(A/N: IMPORTANT, PLEASE READ! I've got something to say before this chapter begins. It seems that some people have been copying some of my stories and posting them on different sites, claiming that they wrote them. So far it's only been my Spirited Away story that has been copied, but after doing an Internet search, I found my story copied by four different people. People, if you want to pot any of my stories anywhere else, you MUST provide credit to me and include a link to my original story and my profile. If you cannot abide by these rules, then please do not post my stories anywhere else, and ESPECIALLY do not take credit for them. Doing so is very disrespectful and upsetting, and if you're caught doing it will most likely end up in getting your account deleted, as was the case with the person taking credit for my story, the other three are being warned of my conditions, but appropriate action will be taken if they do not follow my rules. I would like to thank ThePrincessPaint for first informing me of my stories being copied, and I will be keeping watch in the future. Again, if you follow my conditions, I have no problem with anyone posting my story elsewhere, if not, please do not do so. Thank you.

Now then, we last left off with Spiller and Arrietty about to kiss. Lets see how that goes.)

Disclaimer: I own nothing

Chapter 7: Kisses and Borrowings

The first thing she felt was Spiller's large callused hand on her face as he cupped her cheek. She waited for him to make the next move. She could feel his body heat, indicating how close he was. She resisted the urge to pull away; instead she gripped a handful of her dress tightly.

Then she felt Spiller's lips on her own as he kissed her. It wasn't the type of kiss family or friends would exchange. It was a kiss reserved for lovers. She tried her best to respond to him, and found her lips moving against his own, but she refused to allow him access when his tongue brushed against her lips.

She wasn't sure how long it lasted, but he eventually pulled away. She waited for something to happen, some sort of emotion to set it. But she felt nothing. Absolutely nothing. No excitement, no emotion, no love. No, nothing.

Well, maybe not nothing. What she did feel was a great discomfort. She didn't like the feeling. It was like sharing a romantic kiss with a stranger. It was foreign to her, as if it shouldn't have happened, and it made her feel uncomfortable.

There was also a feeling of betrayal. For what? For her impossible love for a bean she had known for a short time six years ago? She had to push those thoughts out of her mind. She was getting married to Spiller. And even if she wasn't, her love had zero chance for success. She was a fool.

"Arrie, you ok?"

She blinked and looked up at his hopeful face. "Oh, yes, I'm fine. That was… interesting."

She gave him as fake smile, hoping it looked genuine. At least she hadn't felt complete disgust or revulsion. That would have been harder to deal with. She supposed she could live with feeling uncomfortable during intimacy.

She felt his hand on her cheek again, turning her towards him. He leaned in and Arrietty shut her eyes, ready to be kissed again. His lips pressed against her own. He wasn't rough or demanding, he was being very gently, as if he was afraid he would hurt her. She kissed him back, trying to ignore the disturbing fact that this was Spiller that she was kissing. She tried to not think at all, letting her mind wander as her lips moved against his.

When Spiller broke the kiss and pulled back slightly, a single word passed Arrietty's. "Shō…"

She hadn't even realized she said it, and it was almost inaudible. But Spiller heard. He leaned back and looked at her. Her eyes remained closed and she had a faraway look on her face. Spiller reached up and rubbed his thumbs across her cheeks. They were wet with tears. This surprised her. When had she started crying? She hadn't even noticed until Spiller wiped them away.

Spiller frowned. He hated seeing her upset like this. "Arrie…" She opened her eyes, looking up at his sympathetic face. He gave her a kind smile, though it was plan that he felt sad for her. "Don't be sad, Arrie. I no like see you cry." He stood up and patted her on the shoulder in what he hoped was a comforting manner. "Spiller will make you happy. You see, Spiller will make Arrie smile."

Without waiting for a reply, he walked out of the room. A scowl crossed his face as he walked down the hall. He was angry. Not at her, not at anything really. He was just angry in general. He hated seeing Arrietty upset. He wished he could just make her pain go away, but he didn't know how. What more could he do to take away her pain? Not even her parents were able to lift her spirits when she got like this.

He knew where her sadness stemmed from. It was that bean, and she didn't need to whisper his name for him to know that. He watched her over the years; he saw the look of longing in her eyes. She thought about him often. He knew when she was thinking about him, as did her parents. He, like them, had thought that it was just a phase, and she would get over it eventually, but it hadn't. If anything, it had gotten worse. Her feelings for the bean had been one of the reasons why he hadn't pursued her sooner.

He still remembered when he had seen him six years ago. He had been about to take Arrietty and her parents away in his boat when she had suddenly run off. Worried, he had gone looking for her. To his horror, he had found her talking to the bean. Spiller had thought that she was in trouble and had prepared to shoot an arrow at the bean. Not that his little arrows would have done much to someone so big.

But it soon became apparent that the bean was no threat to her. They even seemed to know each other and be friends. Realizing that she wasn't in danger, Spiller had left her alone to say goodbye to her friend. She had joined him and her parents shortly after. Spiller hadn't thought much on it at the time. He thought that the bean was out of their lives, but Arrietty spoke of him often. She always seemed so happy when she did, but always became sad afterwards.

Spiller may be naïve, but he wasn't stupid. He'd eventually figured out Arrietty's feelings. At first he had denied it, certain that he had made a mistake, but over time it became obvious. Pod and Homily had realized it as well, but there was nothing any of them could do about it.

Spiller didn't hate the bean. He wasn't even jealous since whatever love Arrietty felt for him was impossible. The only resentment Spiller had towards him was that he made Arrietty sad. It wasn't even the bean's fault, but Arrietty was still sad because of him. The bean was the source of her pain, and Spiller hated seeing Arrietty in pain.

But he wouldn't let Arrietty be in pain any longer. He would do everything he could to make her happy. He'd make sure that she'd never be sad again.

(-)-(-)-(-)-(-)-(-)-(-)-(-)-(-)

Shō yawned. He was dead tired, and dead bored. Being stuck in the garbage all day was far from fun. He was at least glad that it hadn't smelled too bad. He'd even found food; a mostly eaten apple. It wasn't exactly sanitary, but it was all he had.

Thinking that he had waited long enough, he began climbing up the bag again. He'd lost track of how many times he'd climbed it. After a certain amount of time, he had climbed up to see if the dog had gone, but it was always right there, either sitting or laying down by the garbage can, its head immediately snapping up when he lifted the lid. It had found an intruder, and it was not going to let him get away.

Shō had hoped that the dog would get board and leave, but it just stayed put. Didn't its owners ever take it out to use the bathroom? Maybe they did and he had just missed the opportunity. That'd just be his luck.

Lifting the lid, he saw to his immense relief that even though the dog was still there, it was asleep. And no wonder. Catching sight of the clock hanging on the wall, he saw that it was now two in the morning. He'd wasted an entire day and part of the night stuck in here.

Well, at least he could finally leave. But as he squeezed through, Arrietty's hairclip got caught under the lid. The rubber band snapped out of its grip, and the hairclip fell back into the garbage.

"No!" Shō exclaimed, his hand instantly going to his mouth to muffle his cry. He glanced at the dog, afraid he may have woken it, but it slept on.

Shō sighed, but his relief was short-lived. He'd lost Arrietty's hairclip. Well, he hadn't really lost it, but it would be a hassle to climb back down to get it, then climb all the way back up. Climbing a rock wall at an amusement park was easier than climbing up the garbage bag.

But there was no way he was leaving her hairclip. That small, seemingly insignificant object had great sentimental value to him. It was a keepsake from the girl he loved, and he would not leave it behind.

Groaning in frustration, Shō squeezed through the lid again and dropped back into the garbage; he was really getting sick of being in the trash. After digging around for a while, he finally found it, and once again clipped it onto the rubber band around his waist before going up the garbage bag again.

The dog slept on, so Shō made his escape, this time being careful not to lose the hairclip. He ran into a bit of a dilemma though when he realize he had no way to get down. For someone his size, the drop from where he was looked to be about 25 to 30 feet. Perhaps he should go back inside the garbage and see if he could find anything to help him get down.

'Forget that.' He decided. He'd had enough of climbing through trash. Besides, he may not find anything useful. And even if he did, he wouldn't be able to put it back in the garbage can once he was done with it.

Bracing himself, he let go of the bag and dropped to the floor. He landed hard on his feet and fell over. A painful groan escaped him as he landed on his tailbone. Now that really hurt. Maybe dropping down hadn't been the best idea. He didn't damage himself, but he would definitely be sore for a few days.

He glanced at the dog again, afraid the sound of him hitting the floor had woken it up; dogs had very good hearing after all. One of the dog's floppy ears twitched and its tongue ran over its lips, but other than that, it kept sleeping.

Shō wobbled to his feet. Now he just had to figure out how to get out of here. And it seemed that luck was on his side for once. He could see the front door from here, and it had a little dog door. He could easily slip through that. Then he'd be on his way once again.

But as he made his way towards the door, he saw at the other end of the hall what appeared to be Miyako's playroom. A large dollhouse was on the floor, with several dolls of different sizes lying around it.

Shō looked down at the candy wrapper he was wearing, then back at the dollhouse. Maybe he could get some decent clothes from there; he definitely didn't want to continue running around like this. But should he risk it? He knew that the importance of borrowing was to only take things that wouldn't be missed. Would a few missing clothes from a dollhouse go by unnoticed?

He figured that it would probably be safe. Miyako was too young to notice something like a few articles of her dolls' clothing missing. Besides, changing clothes on a doll was very common. So even on the off chance that her parents happened to notice that some clothes were missing, they would probably assume that their daughter lost them, and with as messy as the playroom looked, that was certainly believable. Or maybe they would think that the dog got to them.

Speaking of the dog, Shō glanced at it again. Should he chance slipping by it? If it woke up, he would be in trouble.

He decided to go for it. Being a borrower meant sometimes taking risks. Besides, didn't Arrietty always have to sneak around his aunt's cat when she was still living in the house? If she could sneak around like that, then so could he.

Being as quiet as possible, he crept past the dog. It showed no signs of waking, and once he was a good distance away, he made a run for it. He got to the dollhouse without any problems, but ran into a problem when he got there. These dolls were too big, meaning their clothes were too. They were nearly twice his size.

But these dolls were adults. Perhaps there were some children lying around. After looking around for a bit, he was relieved to see that there were. But even they were still a bit big for him. He just decided that he would have to make do.

His fortunes increased when he saw a box turned over on its side a short distance away, spilling out its contents. Apparently, this was where Miyako kept all the clothes for her dolls. He wouldn't even need to strip the plastic figurines.

He rummaged around for about ten minutes before finding clothes that were closest to his size. Both the shirt and pants were baggy on him. He merely rolled up the sleeves and legs on the shirt and pants, but that still left him with the lack of a belt, and the pants were too big to stay up on their own. He compensated this by using the rubber band as one, just as he had with the candy wrapper, once again attaching Arrietty's hairclip to it.

He even found socks and shoes he could wear. Of course, the socks were too big, as were the shoes. The latter were also made of plastic and couldn't be tied, but he slipped them on anyway. The large shoes flopped around as he walked, but it was better than going around barefoot.

That just left the candy wrapper. What was he going to do with it? There was no way he could get it in the garbage can again, taking it with him would just be a hassle, and it would probably be discovered if he just left it here.

"Sorry, Miyako." He muttered, sticking the wrapper in the back of the box of clothes. If her parents found it, they would just think that their daughter had gotten hold of a piece of candy.

He now felt ready to resume his journey, and began making his way towards the dog door. But halfway there, he came to a stop. Something wasn't right. Something was different from when he went down this hall the first time.

The dog! He realized that the dog was no longer where it was before. In fact, it was gone, wandering off to who knows where. When had it woken up? Where did it go? Could he still escape before it came back? Even if he did get out of the house, the dog door would allow it to come out after him.

Before Shō could figure out what to do, he felt a warm gust of wind hit him from behind. Only it wasn't wind; there wasn't any in the house. It was something large breathing behind him.

Slowly he turned, and found the family pet wide-awake, with its face just inches away from him.

(A/N: Uh oh, big trouble. It looks like Shō merely got dressed up for his funeral. It also looks like things didn't go bad between Arrietty and Spiller, but they didn't go well either. And just in case I didn't make it clear, Spiller's not resentful of Shō, he just doesn't like the fact that Arrietty is sad because of him. See how things turn out next chapter.)