Disclaimer: I do not own Spirited Away

Chapter Two: Catch Me if You Can

"So, what happened last night, Chihiro?"

The young woman looked up from filling the coffee maker with grounds to see Kokumei's intense, curious stare on her as the other girl took a pause in her own task of filling the little table holders with sugar, cream and the like. Chihiro had wished that someone else were working that morning with her rather than Kokumei. She didn't want to have to explain herself. But, anticipating Mei's inquiring nature last night, she had come up with an explanation she hoped the other girl would be satisfied with.

"Oh, I'm so sorry for making you worry so much, Mei," Chihiro started to say, looking sheepish. This was at least genuine. "That guy was an old friend of mine, back before I moved here," she lied, and Kokumei still gave her her full attention. "I lost contact with him and haven't heard from him in twelve years. So I kinda panicked when I saw him. I don't think he recognized me." Kokumei made a face of agreement, so far buying the story.

"Ah, yea, he looked a little icy. Hot as hell, but icy." Chihiro nodded, concurring with her friend, unable to help a little smile pulling at her lips. "Did you catch up to him?" Chihiro's instant change in body language and expression answered that before she spoke.

"No, I lost him in the crowds," she told with a sigh, thinking back to last night, standing in the midst of the open field and feeling hurt and disappointed and ten years old all over again. Kokumei made a little frown of sympathy for her friend.

"Well, if he's here in town, I'm sure he'll show up again. Too bad he didn't recognize you." Chihiro shrugged a bit.

"It's been twelve years, I'm not too surprised. I've changed a lot I guess." Kokumei returned to cramming sugar packets into the holder.

"That is a long time. You should see photos of me when I was ten! I look totally different!" The girls laughed, and Chihiro was glad that Kokumei took to her lie so easily. She felt a little guilty at lying to her friend, but the truth would be so much more difficult for Mei to believe than the lie she gave. "Did you have a crush on him back then?" Mei inquired further, and Chihiro grinned a little. "Ahhhh! You totally did, didn't you! No wonder you ran off after him! Chihiro is in love!" she finished in a little sing-song voice, and Chihiro rolled her eyes and chuckled.

"Ugh, just stop, Mei," she laughed, feigning exasperation and throwing a packet of coffee grounds at the girl. Mei tried to bat it away but missed and the thing got her in the gut.

"Hey, I don't blame you! He's fine as hell," she quipped with a mischievous grin, reaching down to pick up the bag and throw it back at Chihiro, who managed to catch it. She didn't retaliate, and returned the pouch to its rightful place. "He can come back here anytime and talk to you, I won't mind."

"I'm sure you wouldn't," Chihiro laughed as she started the coffee maker with the push of a button.

"So what's his name?" Mei asked, reaching for another container and more sugar and cream packets. Chihiro hesitated just a little, contemplating on if she wanted to tell her the dragon-boy's real name or not. Figuring it wouldn't really hurt, she told her.

"Haku," she answered, not using his full name. Haku was a fairly common name these days, anyway. Nigihayami Kohakunushi would be a little much Chihiro decided. Mei inclined her head.

"Short and sweet," the girl responded as she tried to shove one more packet of sugar into her already brimming container. "How'd you guys fall out of touch? Did you have his number or an address?" Chihiro shook her head no.

"No, I didn't," Chihiro said with a laugh, and Mei gave her a look of incredulousness. "What? I was ten. We barely hung out outside of school. We had a lot of classes together and always sat near one another, so that's how we met."

"Plus you had a crush on him?" Mei added with a grin. Chihiro rolled her eyes again.

"Okay, yes, I did." Mei grinned even wider.

"Haha, yes! I knew it!" Chihiro just rolled her eyes again. "You'll see him again," Kokumei announced a moment after, still busy with her task. Chihiro shot her a glance, raising a brow just a little. She sounded quite sure of herself, and Chihiro was tempted to comment on the girl's premonition, but didn't.

"I'm sure I will," she agreed, instead, tidying up the counter top she stood behind. The young woman sounded as convincing as her friend, but in her heart she wasn't as certain. She still couldn't really decide on if his coming here to the human world was a good or a bad thing. And the fact that he had looked at her yesterday like she were a complete stranger did not bode well on her mind. True twelve years had passed and she looked different, but he was a spirit. She was certain he'd have known it was her. He knew her at ten years old years after the incident in his river when she was much younger without difficulty. The vision of his stoic stare holding her own sent a little shiver down her spine. His child-like form held the cold expression with ease and made most people uneasy. As an adult, it was even more frigid. If she had not known him Chihiro would think him to be a very nasty, mean fellow. It clashed with her last memories of him before she returned to the human world. He had been so kind and gentle. Now he appeared anything but.

What happened to him, Chihiro wondered again? What had happened these last twelve years in the spirit world? What had caused her friend to come to the human world, cross her path, and then just as suddenly vanish?

Chihiro had no answers, and she focused on her work before her head exploded with questions.

The rest of her day at work saw no signs of Haku through the windows. As often as she could she would glance through the panes outside to see if he might pass by, but with no luck on her part. Sunday was just as much a disappointment. It would be a lie to say her hopes weren't high in seeing him again. After her morning shift on Sunday, she even mustered up the courage to go back to the open, rolling fields through the faux train station entrance below her parents' home, to see if maybe, just maybe, he'd be there. He wasn't. Chihiro spent the afternoon at the top of the grassy knoll that lead down to the riverbed below. She could hear the trickle of water against the sound of the wind playing through the tall blades of green as she studied, her books strewn about her on the blanket she had brought. Beyond the river there was again no stairs, no nothing save for grass, and grass, and more grass, with the occasional pile of small boulders here and there and there was certainly no signs of the dragon-boy. Still she remained until the sun started to lower in the sky and dusk was upon her, but the water in the riverbed remained the same level, and she was alone in the vast, emerald sea.

Another week of university started Monday morning, and even though it wasn't raining, her thoughts were on Haku most of the day. It took all of her will to remain focused during her lectures and labs. Being that she was mostly a loner in these classes of her, no one paid much attention to her own lack of attention, save for her lab partners who sometimes had to stir the young woman from her thoughts. The rest of the week passed in a similar fashion. She was still intrigued at the events of that Friday night, but found it easier to focus during school come that next Monday. Her weekend shifts at Ueda's saw no sign of Haku as it had the week before. Chihiro was starting to think that the young man she had seen had simply bore a striking, uncanny resemblance to the dragon-boy, and nothing more, and she was feeling more and more stupid at herself. She stopped picnicking in the fields after her fourth time studying there gave no hints of the spirit world, and she started to lose all hopes again in ever seeing her friends.

That hope was once more suddenly reignited not too long after.

It was a Wednesday, the third one after that fateful Friday night. Chihiro had a short day at university – just one lecture for a molecular biology class – and she was headed home for the day. She was walking along the more or less busy streets when she saw him again. He was sitting on a bench across the street and facing her while she was waiting at a cross-walk for the signal to turn for the pedestrians, but his attention was preoccupied with something else; what she had no idea. Her grey eyes were wide as she watched him, and she had no doubts that this was the same young man she had seen almost three weeks ago. His face looked more softened than it had before as he studied whatever it was he was looking upon. Chihiro didn't fail to notice how at ease he looked with all the people bustling past him. This surely wasn't just his second time here. She remembered her first time in the spirit world and how frightened she had been when the buildings around her sprung to life with their lights and the hazy apparitions of spirits begun to form around her. No, he looked quite comfortable with himself, just curious, like he was simply a tourist from another part of the country. Where before she had only the chance to study his face, now she was able to tear her eyes away for a moment to realize that he was dressed in human clothes and nothing similar to the white and blue outfit he had sported twelve years prior. Aside from his oddly colored hair and striking eyes, he blended right in. He almost looked like a typical, trite teenager, pondering on schemes and troubles for the day. If only the people breezing past him knew just what he was.

Chihiro didn't realize that the beeping of the cross-walk was playing above her and that those who were also accompanying her on the sidewalk were departing across the intersection – towards him – while she remained frozen. He must have been distracted by the announcing melody for his head turned towards the intersection, softened expression of intrigue now replaced by a look of annoyance at the sound, cold and icy façade now fully back in place. Chihiro held her breath, still glued to her spot as she watched him, waiting for him to notice her. He didn't disappoint. At first he simply watched her the way a person watches someone they happen to meet eyes with, and Chihiro's heart sunk. But before he looked away, she could tell he must have remembered her from the other night through the café window, for he did not look away, and his lax posture as he lounged on the bench stiffened enough to reveal his own surprise. Still, Chihiro had to regretfully admit, it looked like he did not recognize her as someone he actually knew. Someone he had helped on many occasions. She wanted to scream, but found she had no voice. She wanted to go over there and confront him and ask him what game he was playing at. Ask him why he was pretending to look at her like someone whom he had never known.

For a good many seconds the two continued to stare at one another, the young man with a look of curiosity and yet, also a defensiveness she couldn't place, and Chihiro wide-eyed and hopeful and hurt. Perhaps the look of longing despair she gave him unsettled the man and that's why he regarded her with such caution. Perhaps he wasn't supposed to be here and he was breaking a rule from his world, and that she recognized him put him in grave danger. Perhaps he really had forgotten about her. That thought hurt the most and she screamed at herself that it wasn't true. A bus that seemed to come out of nowhere suddenly pulled up to block him from her view, and Chihiro sucked in a sharp breath. By the time the bus had moved along – which was just a second or two – he was gone from the bench and she could not see him in the crowds. Her limbs finally seemed to respond to her command once more and Chihiro took a few steps this way and that, attempting to locate him, but to no avail. Immediately she headed home and to the bridge between their worlds.

Once again Chihiro found nothing beyond the river bed but rolling green hills, but this time she felt more frustrated than foolish. She knew that was him. After seeing him a second time she had little doubt. Where before it was a question of her own sanity, now it was a different question altogether:

"Haku… why are you avoiding me?"

"Have you seen your friend yet?"

Chihiro was wiping down the booths at the café when Kokumei made the inquiry, but she didn't bother pausing from her task.

"No, I haven't," Chihiro lied to her friend despite having seen him two days ago. Though she could not see it, she knew her friend was probably frowning in disappointment. Each time she asked and Chihiro answered 'no', the younger girl become less and less excited with the next time she asked. At first she asked her every time she saw Chihiro, even text her at the end of the day when she had asked already in the morning or afternoon if they passed each other at Uni, but lately she would often skips days.

"Ah," was her initial reaction, not sounding surprised. "That's a shame." Chihiro had to agree.

"Yeah," she started to respond, finishing her booth to move onto another. "It's alright, though. I'm sure he'll show up again eventually." Chihiro tried to sound optimistic to keep her friend's thoughts at ease. Mei would shake her head and agree for her friend's sake, but lately left it at that. There were times she had wanted desperately to divulge the events of her trip to the spirit world to Kokumei, and not just since seeing Haku again. She wanted someone to talk to about her frustrations and her questions, not just herself. But for the same reason she didn't tell her parents she never told her friend.

If she had told Mei that she had seen Haku Wednesday afternoon and told her that he looked at her the same way he had when she first saw him that Friday night, she was afraid that Mei would say yet again that he probably didn't recognize her and potentially had forgotten about her. Chihiro didn't want to hear those words, thus, why she lied to Mei. Sometimes she appreciated Mei's sugar-free words even if the biting truth she offered was stinging and painful, because it was better to rip a bandaid off quickly and not slowly. This was not one of those instances. Her bandage was going to be a slow, agonizing ordeal to remove, Chihiro knew, and currently she was able to endure that pain with gritted teeth and denial.

She couldn't believe that he had forgotten. She wouldn't. That was a pain too much to bear.

She saw him again a week later. It was a late, Saturday afternoon after her work shift. Chihiro was tired; the afternoon saw a stream of customers that morning and she had made a good amount of tips. In her mind she counted over the money again and considered treating herself to a bit of shopping. It was almost the end of April and the summer fashions were on display. There were some particular outfits she had seen window shopping with Mei that she eyed lustfully a few days ago when they went to the mall after their classes were out to have lunch. The trip also allowed Mei to glare deviously at passing young men, and much to Chihiro's chagrin sometime boys would come over to talk, even to Chihiro, when she had no desire to speak to any boys.

Any boy other than Haku, a little voice said which had made her purse her lips.

Chihiro was about fifteen minutes from her parents' house with money still on her mind. She was cutting through a park, a future trip to the mall running pleasantly through her thoughts, when she noted someone out of the corner of her eye. There were only a few people she could see at the park – a family sitting in the grass beneath a tree as their toddler ran around them, two old men sitting at a little table playing shōgi, a woman jogging along the pathways that snaked through the park, and then the other person who caught her interest. He was looking her way, she realized, and when she slowed down enough to meet his gaze, her breath caught and she came to a complete halt.

"Haku," his name fell off of her lips in a whisper. She could not know if he heard it against the rustling of the wind through the trees around them and the sound of the beautification he occupied. If he had he gave no signs of it. The spirit was seated at a fountain, water gurgling languid and happy behind him out of the mouths of sculpted koi. Of course he was seated there, astride the water and his affinity. The path she walked lead past him and the fountain that was on the other side of a short hedge of Hawthorne. She did not stop directly across from him, but close enough. If she had to guess only about ten to fifteen yards separated them. He was slightly slouched with his arms, clad in the sleeves of a dark, charcoal jacket, across the tops of his thighs, those encased in a pair of light-washed jeans. The late noon sunlight made his dark green hair and lighter eyes shine brightly, and he looked very much the spirit she remembered him to be despite his human garb and different haircut. She herself was dressed in her work uniform still: black pants and a white button up with a black tie and short, black apron servers would wear about her hips. One of the pockets still bore a few straws. The tail of her tied up hair rustled alongside the leaves as the wind continued to blow through, and though it was a little chilly out she felt on fire in his gaze even if it were as cold as the arctic. The grip of her hands as it clutched the strap of her messenger bag across her shoulder was viselike, her knuckles white from the exertion. All hints of her fatigue from work were washed away.

Chihiro had thought about what she would say to him when she finally saw him again; had rehearsed the lines in her head many times over. None of them came to her now. She felt as if she were bound by a spell, and wondered briefly if perhaps he had placed her in one. He regarded her with that same expression he had given her that Wednesday afternoon after school – guarded interest. Like she were some foreign creature that was mythical and dangerous and while you knew it was better to run and hide and fear for your life, it was all you could do but sit and stare and babble because your world was tipped upside down as you came to grips with this distortion in your reality. But he said nothing, his mouth never changing from that frown of his. He was obviously waiting on her to move first. She wondered idly how long he'd wait and sit there if she too decided to simply stand and gawk at him. Probably not too long, she had to admit. Trying to find her courage and her voice, she swallowed hard.

"Ha-" but she stumbled on his name she had wanted to speak again, and that small, awkward syllable must have broken whatever spell he himself had been under, for he straightened where he sat and his expression became even more cautious. The young woman moved herself just slightly, advancing a small step closer to the hedge, and his expression changed to one that Chihiro knew the exact meaning of: do not come closer. It was like a knife was plunged into her gut and twisted at the venomous look he wore. She had seen him wear it before when he found her in the spirit world the second time, disappearing and cowering behind a building, when Yubaba's bird had been circling the skies above, looking for the intrusive human girl who wandered into their realm. That it was now directed at her made the young woman shiver and gasp for a breath of air. Before she could say or do anything else he rose swiftly to his feet and the woman froze again, unsure of what to expect. She was both relieved and yet disappointed when he tore his eyes from hers and begun to walk away in long, hasty strides.

"Wait!" she called out behind him as he went and she too started to follow. As her own pace increased his too quickened, until he was running swiftly through the park with Chihiro on his tail. Veering off of the path, he headed between a small gathering of trees and she followed, watching as his image came and went from view. When she emerged from the little gathering, he was nowhere to be found, but she realized that the direction of his path would eventually lead to the old amusement park below her home. Where before she had been hasty in reaching the bridge between worlds, now she was sprinting as fast as her legs and heart and lungs would allow her. She didn't see him anywhere, but blindly she ran after him once more to the place she had to assume he would go to. Her bag bounced aggressively off of her legs as she ran, breaths heaving and her heart racing like a hummingbird's. The scenery around her was a blur and she paid anyone she passed no heed at all as she sped down the streets. She had to slow her pace when she same upon the stone set pathway leading to the entrance so she wouldn't fall and sprain her ankle. The little house like shrines littered beneath the trees met her, as did the two statues along the way, still eerie and moss covered. Without pausing she passed into the faux train station.

She thought she felt the presence of something tickle against her senses. It made her falter just a moment but then she regained her speed. The light of the sun passed through the little window with its four different panes of colored glass, bright and happy and inviting. In the distance the end of the tunnel was a patch of brightness where the sun shone down on it. The sound of the city was drowned out by the silence the building offered, though she couldn't hear the distant hum of a train going and her chest felt much tighter.

It's there! She yelled to herself as she ran. He's there! He had to be there.

Like a runner of a race coming close to the home stretch Chihiro willed herself onward. Bursting out of the exit the green sea of grass welcomed her again. Looking around she saw nothing, no signs of Haku or anyone else in the fields. Continuing to run she almost tripped and fell a few times, but urged herself onward, up the hill. Her heart felt like it was in her throat. Her mouth was wide open, gaping like a fish for air as she ignored her burning legs and fought against gravity to the crest of the hill.

And there was nothing once more beyond.

Chihiro audibly growled out her frustrations as she looked across the little valley of the riverbed cutting through the rolling fields to more fields again. She cursed as she sucked in more deep, ragged breaths, clutching at her side and a stitch that had formed there. Like the first time she came here when she saw him finally, tears started to fill her eyes without her knowing, as her anger swelled within her. Sinking to her knees she gripped the grass around her as if it were the only thing that could keep her anchored at the moment. She feared her pain and loss and anger would carry her away into insanity. As she cried in her frustration, she started to laugh, the sound not pleasant, and she was glad she was alone so no one would hear it. Letting her head fall forward, she then fell onto her hands. The dampness of the earth below the grass seeped into her pants as her knees bore into the ground, and her hands were also cooled from the touch while her heart and emotions were ablaze in stark contrast. She cursed once more.

"That son of a…" her words trailed off as she ground her teeth, making her jaw hurt in the process. She felt like screaming until her voice gave out. Felt like throwing the rocks down the hill and across the riverbed to shatter whatever illusion it was that kept her from the spirit world. And she wanted to strangle Haku with her own, bare hands.

"Why?!" she growled out aloud, eyes and nose stinging. "Why is he doing this to me?" she muttered out. Lifting her head, she looked out over the continuing landscape again and still saw nothing but grass and field. Reaching up with one hand, she clenched at her chest, hand gripping into her shirt. She didn't care that the damp green glass left a stain on her flesh which was now dirtying the pale cotton of her blouse. "Damn him. Damn him! I hate him! God, I hate him!"

It's not attractive, you know? Lying to yourself, she heard Mei's voice say in her mind. At the thought Chihiro laughed bitterly and sat back on her legs, looking up into the sky. Did she hate Haku? Right in that moment, maybe, but no, she didn't hate him. How could she? He wasn't even a human, like herself. He was bound to different rules and regulations; bound to a different realm. Who was she to expect him, a spirit, to cater to her whims? Who was she that he would possibly risk his own existence in speaking to her?

But he's my friend, she answered those thoughts weakly. And that's why she couldn't really hate him, even if she wanted to deck him across the head right now. Wanted to search for him and not stop until she found him, until she discovered the truth behind all of this madness. Damn the consequences, she thought. She'd been to the spirit world once and survived. She could do it again.

She laughed again at herself.

"Listen to yourself, Chihiro… you are so naïve." The girl sniffed and brought her arm up to wipe the tears from her face into her sleeve. "You'd never find him that way." It was still a satisfying thought to hunt the spirit down, regardless of whether it could actually happen or not. Pushing aside such whimsical ideas, the girl rose to her feet and sighed heavily.

"Still… why does he keep running away?" she asked herself again, unable to fathom the answer to the question. "Why are you deliberately avoiding me, Haku?"

She was beginning to think that she'd never find out, and wished, not for the first time, that twelve years ago her father never took that short-cut down the stone set road to the spirit world beyond.

"Just who are you?"

The words, dripping with intrigue, whispered out of his mouth with a hint of annoyance. There were a lot of things he did not know anymore, he hated to admit. Things about his life that were essential – even his own name. He couldn't recall where he had come from, who he was, what he was and how he ended up with this severe case of memory loss. All he knew was that he wasn't human. Of that he was certain. Of the few things he knew about himself, he did understand that he was a spirit, from the spirit world, and had found a way to cross over into the world of the living. Just what kind of spirit was yet another mystery. This young human woman following him about was just as much as a mystery to him as was everything else. Why was she trailing him? How did she come to find the entrance of the spirit realm so easily, even if she did not manage to pass through? It was as if she knew; knew exactly where to find it and not that she was simply following him.

"Do not interfere with the lives of humans if you know what's good for you, Maigo. Bad things will come of it."

The quavering words of the old man he happened upon back in his own world repeated in his mind not for the first time that day. He had been quite adamant, the lost spirit remembered. He didn't know if the old spirit had given him the warning out of prejudice or if there was actual merit to his threat. The lost spirit knew it wasn't the wisest of choices, meddling in the lives of the living. He did not interact much with any human, really, when he indulged his whims and meandered through the bustling cities of the mortal realm. Part of him was truly fearful and took heed to the warning. Just enough to make him quiet around the humans and avoid outright interacting with them but not enough to keep him from coming back time and again when he discovered a bridge between their worlds. If he did interact, it was minimal and he never divulged pertinent information to the unsuspecting humans. Not that he had much to divulge, he mused bitterly.

"And what if I do? What if something happens that I cannot help?"

"You say that as if you've already done something."

"If that were true, I do not remember."

"Just heed my words, Maigo, and you will spare yourself much trouble."

While that small part of him that trusted in the old spirit's warning bid him to leave the girl be, the other, vaster part of him wanted to speak with her. Though it was probably a fantastic whim to believe, there was a chance that this girl knew him. How, he could not say. His time searching for answers came up futile. It was just intuition. Whenever she looked upon him it was expectant, like she was waiting on him to raise his arm over his head and wave to her in greeting. Like they were chums, and had seen each other more times to count since they were just babes. Why else would she follow him so feverishly, like her very being depended on it? Why else would she freeze when he looked upon her and she him, like time itself had stopped and the entire world only involved the two of them? He some long-lost lover or some such thing.

It couldn't be a coincidence and he pondered on these things as he watched the girl from the top of the seemingly old, faux train station entrance, as she finally got to her feet off in the distance and trudged her way back towards him. Before when she tried to follow him, he would run off completely and did not stop, so he had no idea that she had come here. But, by her easy finding of the place, he had to assume that she had come here often; far more often than he could fathom. He knew it because now he could place the lingering scent and aura of a human in the grass to this girl. She was indeed an interesting mortal. Hidden from view, he waited as she passed through the tunnel. Once emerging from the other end, the lost spirit followed the girl with his eyes until he could no longer see her, and then jumped down from his perch to follow from a safe distance on foot. Eventually she climbed a hill and later came before a blue house, entering the thing. It was obviously her home. He could still feel the bridge from the spirit world to the mortal world not far off. Easily trekking through the yard of the neighboring home using a slim amount of power he still knew how to control to mask his person from sight, he discovered that below the track of homes, down a steep hillside, was the path that lead to the rolling green fields.

Well I'll be damned. She's right above it, the lost spirit mused to himself as he peered up from her neighbor's backyard and to the blue house to his left. Trees behind their home offered him a view into the windows, and he eventually spotted the girl in what he assumed to be her bedroom from the branches and foliage after climbing up into the tree.

"Just who are you?" he asked himself again. Perhaps the next time she managed to cross his path he'd end their game of hide-and-go-seek and see for himself just what made this human girl so fascinating, consequences be damned.

"Sorry, Roujin," he couldn't help but say with a little grin, referring to the old spirit, as he leapt down from the tree and wandered away from the girl's home, "but I'm going to have to ignore your warning again…"

Author's Notes: Yay, another chapter!

I hope you guys enjoyed it, and enjoy the way this story is going so far. I hope these meetings between Haku and Chihiro are not redundant. At least at the end there it explains (and probably confirms) just why he's been running away from her! Find out more with the next chapter what happened to poor Haku!

Maigo means a 'lost/stray child' and Roujin 'old man' (I hope ^u^; lol)