Haha, aren't I lazy? Yes I am well aware of the fact that gasp it's taken me just over fourth months to update. I haven't really got any excuses for it except to say that the times just passed way too quickly and I lost track of it between everything and I'm really really sorry to those people who want to kill me. I'll try to keep the updates more regular from now on. Anyway here's the chapter.
Dedicated once again to my onee-chan. Midnight Insanity and to my readers.
Now I was once a fool, it's true
I played the game by all the rules
But now my world's a deeper blue
I'm sadder, but I'm wiser too
I swore I'd never love again
I swore my heart would never mend
Said love wasn't worth the pain
But then I hear it call my name
Kelly Clarkson – The Trouble With Love
The Trouble With Love Is
Chapter Two – Dreams and Reality
I didn't need to explain to my sister how much of a sacrifice I'd made for them. She knew.
When she'd been younger I'd told her stories of the spirit world, the bath house and the boy who had never kept his promise. She thought they were just that, stories.
When I'd told her that I wouldn't be coming back with her she'd screamed and raged and finally sullenly given into tears when she for the first time in her life couldn't get her own way.
I wish I could have given it to her. The last thing I wanted to do was to stay here, with him. Where the memories were always fresh to resurface.
Still nothing could be done now a contract had been made and signed. It couldn't be broken now.
Much to my disappointment I wasn't placed in the same position as last time, Yubaba instead contracted me to working with her son, teaching him things like reading and how to count. I was hardly qualified for such a position but I did the best I could under the circumstances.
The position should have guaranteed me turning around every corner to find Haku however it didn't. I didn't know where he was, what he was doing and I honestly didn't want too.
Her son I learnt was called Daichi, a name I hadn't found out last time I saw him. And while Daichi did enjoy being a spoilt brat at times he was quite willing to learn and remembered me from the past.
I enjoyed working with him although it was hardly less strenuous than my last occupation here. I found myself missing my sister during this time, knowing that it would be our last together for quite sometime.
The sound of something dropping to the ground in the other room startled me enough to draw my attention away from the book I was 'reading' to Daichi. I use the term reading loosely as Daichi had fallen asleep almost half an hour before now. I had kept reading for my own sake, it seemed to be the only thing that could keep the memories at bay lately.
Standing I let the book rest gently against the chair I'd been sitting on and ventured carefully into the other room.
It was empty as far as I could tell and I let myself release the breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding.
Turning around I saw glistening eyes staring at me from the shadows. I did the first logical thing that entered my mind. I screamed.
"Enough!" a dark male voice commanded harshly.
The sound of his voice alone made me wish to scream even louder and run as fast as I could in the opposite direction. Instead I pulled myself together and faced the person I'd been trying to forget for the past week.
"What are you doing here?" he demanded in a tone that said if he didn't like my answer there would be hell to pay.
Instead of being afraid of this I found myself getting annoyed at the way he assumed he could just order me around like that. It didn't matter that it was true, just that I didn't like it and so I found myself huffing pettily. "None of your business."
He inched closer, the amount even though only fractionally still managed to send shivers down my spine and cause me to step back impulsively.
"You see now this is a problem because it IS my business." He replied, inching forward even further.
I found myself taking an even larger step back wondering distantly what exactly would happen when I ran out of room. Coming back against a wall seemed so clichéd in my opinion. Nevertheless I feared it happening.
"Everything that goes on in this place is my business." He responded, pushing me even further back as he moved forward.
A high pitched squeal entered the air as I stepped back onto nothing. Damn, I'd forgotten Yubaba's little trap hole.
However instead of plunging to my death a firm hand caught my arm in a deadlock grip pulling me back up with ease.
"Ow!" I complained noisily, wondering briefly which one was better, plunging to my death through multitudes of fans, spikes and the other strange things that Yubaba had put in her trap hole, or having to be touched by him.
Damn it was close too.
When I had finally been pulled up out of the hole instead of depositing me on the ground and letting me go he continued to keep my arm in an iron grip, moving me away from the hole.
"What's your name?"
I shook my head. I was still slightly shaken up but not enough to forget who it was.
"Sen!"
Fantastic, Daichi really had perfect timing I realised with a mixture of annoyance and relief.
Weighing the odds as he put me down I decided the giving of my name was a lesser evil in the whole picture. After all, I'm sure there were many other things he would have liked to say to me.
"Coming." I replied sending him a smug smile and expecting him to leave as I left the room, going into Daichi's room. I hadn't expected to turn around to shut the door only to find him right behind me.
Daichi smiled proudly at Haku, "Sen's been teaching me to read so you can't write anymore things to mama expecting me to not know what it means."
Haku treated the boy to a rare indulgent smile, leaning back against the wall, "And what else has Sen been teaching you."
Daichi grinned, "Lots of things. But I won't tell you so you don't know what I know."
Haku chuckled softly, coming over and ruffling the large boys hair.
"Sen's been telling me about the human world and what she's been doing since we saw her last."
An expression of confusion crossed Haku's face but it was wiped away so quickly that I wasn't sure that I'd seen it to begin with.
"Haku! Where are you?" Yubaba's coldly autocratic tone rang out.
He seemed to sigh before exiting the room without a backward glance.
Shivering slightly I turned back to Daichi and began reading to him again, ignoring all of his questions for tonight.
I I I
I sat against the riverbank watching as the ferry drifted across the river, full of sparkling lights denoting the presence of the spirits aboard.
This was the first place I met Haku.
Ironically after almost a week of servitude this was the place I felt most at home.
Every night since I'd been back here, after Yubaba had come and told me I was able to leave I'd snuck out. No matter where in my mind I pictured I would go I always ended back here.
Yubaba wasn't ignorant. She knew exactly what I did after I left. Whether or not she cared was a different matter entirely.
I suppose she figured the contract was so iron-glad that even a god himself couldn't break me free from it.
There were gods here, river gods. I'd met one the last time I'd tumbled down the rabbit hole.
I'd also heard rumours that Haku trained beneath one of them, that he was not only loyal to Yubaba now.
I did the only thing I could due to the circumstances. I ignored them.
I'd actually become quite good at it too.
Sighing I opened the letter once again and pondered the words I'd placed in it.
Telling your parents that you wouldn't be coming back because you'd be living in a spirit world so that your sister and her friends could return wasn't exactly the easiest of topics to write about.
What I really hated was the fact that they'd never believe it.
Still there was nothing more that I could do, and I wanted my parents to have something from me before I left forever.
"What are you doing here?"
I whirled around wide-eyed as Haku sat beside me. Getting ready to bolt I found that I was unable to move.
"None of that." He chided eyes focused on the river before them still, watching the gentle ripples of water as the boat moved through it.
I scowled, so what he was omnipotent now? I shuddered then as the answer came to me.
He could very possibly BE omnipotent. After all, how much did I really know about him now, we'd both changed. I wasn't the naïve little girl who trusted anyone anymore and he wasn't the sweet caring boy who'd known me by presence alone.
"You know Daichi was the third person today to talk about you as if I should or did know you. Why is it then that I have no recollection?"
His voice was deceptively indifferent
In an act of pure spitefulness that he could actually be asking me that question I refused to answer. Instead turning my mind to the arduous task of ignoring his presence altogether.
He opened his mouth to speak before changing his mind. Turning his dark eyes to the bank instead, looking at it narrowly.
Standing he left without saying so much as a word to me, transforming into his dragon form.
Funny, as much as I had been wishing for him to leave, the fact that he had hurt my pride somewhat.
I closed my eyes and leant back, reminding myself of the various reasons why I couldn't allow myself to trust him for even a second. To become familiar with him again.
The tattered pieces of my conscience urged me to go and explain it all to him. To lay everything out on the line and tell him everything, remind him of everything.
The realistic side of my nature objected to this measure, telling me that to do so would simply open myself up to be hurt. And the spiteful side of my nature told me that he was the one who had gone and forgotten everything about me so why should I place any care on his feelings or measures.
The spiteful side won.
It had been winning since I finally accepted the harsh realities of life and would keep on winning until something happened to change their opinion.
Opening my eyes once again I looked up at the shining white beam of the moon before turning my gaze to the crystalline depths of the river. This place was so like my own world yet so unlike it at the same time. Nothing seemed to happen in the same way and yet every surrounding was as if it were a mirror image of the real world.
Spirit world.
Yet I was human. Alive and well, living in a world set aside completely for the spirits.
Odd isn't it.
Standing as the boat docked I walked slowly back up the road I'd come from, returning to the bath-house, to my new existence. And the whole way those fathomless dark eyes watched me.
I I I I I
