few months since my last entry, but things haven't exactly changed much. Nothing's been very exciting lately since that day.
I remember it like it was yesterday. My father's curiosity had gotten the best of him and we ended up stopping at some silly old train station. I wanted to stay. I tried to convince mother, but she wouldn't listen to reason. I sat there in the car, clutching my bouquet of flowers given to me by a dear friend. When I realized my parents were going to run off and leave me in the car by myself, I panicked. I darted out of the vehicle. Realizing that I might damage my flowers, I put them gently back into the car and rushed ahead of mother and held onto father's arm. I wasn't necessarily a 'daddy's little girl', but I didn't want to be left alone. Once we passed through the train station, my parents caught a wiff of delicious-smelling food. They refused to let it drop and followed their noses. The food was prepared for the spirits. They weren't supposed to, but they ate it. A LOT of it. After some exploring done by me, and a brief meeting with a certain boy, I tried to grab my parents and run away, run for our lives! However, they had already eaten too much and were turned into pigs. I was so scared, thinking maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me. I ran around, looking for my mother and father. When I couldn't find them, I did the only thing I thought I could do: Run. Sadly, I was unable to make it back through the train station. The meadow was no longer a bunch of green, rolling hills. Now it was a large lake, filled with lots of water. The train station, which previously had seemed so close, was now so far away. It appeared that there were many different creatures and monsters (which I later learned were just spirits). I sat down, crying in defeat, my hands were beginning to fade away as if I were a ghost. I thought I was dreaming and hoped I would wake up. As I sat there crying, the boy comforted me, talked with me, and told me I must eat. He gave me a simple berry and assured me it would not turn me into a pig. Eventually, we made our way through the bathhouse. We dashed this way and that, avoiding unfriendly eyes, and avoiding being seen or heard. I was told to ask the boiler man for a job. I remember approaching him and his many limbs; how he denied me again and again for a job. How he saved me by acting as though I were his granddaughter. How the woman known as Lin was not so friend to me at first, but would become one of my best friends. Yubaba gave me a job, I ended up letting a monster into the bathhouse, No Face, who began to eat people. I helped a River Spirit with a 'thorn in his side'. I helped Haku break free of Yubaba's controlling spell by stepping on a black slug. I helped save the bathhouse by getting No Face to throw up the people he'd eaten, the food he'd eaten, and eventually he chased me out of the bathhouse.
My parents, still pigs in a pigpen, were blissfully unaware of all of this.
I ended up making many friends while in this spirit world. Kamaji (the boiler man), Lin (the woman who helped me meet Yubaba), Zeniba (Yubaba's sister, both of them are witches), Boh (Yubaba's big baby boy), No Face (he was nice when he wasn't eating people), and finally Haku (the river spirit of the Kohaku River). These people had more of an impact on my life than my parents, than any of my old friends, or any of the new people at my new school.
I miss them all dearly and I hope, by writing all of this down, that I remember it was NOT all just a dream.
Love,
Chihiro
Please read and review. Any and all suggestions/comments/flames/etc are welcome. You are welcome to email me as well. violintides at hotmail dot com. Thank you for reading!
