Again Chapter 4 — Love
By Mako-chan
"After all, you're in love with him, aren't you?"
"WHAT?"
"You are in love with Haku," Emi said, speaking slowly as if I were an idiot.
"Well...uh, no I'm - I mean...why...what makes you think that?"
Emi giggled. That giggle had never sounded more annoying. "Come on, Sen. It's written all over your face. You've been all Haku, all the time, ever since he showed up again."
I pulled the phone away and stared in disbelief at the earpiece. Emi was still talking and I caught bit and snatches of what she was saying. But mind was elsewhere. Me? In love with Haku? Could that even be possible?
"Sen! Hey, Sen!" Emi was obviously yelling, but with the phone in my lap I could just barely hear her voice.
"Huh? Oh." I picked up the phone again. "Hey. Sorry Emi."
"See? That's just what I mean."
"Can we please change the subject?"
She sighed dramatically. "Oh, I suppose." I could hear the laughter in her voice. "If you insist."
"Do you really enjoy torturing me this much?" I asked, relaxing a bit. This kind of friendly banter was familiar.
Suddenly Emi turned very serious and sober. "No. No, I don't- didn't mean to...uh..."
"Oh, no. I didn't mean that. It's okay."
Emi stayed silent for a moment. "Sen, you know-" She stopped short.
'You know I only want what's best for you.' She'd said it a million times since I'd met her. I knew that=s what she was about to say, but she didn't say it.
"Yeah, I know."
The uneasy silence came back to hang between us and sour. I could tell she was thinking of Mark. We both were. She wasn't thinking of me then; she was thinking of herself. But was that so bad? Was it really such a terrible thing to do? I shook my head. Emi more than deserved to please herself, especially after taking care of people like me. Just not with MY boyfriend.
"Um, so, I guess I'll see you at school or something." I know I was running, but I didn't really care.
"Yeah. Bye, Sen."
"Bye Emi."
We hung up and I turned back to look at my apartment. For the first time I noticed how...empty it was. Usually the silence didn't bother me. Then again, usually I didn't spend so much time alone.
'You're in love with him, aren't you?' Her words came back to taunt me. I closed my eyes and shook my head, trying to clear it. I couldn't be in love with Haku. I hated Haku. Didn't I?
Haku's smile. I suddenly thought of Haku's smile, and the way it pained me whenever he stopped. I remembered the sound of his voice, his cool confidence, his strange sense of humor, even his annoying habit of never giving a strait answer.
"I am not in love with Haku!" I shouted. The furniture didn't answer me so I sighed and turned on the TV.
So why was I running? And what on Earth was I running from? From Emi? From Haku? From friendship? From love?
"And I'm not running," I grumbled to myself. I wasn't running from Emi or Haku. They'd both betrayed my trust. But I didn't necessarily hate them, did I? Or maybe I did? Or maybe I was just avoiding the whole conflict by avoiding them?
I shook my head again, trying to clear the jumble of thoughts. "This is what happens when you start thinking."
~*~*~*~
We just had to cover love poems in Foreign Literature class the next day. It was fate. Or maybe just some cruel joke someone decided to play on me. Either way, I should have seen it coming.
Elizabethan love poems to be exact, an area in which Mitaki-sensei excelled. I stared idly out the window as she droned on and on about the power of love, sounding like an old Sailor Moon re-run.
"Onigo!"
Mitaki-sensei's sharp call snapped my attention back to the classroom.
"Yes, Sensei?"
She frowned at me, then sighed and shook her head. "You young people just can't appreciate this stuff until you've lived through it."
"Oh, but I have," I mumbled off-handedly, hardly aware of what I was saying.
"Good," Sensei said septically. I gulped, unaware that she'd heard me. "Then I'll want to see that reflected in your next assignment." She stepped away, back to the front of the class, and I let out my breath in a sigh of relief. "I want you all to write a Spenserian sonnet. And yes, it does have to rhyme."
The while class grumbled slightly but I just stared stupidly at her. Write a love poem? The rhyming I could handle, but...love poem? About love?
Sensei dismissed us and we scrambled to pack our things and leave. I was slightly surprised to find Emi waiting for me by the door.
"Hey, Sen."
"Hey, Emi."
We just stood there, unsure of what to say, until we realized we were blocking the door.
"So, I had this weird craving for ice cream in middle of class," Emi explained in a rush. "Want to come?"
"Sure."
We walked out of school together, talking and gossiping, becoming more at ease with each step. By the time we reached the ice cream shop, we were chatting like old friends again, even able to discuss the events of Spring Break. Emi told me of the deplorable, according to her, treatment given to her at her workplace.
"He did what?"
"Yup. Called me childish and immature and right in front of a customer, no less! And I always thought Sempai was more tactful!"
"Well, you are kinda whiney."
Emi glared at me, but I just smiled back, the very picture of innocence.
"I am not whiney."
"Sure you are. You're whining right now."
She thought for a moment, then dismissed the comment with a wave of her hand. "Okay, fine. But he didn't have to say it with a customer right there."
"Okay, that's true."
We headed for the park, ice cream in hand, and plotted a suitable revenge to unleash on her co-worker.
"So what do you want to do tonight?" Emi asked after we'd exhausted all the impossible choices for revenge.
"Well-" I paused, thinking, then looked at Emi. "What do you want to do?"
"Hm?" She looked slightly surprised, not used to making the choice. Then she grinned. "How about a movie?"
~*~*~*~
I sat in my living room surrounded by wadded up scribbles, staring at a blank piece of paper. The day before the sonnet was due and my well-spring of creativity was bone-dry.
I sighed, flopped over on the couch, and stared at the ceiling. Something was wrong, for I'd been trying to write something decent for over an hour. I considered my approach; knowing my skills as a writer weren't exactly top notch meant I'd had to take a few writing classes. The first thing one considers, supposedly, is the audience. I thought about Sensei. Then quickly shook my head, disgusted. So I tried a different approach. I thought of Haku.
I remembered our first meeting, on the bridge of the Abura-ya. The thought almost made me smile. I was so oblivious to the danger I was in, so naive, and he tried so hard to protect me. Even when he didn't need to. I smiled, thinking of the night at Zeniba's house and the way Haku showed up, all set to rescue me from the 'evil witch.' And, of course, I remembered the incredible flight back to the bath house.
Standing on a bridge, searching for the sea,
So small, so lost, and so blind to my plight.
You found, you knew, you somehow rescued me.
On silent wings, childish fancy took flight.
For years after the trip, I held onto the memory of those days at the bath house. I walked through life, clinging to it like a safety blanket. I cherished it, and Haku's promise that we would meet again. For a while, it was a pleasant memory. Then, as years passed, it soured. Each memory became tainted, for I couldn't think of the Abura-ya without feeling a strange sense of loss, of sadness and loneliness. I missed them. Thinking back, the whole set-up sounded like a bad soap opera. But instead of becoming depressed, I just sort of...wandered. I was lost, unable to find anything. I moved back and forth from the world of reality and the world of memories and dreams, unable to find my way out, unable to decide what I wanted. After five years of wandering, of being left behind and watching my life slip by unnoticed, I was tired. I just wanted to be normal. Determined to make up for lost time, to prove in some perverse way that I didn't need my Spirit World friends, I became so fiercely independent, so suddenly mature, that it was like waking up from a dream. And I even, eventually decided the whole thing must have been nothing more than just that. A dream.
Standing in the dark, it's not yet night
Searching through my soul, just to hear your name
I try to find myself, I'm blinded by my sight
For just the fancy of Whim, my heart is but a game
And then, Haku came back. He kept his promise and came waltzing back into my life, though I doubted Haku had ever waltzed before. And I simply couldn't accept it. I couldn't stand that he had come back and proven me wrong all these years. After everything I'd been through, all that work to convince myself that it wasn't real, all so that I could have a normal life. And then he had go and prove me wrong. But worse than that, he made me wonder. All those years I thought I just wanted a normal life and the Haku shows me something so incredible, a life so attainable, I wondered what I really wanted. He made me fall in love with him all over again. So confused. I thought I just wanted him out of my life, but I didn't. Did I?
You're back in my life, finding me in shame
I try to push away, but can't push you out
The name I've so longed for now brings me pain
Though never true hurt. What does really count?
I sighed and leaned back on my couch, staring at my paper. It needed an ending, but what? My own story didn't have an ending. I didn't even know how I wanted it to end. I just wanted to stop feeling so…incomplete.
Standing all alone, silent companion of the moon,
Yet my heart forever cries, 'come, please, home to me soon.'
I re-read my poem. Not my best effort, but at one in the morning it would just have to do. I left the paper on the table, stumbled into my room, and crawled into bed. Too tired for the full-impact of my efforts to hit me, I was left with one thought before I fell asleep. 'I love Haku.'
~*~*~*~
A week later, we got our poems back.
"A 'B!' She gave me a 'B!' Minus!"
Emi laughed quietly as I ranted.
"She has no idea how hard I worked on that thing! No idea! It was SOOO much better than a stinking B minus!"
"Sen, you did say it wasn't your best."
"Yeah, but it was better than a B minus."
"Can I read it?"
I paused, looking at my feet as we walked away from the school. I still hesitated to talk to Emi about Haku. "No."
"Oh, well, okay then." She grinned to herself, knowing full well what my poem was about.
I had to blush a bit. "Yeah, well, so it wasn't really that great, I guess."
"So, what are you going to do now?"
"Huh?"
"You know. About him."
"What? There's nothing left to do. We've parted ways, remember? It's over."
"You wrote him a love poem."
"I wrote my teacher a love poem." I stopped, realizing what I'd just said. "I mean, oh you know what I mean."
She grinned at me. "If it's just an assignment, why are you getting so upset?"
I shrugged and sighed. It really was pointless trying to hide anything from Emi. "Okay, fine. You got me. But like I said, there's nothing left to do. So there."
"Talk to him."
"What?"
She gave a mighty, dramatic sigh. "Just go up to him and say, 'Haku-'"
"But…we…I…the fight. What if he's mad at me? Or won't talk to me?" I sounded pathetic, even to my own ears, and Emi picked up on that right away.
"Doesn't matter. Talk to him anyway."
I hesitated, still trying to justify myself to her. "Yeah, but…I don't know where he is."
She gave me a side-long look and a rather devil-ish grin. "Yes you do." She rolled her eyes heaven-ward with an exasperated sigh. "Good Gracious, Sen, anything's better than the way you are now."
"Huh?"
"You think we can't tell? It's written all over your face." She threw her arms out and skipped down the street, singing, "You are hopelessly in love with Haku."
I couldn't help but smile a little, despite the over-the-top teasing. Emi came back, grinning impishly. "Okay, fine," I conceded. "It's true. So what?"
"So what!" Emi groaned and rolled her eyes again. "So go tell him."
"But-"
"No buts, Sen," she scolded, wagging a finger at me. Suddenly her face fell and her voice became softer. "Go tell him."
She sounded so earnest, so desperate, that I had to glance at her face. She was frowning down at her feet. We walked in silence the rest of the way home.
~*~*~*~
Mom was surprised to see me. In all honesty, I was surprised to find myself back home.
"Chihiro?"
"Hi, Mom."
"Um, come in." She stepped to one side, brows pulled together in a look of extreme confusion. "Is something wrong?"
"Um, no, not really." I stepped inside and looked around, nervous and jumpy. "I just, uh, forgot something"
Mom nodded, completely unconvinced, and just continued staring at me. I blushed, feeling more and more nervous the more she stared at me.
"Yeah, so, I'm going to go get it now."
I ran up to my room and left her, still shocked, in the living room. In my bedroom, I headed strait for the dresser and rummaged through the top drawer. After a few minutes of desperate salvaging, I finally found it. Underneath many forgotten photo albums I found the small purple hair-tie. Wandering over to the window, I absently tied back my long, brown hair.
Outside, the forest spread out like a carpet of green with the afternoon sun creating pockets of darker shadows. Squinting my eyes, I could just barely make out the small dirt road. The Abura-ya, and Haku, were out there. And I would find them, no matter what. I was tired of 'wandering about like a lost, love-sick child,' as Emi was now fond of saying.
"Chihiro?"
I turned. Mom was standing there, in the open doorway, watching me with a strange expression. I wondered how much she had already guessed.
"I'd better go. It's getting late."
She smiled. "Tell Mr. Tanashi hello for me, will you?"
I blushed, then nodded shyly. "Okay. I'll tell him."
End Ch 4
Author's Note: Hehehehe. I am evil. }:P Sorry this chapter is so late and so short. I've been really busy. And you guys have no idea what I had to go through with my piece 'o crap computer to get this to you guy. Just goes to show how much I love you all. ^_^ Hopefully the next one will go quicker. And hopefully it'll have Haku in it.