Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN SPIRITED AWAY. I think Miyazaki would have a problem with that.

Chapter Three: Replaced

The late bell trilled, startling me out of my sudden paralysis. Leaving the rest of my books on the floor, I turned and ran from those two damn familiar eyes.

My body was on autopilot – my brain still frozen back in the hallway – because without me telling them to, my feet carried me to my homeroom just a little ways down the hall. I fell into my seat, still clutching my books and papers. The rest of the class – the rest of the world – bustled and chatted and moved on without me, while I was sitting, unable to move or function or think beyond "No. This isn't happening, this can't be happening, no…!"

I don't know why I heard the door open. Maybe the janitors had been slacking on their repairs to the stupid old school. Maybe there was a lull in the noise that let it be heard. Maybe I just knew it was him.

Whatever the reason was, I heard the creak of the hinges and, if it was even possible, I became even more still. The class went still, too, but I hardly thought it was because they noticed my discomfort.

"Class," Ms. Marks called out in her annoying singsong. "We have a new student!"

Whatever silence had existed was now destroyed as all the girls started twittering and giggling and making calf eyes at him. I refused to look up at him, but a twinge of annoyance cut through the ice that had bound itself in my veins. Those girls were dumb, to want to flirt with someone just on appearances. Little did they know that they were making eyes at a freakin' dragon who can't even save someone once after seven years worth of chances…

"He's an exchange student from Japan. His English name is Joe."

I couldn't help it. I snickered. Joe?! As Haku's alias? It had to be a joke. A lighter thing – laughter? – buoyed my spirit, and I felt my eyes raise themselves from my nail-bitten cuticles to the front of the room.

He was standing in front of everyone next to Ms. Marks. His eyes were looking at the floor, for which I was eternally grateful. I'd hate to start shaking in front of everyone – they all thought I was crazy, anyway, but I'd rather not be chased off to the nurse's office this morning. Save that for a test day.

But why was he looking down? The Hak—boy I knew from the dreams was never this, this modest! He was always staring people down, his nose seven feet in the air and looking down at you. Okay, he was kind to me (when people weren't around), but whatever. He was never humble. He was never…wait, embarrassed?! What the…?!

But it looked like he was. His cheeks were quite red, a distinct contrast with his pale skin. Was he looking at the floor because he was nervous, or because he was embarrassed about Ms. Marks' introduction? I smirked. So the infallible boy wasn't so perfect, now, was he?

That thought gave me courage to look at him – really look at him. As I looked, my courage grew, because he wasn't like the boy from my dreams, not really. His hair, for one, was quite short, and not that shimmery dark green. It was black, like a shadow that sat on top of him instead of underneath. His face was older than the boy's face, sharper and more distinct. It was easier to read, too. His blush had yet to fade. He wasn't dressed in his bathhouse uniform, but that didn't say anything – I doubted Haku or anyone else would wear what Haku normally wore to an American school. A pair of jeans and a shirt with a blessing of patience and courage in embroidered in Japanese calligraphy emphasized the difference between dreams and reality, and I glanced away from his chest when I realized just how tight that shirt was.

His skin looked quite pale, like Haku's was, but that could be from studying inside all the time. (Those abs, though, said that he didn't always study…!) His eyelashes were so long, they were almost feminine, but his undeniable masculinity made them hot rather than soft. His hands were just as elegant – or at least they would be, if he hadn't been clutching a set of notebooks so hard that his knuckles showed up white against his fair skin.

No, this Joe character wasn't the boy from my dreams. I felt the ice in my blood thaw until it left me feeling limp like a blade of grass. I was getting worked up over someone who resembled – resembled, not was – someone from my nightmares.

But as soon as I felt the exquisite relief, the new kid looked up and pinned me again with those eyes. Contacts! I screamed in my head. They're contacts! I failed to convince myself, and decided then and there that, despite my previous logic, I was avoiding 'Joe' at all costs. Haku or not, this kid was not good for me. At all.

Ms. Marks finished whatever high pitched welcome speech she'd prepared and motioned for Joe to take a seat at the back of the class in my row. As he walked past me, I quickly looked to the side, determined not to meet his eyes again. If I was going to give him the cold shoulder, no time like the present to start, right?

I heard his footsteps slow, then stop, next to my desk. My skin must've been hypersensitive or something, because I could swear that I felt Joe's body heat warming my right side. But that's impossible, right? Right?

A purple notebook with sketches of eyes and arrows scribbled across the cover shoved into my line of vision, startling me. I glanced up and immediately wished I hadn't. He was looking down at me, offering me my notebook that I must've left in the hallway. I couldn't read his gaze, and I didn't want to. I quickly looked back to the notebook.

"You left it in the hal before."

His voice was just as quiet as it had been before, but it made me shiver. The speech was a little halting in English, but perfectly clear and understandable. His slight accent made him seem like everything he said was deliberated and weighed before he allowed himself to say the words, but maybe that was just him. I took the notebook, carefully avoiding contact with his fingers, which were splayed across the cover.

"Thanks," I muttered, and looked down again, trying to ignore the pounding in my ears.

He lingered at my desk for a moment before moving away. The warmth disappeared with him as well, and I thought, for the briefest of seconds, that I felt colder than I had before the encounter. That was plain silly, though, and I pushed the thought away to deal with later.

School passed more or less normally from there. I kept my head down and put up my "Don't even think about calling on me" attitude, which allowed me to ignore the lesson and everything else until the bell rang for second period. I had to shove my way passed the girls who had congregated around Joe's desk when the bell had rung, all twittering and trying to be the one to show him around the school. My eyes, completely undirected by me, glanced at Joe. He sat completely still in his desk, looking a little harried. The boys – were they jealous of the attention? – had left long ago, leaving Joe to fend for himself. I chuckled evilly to myself and slipped out the door to join the masses ebbing and flowing in the hallway.

Joe wasn't in any other of my morning classes, but my black mood lingered. When 11:30 came around, I was already exhausted and looked forward to eating lunch in the band room, maybe practicing my flute for a little bit before my next class.

The corridor outside the classroom was empty when I came. It was right next to the auditorium and there weren't any other classrooms down there, so students rarely came here outside of class. That was one of the reasons why I liked to spend my only free time in the whole day there.

Apparently, today I wasn't the only student here. A few notes echoed in the corridor, and I stopped when I heard them. Someone was playing the piano – rather deftly, too, so that meant that my band director, Mr. Christiansen, wasn't playing. I felt myself get vaguely excited: our piano player for symphony orchestra had moved right after the concert last fall, and Mr. Christiansen had been frantically trying to find someone to replace Sam.

It seemed that whoever this player was, he or she was pretty good. They were playing a foreign-sounding tune. At least, it was foreign to my Western-music trained ears, but the melody tugged at my memory. I had heard this somewhere before, but where? I strained to remember, but the memory whisp floated away, and I quickly forgot the similarity and merely appreciated its haunting chords and skillful playing.

I jogged the last few feet to the door and walked in, saying, "Welcome! We need a decent piano play-" The pianist turned around, and I stopped dead in my tracks.

It was Joe.

He looked at me curiously and stopped playing whatever tune he'd been plinking. I stared at him. "You! What the hell are you doing here?!"

Joe frowned a little. Maybe my words had confused him (the curse probably hadn't helped) but he understood enough of it: "Trenton-san showed me the piano. She said I could play it."

I snorted and said to myself, "So Courtney Cheerleader-Prep-of-all-Preps won the Tour War, did she? I wonder why she left?"

Joe looked at me curiously. "Nani?"

"Can't you speak English here?" I snapped. "Just say 'what' like a normal kid. You're in the United-freaking-States of America, for Chrissakes! Speak English!"

He looked at me even more closely than before. "You speak Japanese?"

His look was making me uncomfortable, which made me more irritable. At least I couldn't really see his eyes – I would've been incoherent again. At least I could still say: "That's none of your damn business."

Joe ignored the pleasantry, if he even understood it. "I was told no one here spoke Japanese."

"And I said that's none of your business," I repeated. "What are you doing here?"

Joe took a moment to process the question. Then he smirked. "Playing the piano."

What did he say?! Was he… was he being a smart-aleck with me?! He was gonna get it! "This is my room, dumbass! Get out!"

"Val?" Mr. Christiansen poked his head out of the director's office, muffling one end of the telephone with a wrinkled hand. "What's going on out here?"

I pointed at the now-subdued Joe. "Get him out of here, Mr. Christiansen!"

He raised one bushy eyebrow. "Why?"

"Why?!" I yelled, forgetting who I was talking to in my anger. "Joe's playing the piano in my room, and-and bugging me! Make him leave!" I immediately clapped a hand over my mouth. Crap. I shouldn't have said that.

"Now, see here, Valkyrie Hiver," Mr. Christiansen said in his director's 'don't mess with me' voice. The voice and my full name. Double crap. I really shouldn't have said that. "That boy – Joe, was it? – had been practicing for my spring concert when you barged into my room and started screaming at him for no reason. I will not kick him out, and I believe I will actually ask you to leave."

I stared at him, flabbergasted. No matter how abrasive I was, Mr. Christiansen had never asked me to leave his room. Shut up, yes. Play six and seven flat scale patterns, yes. But leave? Never.

I looked at Joe, who was still staring at the black-and-white keys. Oh. That's why. He had a new favorite. I'd been replaced.

I felt a burning anger seep through my bones and skin, white-hot and pulsing. It felt good, better than the ice that had accumulated earlier. I was never going to feel uncomfortable around him again, I swore.

I think that was when I really believed that he was truly a regular kid named Joe from Japan and not a demon straight from my personal nightly hell. I might've felt awkward or annoyed around Haku because he never saved me, ever, from my death, and, well… Haku was just the kind of guy that made girls feel awkward, period. I would never have felt the passionate hatred towards Haku that I felt towards Joe just then, and that was what told me, more than his age or his hair, that this was not Haku.

I shot a look of utter loathing at Joe and stormed out of the room. I realized when I was three halls away that Joe hadn't had any music in front of him. He'd been playing that beautiful, haunting melody from memory, if not making it up on the spot. Even on the flute, I could never match that level of skill.

"Damn him!" I swore out loud, and got a few curious looks from passing students. I ignored them and stormed down a ramp towards the library. It, too, was often empty during lunch. It looked like it would become my new haunt, if Joe or Mr. Christiansen had anything to say about it.