MaNgA-bOy-LoVeR: Well, I like Haku. But I mentioned earlier that there will be character-torture in this fic. So… Yeah. Thanks for reviewing.

CSI-123: Actually, I know quite a number of people who know about and write fanfiction in Singapore. freezingsaphire (the plot-master) is from Singapore too. Thanks for your review, or in your case, reviews. XD

Disclaimer: Disclaimer? What's a disclaimer?

Chapter 4

Shinji sighed and flopped onto one of the chairs in the bathhouse. Cleaning tables and polishing the floorboard wasn't as easy as one thought. He flung the rag he was using on the ground and rested his head on the tabletop, all shiny and clean. Thanks to him. A customer came and sat down at one of the tables, and Ayako hurriedly served him a drink.

The customer was engrossed in a book, and accidentally toppled the glass over when he reached for it, spilling its contents all over the table and onto the spotless floor. Shinji, who had been watching him out of the corner of his eye, stood up so quickly that his chair fell backwards with a clatter. He had not spent four fucking hours scrubbing and wiping for this imbecile to come and mess it all up in a matter of seconds.

Shinji barely resisted the urge to kick a nearby table just to cause a commotion. Gritting his teeth, he picked up the rag from where it lay on the floor and stalked over to where the customer was. He was going to give that damned customer a piece of his mind.

Fortunately, for both Shinji and the customer (more of the latter), Ayako saw the warning signs (read: the black cloud looming above Shinji's head, figuratively of course), and stepped in front of Shinji.

"Sorry," the customer muttered.

"Not to worry. I'll clean that up," she smiled politely at the customer and gave Shinji a pointed look (glare), "Shinji, would you run up to the mountains to collect some herbs? I think Kamaji-san is running low on some of them."

Fuming and muttering impurities under his breath, Shinji handed her the rag and went of in search of a basket to collect the herbs. As much as he liked Ayako, he got quite annoyed when she always stopped him from doing something he wanted to do so badly. When he'd yelled at her for it, she'd just replied smoothly that by helping him to keep a lid on his temper, she was saving his sorry ass. And it was true, too.

Because the something he wanted to do was usually (always) stupid, reckless, and very likely to get him thrown out of the bathhouse, for example, kicking a customer's ass.

"I sometimes wonder if I should thank Haku for saving me or hit him for it. Anything would be better than working in this shithouse," he thought uncharitably as he slung the basket he found over his shoulder and prepared to set off for the mountains. But first, he would pay Chihiro a visit.

The mountain he usually went to was near the cottage anyway. It wasn't as if anyone would know besides him and Chihiro, and the young lady probably wouldn't mind company anyway.


Footsteps sounded on the cottage's floorboard, and Chihiro's head snapped up from where she had fixed her gaze on the kitchen tabletop. Had Haku come back? It couldn't be, he hadn't even been gone for a day…

Nevertheless, it had already felt like eternity to Chihiro.

Even if it wasn't Haku, the person who had arrived brought a smile to Chihiro's lips. She ran forward and hugged the old sorceress who had returned from her errand.

"Okaeri, Zenibaa-san," she said.

"It's good to be back," Zenibaa replied, and hugged Chihiro back. She pulled away and regarded Chihiro sternly.

"How are things?" Zenibaa asked.

"They're great," Chihiro replied, and began rambling on about what had been going on in the house and other mundane things."

"It's good that everything's normal," Zenibaa smiled, "but you neglected to tell me how you are doing."

Chihiro's smile faltered for a moment, before it returned completely, "I'm doing okay."

That moment, however, wasn't short enough for Zenibaa not to notice. "Nonsense. There are certain things you can't hide from me, child." Her steely gaze softened, "I heard about Haku."

Chihiro's shoulders drooped, and she was suddenly very interested in studying the patters on the wooden floorboard, "You did, huh…"

"Chihiro," Zenibaa put her hand under Chihiro's chin and forced the young woman to look at her, "he'll be fine."

"Yeah, I know," Chihiro automatically replied.

"Liar," Zenibaa said lightly, a great difference from the harshness of that word. She looked Chihiro in the eye. "You don't think he's coming back."

"I do!" Chihiro protested, albeit not as vehemently as Zenibaa hoped, "He's coming back… He is…" She trailed off, her gaze sliding back to their position on the floorboard.

Zenibaa sighed, not believing Chihiro for a second. But she let it go this time.

"I'm going to… step out for a while. I need some fresh air," a euphemism for 'I want to get the hell out of this conversation.' "I'll see you later, Zenibaa-san."

Zenibaa nodded in acknowledgement, and Chihiro walked out of the house. Chihiro let her feet walk of their own accord, as she let her mind go blank. It hurt. It hurt too much to think about Haku. About anything.

She didn't realize that she had gotten on the train that carried her away from the cottage. It used to be a one-way railway, but Haku became the Lord of the Spirit World, and decided that it was necessary to construct a parallel track with a train that ran in the opposite direction.

She didn't need a ticket; the semi-transparent conductor on the bus recognized her, partly because she took the train pretty often, and partly because everyone that wasn't blind in the Spirit World did. Being the wife of the Lord of the Spirit World did have its merits.

When her feet finally stopped moving, she finally paid attention to her surroundings. She had come to the field where she had Haku had promised they would meet again ten years ago. Under normal circumstances, she would have been happy to be at the field; it always provided her with a sense of calm and tranquility, and served as a place where she could sort her thoughts out.

Now, however, all the field did was serve as a painful reminder as to why she was feeling so miserable.

Chihiro slumped down on the grass, paying no attention to the mud and dirt that got onto her clothes. She stared up at the azure sky, wondering where Haku was by now. Tears rolled down her cheeks, as she thought of her husband, and she sat up, curled into a fetal position, and started to sob.

She didn't notice the small frame that was staggering towards her.


Izumi mumbled all sorts of impurities under her breath. Most of it she had learnt from her schoolmates. It just had to be an effing pool of mud that she tripped and fell into. She winced as she put her weight on her left ankle again. I must have twisted it slightly when I fell. She reflected. She stopped and sat down on the grass, gently massaging her ankle.

This had better be worth all this trouble. She sighed and got up, and continued to walk across the field. A few minutes later, she saw a figure curled up on the field. It was a woman, she could tell, and the woman's shoulders were trembling slightly. Izumi walked towards her. Perhaps she could help.

"Uhm," Izumi began uncertainly, "are you alright?"

The woman in question's head snapped up to Izumi's soft voice, and Izumi reeled back in shock. Chihiro's eyes widened.

"Chi-Chi—" Izumi couldn't even get her cousin's name out; much less form coherent sentences.

"'Zumi-chan!" Chihiro greeted Izumi with the affectionate nickname she had come up with for her younger cousin. Thank God Chihiro hadn't lost her grasp on the Japanese language completely. "How? What?" Apparently (and not very surprisingly), she wasn't up to forming full-sentences either.

Izumi noted that her cousin had changed, so little, and yet so much. She was no longer a gangly, sixteen-year-old, but had grown into a real woman; matured. She was not exceptionally beautiful; she never had been. But she was still pleasant to look at, and was quite pretty if you looked close enough. She still had that determined look that Izumi knew all to well before she had disappeared.

Once they were done gaping, Izumi threw herself onto her cousin.

"Oof," Chihiro muttered as her head collided with the semi-hard ground she was on. She patted Izumi's head soothingly, before wrinkling her nose. "What on earth happened to you?"

"Mud pool." Izumi replied, as if this answered everything.

"You sure it was only mud?" Chihiro asked dryly, wondering what other horrible things there were in that 'mud pool' her cousin had fallen into. She grunted and pushed Izumi off her, standing up. "Come with me. We'll get you cleaned up. You can explain why and how on earth you're here later."

Izumi nodded and followed Chihiro back to the cottage. She 'ooh-ed' and 'ahh-ed' at everything and everyone they passed by on the way, but other than that, remained silent. Her eyes widened when she saw the train they were getting on, and she had a minor freak-out session when she realized she could see through the conductor, as well as all the other people on the train except Chihiro and herself. Literally.

Chihiro remained silent throughout all this, too wrapped up in her own thoughts.

They arrived at the cottage, and Zenibaa greeted them at the door. "Chihiro! You're all muddy! Come take a shower." She spotted Izumi trailing behind Chihiro and her eyes widened at the obvious resemblance, before she smiled warmly. "You're new, but welcome anyway. Come inside. I see you're in need of a shower and some clean clothes as well."

Izumi nodded and muttered her thanks, following Chihiro and Zenibaa into the house.