"Bou?"

"I'm here, Sen."

"I'm so glad it's you! And thanks for saving me from Yubabaa's wrath!"

"Baba isn't that bad; she just doesn't like humans."

Sen nodded slightly, but she doubted that Bou even saw it because they were both hidden inside a huge mountain of immense, fluffy pillows.

"Let's get out of here," she then muttered to herself.

She was about to get out of their hiding place when the bigger-than-average baby suddenly grabbed her arm and pulled her back inside.

"Ouch!" Sen cried. "Why did you do that, Bou!"

"Shhh…" Bou shushed her. "Baba is coming: if you don't want her to turn you into something horrible, you should stay here… and don't move!"

The human girl was confused for a minute: Yubabaa was coming…? But then she heard the loud footsteps coming nearer to the nursery and she understood: Yubabaa was going to check on her baby… as usual.

"Where is my precious Bou?" the old sorceress cooed tenderly.

Sen gritted her teeth and made herself as small as possible, hoping that she wouldn't get discovered. Bou moaned as if he was just awakened from his sleep.

"Aw… my little baby was taking a nap…" Yubabaa said and, to Sen's dismay, approached the huge mountain of pillows where they were hidden.

"Come on out, baby: Baba wants to see you!" the aging witch smiled as she began throwing the pillows away from the mountain.

Sen cringed.

All of a sudden, Bou started jerking in all directions violently; the girl barely avoided being hit by his leg.

"Little Bou doesn't want to see her Baba?" Yubabaa asked affectionately (Sen guessed that she removed enough pillows to see her son's face).

The huge baby shook his head and jerked even more brutally. Sen closed her eyes, wondering why Yubabaa didn't suspect she was here yet… Big mistake: the sorceress then seemed to pause and sniff the air as she stated:

"It smells like humans in here… Is it somewhere in here? I don't want to endanger my little precious baby with a human near him!"

Sen froze: it was the end. Surely Yubabaa will find her and turn her into dragon chow… But Bou must have sensed the danger too because he swiftly started crying.

"What's wrong, dear?" Yubabaa asked to her baby.

"… (Sob)… Leave… (Sniff, sob)… me… (Sob, cry)… (Sniff, sniff)… ALONE!" Bou yelled.

Sen silently gasped, and the old sorceress was quite taken back. But Yubabaa still managed to nod with a smile on her face as she replied:

"Of course, sweetie: you need to sleep."

She then quickly turned around and headed back to her office, muttering:

"Maybe the smell was just my imagination… either that or Sen's here."

The human girl cringed and shrank herself underneath the pile even more. Finally, when both baby and girl were sure that Yubabaa was gone completely, Bou stood up, tumbling many pillows. Sen crawled out after, looking a little nervous, but relieved.

"That was close: I thought for sure that Yubabaa would find me!" she managed to say, sighing in relief.

"Baba hates humans… especially if they escape from her," Bou stated, nodding. "But we don't need to worry about her now: when she's doing her work, Baba almost never pays attention to the noise around her."

Sen managed to smile weakly, and asked:

"So you did send the message, right?"

The huge baby nodded, and added proudly:

"And I wrote it on my own too! It took me four years to do it without Baba… but I did it!"

"That's great!" Sen said to him, grinning. "And I see you didn't change a bit since the last time I saw you!"

"Baba says I take a very long time to grow… but she says that's good thing!"

"Yes, I guess… Anyway, what do you want with me?" Sen finally asked, a little hesitant because the sentence seemed a little blunt.

"I want you to stay and play with me!" Bou declared. "Nobody ever finds time to play with me!"

"Well…" the girl fidgeted a little. "I can't play with you forever… but for a short time, okay! But please don't expect me to be available all the time: Yubabaa expects me to do a lot of work around the bathhouse!"

The baby seemed a little depressed by her statement, but he brightened up quickly, saying:

"Let's play!"

"Play, Sen: play with me!" Bou whined as he threw a huge, fluffy green pillow at the human girl.

"Huh…? What?" Sen asked, pulling herself out of her thoughts.

She shook her head and smiled apologetically at the baby. She wasn't giving Bou so much attention, and he knew it. It had been… how long? Thirty minutes? An hour… since they started playing? At first, Sen was just happy to escape from her work to play with Bou. They first played with trains and blocks, then they jumped and bounced on Bou's huge bed, and now the enormous baby wanted to play with his plushy toys. But by now, Sen's mind drifted to something else, something she was wondering for a long time…

"I don't remember ever meeting any humans personally, and you shouldn't ask useless questions. Next time, move out of my way immediately, instead of wasting my time."

"There is no Chihiro or Sen in my life."

"You had to forget… and when you forgot, you couldn't remember anymore. You couldn't remember your friends… nobody… not even me. I couldn't live knowing that I once had somebody special in my life… who would never know my existence. I would be left with a cracking heart forever… unless I chose to forget... Forget you… forever."

If you can't remember, you forget… Sen thought resentfully, recalling the previous incident when she finally got to talk to Kohaku… only to get hurt. Was my dream really that accurate? Did he forget me… on purpose? She sighed.

"What are you thinking, Sen?" Bou suddenly asked, throwing his teddy bear away.

"I'm thinking…" she said. "Do you know Kohaku?"

"Dragon boy," Bou just said.

Dragon boy? Sen wondered. How come I never heard that nickname…? She then laughed softly. Probably something Rin invented… and it went around the bathhouse.

"Why did he forget me, Bou? He seemed so cold to me these days," she confirmed sadly to him. But then she sighed: she knew he couldn't possibly have answers for her… well, definitely not answers she wanted.

That's why she was deeply astounded when Bou answered:

"I'm sorry, but I don't know the whole story, Sen… But I know a part of it."

The human girl perked up.

"You do?" she asked uncertainly.

"I remember the day when you left the Spirit World," he said. "Right after you crossed the plain and returned to your mommy and daddy, Kohaku went to talk to Baba."

"Please continue, Bou," Sen urged him eagerly. She really wanted to know what happened the last four years to her friends here… but most important of all, to Kohaku.

"Okay, Sen," Bou nodded. "You just left, and he went to the bathhouse to talk to Baba…"

Bou just returned to his nursery, and as he started to build his own private castle made from his immense collection of pillows, his first thought was how much he missed the fresh air. Sure, the nursery was a big room, and it had a friendly aura to it (probably because of one of Baba's spells), but the fresh air was much better: it just had… something he couldn't say… maybe the smell of freedom… the smell of liberty… He was sure that he would return to the great world beyond the bathhouse, even if he had to scream at his mother and ruin her whole business. Then he thought of the little (but still older than him) girl: the human by the name Sen… or Chihiro.

I miss Sen… he thought. When will she come back? He hoped he'll remember to ask Baba the next time she comes to the nursery. Just then, he heard steady footsteps entering Baba's office, and a cool male voice:

"We need to talk, Yubabaa."

Is that dragon boy? Bou wondered. All he knew about Kohaku was that Sen liked him a lot… and that flying on him was fun.

"What is it now, Haku?" Baba grunted as she worked on.

The baby could just picture the scene; Baba on her desk, writing on one of her many scrolls, and dragon boy near the entrance, with 'his face'.

"I am no longer Haku: I am Nigihayami Kohaku Nushi, and this time Yubabaa, you will not take that memory away from me," dragon boy replied evenly.

Baba growled and snorted:

"So you remember that damn name of yours! That doesn't matter: I still have your contract!"

"That's what I'm here for now: to terminate my contract," Kohaku then went to the main point.

By now, Bou had already destroyed his pile of pillows to slowly open his nursery door to see what was going on. He made sure that the door was opened only slightly, because Baba would end the conversation immediately if she knew her son was listening. Now that he could actually see the scene, Bou noticed that Baba was slightly trembling of anger.

"There is no way to terminate your contract now, Ha-… I mean, Kohaku," Baba hissed at him.

"I know that," Kohaku stated. "And I also know that, once I remember my real name, terminating my contract is possible. So, if I can't terminate my contract now, when can I do it?"

"I taught you well, a little too well," Baba growled at her apprentice. "Very well, I shall tell you: you can stop being my apprentice in a year: no more; no less. After three hundred sixty-five days, we can talk again about you leaving this bathhouse. But for now, I think I made it clear to you that you cannot leave yet. Now go, and just because Sen gave your name back, I expect you to work as hard as if nothing happened… or else you may not be here at the end of this year…" she glared at him as she finished her last sentence.

Dragon boy just gazed coolly at her, and bowed shortly.

"Of course," he whispered before leaving the bathhouse.

Before Bou returned to his nursery and his now destroyed castle of pillows, he saw his mother smirk, but what he didn't hear was what she said…

"If you'll still want to go back to her…" Yubabaa muttered under her breath.

"Is that all you remember, Bou?" Sen asked after listening intently to the baby's story.

"Well, that's what happened just after you left, Sen," Bou answered.

"What happened to Kohaku then?"

"Dragon boy worked as hard as ever for the rest of the year, and he kept thinking of you and how to get back to the Human World," Bou stated. "And a year after, he returned to Baba's office with the same subject."

"Were you there when he talked to Yubabaa's again?" Sen questioned him eagerly.

Bou nodded.

"Tell me…. please?" the human girl then urged him.

Bou just sighed before launching into the story.

This time Bou was sound asleep in his mountain of fluffy pillows when the heavy doors leading to Yubabaa's office slowly opened. The huge baby stirred in his sleep, and when his eyes finally opened, he somehow abruptly knew that today was the day when Kohaku would return to Baba to demand release again. Quickly, he tore his pillow castle apart, and crept near the nursery door to hear what Baba would say to dragon boy.

"What do you want, Kohaku?" Yubabaa grunted, not looking up from her scroll she was writing.

"You know perfectly what I want, Yubabaa," Kohaku retorted with a blank expression –as always.

The elderly sorceress ignored her apprentice for a moment or two, but then she sighed and finally looked up.

"Oh yes… about your contract, am I right?" she drawled as she put down her expensive golden pen.

Kohaku just nodded solemnly.

"Very well, very well…" Yubabaa sighed.

She then got out of her huge velvet chair to search for Kohaku's contract. Bou didn't know what exactly was going on, so he slightly opened the nursery door, such as last time, to get a better view of things. When the baby saw his mother rummaging for the contract, he became a little confused; Bou knew Baba would not give up her apprentice so easily, especially after years and years of teaching him powerful sorcery. He continued to watch as Yubabaa finally found Kohaku's contract, returned to the comfortable chair, and then inspected the scroll.

"Destroy it," Kohaku suddenly commanded Yubabaa in a firm voice.

The river spirit now had a highly determined look on his face. But Yubabaa merely shook her finger at him.

"You cannot command me like that, Kohaku!" she snapped. "Even if you do have your name back since last year, don't forget: I am the mistress of this bathhouse!"

Kohaku ignored the old witch's rude comment and kept his gaze even.

"Fine, fine," Yubabaa sighed again. "It's true: you can terminate your contract now…"

She was fiddling with the important scroll now, and it seemed as if she was about to destroy it… until a smirk unexpectedly spread across her aging face.

"But…" she suddenly said. "There are some consequences you will certainly not like."

Kohaku said nothing, so Yubabaa continued:

"Let me guess what you will do when I release you… you will try to find your way to return to that abominable human named Sen, right?"

Kohaku didn't answer at all, but Bou could tell by his mother's face that she already knew the answer. Yubabaa laughed softly to herself, and then addressed to the young spirit:

"But Kohaku, you jut can't cross the border of Majou No Sekai to go to the Human World…"

"Why?" Kohaku asked, frowning slightly.

"Don't you see?" Yubabaa chuckled. "You are a river spirit and Sen is a human: you both live in two different worlds, and to the Human World, the river named Nigihayami Kohaku Nushi is gone…dead. And you just can't return to Sen's world… as a spirit."

"There has to be a spell to make me human," Kohaku responded, his face void of expression. But his voice was slightly high, which was unusual for him.

Yubabaa seemed to think about his question for a while before speaking to him again:

"Yes, perhaps there is that kind of spell, but Kohaku… do you really want to go back?" she then grinned a horrible smile to the dragon boy.

"What do you mean… if I really want to go back?" Kohaku replied coldly. "Of course I want to go back: I made a promise to Chihiro a year ago that we will meet again, and I have absolutely no intention to break that promise."

And with that response, Yubabaa's wicked grin only grew wider as she whispered:

"But maybe Chihiro doesn't even know about this promise… maybe she doesn't even know…"

But she was cut off by Kohaku:

"What do you mean by Chihiro not knowing about the promise? She was the one who made me promise her in the first place!"

Bou could see that Kohaku was now getting angered by Yubabaa's slow game. Bou himself was trying to figure out what Baba was getting to.

"And to think I once thought that you were smart, Ha –I mean, Kohaku," Yubabaa retorted. 'What I mean is… what if this human… Chihiro… doesn't remember you if you go back to her?"

"That's absurd!" Kohaku said, scowling. "Why would she forget me?"

Yubabaa shrugged carelessly.

"Maybe she didn't want to forget… maybe a power beyond the Spiritual and Human Worlds made her lose memories of Majou No Sekai…"

By now, Kohaku was truly angered by what the old sorceress was saying.

"Just tell me exactly what you want to say, Yubabaa," he said to her, his voice even again but his face fierce.

Yubabaa abruptly exploded. Thankfully, Bou thought, Yubabaa didn't explode as in her bun suddenly untied itself and she suddenly rushed herself to Kohaku to suffocate him in her raging fire and wrapping him up with her long, snake-like hairs. No, as in 'explode', it meant Yubabaa unexpectedly revealed what she truly wanted to say.

"I mean…" the elderly witch shouted at Kohaku. "That when Sen crossed the tunnel, every memory of Majou No Sekai was erased from her mind, you clueless river spirit!"

She then returned to her calm position and smirked at Kohaku's stunned figure. Of course, the young spirit (A/N: as in 'young', I mean that Kohaku will probably just be a few centuries old) quickly regained his composure and questioned defiantly:

"Is this one of your tricks to get me to stay in this bathhouse, Yubabaa?"

"No," Yubabaa replied, returning her attention to the scroll she was previously working on. "Of course not, Kohaku: this is a fact. So if you ever will see that puny human again, she wouldn't even remember you!"

"Did you put a forgetfulness spell on Chihiro when she left just because you were angry at her?" Kohaku asked, his face now revealing compassionate hatred.

Yubabaa shortly glanced his way, and smirked again.

"This has nothing to do with me or any of my spells," she answered him. "This is simply the way it's supposed to be: although Sen changed my bathhouse quite a bit, she isn't supposed to change from this visit. That's how the gods want it to be… so be it."

Bou now knew Yubabaa wasn't lying, and Kohaku must've also known this because his angered expression died away to be replace by grief.

"So now, let me conclude: you cannot return to the Human World, because you are not allowed to as a spirit, but even if you could, I bet you wouldn't want to be heartbroken by one single little human who just simply couldn't remember you. So Kohaku…" Yubabaa then smiled again. "Do you still want to terminate your contract?"

Bou and Yubabaa could easily see how torn Kohaku was. He couldn't manage to utter his words, so Yubabaa continued.

"Although you can terminate your contract, you may not leave today because you made me lose so much work time! Anyway, even if you wanted to stay, I doubt your work will be as efficient because from now on, all you will think of is Sen… and how she forgot you… am I correct?"

Kohaku was still at lost for words, so Yubabaa spoke again.

"If you cannot make a decision of terminating your contract or not by three days, you will have to work for me for another year. And I don't want you to slack of because of a miserable human!" the elderly sorceress practically spat the last words at him. "Maybe, to make your mind more at ease, you would want to drink… this."

A terrifying smile appeared on her visage as Yubabaa conjured a silver goblet with her magic. This time, Kohaku actually regained his voice.

"What is that?" he asked, his voice mildly surprised.

"This, my apprentice, is an Object of Heart Forgetfulness Potion: it'll make all your silly problems of Sen disappear!" Yubabaa made a motion with her hands to indicate what she was saying.

But Kohaku was definitely not falling for that at all.

"I will never take that hideous potion," he shot at the aging sorceress. "And I hardly believe that Sen even forgot me in the first place!"

Yubabaa grimaced at him, clearly angered that he wouldn't take her offer.

"Very well," she finally answered, shrugging as if she simply didn't care. "If you ever change your mind, Kohaku, the potion will be waiting for you. And also, if you have nothing else to say, you are dismissed. Don't forget that if you do not return in three days to clarify that your contract is indeed terminated or not, you will be my apprentice for another year."

"Yes."

And Kohaku quickly left Yubabaa's office, without even bowing to his mistress. Before Bou closed the nursery door, he saw his mother gazing at the potion, muttering:

"He will come back for this: I'm sure of it."

Sen was amazed at how much Bou knew about what happened four years ago. As she thought about it, she now knew that part of her dream was true: Kohaku had been grieved by the fact that she had forgotten him. But… he couldn't have possibly taken the potion Yubabaa offered him… could he? She decided to question Bou more about the subject, although it was obvious that the baby wasn't very much interested in what had happened four years ago.

"So did Kohaku make his decision after three days?" she then asked the huge baby as he was building another castle of huge, soft pillows.

Bou shook his head.

"Dragon boy couldn't make up his decision on time, and Baba made him work for her for another year," he answered.

"What happened after another year passed?" Sen questioned.

"He came back to Baba's office and decided not to believe about the part that you didn't remember him," Bou replied, adding pillows to his growing pile. "Of course, Baba was very angry that dragon boy didn't believe her, so she did the one thing she could to make him believe her."

"And what was that?"

"She sent him to the Human World as a human," Bou simply stated.

Sen gasped.