Written Rivers

A Home Amongst Rivers

Chapter 20: A Time for Mourning

Two weeks after their return from the Spirit World, on the forty-ninth day after the tsunami, Rumi held the funeral for her family. Since there was no family left to mourn with her, she kept it small and skipped the wake ceremony since there were no bodies to display, having been swallowed by the ocean during the tsunami. Instead they set up pictures by the Hiiragi family grave in a tombstone yard outside Tokyo.

Not many came to mourn, Rumi, Chihiro and her parents and a few other close family friends came to participate but Rumi avoided making it too long or too crowded. They all paid their respects and told stories of their life, some happy, some sad. The ceremony seemed to pass by quickly until only Rumi and Chihiro stood at the grave. Rumi hadn't shed a single tear all day, not once since their return from the Spirit World, not once during the planning of the ceremony. At least none that Chihiro saw. Instead, she just seemed rigid all day, holding back the world in her eyes yet showing no other sign of grief.

"Rumi, you…" Chihiro knew the words wouldn't help. Rumi wasn't the type to express emotions of grief.

"Chi-Chan…" Rumi said absently, staring at her family grave. "I know there's been countless rain storms recently… But of all the days, why won't the rain come?" She looked up and met Chihiro's eyes. They were filled with longing and sorrow, but they were moist with tears that wouldn't fall.

"Rumi-Chan…" Her voice cracked. She reached out and took her friend's hand. Through every anxiety attack, Rumi had been there for her. Now it was her turn to be there for her. "It's okay. We're going to figure this out. This too will pass."

The tears finally brimmed in Rumi's eyes and she wrapped her arms around Chihiro's neck, sobbing into the crook of her neck. "I miss them, Chi-Chan… Gods, I miss them!"

"Shhh… It's going to be okay." Chihiro held her friend tight and smoothed her hair. "I'm here… I gotcha…" They sat by the grave holding each other until the sun began to set and had fallen asleep in each other's arms.


Chihiro awoke in her room the next day, laying snuggly under her sheets. She sat up and looked beside her to find Rumi sleeping in her futon, eyes still puffy and red from crying. Chihiro rose and put away her futon, sneaking out of the room quietly to let Rumi sleep.

Once the door was shut, she turned and found Makoto making breakfast. He was dressed in his usual black t-shirt and pants, and much to her dismay, no apron. What she would have given to see her seriously stoic friend wearing an apron in the kitchen.

"I didn't know you cooked?" Chihiro yawned as she poured already hot water over a cup of tea leaves prepared.

Makoto eyes her from the corner of his eye from were he stood next to her at the stove. "There is probably a lot you do not know about me."

She pouted her lips and nodded. "You're probably right." She drummed the table, suddenly wondering how they got from Tokyo to Osaka overnight. "I take it you brought us home last night?"

He nodded. "You two would have caught a cold or a ghost if I did not."

"Thanks." Chihiro chuckled and decided to change the subject and not question Makoto's possible ability to teleport. She assessed his attire again. "We really need to take you shopping and expand your wardrobe."

He stopped stirring the food in the pan and looked down at his outfit then to her. "Why?" As if there was nothing possibly wrong with his usual attire.

"If you're going to be hanging around us in your human form from now on, you should at least act like you have some taste in fashion."

Makoto deadpanned and went back to cooking. "You are starting to sound like Rumi."

Chihiro elbowed him in the side. "I know. Scary, huh?" She laughed and sat at the with her tea. She sipped at her tea. "So, I've been meaning to ask you, what were you doing before you became my dog? You've been around for six years, but what were you doing before that?"

Makoto didn't turn from the stove. "I watched you for almost a year until your parents suggested you get a dog."

Chihiro almost spit her tea. "Watched? That doesn't sound creepy."

"My apologies." He relied sympathetically. "I was merely doing as Kohaku-Sama suggested."

"If you were watching me during that time, then wouldn't you know what happened during my lost memories?"

Makoto let out a soft sigh. "Unfortunately, yes, I do."

"Then why do you persist that Yuuka explain? All I know from that time is that that time is the source of where my anxiety started and that it wasn't the best experience in school I should've had. What happened? And why can't I remember properly?" Her tone was pleading.

"Because it is not my place to say. Yuuka is the one who is the expert in this category and has asked that when the topic come up, I leave it to her." Makoto turned and looked her in the eye. "So I suggest you ask her."

Chihiro swirled the tea in the mug absently. "I don't know when an appropriate time to ask Yuuka about my memories is…"

"It has been a week since you asked me about it. You are awfully patient."

"I didn't want to bother Rumi with everything that has been going on. It wouldn't be fair to her…" Chihiro replied solemnly.

Makoto plated the meal he had prepared and set up three plates at the table. "Then you might as well keep waiting."

"No."

Chihiro and Makoto turned their attention to a disheveled Rumi, very unlike her.

"Ah, Ru-" Chihiro stopped and looked her in the eyes, they were deep purple and looked sharp, her stance rigid with tension. "Yuuka…"

"No more waiting." Yuuka continued. "I knew you'd start asking sooner or later after we left the Spirit World. The memories would no longer line up in your mind." She seemed nervous and was avoiding all eye contact.

"What are you talking about?" Chihiro asked.

Yuuka sat quietly across from Chihiro at the small dinner table. Makoto sat beside them with a cup of tea for himself and Yuuka, acting as a sort of mediator. They both knew something she didn't, and she wasn't so sure Rumi knew at this point either. Steam rose from the tea like the tension in the room.

"Yuuka…" Chihiro started. "Tell me why… Tell me why I've been having a hard time with my memories recently. From the time I left the Spirit World when I was ten to when Rumi returned at fourteen, my memories are blurry. As if my brain knows there's something there but chooses to ignore it. Makoto says you know something. I know of my last years of primary school and beginning of junior high, but there are no clear memories of events or what happened."

The yosuzume spirit grimaced, as if she were regretting her words before she spoke them. She let out a heavy sigh. "There's no point in keeping it a secret anymore." She played with the handle of her mug.

"What do you mean?" Chihiro asked cautiously but with emphasis.

Yuuka met Chihiro's eyes. "You see… Yosuzume are known for playing tricks on the mind. We're able to cast illusions and take hosts. And me, being part tengu, am able to cast even more powerful illusions."

"Yuuka, what are you trying to say?" Chihiro was starting to take a hint but she didn't want to admit it.

"I'm saying that part of the reason I came to protect you was to change your memories."

"What." The Ogino's eyes widened. "What? Why?"

"After you left, I visited Oba-San, or Zeniba, and she spoke so fondly of you. She spoke of how she missed you and wished you well but how she worried for you. She knew that the effects of the Spirit World would follow you into the Human World and cause you trouble. I don't know why, but I wanted to meet this girl my aunt was so fond of. I first saw you outside the tunnel to the Spirit World. You weren't the girl my aunt described." Yuuka's brows knit with concern at the memory, worrying her lip. "It had been almost three years since your return and you… you… You looked warn. Completely, just… warn. You were angry and sad and depressed; you weren't alive. You were on several different medications for depression, anxiety, schizophrenia. You were on suicide watch, Chihiro! I couldn't leave you like that." Tears brimmed her eyes. "I couldn't intervene though… not without a host…"

Chihiro sat shell-shocked, eyes hollow. "This… this all happened before I was fourteen?"

Yuuka nodded, biting her lips. "That's when the car accident happened…"

Suddenly, Yuuka's demeanor changed completely and she rose from the chair, clattering on the floor behind her. "Get out of my body! Now!" Rumi's mahogany eyes flashed with anger and tears. There was a slight pause as she heaved for breath in rage. "I don't care if the illusion doesn't hold! Leave!"

Before Chihiro could say anything and she watched her friend lose it, Rumi's head tilted back, and a shadow of mist slipped out from her mouth. Once the shadow had left her body, Rumi stumbled back and keeled over, coughing and catching her breath as she held her throat. Chihiro ran around the table, shaking as she knelt at her side. Makoto knelt beside the two cautiously.

"R-Rumi…"

The sound of chirping filled the room, causing Chihiro to glance around to watch the mist of shadow fly around the room until it landed on a bookshelf. The misty shadow solidified into a small sparrow. It hopped around the shelf frantically.

"No, no, no, no, no!" Tears brimmed the sparrow's black eyes. "It won't hold! It won't hold!"

But the words faded as Chihiro's eyes glazed over and a swarm of memories and emotions flooded her mind. Fear and anxiety washed over her as days screaming in the psychiatrist's office and outside the tunnel, and kids pushing her around and yelling at her in school filled her vision. The memory of her locking herself in the bathroom with a bottle of pills, trips to the hospital, blood dripping from her thighs, screaming at teachers and just being angry and scared all the time. Being told she was crazy as she stared a spirit right in the eye in the middle of class.

Memories of that four-year gap came to focus. They felt like any other memory from her childhood, the only difference was the fact that she remembered them clearly now, they were no longer fogged over. They weren't happy memories in the least, most of them were down right terrifying. It was like parents reminding you of an event you didn't quite recall but suddenly remembered when connecting the dots of your memory.

"H-how, how dare you!" Rumi shrieked abruptly.

Chihiro snapped out of whatever daze she'd been in and found a very pissed of Rumi.

"How dare you, you little, you little-!"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..." The sparrow coward.

"Sorry?! You had the audacity to take my family away from me and you say 'sorry'?!"

"What's going on?" Chihiro interceded, getting between her and the sparrow. She was taking this far better than she thought she would, especially in comparison to Rumi.

"She walks around while my conscious is asleep and I wake up to see her memories of the accident! This selfish, conniving-!" Rumi exasperated furiously, unable to complete a sentence. "How dare you steal my family from me!"

"I had to!" Yuuka retorted. "It was the only way!"

"The last six years of my life have been a lie! My whole life has been a lie!" Rumi waved her arms around enraged. "I don't even know what to believe is real!"

"You would have died!"

"Well at least I would have been with my real family!" Rumi seethed.

Chihiro stopped herself short of all thought, forgetting her own memories. "What do you mean 'real family'?" She forced herself to recall playdates with Rumi as a child and when she thought about it, they didn't match the faces that sat on the shelf in the pictures behind Yuuka. "That's… That's not them?"

"No… no they're not…" Rumi hissed, tears slipping down her cheeks.

Chihiro's heart shattered as she watched the face of her best friend break at the knowledge of losing her family not once but twice. Her brain couldn't form any thought as she attempted to wrap her mind around what Rumi was going through. Yeah, Chihiro herself was having some memory issues, but hadn't Rumi been through enough? They had just had the funeral the day before. She swallowed bile as she breathed to keep control of herself.

Tears continued to flood down Rumi's cheeks as she gasped for air from her anger. "Why? Why didn't you let me die? Why didn't you just let it be?" Her voice was hollow and choked up from tears.

Yuuka grimaced. "The day… The day your real family went to visit to Tochinoki, is the day your real family died. That car accident happened but I changed your memories and your current family's to make it look and feel like they were always your family. The illusion of a yosuzume can be strong by itself, but being part tengu, my power was much stronger, making the story that much more real to anyone you met. It was the only way for me to keep a host in the Human World and keep you alive without you breaking down. The fact that it lasted this long and on so many people is a marvel of its own… I've only managed with your aide… I just didn't know it would turn out like this…"

"You… you took my family away… I didn't even get to mourn for them properly! Who's family did I take?"

"The family you've lived with is the car that crashed into you. They lost their daughter in the accident. I just swapped you girls and gave the illusion that you were their daughter, since theirs died. Your current family was moving to Tochinoki and your family was coming to visit when it happened, it was just a matter of changing the story." Yuuka cast her eyes down in guilt. "I didn't think the truth would surface the way it did… I certainly didn't expect your family to die in the tsunami… all I wanted was to help Chihiro… All I wanted was to help you… All I wanted… I'm sorry… I shouldn't have intervened… I'm nothing but bad luck… I'm sorry…" The small bird's eyes dripped with tears and she sulked back into the dark corners of the shelf.

"Yuuka…" Chihiro whispered, looking between her two friends and then to Makoto, who didn't seem all too surprised by the turn of events. "Did you know all this?"

"Not the complete story, no." Makoto replied. "I do know though, that despite her being one of those intolerable birds, she always had your and Rumi's best interests at heart. I would not have let her stay this long if I did not think at least a little highly of her."

"But, she still…" Rumi started, but looked away.

Chihiro recalled herself finding out the truth that her friends had been lying to her the whole time, she understood first hand what that was like. But to find out you were lying about a lie… that was something else.

Chihiro pierced her lips. "Rumi-Chan. I can't say what Yuuka did wasn't wrong; but consider the fact that she was doing it for your sake. She did it for both of us… Similar to how you guys kept the secret of the Spirit World from me. I didn't know the full extent of how my first visit to the Spirit World affected me, I just knew of some trips to the psychiatrist and mood swings. I didn't know just how bad it got…" She paused. "I'm almost grateful I didn't know…"

Rumi's mouth gaped like a fish, her eyes clouded with anger, confusion, and grief. "But my family-"

"Will live on… in here." Chihiro poked her forehead, giving her a small reassuring smile. "It's okay. We're going to figure this out. This too will pass."

Her friend's lip quivered as she tried to take a breath. "It's… It's okay. We're going to… figure this out. This too will p-pass." She repeated.

"That's my girl…" Chihiro opened her arms and Rumi fell into them. The roles hadn't been reversed like that in a long time. Rumi was always supporting Chihiro, always the strong one of the two. But now, this was the first time Chihiro had ever seen her best friend so distraught. So much so that she forgot about the fact that she had her own old memories that she had to sort through.

They all sat where they were for a few minutes, letting the tension in the room simmer down. After Rumi stopped crying and sat up out of Chihiro's hug, Chihiro turned toward the bookshelf and smiled softly.

"Yuuka." She called up to the shelf. "Come down please."

An echoed chirping sound came from the shelf, sounding an awfully lot like "no."

"Yuuka, please come down. We… we want to talk." Rumi's voice was hoarse. She seemed resistant to the idea of talking with Yuuka, not making any attempt to look at the bird.

The small bird hopped to the edge of the shelf and peered down at the three of them. She hesitantly looked across all the faces. Her eyes turned to Makoto, who replied with a nod of his head. She seemed to trust him a bit more than their rivalry like relationship let on.

After some confirmation, Yuuka flew down with the shadow mist following her as she landed on the fallen chair beside the girls. "I'm sorry…" She chirped quietly, bobbing her head apologetically. The words seem to echo in the air behind her as the mist dissolved in wisps, still shrouding her.

Chihiro tilted her head and pierced her lips. "I can't speak for Rumi, but as for me… I… I thank you for what you did… I can't say it was right, but I can't say you were wrong. I'm sure you have your own reasons besides protecting us that you have in mind. I forgive you. But please, promise me no more secrets."

Yuuka flapped out her wings and bobbled her head earnestly. "I promise. I promise."

Chihiro looked at Rumi, who would need time before she reconciled with Yuuka. She didn't know how close she was to the yosuzume spirit; but judging from how long they'd lived together in the same body, she was sure they were close. Rumi probably felt beyond betrayed.

Rumi worried her lip and looked at Yuuka. "You still need a host, don't you?"

Yuuka hesitated and nodded. "If I had had a choice, I wouldn't. But yes, I do"

Rumi didn't reply for a moment. "I trusted you, Yuuka… I don't know how long it'll be before I can trust you again… So for now… you can not use me as your host…"

With that, she rose and retreated into the bedroom, sliding the door shut behind her.

Yuuka bowed her head sadly. "I deserved that…"

"Did you hear her though?" Makoto finally spoke.

"Huh?"

Chihiro caught on. "She said 'for now'. That means she willing to try again one day. You should know her better than anyone. It's not in her nature to abandon a friend, no matter what."

Yuuka made a small chirp sound. "I guess you're right…"

"Until then, just hang out with us as you are." Chihiro smiled gently, offering her hand to her. "You have some explaining to do anyway."

The bird hopped onto Chihiro's hand. "Right…"


A/N:

Hey fam! I can't believe we're at twenty chapters! Thanks so much for sticking around this long! I promise you things should start picking up again soon… I mean not that this chapter didn't but Chi-Chan's role in the Spirit World and all that will come to clearer play soon. ^.^;

Ettoooo…. Arigatou-Gozaimasu~! \^o^/

Thanks for reading and don't forget to review! And for those that do review, I thank you a bunches!

Thank you for the reviews from: Amidstsnow, Firetail Finch, Prismae, RSBCS, Sofrick16, Rosettaxfantasy, Spirited-PKMN Ranger, Luin-fanel, Sillica, Picklesisadeadcat, ChristieWind, and Amour toujours!

God bless! KawaChou