The jade green eyes were staring at me and a soft voice was whispering my name.

"Chihiro."

I kept staring at the green eyes. They held so much love and for some reason, that filled me up with warmth.

"Chihiro."

The disembodied voice called out to me again and this time it sounded closer.

"Hiro."

I sat bolt right up and smashed my forehead into something hard. I cradled my forehead in my hands and when the pain started to subside, I looked up. Haku had been knocked backwards onto the floor and I rushed to help him up just as he was starting to stand up and we knocked heads again, but this time I landed on top of Haku. We rubbed our sore foreheads and I apologized again and again. Haku murmured something about not getting so close the next time he went to wake me up. I looked at those brilliant jade green eyes and that feeling of warmth from my dream resonated in me, smaller but still noticeable. My face flushed with how close we were to each other and I stumbled to get up and off of him. I mumbled apologizes again and then helped Haku onto his feet.

"When we are out on the floor, you will refer to me as 'Master Haku' and you will not speak to me unless spoken to." He said sternly.

"Yes sir. Does this mean I'm going to stay with the other girls from now on?" I asked, my face still a little flushed from embarrassment.

"No. You can stay with me until you figure out what you would like to do." Haku said, his expression softening slightly.

Haku was a strange man. So cold and steely one moment and then warm and fuzzy the next. I knew that it was probably because of how similar I looked to my grandmother. He had to be confused and upset and for once in my life, I resented the fact that I looked like her. I turned from Haku and braided my hair, tying the end of it with a sparkling purple hair tie that I had gotten from my grandmother. Turning, I found Haku staring at the end of the braid, but if he recognized the hair tie, he didn't say anything.

"You will be starting with the regular chores of making sure the floors are clean before being assigned a tub to clean and then to attend customers in." Haku said, snapping out of his thoughts.

"Will you be going on a mission soon?" I asked, remembering how he had been away on missions frequently from what my grandmother said.

"I do have a mission, but it should only take most of the night. I'll be back by the time we're closing up tonight." He replied, stunned at my question.

"Okay. Be safe."

Haku nodded and then lead me out of the apartment, probably even more stunned with my last reply. He led me down to where a few girls were tying the bottom of their pants tight and starting to ring out some cloths to wash the floor with. The wide wooden planks that had been shiny the day before had begun to lose their luster. Haku didn't say anything before he left, just leaving me to figure things out and I actually felt grateful for his absence. He needed time to think and get his emotions together and so did I. So much had happened in the last 24 hours and it was a lot to take in. Stumbling upon the Spirit World had been a real shock to me and I was still getting used to the idea of things.

I grabbed a cloth and soaked it in some water before ringing it out slightly and getting ready to clean the floors with the other 5 girls that were in the room with me. We all lined up with the cloths on the ground in front of us and bent down, using our weight to push the cloth along the ground to clean it. I wasn't as fast as the other girls, but I wasn't painfully slow either. It took about twenty minutes to completely clean the floor. As I was ringing out the cloth for a final time, a toad spirit entered the room with a clipboard. He began to read off names and their assignment for the day.

"Hiro, you get the big tub today." He said, and turned before I could reply.

Surely I wouldn't be cleaning the tub alone, I thought. Hesitantly, I stood and left the now sparkling clean wooden floor as I started towards the first floor that contained the baths. The ground floor of the Bathhouse was made up entirely of private baths and in some reserved spaces, a large hot spring was available with its own small waterfall and all. The second floor was made up of traditional tatami matted dining rooms for the guests to enjoy dinner in after their relaxing bath and some of the servant quarters could be found on this floor as well. Below the ground floor was the boiler room and the kitchens. The third floor was mostly servant quarters and some storage areas. The top floor was entirely reserved for Yubaba.

I still only had a vague idea of where I was heading, but I managed to find myself among the private baths. Walking all the way down the hall and into the room on the left, I found myself at the big tub and breathed a sigh of relief until I saw who was standing in the room with a broom already in her hand. It was the girl from the bridge last night, the one who had looked so elated to see me. She freezes when she sees me and I sucked in my breath and hold it. There are several emotions that run across her face, but she quickly composes herself before holding out a broom for me. I take it quickly, still standing awkwardly near the entryway to the bath.

"I hope you're not as clumsy as your grandmother." The young woman says.

It's the first thing she's said to me since arriving yesterday besides shouting my name and it takes me a moment to compose myself. I clear my throat and open my mouth. When nothing comes out, I clear my throat again and look away.

"I was never gifted with her good graces." I say, trying to break the tension between us.

I think I see her mouth twitch, indicating that there would have been a smile, but then nothing happens. My chest is tight with anxiety and I'm not sure why it is I am so anxious. I don't understand why I want these spirits approval, but some part of me craves it. I turn away from the woman and start sweeping up the long blades of grass that are completely coating the room. The private baths are beautiful and even though there is a large entryway and no ceiling, it still gives the feeling of being private. The sides of the room that are not against the wall are like the tatami style, but are more sturdy. They're probably made from a hardier substance that can handle all the steam is that constantly bombarding it. The true wall of the room is made up of wooden panels that are decorated with what is probably a cherry blossom tree with petals floating around it.

The room would have been even more beautiful if it weren't so filthy, but it seemed like it hadn't been cleaned in a long time. The young woman still hasn't told me her name, but I have the feeling that she doesn't want to talk. It doesn't seem like either of us is used to the fact that I am there and working in the Bathhouse just like my grandmother had done. We work silently and quickly, sweeping the room clean and getting all the grass out of it in under twenty minutes. After the room is clean, we start working on the tub which is slimy and coated in muck. Climbing into the tub, our backs are practically against each other, but we remain silent. We've only been working on the sludge for about ten minutes when we hear someone walk into the room.

"Lin, Hiro. You've got customers waiting." A toad spirit says, peering in at us.

"Give us a minute! Jeez." Lin huffs, throwing her scrub brush to the ground.

The brush splashes lightly in the small pool of water at the bottom of the tub. I bend over and pick it up, looking up at Lin who has her hands on her hips. She is not pleased that we are being rushed and I can understand her frustration.

"I'll get us a bath token to soak the tub in. It's the best we're going to be able to do in the amount of time we have." Lin says, blowing her bangs out of her face.

"Okay." I say meekly.

Lin climbs out of the tub and vanishes from sight. Rather than doing nothing, I continue to scrub the sides of the tub as best I can before she returns. I manage to make some progress, but not much before I hear Lin return with the bath token. We scoop up as much of the dirty water as we can into some buckets. Lin shows me how to get the water for the bath token and I memorize the panel to call on the water before going to dump the dirty water. Instead of meeting Lin in the room, I meet her at the entrance where we get our customers together.

Our first customers of the night are a couple of mountain spirits. One is tall and large, with snow dashed on the top most part of his body and it almost looks like hair. The other is stout and obtuse, with small red veins running all over his body and I realize that they are magma after a moment. Lin and I bow to greet them and show them to their tub where the water is still steaming. We quietly attend to them, Lin taking the taller mountain spirit while I took the shorter mountain spirit. I'm surprised to find that touching him does not hurt me and it is easy to care for him.

It's an hour before the mountain spirits leave and go to get dinner in the food district outside the Bathhouse and Lin and I have a chance to get something to eat. We're sitting on the floor in the big tub room, still silent. Finally, I cannot stand the tension any longer.

"You were close to my grandmother." I said, knowing it to be true.

After a few moments, Lin speaks.

"Yes." She replied.

"You looked out for her while she was here. She used to tell me stories about you, about this place." I said.

"She was dear to me." Lin replies matter-of-factly.

"I'm sorry about surprising you. I understand that it's been difficult for everyone with how similar I look to her." I murmur, becoming awkward yet again.

Lin thinks for a few moments before finally speaking.

"Yes and no. There are some subtle differences about the two of you that people wouldn't notice upon first glance. Like your freckles, your grandmother never had them. And you have a calmer demeaner about you. It took your grandmother several days before she would stop screaming at every little thing." Lin says.

I laugh at the thought of my grandmother not being able to control her voice. She had always had a problem with that, but she was so full of life that no one had ever said anything about it. It made up who she was and I smile at the memory of her.

"I miss her." Lin admits.

"I do too." I say quietly.

With that, we begin to swap stories of my grandmother and the crazy things that she got herself into. By the end of the night, Lin and I are so close that we could be considered long lost sisters. I'm glad to have finally made a friend in the Spirit World and it helps me relax. Even though I have no made up my mind about what I want to do, I am not anxious about it anymore. Haku had said the gate could be finicky anyways and if I truly did have to stay here for a few days, it would not be bad now that I was starting to make friends. But the danger of making friend was the temptation to stay. How many humans got wisked away to the Spirit World and then decided not to come back? Sure, I had heard the folk tales of people entering the Spirit World and reappearing in the human world years later, but had there been stories of people not returning? Lying in bed that night, I frowned. I knew I would have a bid decision to make, but for the time being, I wasn't in a rush to make it. And that surprised me. Who knew what the Spirit World had in store for me.