He looked perfectly calm and composed, as he was each time that she saw him. He was leaning over her, frowning the slightest bit. "What are you doing out here?"

"Um… taking a walk?" Haku straightened up a bit, allowing Chihiro to stand up and face him.

"You should not be out here." His face had still not changed, but there was something abnormal in his voice. It was just barely there, only a shadow lurking in his melodic voice. It almost seemed like… panic?

Chihiro blinked in confusion. Why would he be worried that she was out here? Granted, she did not know the flooding schedule, and, now that she thought about it, she really didn't know if she was allowed to be out here. But he did not seem angry with her.

"Get back to Aburaya. Now." Ice completely taking over his voice, Haku grabbed one of her wrists and began pulling her back down the hill towards the city.

Strike the angry thing.

On a sudden impulse, Chihiro dug her heels into the ground and pulled against him, determined not to go. He was giving no reasons for being upset that she was all the way out here, not to mention the fact that, while he was always on the cold side to her, he was being unreasonable. "At least tell my why I shouldn't be out here!"

She gave a particularly violent series of tugs. It got her nothing in the end, however, as Haku continued with his vice-like grip on her wrist. The more she tried to pull away, the more pain it ended up causing her.

For all that she was trying to be strong, she was completely exhausted and not entirely in control of her emotions. Everything built up until she felt one of her infamous tantrums (though, since she had grown up, it began to take an amazing amount of stress and disappointment for her to regress to the point where she started crying) begin.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Kohaku looked back when Chihiro ceased struggling. To his horror, he found that she was crying, big, shining tears that cascaded down her cheeks in rivers. He unconsciously stopped walking and ceased pulling on her arm. She took the opportunity to wrench her appendage away from him and cover her face with her hands. Great sobs began to wrack her body.

Guilt hit him in waves. He had been flying around in his dragon shape, wishing that there was a body of water that he could plunge into and swim around for a while, when he had seen Chihiro walking towards the entrance to the spirit world. His heart had nearly stopped when he saw her, barefoot and looking quite tired, walking away from Aburaya. He feared that she had somehow found out that she could get home easily during the day, that she was turning her back on him forever. He didn't want to lose her again.

But Chihiro seemed to have no idea of what lay on the other side of the hills, no idea whatsoever that he had betrayed the trust she had once placed in him and lied straight to her lovely face. Relief washed over him then, relief that she was going to stay. Yet it only intensified his feeling of guilt.

He stood there, for once in his life completely unsure of how to deal with the situation- namely the fact that the person he had given his heart to was standing as far away from him as possible, shedding tears at an alarming rate. He could deal with Chihiro as a child. She had been so helpless the first time that she had come into the spirit world that his instincts had screamed at him to help her, to calm her down, just as his instincts had kicked in when she had fallen into his river and nearly lost her life. There had been something in her then, so frightened and purely innocent, that his desire to assist her and do what he could to help her get home had kicked in automatically. But the years that she had been gone, while only a drop in the ocean of his life, had obviously affected her. Those days had changed her into something new that he had not expected; Chihiro was so much stronger, for all that she was having a fit at the moment. He had watched her so often of late that he could see the difference between what she was now and what she had been like before as clearly as day.

It nearly made him cry when he realized that he did not know her any longer.

Haku pulled a handkerchief out of the pocket in his shirt and offered it to her. It had always been his favorite, barely tinted blue with swirls of water stitched on some of the edges. He had found it in his river one day and kept it ever since. Desperately, he walked a couple of paces towards the crying girl and offered it to her, wondering if he should ask her for an explanation. After a moment, he did. "Chihiro, why are you crying?"

As the gods of luck would have it, his soft question only made her sob all the more.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Well, at least he had asked her why she was standing on the top of a hill sobbing like there was no tomorrow. She took the handkerchief from his hand and began mopping her face with it, wondering how she would answer him. How could she explain that it was a mix of everything- the fact that she missed her parents, and her friends Umi and Yuna; she missed her whole lifestyle; the fact that she was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to be left alone and to sleep for a month, that she was hurt deeply every time the master of Aburaya spoke to her so icily, that she didn't know why she cared as much as she did, that the nightmare had scared her silly, and because she had no one except Rin, who was too busy to be worried over a simple nightmare in the first place, to tell about her nightmare. Besides, she didn't know if spirits dreamt anyway! All the stress and the emotions that had been building up ever since she had left her world had just stirred within her until Haku had been the one to break the dam and release the flood of anxiety. She cried for a while in complete silence, feeling better and more in control of her emotions with each passing minute. Finally, Chihiro wiped her face a final time with the now sopping handkerchief and gave it back to Haku.

Had she been in a better mood, Chihiro would have laughed at the expression on Haku's face. He stood staring at her in complete bewilderment, and it was apparent that he did not have the slightest clue of what to do with her.

There was something in Haku's eyes, just a shadow deep within the emerald orbs that made her feel uncomfortable. The feeling that she knew Haku very well came back to her full force, leaving her more confused than ever.

For there, in the normally expressionless depths, was pain, worry, and… love.

The two stood staring at one another for what seemed like an eternity. A slight breeze lifted Haku's hair and blew it across his face; but his eyes seemed to pass through the locks to bore into her own. It felt as though time had stopped. There was nothing in the world but the two of them, standing atop a green hill under the warm rays of the afternoon sun.

Something passed between them then. A feeling of peace washed over her, though she hurt deep within her heart at the same time. Chihiro's mind swam with emotion until she thought her head would explode. More confused than ever, she tore her eyes from his and turned, heading back to the bathhouse at a run.

It scared her more than anything, the realization that had dawned on her as she looked into his eyes that had suddenly held such emotion.

She loved him.