Chapter 2
Milestones
Five years had passed. The entire incident at the Tochinoki ruins was removed from conscious thought. However, as the sagacious Zeniba asserted, "things are not forgotten..."
Chihiro finished middle school in Mitake and was looking forward to attending the all-girl private high school in nearby Nakaoka. It wasn't an easy matter to get into the school. It was expensive and the entrance examination was renowned as extremely difficult. Students attending this school had an inside track in passing the entrance examinations for top universities. Then came the bad news as it does for many salaried employees in Japan: her father was going to be reassigned once more to the Green Hills Golf Corporate headquarters in Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo. This time, however, everybody knew the drill. He was going to Tokyo and live there alone in an apartment until Chihiro graduated from high school. She and her mother would remain in Tochinoki for the duration.
Chihiro's room was cheerful, yet cluttered. It was an 8-mat (12 X 12 feet) western-style room with a small single bed against one wall and several stacked bookcases against the others. Outside of a poster of singer Kenji Sano, whatever vertical space remained was used for poster-sized photographs of natural scenery. She preferred river scenes, but she didn't quite know why. The clutter of daily life took up horizontal spaces, save the space she reserved on the top of her dresser she never disturbed other than for dusting. On the top of her dresser was only one thing: an ornate musical jewel box. Inside the box was something she found long ago in her bedroom: a beautiful, thin purple hair band. She had no idea how it ended up in her room, but she prized it above all else in her possession.
Opposite her bed was a window facing south. From the window was a nice view of Mitake town and Route 21. Closer in, the access road was visible. Just to the right of that on the road and barely out of view was a barricade. It was erected a few years before when an abandoned car was found in front of an old ruin. An entire family of four had apparently disappeared off the face of the earth...
If it weren't for her strong determination and persistence, Chihiro would have been an average student in school. While she did well at language classes, calligraphy, and history, she was really struggling in the sciences and physical education. None of her courses came easily to her. It wasn't an easy task for her to pass the high school entrance examinations, but she had a will to succeed that few other students had.
About this time, Haku was reaching a milestone: his five-year contract for indentured servitude was reaching term. As per their agreement, Haku would do Yubaba's bidding for five years in return for releasing Chihiro from her contract and freeing Chihiro and her parents. She really didn't need Haku to go around stealing anymore, though--she had a brisk business going. The river spirit Chihiro helped five years before got the word out to the other river spirits and Yubaba got a lot of business (and profit) cleansing them. She had to expand her operations on the first floor and hire more workers. Most of the tenured workers were able to move out of the bathhouse with their bonuses and establish their own shops in the adjacent village. After forty years, the train line resumed its return route back to the bathhouse station.
Yubaba looked at Haku in a clearly feigned attempt to look lordly over him "What are you going to do? Where are you going to go? If you go back to your world, you'll have no place to return. You were filled in."
"If you don't mind, Yubaba," replied Haku, "I'd like to continue to work here without a contract if it's ok with you. I'll labor on the first floor every day and, if my work is satisfactory to you, you would feed me and keep me one more day."
"I don't do business without contracts, but we can craft one which allows you to leave at any time. How's that?"
"It sounds acceptable. You'll need to--"
"Turn you into a frog," interrupted Yubaba. "I know. Nobody downstairs will know you were Haku. When you decide to leave, I'll let you return in any form you wish." Though she didn't try to let on, she grew fond of Haku, feeling a certain pride that her tutelage could produce such a fine practitioner of the magic arts.
Through the years, Haku never lost memory of his true name: Nigihayami Kohakunushi. He recited it several times a day just to make sure he could one day leave and meet Chihiro again. Even though she lived only a few kilometers away from the portal to the human world from whence she came, she could just have well lived anywhere in the world. The tunnel robbed those who traverse it in either direction of all but their internal spirituality. Even if he did make it to the other side, he would lose memory of Chihiro just as he was sure Chihiro had already forgotten about him...
Milestones
Five years had passed. The entire incident at the Tochinoki ruins was removed from conscious thought. However, as the sagacious Zeniba asserted, "things are not forgotten..."
Chihiro finished middle school in Mitake and was looking forward to attending the all-girl private high school in nearby Nakaoka. It wasn't an easy matter to get into the school. It was expensive and the entrance examination was renowned as extremely difficult. Students attending this school had an inside track in passing the entrance examinations for top universities. Then came the bad news as it does for many salaried employees in Japan: her father was going to be reassigned once more to the Green Hills Golf Corporate headquarters in Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo. This time, however, everybody knew the drill. He was going to Tokyo and live there alone in an apartment until Chihiro graduated from high school. She and her mother would remain in Tochinoki for the duration.
Chihiro's room was cheerful, yet cluttered. It was an 8-mat (12 X 12 feet) western-style room with a small single bed against one wall and several stacked bookcases against the others. Outside of a poster of singer Kenji Sano, whatever vertical space remained was used for poster-sized photographs of natural scenery. She preferred river scenes, but she didn't quite know why. The clutter of daily life took up horizontal spaces, save the space she reserved on the top of her dresser she never disturbed other than for dusting. On the top of her dresser was only one thing: an ornate musical jewel box. Inside the box was something she found long ago in her bedroom: a beautiful, thin purple hair band. She had no idea how it ended up in her room, but she prized it above all else in her possession.
Opposite her bed was a window facing south. From the window was a nice view of Mitake town and Route 21. Closer in, the access road was visible. Just to the right of that on the road and barely out of view was a barricade. It was erected a few years before when an abandoned car was found in front of an old ruin. An entire family of four had apparently disappeared off the face of the earth...
If it weren't for her strong determination and persistence, Chihiro would have been an average student in school. While she did well at language classes, calligraphy, and history, she was really struggling in the sciences and physical education. None of her courses came easily to her. It wasn't an easy task for her to pass the high school entrance examinations, but she had a will to succeed that few other students had.
About this time, Haku was reaching a milestone: his five-year contract for indentured servitude was reaching term. As per their agreement, Haku would do Yubaba's bidding for five years in return for releasing Chihiro from her contract and freeing Chihiro and her parents. She really didn't need Haku to go around stealing anymore, though--she had a brisk business going. The river spirit Chihiro helped five years before got the word out to the other river spirits and Yubaba got a lot of business (and profit) cleansing them. She had to expand her operations on the first floor and hire more workers. Most of the tenured workers were able to move out of the bathhouse with their bonuses and establish their own shops in the adjacent village. After forty years, the train line resumed its return route back to the bathhouse station.
Yubaba looked at Haku in a clearly feigned attempt to look lordly over him "What are you going to do? Where are you going to go? If you go back to your world, you'll have no place to return. You were filled in."
"If you don't mind, Yubaba," replied Haku, "I'd like to continue to work here without a contract if it's ok with you. I'll labor on the first floor every day and, if my work is satisfactory to you, you would feed me and keep me one more day."
"I don't do business without contracts, but we can craft one which allows you to leave at any time. How's that?"
"It sounds acceptable. You'll need to--"
"Turn you into a frog," interrupted Yubaba. "I know. Nobody downstairs will know you were Haku. When you decide to leave, I'll let you return in any form you wish." Though she didn't try to let on, she grew fond of Haku, feeling a certain pride that her tutelage could produce such a fine practitioner of the magic arts.
Through the years, Haku never lost memory of his true name: Nigihayami Kohakunushi. He recited it several times a day just to make sure he could one day leave and meet Chihiro again. Even though she lived only a few kilometers away from the portal to the human world from whence she came, she could just have well lived anywhere in the world. The tunnel robbed those who traverse it in either direction of all but their internal spirituality. Even if he did make it to the other side, he would lose memory of Chihiro just as he was sure Chihiro had already forgotten about him...