-Catgirl-of-Bavaria- : Right, here's another update, I love writing this story! X3 I love my reviewers, too, of course! hugs reviewers Thank you all for reading and for your reviews! I'm really glad my story is doing well!
Chapter 8 – Screaming Emotions
"Master Haku!" A small and familiar voice came bounding into the Big Tub area of Yubaba's bath house.
Haku peeked out of the tub to see the small and often annoying green frog in his blue yukata hopping along through the entrance. He'd been scrubbing all the excess grime off of the inside of the tub in a stupor, partially from lack of sleep and longing for Chihiro.
Rin was working hard on the other side of the tub, covering him and making up for his shortcomings with her speed and vigorous scrubbing. She too, peeked over the side of the tub at the frog that bounced for them.
"Master Haku, Yubaba wants to see you, right away!" He exclaimed, now bouncing in place. It was doubtful that the frog ever sat still.
Rin winced at the announcement. Maybe Yubaba had been watching him as he barely scrubbed the tub…He'd been working on it all night while she did the rest of the area. True, the tub was the toughest thing to clean, but he had just worn himself out after only half of it.
"Right…" Haku grumbled, pulling himself over the edge of the giant basin. His uniform was covered in filth, and for a split second he thought maybe he should change, but what did he care what Yubaba thought about his clothes. He pulled his hair out of the loose ponytail that he'd kept it in during cleaning, letting it fall gracefully to frame his face perfectly and without a crease.
He felt a hand on his shoulder as he began to follow the bouncing frog out the door, and looked back to see Rin, standing just at the foot of the tub with a worried look on her face.
"You gonna be alright up there?" She asked him quietly. Haku was surprised to see her so concerned, about him of all people.
"Yes, I know what to expect from Yubaba." Haku told her, keeping a firm and blank face."I'll be fine, don't worry about it."
He turned and headed for the lift, leaving Rins hand to hang in midair. She glared at the ground that she had practically polished clean, remembering what had happened to Haku six years ago while Chihiro was there.
She remembered looking for the girl when No-Face had gone crazy, and finding her in Kamaji's boiler room. The place was covered in blood…Haku's blood. He was lying there in Kamajis futon, dying because of the mission that Yubaba had sent him on. She knew that Yubaba was capable of a great many things.
"Dammit, if something happens to that kid before Sen comes back…" She cursed under her breath, leaping back into the tub to finish the job before sunrise came around.
Haku slowly walked down the cavernous hallways that were decorated with only the tackiest combinations of vases, rugs, tiling and wall tiling. He was on Yubaba's level of the bath house, and it was painfully obvious of her taste in décor. He ignored the tackiness as he padded in his stained yukata down the seemingly endless hallways to her office. He gave two brisk knocks before allowing himself into the room.
"You wanted to see me, Yubaba?" He declared his presence firmly. He couldn't show this woman any uncertainty or fear. His face became the stone that it had been before Chihiro had come. He locked himself away.
"Ah, yes, Haku. It took you long enough." Yubaba said coldly, barely glancing at the boy from some other papers. She settled those papers into a random drawer before fully looking at him. "Would you like to tell me what you've been doing during the daytime?" She asked with a would-be sweet voice.
Haku stood there, stone-faced in the center of her vision, not saying a thing.
"The fact is, Haku," Her voice turned to the same cold cackle as it normally was. "I know what you've been doing, every day for, what, a few months now?"
Yubaba's eyes flashed at the boy. He showed no emotion, but she could tell, the old witch spirit knew that just under the cool and collected surface of the dragon, he was a mess. Just under his surface, was a whirlpool of emotions; despair, doubt, desperation, and heartache. They were swimming around in the young river spirit, just begging Yubaba to pay attention to them, to help them fester.
"You've been leaving the bath house every day, while you are supposed to be sleeping," She tallied. "This in itself is forbidden…You run through town, to the human side of the field, and lay there all day." She flashed her eyes at him again. He still hadn't moved an inch, but she saw his anxiety continuing to flow through his body.
"So, when you don't find time to sleep, it affects your work. And may I remind you that you may not be my apprentice, but you are still under contract, to me."
Yubabas temper was beginning to flare. If there was one thing she couldn't stand besides humans, it was a lazy worker.
"You're losing me precious gold, and I'm not going to stand for it, Haku."
Haku remained motionless and expressionless. His anxiety still called out to Yubaba, asking her to use it to bring the rebellious Haku back under her control.
"And what for?" She hissed quietly. Haku suddenly noticed her change in demeanor. Looking straight at her now, he could see her wide mouth twisting into a grin. "Waiting for Sen, are we? Sacrificing work and profit for that little human brat who left six years ago?"
Haku felt his fists ball up at the word "brat". She was toying with his emotions now. He always knew the woman was a sadist.
"Oh, have I upset you?" Her voice had turned into a mocking coo. "Well, Haku, I don't know what else to say, but you should give up this false hope that Sen will come through the gateway and get back to making me money!"
"Her name is Chihiro." Haku heard the words escape his mouth in a low and angry growl, even surprising himself. He'd been so stone cold not so long ago. He could lock away those thoughts the made him act like this, made him jump so quickly to Yubabas command. He could lock his rebellious attitude away so easily. He'd done it for the last six years, on any rare occasion that she cared to summon him.
Yubaba stared back at him, surprised it had taken so little to break Haku of his calm attitude. It must have been his lack of sleep, she thought to herself.
"Admit it, Haku, even you have lost hope of her return." She told him gruffly. "You fear that she's forgotten all about you and this world."
"No." Haku denied. The only reason she'd called him there, he realized, was to taunt him about his lost love.
"Oh, yes." Yubaba assured him. "Right now, your doubts are swirling through your mind and your heart. You deny them, but they're trying to take over. You know Sen is not going to return."
"Her name is Chihiro!" His voice suddenly elevated with his anger and stress. He became angry with himself for snapping so easily. He knew showing Yubaba weakness was the one thing to never do in the bath house.
"How dare you speak to your boss like that!" Yubaba hissed, pointing a large finger and a sharp red nail in his direction. "You know she's not going to return and I can prove it!"
Haku stared at her, bewildered before it happened. His head was overwhelmed with pressure, coming rapidly over him like a raging headache. His thoughts had voices now, they were screaming at him, screeching at him. Yelling things that terrified him, things that he'd locked away and suppressed for the past six years. Yubaba had let them all out of the imaginary vault in his head, and they yelled and taunted him.
"She's forgotten about you!"
"She isn't coming back, ever!"
"You're wasting your time, sitting out in that field!"
"If she loved you she would have come back by now!"
Haku held his ears desperately as he sank to the floor of Yubaba's office. The pressure on his head tightened, as if he was trapped in a vice. His eyes were closed tight, but his vision was blurred with flashes of violent and dark colors, and flashes of memories of Chihiro running away and towards the gateway, away from him forever.
"She's forgotten!"
"She doesn't love you!"
"She doesn't love you!"
"No..NOOO!" Haku yelled back at them, holding his head. The pressure was unbearable, the shouts and jeers were getting louder in his mind.
His eyes were still tight shut, but he could tell that there was sweat dripping down both his face and his beautiful hair. His whole body was tense, recoiling from the pain that was now racing through his veins as if his blood was boiling inside them, making it feel as if he were burning alive.
His face was now barely touching the floor, as he continued screaming and seeing the visions of colors that had now started spinning around him, faster and faster, and he was still watching Chihiro grow smaller and smaller.
He had experienced Yubabas punishments before, but this was far worse than any punishment that she'd let on him. He used to be subject to punishments like this, Yubaba using her magic to physically torture him, but the mental and emotional torture that she was now subjecting him to was nowhere near the same. This was the first time he'd actually cried out in pain and denial. He denied his own thoughts that Yubaba had enlisted against him.
"STOP IT!" He screamed as the same voices became louder and chattered faster until they'd become just a loud and inane babble. The flashes of color became an indeterminable blur in his mind, and the vision of Chihiro was completely gone.
"JUST STOP!" He felt tears welling up in his eyes and falling to the tacky rug.
Suddenly the voices receeded, and the pressure lifted a little. The blurs of color became darkness, empty and pitch black darkness. His veins became more relieved, but his heart still raced, trying to keep up with the fatigue. The voices were gone now, probably returned to their vault and mentally locked away again.
Haku's whole body felt achy and hurt, as if he had just been thrown down every flight of stairs in the bath house and then kicked for good measure. He suddenly felt liquid seeping through his fists that had covered his ears. Bringing them down, he pitifully looked at his shaky palms to see small pools of blood in each, from his nails digging into his palms. Tears still spilled down his cheeks and blended with the little pools of crimson.
"You see, Haku, you're not as high and mighty as you seem to think you are." Yubaba accused the dragon, telling him that she was still in the room. "Sen isn't coming back and you know it. If I hear of you ever going to that field again, I'll really give you something to cry about, you understand me?"
Haku still knelt there, collapsed on his knees, staring at the blood on his hands. Those thoughts were his, they had been pushed away to the back of his mind, but they were still his thoughts. Did he really have that much doubt in Chihiro?
He looked down at his left forearm, at a group of blurred kanji. He knew it read "Nigihayami Kohaku Nushi," his true name. Chihiro had given him back that name, she had freed him from Yubaba. But here he was, in her office, getting mentally tortured because he chose to wait for her. She'd saved him so much already six years ago, when it was he who set out to save her and her parents. Was it too much to ask the gods to bring her back to him? Was he just being ungrateful for what she'd already done without a second thought? Was he just being selfish?
"Yes, foreman? Send up Rin. She needs to get her assistant out of here." Yubabas distant voice was talking to her skull phone.
"Oh, my, is everything alright?" The skull asked, unconcerned and most likely only trying to get more juicy tidbits for the next night's gossip.
"Yes, yes, everythings fine, the dragon just bit off a little more than he could chew…" Yubaba told him impatiently "Just send her up."
Haku sensed that the sun was rising behind the deep grey rain clouds outside as he sat on the floor, still staring and crying into his hands. Rain was gently falling on the window, and added to the throbbing in his head and the ringing in his ears. He felt Yubabas presence disappear, and figured that she must have disappeared into her residence. What did she care about Haku who was still bleeding on her rug?
"Hello?" Rin said, peeking into the seemingly empty room. "Haku?" She exclaimed, seeing the dragon on the ground.
Haku said nothing and didn't even look at her.
"What'd she do to you!" She inquired, kneeling in front of the boy and gripping his shoulders.
"It's nothing…Let's just get out of here…" He muttered, staggering to his feet. Rin convinced him to let her help him down to the boiler room, lifting his arm to go around her shoulders. Like that, they staggered together down the tacky hallways and down the lifts to the bottom level to Kamaji. She didn't think he should be around the others in the men's sleeping quarters.
The sootballs watched intently and curiously as Haku sat, leaned up against the herb drawers in the boiler room in a pile of blankets and pillows letting Rin bandage his injured hands. He had just told the story to her and Kamaji.
"And I still have a head ache…" He said, rubbing his temple with the heel of his already bandaged hand.
"You just get some rest, you can stay down here as long as you need to." Kamaji told the dragon as he settled into his own futon.
"I still can't believe that witch…" Rin growled while holding a bit of bandage tape in her teeth as she pulled the roll away from her. "How'd she know what you've been doing, anyway!" She tore the tape off the roll angrily and discarded the roll behind her.
Haku stared off into space in a trance as the sootballs gave a sad sigh and began to disappear into the little holes in the wall.
"Well, I have to go get some sleep of my own…" Rin said, rubbing the bandage tightly into place on his right hand. "Haku, seriously, take some time off, I'll cover for you. Just stay down here, and Yubaba won't be able to find you. She doesn't come down this far."
Haku nodded to her, not bothering to resist. He was suddenly more grateful than ever that she'd taken a liking to him.
She crawled over to the small sliding door and disappeared behind it. The only sounds now were Kamajis snores, the low hum of the sleeping boiler, and rain pelting the back door. Haku stared up at the ceiling wondering what he felt. He knew he loved her, but should he just give her up? Could he?
-Catgirl-of-Bavaria- : Ack, I know, a sad chapter, but still! This ain't a Disney story is it?
Please no flames > It gets better! Nyah!
Anyway, another update soon, I gotta go get my house clean for my b-day party next weekend! Whee!