A/N: Yes! I finally got my 1 review that I was waiting for! My existence is now vindicated.

Nekkyo-Chan: I LOVE YOU! I really do! Thank you sooo much for reviewing! And for the compliments. Thank you thank you thank you!

Disclaimer: I do not own anything that belongs to Miyazaki, or the lines 'I am Sam, Sam I am', which belong to Dr. Seuss. The only things I own are Koi, Iku, Fumi, and Tantou.

Chapter 3: Chihiro

Haku ran out of the bathhouse after Koi.

"Why are you bringing that with you?" he pointed at the object she was rolling.

Koi crossed her arms defensively. "I happen to like watermelon."

"I-I-I…"

"If you want some, I'll save you a slice." Koi offered generously.

"You-"

"You don't want some, huh? It's a pretty big watermelon." the girl eyed the fruit with an appraising eye. "I'll save you a slice anyway."

"You…are going to drive me insane." Haku glared at her.

"You too?" Koi tilted her head to one side and raised her eyebrows, appraising him exactly as she had done the watermelon. She took the stick she had been leaning on, and continued to roll the watermelon across the bridge. "Anyway, I only have an hour, so I'd best get moving."

"Excuse me-but are you Chihiro?"

Chihiro looked down at the kid standing on her front step.

"Yes, but why do you ask? I don't know you, do I?"

"No, but do you recognize these names? Here, I'll read them off to you." the girl had a few pieces of paper, and she looked at one. "Kamaji. Lin. Yubaba. No-Face. You don't remember them, do you."

"No…I've heard the names before…sometime…a long time ago…"

"Not that long ago, six years."

"I moved here six years ago! They can't be people from my old school, can they?"

"No, they're from after you moved. What about Bou? Zeniba? A radish spirit? Totoro? Dustbunnies? Haku?"

"Haku." Chihiro whispered. "Haku…"

She sat down on the step with a thump. Half-forgotten memories rushed through her head. A wilting bouquet, a red building. A strange mossy statue, smiling as if it knew something she didn't. A bathhouse. Her parents eating like pigs. Pigs. A hot furnace. Little balls of soot. A heavy block of coal. A river. Going…transparent? She looked up at the girl. "Who are you?" she asked.

"That is not the question you should be asking. You should ask, who are you? Sen." she said the last word faintly, almost impossible to be heard, but to Chihiro it brought a flood of new memories. An elevator. A huge spirit, pressing her against the wall, smelling of…radish. A warmly lit study. Three heads. An old woman, at her desk, blowing smoke through her nose… "Yubaba!" she cried out. "That old woman is Yubaba!"

"Old? With a big nose? Wearing way too much eyeshade? Yep." the girl nodded.

A boy in a blue uniform. A woman with long brown hair. A pile of sludge…and a pure river spirit. A dragon, dripping blood. A playroom filled with toys. A GIGANTIC baby. A spirit, in a mask, trying to eat her…the same spirit sitting beside her on the train of spirits. A tear coursed down Chihiro's cheek. Another witch, but a good one this time. "Zeniba." she whispered. Falling…and the boy in the blue uniform. The dragon. But not the dragon…

"Haku. Kohaku River." Chihiro stood up. "I don't know who you are. I don't know why you're here. I don't know where you come from," she said unsteadily. "But I know I never want to see you again. I don't know what's happening to me…"

The girl's eyes grew wide. "I can't tell you, but I can tell you you aren't going insane. That's what I thought, at first, but then…" she shook her head. "You have to come back to the spirit world with me."

Chihiro stood up, and shook her head. "I-I can't. I don't want to…go insane."

"You don't? Pity. I'll just have to tell Haku that you don't want to come back. You remember him, don't you?" the girl smiled sweetly at Chihiro, and continued without waiting for an answer that Chihiro wasn't going to give anyway. "He decided the he was going to age like a normal human being when you left, so if her could ever get away from Yubaba, he could come and find you, and be your same age. You know what? If I had someone who loved me like that, I would never leave them."

Chihiro took a shaky breath. "All right." she said more to herself than to the girl on her doorstep. "All right. I'll go with you."

Iku tapped her foot. Then she tapped her other foot. Then she crossed her arms. Fumi was standing at the front of the line for herbal bath tokens, and was arguing furiously with the attendant handing them out. Finally, the attendant caved, and handed her a different one. Fumi thanked him, and marched out of the line to Iku.

"Did you see that?" she demanded. "I swear, that person was trying to cheat me."

"Well it took you long enough." Iku looked at the token. "You got a good one though."

"See, when you fight you can get anything you want."

"Or you can just annoy the people long enough that they'll give you what you wanted."

Fumi shrugged. "That too."

"Anyway, have you seen Koi recently?"

"No. She'd agree with me though." Fumi hooked the token onto the string and let it go.

"She annoys people by just standing there. She would."

Chihiro looked around. Six years, and she hadn't returned to this place. Six years.

The girl looked at her awkwardly. "It helps if you go through the entrance."

"I-I know. Who are you anyway? I mean, what's your name?"

"They call me Koi." the girl shrugged. "And as for what I am, I am Sam. That didn't really work out, did it?"

"What didn't?"

"I am Sam, Sam I am." Koi shrugged. "Dr. Seuss was a genius, so what do you expect?"

Chihiro looked at her guide sideways. "Are you a human, or a spirit?"

"A human. I don't really think Dr. Seuss has made that much of an impact on the spirit world. Plus, only us humans can actually come to this world and go back to the spirit world, if we keep something to remind ourselves of it." Koi shrugged. "It's both a blessing and a curse. We humans get to wander around a lot more, but we also get saddled with the errands everybody needs run."

Chihiro blinked at her.

"I'm not weird! Why does everyone look at me like that?"

"Not only do you disregard the rules of this bathhouse, you also leave and bring a certain human…I am not going to even say the name…back to the spirit world. Yes, I have every right to kick you out but I won't out of the goodness of my heart!" Yubaba was literally spitting flames, and her pet heads were hiding under a chair.

"You're just saying you won't give me a pink slip because you're too cheap to give me severance pay." Koi glared at the pacing witch, who stalked around the room, clenching and unclenching her hands.

"Oh…you…just…" Yubaba was at a loss for words. "Get out of my study. Get out!"

Koi sighed and stood up. "Here. We weren't able to finish it all." she took a cloth-wrapped package out of her pocket, and placed it on the witch's desk. Yubaba marched over to it, and opened the top, gingerly, as if it might contain a bomb or something similarly unpleasant. Instead, the red tip of a piece of watermelon poked out. She spun around and glared daggers at Koi's back. At the elevator, the girl stopped and turned around

"Have you ever heard the saying 'You laugh because I'm different, I laugh because you're all the same?'" she asked. "Well, my take on it is 'You laugh because I'm different, I laugh because you have watermelon stuck in your teeth.'"

A/N: Shorter chapter this time (only 1,335 words!), but next chapter will be up in a couple of days. I'm sorry, but I'm braindead because of the heat right now.