Chapter 4 to come soon my loves

Disclaimer, I do not own Spirited Away or any of the characters in this story ❤ Enjoy~

I open my eyes and I'm completely surrounded by darkness. I look down to see that I am in fact floating in darkness but for some reason I'm not afraid. In fact, I'm the complete opposite. I've never felt so calm in my entire life, am I dead? Is this what death feels like? Suddenly a strange voice comes from the distance, it's faint but audible. It keeps saying "sin". It's the voice of a woman, she sounds pretty young. Then another voice calling out the same word, "sin". This one sounds more like an old man, then another of an older woman, another woman, and….a baby? The voices start to get louder and louder continuously repeating the same word over and over again. I place my hands over my ears to muffle the voices. "SIN, SIN, SIN!" I finally break and scream at the top of my lungs. Flashbacks of the past few hours run through my head, how I was attacked, almost rapped, how I was violated. "It's not my fault! It wasn't my fault! I couldn't run away!" I plead with the voices. "SIN!" is the last thing I hear before a blinding white light consumes everything around me.

I open my eyes, there's sunlight hitting my face. "It was just a dream? Thank goodness". I look around to find myself in a huge bed, the sheets are bright red with gold stitching. The walls are also a royal shade of red with a gold design sweeping across every inch. The curtains are gold and any furniture in sight is made of a very dark wood. They room has a very elegant feel to it, almost fit for a king. I sit up in the bed, rubbing my eyes wondering if should stay and pretend to be asleep or get up and walk around. I slide over to the edge of the bed and dangle my feet off the edge. The bed had to have been at least three feet off the ground, I touch my feet to the floor and realize it's old, very cold…. I look down and realize my socks are missing as well as every other article of clothing I previously had on. I let out a loud screech and frantically look around the room for my clothes. Thankfully I am not running around naked, whoever removed my clothes had changed me into a white silky nightgown. It wasn't too tight, but form fitting. The material ended just above my knees and was being held up by two soft straps resting on my shoulders. I will admit that the feeling of silk on my skin was a luxury I had never experienced and did feel very nice but I wanted my clothes back. After searching for a few minutes I give up and sit back on the bed. I begin to hear footsteps from outside the room coming closer. I quickly slide back under the covers and close my eyes, hopefully whoever is coming will think I'm asleep and leave. I hear a quiet knock on the door and after a few seconds the door opens slowly. I squeeze my eyes shut and try not move. The footsteps get closer and closer until I can sense the figure standing right besides me, my heart begins to pound. I feel a soft hand stroke my head a few times and the mysterious figure gives out a sigh, turns and leave the room closing the door behind them. I give it a few seconds before I open my eyes, immediately I notice a note on the nightstand besides me, it says "Chihiro". I sit up and carefully open the note.

"When you are ready, come to the office. Fifth room down, on your right. Take your time, I'll be waiting for you there."

I check the back of the note to see if there is a name or a signature but nothing. I place the note back down and jump to my feet. Normally I would be wondering how bizarre the whole situation is but considering what has happened within the last 24 hours, nothing is really surprising me at this point. I hesitantly grab the door handle, it was gold and felt cold as ice. I slowly open it and peek outside. An empty hallway with high ceilings, stone floor, and mirrors covering almost every wall greet me as I take my first step outside my chambers. I walk down and start to count the doors.

5 "Everything in the hall looks pretty expensive, I probably shouldn't touch anything."

4 "I wonder whatever happened with that boy last night…"

3 "I wonder what mama and papa are doing right now? Or if they even realize I'm gone."

2 "I know I have to go back home eventually but… right now I honestly don't want to."

1 "But I can't stay here either, I don't even know where HERE is exactly or who brought me."

I stand in front of the door wondering whether or not I should go inside. "The note did tell me to come here, but what if I'm in trouble? Or this is just some kind of setup and I'm actually in danger right now?! What if this is what they want me to do?! Technically I WAS kidnapped so why am I doing what they tell me to do?!" All of the sudden the door opens, only slightly but it does in fact open on its own. A warm light is coming from inside the room, maybe a fire place? I build up the courage to open the door slowly and poke my head inside to scope out the area. It's a room similar to the one I woke up in, red walls with a gold design, dark furniture, and gold curtains. I take a step inside and quietly make my way into the room closing the door behind me. "Hello?" I say into the open air, no one seems to be present. I raise my voice this time "Hello! I got a note telling me to come to this room." still nothing. I take a deep breath and decide to walk around the room and investigate, maybe find out who's room this is. I walk over to a rather large desk and start to open the drawers, there's nothing but a bunch of papers and documents. No names or addresses, strange. I close the drawers and further examine the room. I was right about one thing, there is in a fact a fire going on the other end of the room. I walk over and have a seat of the ground with my knees to my chest. The warm fire is so comforting, it almost makes me want to fall back asleep. I close my eyes for a brief moment and clear my mind, it's been so chaotic lately it's nice to just relax for a little and try to regain my sanity.

"I see you're awake."

I instantly jump to my feet and turn around, at first my heart was racing but as soon as I saw where the voice was coming from a sense of relief came over me. "You…" I say quietly as I watch the mysterious boy close the door behind him and walk over to the desk taking a seat. The whole time he never bothered to even glance over at me. "You're the boy from last night" I say taking a step closer to the desk. "You saved me, why?" I take another step closer, "What is your name? And where am I? How long was I asleep?" with every question I get closer and closer yet he still doesn't look at me. At this point I'm standing just a couple of feet from him but he continues to turn his face further away, he's pretty much making it a point to NOT look at me. "And why won't you look at me?!" I slam my hand on the desk out of frustration. A moment of silence goes by before he turns his face towards me, his eyes are completely shut but his skin is bright red.

"You're um...w-wearing a n-nightgown…" He stutters out. I look down and realize I'm still wearing the pretty revealing nightgown with nothing underneath. I scream and cover myself in the heavy golden curtains. "Sorry… But there was nothing for me to change into, my clothes were nowhere to be found when I woke up." I myself begin to blush a little bit. 'I will say this much though' I think to myself, 'At least he's a gentleman'. "You can open your eyes now, I'm hiding behind the curtain" I awkwardly say while turning an even deeper shade of red. The boy opens his eyes and rests them upon mine, he gives out a small smile and begins to even laugh a little at the awkward situation. I let out a few chuckles too before silence comes over us again, after what felt like an eternity he stands up and gets close to me...VERY close, like inches from my face close. Staring deep into his eyes I can see both sorrow and relief at the same time, they're so deep, it almost feels as if they're sucking me in. "I'm sorry." He whispers while placing both his hands on my arms. "F-for what?" I begin to feel very nervous, not scared, nervous. Normally I would hate having a guy this close to me especially with what happened yesterday. But this feeling is different from what I felt with Daichi, it's not fear it's...I don't even know. "For what I'm about to do…" He says as he leans closer to me and embraces me in his arms tightly. His eyes get larger as he leans in closer, I can feel his heart beating inside his chest and I'm sure he can feel mine pounding. He brushes his lips against mine and my body turns weak, just as I'm about to fall under his spell I whisper "Please, just tell me your name". I close my eyes and his voice fills my ears, my mind, even my soul. " My name…is….Hak-" "HAKU!?" Someone yells from outside the room. I feel his body tense up and then calm back down, he backs up a few inches and puts his head down. "You have got to be fucking kidding me…" He says with anger, the boy then looks back up into my eyes and smiles once again "I'm very sorry but unfortunately I have to go see what all the fuss is about." He lets go of my arms and hesitantly walks away from me. I snap back into reality and go after him, grabbing him by the hand "Wait! You're name is Haku, is that your name?" I blurt out without thinking, he turns to me and places my hand over his cheek and kisses my wrist. "I wanted to be the one to say it but yes, that is my name. I'll be back soon, I promise. In the mean time I'll have someone come and take you to change clothes." He gives me a smile and continues out the door, I can hear muffled arguing outside the door. I stand alone in the room still processing all that has happened, "Haku…" I say to myself. Their voices soon fade down the hall as another one starts to come into range, and fast. It almost sounds as if someone is running down the hall, it's still faint but I hear someone say "She's really here!", could they be talking about me? I highly doubt it, I've never even been here. Suddenly the door slams wide open and a woman runs in and almost tackles me to the ground.

"I can't believe it's really you! You big idiot I've missed you so much!" The woman says squeezing the very life out of me. I panic and push her off of me, the woman looks shocked for a moment but then crosses her arms in protest, she almost looks offended. "I'm really sorry but… do I know you?" I scan the woman up and down, she's probably about twenty-six years old, has long brown hair and a pale complexion. "Right…" The woman says "Haku mentioned that you probably wouldn't remember me." She looked pretty sad at first but then gave out a big smile, "Either way, I'm just glad you're back." I take a step backwards and look around the room once more, then analyze the strange woman again. "Back? What do you mean 'I'm back'? I've never been here before!" All of my confusion is starting to turn into anger and frustration. "Please if you know something I don't, tell me! Who is that boy and why did he know my name? Where do I know you from and how have I been here before?!" I shout. At first the woman looked shocked at my tone of voice but then simply gave out a sigh and wrapped me in her arms. "Chihiro, I know it's hard and you're confused but it's not my place to answer any of those questions. Please be patient, I'm sure he's just waiting for the right moment to let you in on everything that's going on. Just know you're safe and surrounded by people who love you right now." She holds me for a moment more before letting go, I also let out a big sign and calm my nerves. "Okay, I guess there's not much I can do about it now. But please do tell me your name? At least that." I ask hoping for SOME information. The woman just gives out a big laugh "This is awkward but yeah sure, I'm Lin." she gives me a small bow, leans back up and sends me a wink. "Lin…" I say to myself. I honestly wish hearing her name would have jogged my memory but nothing came of it. "Well I don't know about you but I'm hungry!" Lin says with a smile, she turns me around and starts to push me out of the room. "Let's get you some decent clothes first and then how about a bite to eat?" She says still pushing me out of the room. I laugh and almost fall over "You don't have to push me Lin, I'm probably just as hungry as you are! And you mean you have my uniform? Where was it, I was looking everywhere for it." I say picking myself back up and walking out of the room. "That ugly grey thing? Sorry but I don't think Haku will ever let you wear that again. He told me to get you something more….suiting for yourself." Lin leads me to a room down the hall and opens the door to let me inside. The room was full and I mean FULL of dresses and cute outfits. I walk in and look around, there were too many dresses to count. Too many pairs of shoes, too many accessories. Despite all the beauty around me something did catch my eye. I lean in closer to further examine all the clothes. "Hey Lin?" I ask while picking up a pair of random heels. "Yeah?" She says closing the door behind us and locking it. "Well, all of these shoes are a size six and a half, and all the dresses are a size small…" I ask. "Yeah so?" Lin picks up a dress and poses in front of the mirror with it. "Well that's my size. Why is everything in this room my size? Pretty weird coincidence huh?" I laugh while joining her by the mirror. "Not really, about six months ago Haku started going on about how he felt like you'd be arriving soon. So he had this room put together for when the time came. Said he wanted you to feel at home. He even had the room down the hall prepared for you too, that room you woke up in used to be a conference room but he had it changed so you'd have somewhere to sleep." She explains while picking up a few more dresses. Listening to her I start to put the dresses back down, I get serious, very serious. Lin looks over and notices my expression change, "What's wrong? You don't like it?" She says leaning towards me. Tears then start to form in my eyes and Lin flips. "Wait! Why are you crying?! It's okay if you don't like the dresses or the room, we can change them for new ones! If you cry Haku will kill me!" She shouts opening the door and making sure no one is in the hall listening in. "It's not that, it's just…" I wipe my eyes and give a few sniffles. "No one has ever done anything this nice for me and I feel terrible that I don't even know who he is. He's doing all these nice things for me and I can't even thank him properly." I cover my face with some fabric and continue to cry. Lin just stood there in complete shock, almost at a loss for words but then she gives off a warm smile. "Oh Haku if you could only hear her now." She whispered to herself. Lin walks over and puts an arm around me and holds me close to her. "It's okay Chihiro, trust me. Haku is the type of person who doesn't need thanks. As long as he knows you're happy and safe, that's really all he needs." I look up towards Lin who's giving me a reassuring nod. "Really?...but I'd still want to do SOMETHING nice for him to show my thanks." Negativity starts to take over as I realize I have no money, no means of transportation, everything I own is still in my house, I have absolutely nothing to give him. "Well, there is one thing I can think of that would be nice." Lin says handing me a plain dress. It wasn't anything fancy, just a simple light blue dress with some white frills at the bottom. It was short sleeved and came down to my mid thigh. "Put this on and I'll explain once we get downstairs." Lin says handing me the dress and turning around to give me privacy. "O-okay." I say taking the dress and slipping it on.

Once the dress was on she took my downstairs in an elevator. I think we took a secret path because there was no one in sight yet I could hear people laughing and talking behind the walls around us. "Hey Lin?" I ask trying to keep up. "What's up?" She says. "Well, I keep hearing people but, where are they?" I ask examining the walls, knocking to see if they are hollow or solid. Lin laughs at my childish actions "These halls were made by Haku, he wanted a way of getting around this place without being bombarded by guests and workers. Only Haku and I know about these halls and now you do too. So don't tell anyone!" She wags her finger at me and continues on. Finally we reach a big door, it's all gold and very shiny. Lin opens the door to reveal a beautiful kitchen, it was actually pretty modern compared to everything else in the building. I gaze upon all the fine china and shiny cookware. The countertops were white marble and everything else was a dark wood, almost back. "Wow, this is beautiful…" I walk in about spin around to try and see everything as soon as I can. I've never seen a kitchen so amazing. It was simple but very elegant. "Let me guess, Haku also had this made?" I jokingly as. "Yes actually. He wanted a place to eat and cook where no one would bother him and he could get a few minutes of peace. That and also so I didn't have to wait in line for food. Although he never uses the damn thing." Lin says while swiping dust off of some of the counter. "Can he not cook? Why make a kitchen if he can't cook?" I ask opening the drawers and cabinets. "Haku can cook, he's actually very good at it, he simply doesn't have the time. He works almost all day and sometimes all night. He puts this house before himself so some days he'll go without eating anything. Then once he's done he is too tired to make anything so he just grabs some bread goes to bed. BUT that is where you come in! Haku never eats a decent meal, even when I make one he always says he'll eat it later but never does. Although, if YOU make him something I know for a fact he will eat it. There's no way he will say no to you!" Lin grabs an apron and tosses it at me. I give her a blank stare "Lin, I don't know how to cook." I say hiding my shame behind the apron. "What?! How can you not cook?" She says snatching the apron away from my face. "I've never had to before! Mama and Papa always cook for me or order take out! I've never even poured cereal before!" I cry, I really am pathetic. "You really are pathetic." Lin says giving me a cold shoulder. "I KNOW LIN." I grab a nearby pot and start to fill it up with water. "What are you doing? I thought you couldn't cook?" I open the cabinets and pull out some veggies, rice, and seasonings. "I KNOW I CAN'T COOK LIN BUT GOD DAMMIT I'M GOING TO LEARN! I WANT TO THANK HAKU!" The inner woman in me begins to rage as I attempt to peel my first potato. "Well hold on! Let me teach you before you burn down the whole building!" She grabs the pot away from and sets it down on the counter. Lin looks up at a clock on the wall and sighs. "Good thing it's early...this might take a while."

I hope Lin has the patience to teach a hard head like Chihiro a thing or two in the kitchen! :o

Hope you liked it!