Natural Selection
by murinae and aishuu
As troubling as his work environment currently was, he wasn't foolish enough to let it consume his entire existence. He had worked out part of the problem, and would let it work in the back of his brain while he enjoyed the evening with his wife.
He was all-too-aware of her mortality, and knew how precious each moment they had with each other was. Haku didn't let himself dwell on that sad thought, but he was conscious that just spending time together was a pleasure. They made it a point to go out on "dates" (as Chihiro called them) at least twice a month, trying out new restaurants or attending some kind of performance. Haku liked bunraku and kabuki quite a lot, which Chihiro endured in return for evenings listening to local bands and dancing. They were very different people at heart, but it was their effort to bridge the differences between them that made their relationship work.
Today they planned to spend in the local park, enjoying hanami. Haku rose early to pack a picnic basket – including several books of poetry to share – and let Chihiro have the pleasure of sleeping in.
Theirs was never a traditional relationship to start with, and for all his love of tradition, Haku found himself enjoying the smooth corners that Chihiro brought to his otherwise straight edged world. She would cook, but so would he. She could do the laundry and the dishes, but he found himself washing just as much, if not more, of her underwear as his own.
Therefore, Chihiro wasn't surprised to find that he had made all the arrangements for the picnic, the dishes from the preparation already done in the sink, and that the only thing she had to do was don her yukata and shoes and link her slim hand through his arm.
"Where's the umbrella?" she asked absently. "The forecaster said there might be clouds this afternoon."
"It won't rain," he said, and he spoke with the same certainty as if declaring the tide would come in with the moon or that the crickets would chirp in the fall.
"But it's supposed to rain, isn't it?" she said, mouth quirking slightly. He didn't reply. She chuckled slightly. "I guess there are a few advantages to having you for a husband."
"Only a few?"
"Well," she drew the syllable loud and long, and swept a hand at the dishes drying on the rack. "Maybe a little more than a few."
He snorted. "I just hate having to clean muddy yukatas, that's all."
"Right," she said as she let him lead her out of the doorway.
They weren't the only people who had the idea, but as they made their way to the nearest park, Haku couldn't think of anything except the pleasure her company brought him. She wasn't pretty according to human standards – her face was a bit too wide and her figure was too boyish for feminine beauty (something Haku knew bothered Chihiro, although Yuuko kept assuring her daughter her stick-like figure would be a thing of the past after giving birth to their first child) – but Haku looked with the eyes of the god and saw his ideal mate. She had layers of complexity that fascinated him, and she had an inner strength that was nearly tangible.
Moreover, he was hardly one to argue about outer shapes, after all.
Sometimes, like this very moment, he thought he could be content just being beside her without doing anything. He could hear the click of her geta as they made their way down the cement sidewalk, but she was quiet as she spent the time craning her head as she looked at her surroundings.
Mischievously, he twitched his fingers, setting a nearby tree dancing and causing a light rain of sakura blossoms to come down around them. Haku smiled slightly as a couple landed in her dark hair.
With her free hand, she reached out and gently plucked petal out of her bangs. "You're cheating," she accused him.
"Cheating? By what standards?" he asked.
She pursed her lips and punched him lightly in the shoulder. As if on cue, the wind picked up and spiraled the delicate petals around them in a whirling helix. Chihiro rolled her eyes. "Like I was saying?"
"Cheating," he said, "is something done only to gain an unfair advantage towards some sort of end."
"Maybe I haven't figured out to what end," she replied, even as she reached up to brush the flowers off of his shoulders. She let her hand rest slightly on the cheek. "But you are definitely cheating."
Haku only grinned his dragon grin at her, and that earned him yet another punch to the shoulders and a trilling laugh.
"Y'know, if the library thing falls through, you could always hire yourself on as a special effects coordinator. That sakura trick would be all in the rage every time they have a live adaptation of a shoujo manga."
"The library thing isn't going to fall through," he insisted. Perhaps she caught the determination in his tone for the teasing smile faded from her lips, to be placed by something more steady and firm.
"I know that," she said. "But I'm telling you, shoujo manga may be the way to go." She laughed again, long and warm, and her weight was leaning against his side as she tilted her head all the way back to look at the sky. "Even if it is cheating and cliche, it is really beautiful."
Haku brushed his hand through her hair, scattering the translucent petals that had landed there. Her face, alight with the early afternoon sun, seemed to glow with the same opaque quality as the transient flowers. Chihiro caught his gaze, and wrapped her arm around his waist, squeezing slightly.
"And some things are worth cheating just a bit," she said. "Can you make it do that swirly thing again?"
He did.
She laughed and stepped away from him, spreading her arms wide and spinning around. She looked ageless for a moment, a young girl wrapped into the body of a grown woman who hadn't forgotten joy, and Haku felt his heart trip over itself as he fell in love with her all over again.
It took them an hour to find a decent place to set their basket down, since there were so many people in the park. Luckily – and Haku didn't have to do any magic to arrange it – an older couple was packing up their picnic and gestured for them to take the spot underneath a beautiful tree.
"We should leave this to the youngsters," the old man cackled merrily, offering a playful wink.
Haku murmured his thanks as Chihiro clapped her hands and smiled at them. Being called a youngster amused him, since by human standards, he was beyond ancient. But humans rarely bothered to look beneath the surface, and Haku wasn't going to object if it meant they could finally sit down.
They spread a light blue blanket together before Haku dug into the basket to produce their lunch. He set things out carefully as Chihiro arranged herself on the blanket. Today was for her, he laughingly explained when she offered to help, and he would be her servant. After arranging napkins and producing bottles of green tea, he sat down against the tree, before pulling her close so she was resting against his body.
The first thing he handed her was a rice ball, which she accepted happily. "You make the best rice balls in the world," she announced as she bit into it happily, finding the umeboshi center.
He could have said something corny about how they were excellent because they were made with love, but restrained himself, even though that was the truth. When he prepared food for her, he concentrated on how happy it made him to see her enjoy his efforts, and that feeling leeched into what he did. Gods influenced their surroundings without deliberate action sometimes. Simply by being, the world changed around them.
Still, if the laughter seemed a bit lighter around them and the wind more gentle, Haku couldn't tell if it was actually his influence... or hers. Maybe it was them together.
All conversation had stopped between them while Chihiro was eating (Haku had long learned that making humans talk or laugh while they were eating often ended up with rice grains being sprayed everywhere). Chihiro ate two of the rice balls, washing it down with generous gulps of green tea in between. He nibbled at his own, more to keep her company than actually eating. He didn't need to eat much, in truth, but he drew something more than sustenance in echoing Chihiro's actions.
And, bragging be damned, he did make a really good onigiri.
Above and around them, he could hear the slight tittering and sighs of the many goddesses of the cherry trees. They hadn't come out to greet Haku, but he sensed that it was out of respect for his and Chihiro's privacy. They politely refrained from dropping the petals on their food.
In the air, a wind spirit huffed and puffed. Underneath the blanket, an earth spirit hummed quietly to itself in the language of rocks and earthworms. The world still clung stubbornly to some of its old magic, so much so that even a simple walk in the park meant encountering a few thousand spirits.
He traced a finger against the dirt slightly and was rewarded with a louder refrain of the earthworm song, loud enough so that even Chihiro could catch it with her ears. Her eyes widened with delight, as he knew they would, and she swallowed the last bit of her rice ball (though a grain still lingered at the very edge of her mouth.)
"It always gets me, you know?" she said as she picked up a napkin and dabbed away the last of her meal.
"What does?" he asked, a little grumpy because he had been hoping to help her with that problem.
"The way that, you know, you just do things and the world responds to you. And... that you do it, just for me." Chihiro shrugged. She wasn't one for false modesty, not his Chihiro, so he knew she wasn't asking "why do you just do it for me?" or "what makes me so special, that you use a god's magic for mundane mortal things?"
She wasn't asking, but he answered anyway, curling around her lithely as he had once done with a much more longer form.
"You do much the same for me," he replied, speaking aloud even as he considered the situation. "I don't always understand your human world, and the machines and practices that go with it. I find it confusing at how fast things change, since the world of the gods is about permanence. But you don't think twice when I need help purchasing groceries with a debit card, or need you to show me how to work a computer, or any of the thousand little things that you think nothing of. To you, they are mundane, but to me they are not."
She snorted, running a hand over his chest. "But that's part of being married. We work to compensate for what the other may not know or cannot do. You..." she paused, tapping her fingers against the fabric of his shirt as she thought, "were a god. Don't you sometimes feel constrained by trying to live this life?"
There were many ways he could reply. He was frustrated at times, and occasionally he felt like trying to fit into the human world was like trying to squeeze into clothing a couple sizes too small, but he never regretted it.
"It's challenging, but it's not a sacrifice," he replied, stroking the bare skin of her arm. "I'm not giving anything up to be by your side, and I'm gaining so much more."
She gave him a long look, then chuckled, shaking her head slightly. "You definitely should get into the shoujo business, being so romantic like that and all."
He leaned away from her, slightly hurt. She leaned with him.
"Hey, I get it," she continued. "It's not about sacrifices, and it's not about giving things up, but it is about changing, and that's never easy. Not for us humans. Not for gods. Not for anyone. It's not just the computers or the credit cards, it's also the nosy mother-in-laws, and definitely the bossy father-in-laws, and all those mortal expectations that go beyond what you used to get in prayers. All that, and you can still find it in you to make the flower petals dance for me."
Chihiro hummed happily under her breath, in perfect counterpoint to the earth god's worm song, and the sound vibrated through her into him, rubbing against his skin like waves. "I guess... I just wanted you to know that I find that to be... all kinds of wonderful, beyond magic."
"And just who should get into shoujo manga?" he asked as she closed her eyes and slid down so her head was in his lap. One hand drifted up to tweak his nose impishly.
"It's about change," she said again, even as she snuggled against him, lips smacking sleepily. "Gaah, spring makes me all dozy," she muttered.
As her breathing deepened out, Haku reflected that yes, it was about change. It was about ends and means, and how he could cheat, as a god.
But, he thought as he carded his hand through her wispy hair and stroked her too-wide-to-be-truly-beautiful face, it was also about the one thing that made a difference.
The next day, he went to work feeling revitalized and centered in himself. Spending time with Chihiro had rejuvenated him, and he knew he could handle whatever was thrown at him without losing his temper.
He headed into the library and took his place at the desk. Today he was supposed to be shelving, which was a relief for all involved. He still didn't understand his boss' insistence on having him work at the desk, so he welcomed the chance to hide in the stacks.
He was pulling out books from the overnight book drop when the door opened beside him and he saw the Dragon Lady standing there. He hastily rose to his feet, not wanting to be in a subservient posture before her. "Do you need to talk to me?" he asked politely.
She nodded. "Nakajima-san just called in sick. You're going to have to cover for her today."
He looked at the books on the cart in front of him. "So I'm to shelve and help at the desk?"
"You're a talented man, Ogino-san. I'm sure you can handle multitasking, although I will remind you that while the books can wait, people often don't have the same amount of patience."
He murmured a polite acceptance before turning back to finishing collecting the books and sorting them. To his internal amusement, he found he wasn't annoyed at having his plans for a quiet day shelving derailed. Not being able to cope with change or the unexpected was how many gods had faded, and Haku was beginning to find pleasure at being able to keep pace with the human's world.
Kuwabara gave him a sympathetic grin as he logged into the second station of the desk. "So the Dragon Lady caught you?"
"She reassigned me," Haku replied precisely. "Though I think she expects me to also handle the shelving today as well."
"She would be able to, but that's because she lives here. You know there's a cot on the third floor where she sleeps?"
Haku blinked. "Isn't that illegal?"
Kuwabara burst into laughter which caused his body to shake. Haku watched with narrowed eyes, not liking the other man's amusement. "I'm joking, man. She does spend a lot of overtime here, though. I think she would sleep here if she could." The man leaned a little closer, eyebrows hiking up dramatically. "But even if you don't factor in the OCD about running the library, do you know what's really creepy?"
Haku suppressed the urge to shove his fellow librarian backward; Kuwabara was too close for his comfort. Who did this human think he was, treating Haku like a commonplace gossip monger and acting with such familiarity? But, for the sake of continued workplace harmony, he only crossed his arms instead of snapping a finger or two off.
Kuwabara did not take the hint. He even took another half step closer, his voice dropping into an intimate hush. "Sometimes, I catch her talking to the stacks."
"What?"
"The Dragon Lady! When she thinks she's alone, she'll start talking to the books. But the really freaky thing is that, well, you kinda get the impression that she's expecting some sort of answer," Kuwabara gave a mock shudder. "Do you know what kind of person talks to the thin air? Crazy people, that's who."
Haku merely stared harder at the man, hoping that Kuwabara was getting the hint that he was not going to participate in such useless theorizing. He may not like the Dragon Lady, but she was his superior, and he was loyal - almost to a fault.
"I'm just saying!" Kuwabara clicked his tongue. "Stay out of her way when you see her like that, yeah?" Upon seeing Haku's unchanging expression, he sighed, rather dramatically. "Look, I'd just hate to lose you, yeah?"
"You mean you hate to lose the best shelver," Haku said sardonically.
"Well, that too!" Kuwabara said, completely unrepentant. "But seriously, you're a good guy. You care about this place, about helping the patrons, and you totally know about why we're here and what we're about."
"I do?" Haku blinked, arms falling from their crossed position.
"Yeah. You do." Kuwabara said, holding his gaze without even the slightest trace of teasing. "You get it. You care. So I would hate to lose you ... not to mention we're friends, yeah?"
"Huh," said Haku. He really couldn't think of anything else to say to that.
It had been ages since he'd had a friend, with the exception of Chihiro, but she was something more. The world of Gods was about hierarchies and alliances, and while he'd had many subordinates in the past (both from his time at the Aburaya and when he'd ruled his river), there had never been anyone who he saw as his equal.
Before accepting this job, he never considered the possibility of making friends with humans other than his wife. He'd taken on this role to get appease his father-in-law and to keep himself occupied, but interaction hadn't been a consideration. But after his weeks here, he was slowly becoming intrigued by the possibility.
Kuwabara wouldn't have been his first choice as a friend, but the man did mean well. While he was an incorrigible gossip, he also was friendly and tried to show Haku the ropes of his job. He might complain, but he didn't shirk when it came to work, and Kuwabara would often volunteer himself for less-pleasant duties like dealing with the screaming child who'd been dropped off by a lazy parent seeking to take advantage of the library's long hours.
Kuwabara was also truly passionate about what he termed to be the basic human right to have access to information, irregardless one's social or economic status. There was also something much like religious reverence in how he would defend the right to put almost anything on the bookshelf, no matter how many offended patrons came up demanding that it be banned.
And despite Kuwabara making fun of the Dragon Lady for putting in overtime, Haku had seen the man stay late to fix yet another thing that had gone awry in the library. "We're the last bastion," he was fond of saying. "We can't abandon the unwashed masses into the wilds of ignorance!"
The Dragon Lady might have been obsessed with keeping the library running smoothly, but Kuwabara and Nakajima had their own equally powerful drives when it came to the collection and the people within the library walls.
That he could respect, Haku thought. And it wouldn't hurt him to make an effort to become friends with this man, since they'd be working together for a long time. Assuming Haku managed to hang onto the job, that was.
Haku's monosyllabic response had managed to kill the conversation flat, so Haku had to figure out some way to get things moving again. "It's difficult relocating to a new place," he said finally.
"Why did you come? There's not much in this city to attract people."
"My wife wanted to live close enough to her parents so they could visit," Haku said.
Kuwabara gave a somewhat melodramatic wince. "Rough deal. What did your family say to you relocating?"
"I don't have any family," Haku replied, sticking to the truth. "Not close family, anyway."
Kuwabara clapped a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. "Well, it can be both a blessing and a curse," he said. "Mine can totally be a pain sometimes. Mom wanted me to be a doctor, and my dad wanted a scientist. But I know they're always there. And I do kinda like going back to the old stomping grounds during New Year's and eating my ma's datemaki. It's the one thing that doesn't change. Say... y'know, if you and I can ever swing some free time out of this place, you have to come down to see my old hometown. And you can bring your wife too. I bet she's cute."
"Well, yes. By some standards," Haku hazarded. Kuwabara guffawed.
"Look, I don't have a wife, but even I know you're not supposed to say by some standards. C'mon, you got to be more positive than that. Or ... maybe ... she's the more beautiful type?"
Haku gave him a uncomfortable look.
"Kuwabara, I really don't think this is-"
"C'mon, dish." Kuwabara settled backwards on his heels. "She has to be something special to have said yes to you."
She is something, she is everything, Haku wanted to say, but instead, what came out was, "She's Chihiro."
And perhaps that was enough. Because Kuwabara just grinned and clapped his shoulder in a friendly fashion again. "I can't wait to meet her then."
And for some reason, Haku found himself looking forward to that, too. To show Chihiro his own expanding world, different though that may be.
"Let's make it a day, then," Kuwabara said.
"I will have to ask my wife," Haku said softly, knowing that making a unilateral decision wouldn't be a good idea. "But I think we would enjoy it."
Kuwabara chortled. "She has you pretty whipped, doesn't she?"
"There's no whipping involved," Haku retorted, before letting a smile curve his lips and letting Kuwabara read into that what he wanted to.
Haku's hours – he was working forty a week now, instead of the thirty he had started at – were finished before the library closed. When the clock hit five, he logged off the computer and turned to leave. He needed to stop by the market to purchase dinner.
But then he remembered he wanted to find something to read, since Chihiro had mentioned she wanted to watch a movie he had no interest in subjecting himself to. It had taken a while before he realized that just because she wanted to do something didn't mean he had to as well. They were individuals with different interests, and didn't need to act like they were joined at the hip.
Despite his job, he didn't have much time to read anymore. His work kept him far too busy to indulge, and while he would make a mental note to track down something he was shelving, he rarely had the chance.
Now seemed to be a perfect time to find a book. It was a rainy Friday, so there weren't many patrons. Most students were waiting until closing hours on Saturday to start panicking and other, more casual patrons were probably either huddled at home or out somewhere more exciting (and thus worth braving a drenching).
Haku always loved rainy days, and he found that he really liked spending his rainy days in the library. With the patter of the falling drops rushing overhead and the steep sides of the stacks rising around him, it was a familiar feeling, one that set him at ease. So as he drifted amongst the stacks, he wasn't thinking about anything much in particular besides finding his book, going home with fresh fish for dinner, and being with Chihiro. His mind, his belly, and ...other parts of him ... would soon be full.
Satisfaction and contentment rarely came so simply, and Haku knew that he should savor the moment. Mindful of things to come, he forgot, for just a moment - where he was and who he was.
Thus when he was confronted, he was caught off guard.
He'd drifted into the 920s, the biography section, seeking a recently released book on Douglas MacArthur. He, like many of Japan's spirits, didn't like to think about World War II, but it behooved him not to remain ignorant since the war had kicked Japan into its modern age. He spent a lot of time shelving in this area, since biographies were popular.
The section, located in the back corner of the nonfiction area, faced a staff-only storage closet. Nakajima had told him it was pretty much the junk room, and someday they might get around to cleaning it out. He'd never given it a second look, but for some reason the "Staff Only" sign caught his attention this afternoon.
Haku was deep enough into the library so that no one could immediately see him. Although he was off-shift, he was staff, so he was permitted to enter. Without grabbing the biography, he turned to the door and reached out.
"Are you sure you want to do that?" a voice came from behind him.
Haku hesitated, his hand on the doorknob. "Is there some reason I shouldn't?"
Although he couldn't see the cat spirit, he knew it wasn't being playful as it replied, "You may not like what you find."
"What will I find?"
"I won't tell you," the cat spirit said. "I think it differs depending on how you look."
Cryptic, and Haku felt his dragonish curiosity rise. "What do you see?"
"I'm not answering that, either."
Haku crossed his arms and directed his most stern look towards the creature - one that once would have scattered the serving staff of Aburaya in a flurry of obedience.
He should have known better than to try that with a cat, spirit or not. The beast merely waved its tail, blinking its one eye slowly.
"If you aren't going to answer, then why did you speak up?" Haku finally gritted out.
"Weeeeell ..." the cat spirit curled the word around its tongue as daintily as it had curled its tail. "How you will see what you will see... I will admit I'm curious. My kind is always so. You're also curious. But then again, I also know what curiosity does, at least to my kind. And I don't want that to lead to the same end for you, mainly because that would be an inconvenience. You have your uses."
Haku could feel the frustration rise within him, as implacable as a flood. The cat spirit smirked, twitching its whiskers in a taunting manner.
"My uses?" the words rolled within him, and without conscious thought, his fists clenched. To be used, yet again, as Yubaba had done to him, as humans had done to his river-
The cat spirit smiled and waited, never saying a word. Yet, there was no humor to its stance. Instead, it looked was tired. And worn.
It was the frayed edge to the beast's demeanor that stopped Haku from raging, stopped him from lunging at him right then and there and proving to it that he was (still) a dragon untamed. Haku closed his eyes for a moment, listening to the quiet patter of the rain drops.
"I should know better. You can't answer my questions," he said. "It's not in your nature."
As if confirming his words, the cat spirit faded, first the tail, then the legs, then its smile... leaving its single, solitary eye for the last. Haku could feel it staring at him as he pushed open the door.
"Sometimes the answer is the question," the words drifted to him, "and the question is the answer. For some of us, in our natures, it's both."
And then Haku was through the door.
The area was more than a closet – it was a small room that must have been created during an earlier remodeling period. The stuff nearest the door – a couple of older computers (which were so ancient that it made the ones the staff used seem state-of-the-art in comparison), a broom and a couple of dirty mugs – was in decent shape, but his eyes immediately fixated on something pushed into the farthest corner.
It was made of a good, solid sugi, and was nearly six feet long and at least three feet wide and more than four feet in height. It dominated the room, but it was covered by a thick layer of dust that had been smudged several times by what appeared to be paw prints. Inside, Haku knew, he would find a bunch of small index cards, each listing the existence of a book and where it was shelved. It was an old card catalog, the kind that Haku had thought he'd be using when he had applied for the position.
But the sense of lingering presence around it said it was more than that.
Haku had wondered where the dying god would be located in the library. Where better than in a card catalog, which had once served as the heart of the facility? A card catalog, made obsolete by the ceaseless advance of technology?
Haku found himself shaking slightly, and his gorge rose. He put his hand over his mouth, struggling to keep from vomiting. He'd known, intellectually, that the library god was fading from the world, but looking upon the remains of what had once been its physical tie to the human world was an entirely different reality.
He had to get out of here.
Haku stumbled back through the door, slamming it shut behind him as he tried to keep from hyperventilating.
Chihiro had once confessed to him, back when the whole them-being-together thing was new and still tentative, that the guests at Aburaya that she had found the most scary weren't, in fact, the kappas or the daikons or even the tengu or the No-face, all of whom could be of dangerous when humans encountered them, but the ones that looked almost human.
"You know, like the ones that'd just have one or two parts just kinda wrong, so that it wasn't really human or god or monster." She had shuddered, eyes squinching shut. "I mean, the other stuff, yes, it was weird and scary, but that was what was really frightening. Seemed more real, that way."
Back then, the confession had made him lean into her, taking some of her weight. Chihiro had always seemed so brave, even in the confines of Aburaya, and for her to admit a weakness like that just served to bring them closer.
He had been touched by the confession and in the absolute trust in how she lay against him (though he, to a certain point of view, was also a monster-in-an-almost-human form). He had been touched... but he hadn't understood. Not really.
Not until now.
Hands trembling, Haku steadied himself against the shelf. He had long wondered what it would have been like, to go back to his dead river. What it would have been like to be a dead god, to not exist anymore, to die?
But there, in the back of the old library storage closet, he had an almost-answer. What would it have been liked to be a dead god ... but not be able to die? What if he couldn't not exist?
Whatever it was, whoever it was, it wasn't dead. It wasn't alive, either. It was in a half-there state, and there was a sense of wrongness that spiraled out from it, and it came from being neither mortal nor immortal, neither god nor demon nor human nor monster.
And it frightened him, down to the very dragon bones he didn't currently have but which felt more real than ever.
"Ogino-san?"
Haku shut his eyes, not wanting to deal with this now, but knowing he had to. "Yes, sensei?" he replied, turning to acknowledge the Dragon Lady's intrusion into his mental breakdown. He had to draw on his experience as Yubaba's slave, remembering the lesson in keeping a cool expression no matter what he was subjected to.
"There's dust on your clothing," she said carefully.
"I was looking in the storage closet," Haku replied, still in to much shock to try to think of an excuse, and hoping she would leave well enough alone and give him a chance to escape. "I wanted to know what was in there."
"There's not much there, except for odds and ends," she answered, crossing her arms over her chest. "Certainly not anything to warrant slamming the door so loudly that I could hear it in my office."
Strangely, as their interaction continued, he felt himself calming down. Hearing her very human voice grounded him, taking him away from the other world and other thoughts. "I'm sorry if I disturbed you. I thought I saw something, and it startled me," he said.
"Do I need to call the exterminators? The last thing I want is an infestation – that will get the board of health down here."
He just kept digging himself in deeper and deeper. "Nothing like that," he assured her hastily. "Just..." he shrugged halfheartedly. "I guess I've been reading too many ghost stories."
She tilted her head, and she gave him a quizzical look. "You don't believe those silly rumors that this place is haunted, do you, Ogino-san?"
Yes! was his instinctive answer to that question, although the Dragon Lady didn't mean "haunted" the way he did. Their idea of ghosts was far from the truth, but he couldn't explain that to her. In the room just beyond where they were standing, though, that was haunted in a way that only a god could understand.
"I believe there are spirits that surround us," he said diplomatically. "Who am I to say there is no such thing as ghosts?"
"That's very Shinto of you," she replied, and her shoulders seemed to relax.
"Perhaps," Haku said. He wanted to leave, to vacate the premises and go home to cuddle with Chihiro. Listening to the sound of her heartbeat would soothe him like nothing else. But he was a dragon, and dragons did not run, especially when they saw signs of their prey. "I noticed you have the card catalog in there."
"It was one of them," she said. "This library had six catalogs, due to the size of our collection. A couple of them have been sold to collectors, but I'm saving that one for the future. We might build a display about the museum's history, and it will make an interesting piece. Many of the youngsters who hang around here haven't seen a card catalog and don't know what it is."
Haku thought he had long grown accustomed to the bittersweet tang that came with the passing of yet another tradition. Humans just didn't live long enough, he thought. Their brief existences were all wrapped up in the present, without any true thoughts for what happened in the past.
The thought made the nausea increase; his hands twitched as he thought of Chihiro. Of how fragile she sometimes felt in his arms, and what would be left behind afterward And for himself, after she was gone...
The thing that waited in the dark of the library seemed more sinister than ever.
"Ogino-san?" his superior asked again. "Isn't your shift already over? Are you not feeling well?"
Afterward, he couldn't exactly recall what he had said to reassure her even as he stumbled for the exit. He did remember the look of concern on the Dragon Lady's face for it was quite startling how human it had made her look, when she showed she cared for something besides the library. It was the first time he thought of her as being real, in a way that Yubaba never was, instead of just being a title or a position in a hierarchy.
It was almost ironic, in a way, for a god to make that sort of differentiation. But Haku didn't think that far into the matter.
And he didn't think to stop for the fish. Or the book. Or anything beyond going home and being near Chihiro.
"You're holding me a bit tightly," was all she said, though, even as she warmed up the leftovers from last night. And when she later settled in his arms, he found her holding him just as tight as that first moment of free fall, back in the spirit world, when they had first discovered their true identities and names and had been trying to come to a balance with both.