Disclaimer: I don't own anything that Hayo Miazaki creates.

A/N: It's been crazy in my world for a while.

Also, thanks for all the reviews! They mean a lot!

Life Is No Fairy Tale- Thanks for that! I'll be sure to use D.I.D from now on.

I woke up with a start and looked around to find that I was the only one in the room. They had let me sleep in, or so it seemed. Groggily I got up and got dressed, I picked out the first thing that was on top of the drawer and it happened to be a blue sundress. It was altogether too bright for my mood but I put it on and proceeded to find my way to the cafeteria.

I got my food and looked around, the whole place seemed crowded still, so I obviously wasn't too late, I finally found Kiki, sitting alone at a two person table. I walked over and sat down.

"Did they let you sleep in too?" I asked.

"It's Saturday," she replied bluntly. Kiki seemed to get annoyed at my obvious cluelessness but answered the question on my mind anyway. "They let us sleep in on the weekends, everything starts later."

"Oh." I said quietly, looking down at my meal. I didn't want to ask the questions that were really pertinent to me, she had reacted like that to one question, and I didn't want to risk another.

We sat in silence and ate our meals, I tried not to let it get awkward but of course it was inevitable.

I avoided Kiki's gaze by examining the cafeteria, it was a crowded place with chairs and tables placed so close together that it was hard to get between them when it was crowded. All of the patients seemed to be here today, running around, sitting at tables, eating, talking, and laughing. Briefly I wondered how anyone in this situation could be laughing. I focused in on the brown haired girl who had been in blue during therapy, she now wore pink, and it was just as outlandish and had some type of embroidery on the front. She seemed to be in her own little world, pleasantly smiling as the people around her talked with some intensity.

"They're talking about Howl." Kiki said disdainfully nodding over to the table I was looking at. It surprised me but she didn't look over to see me snap my head back in her direction. "It's always big news when he loses it, and now it's even bigger because of you." This time she looked at me with a glare.

I flinched away from her look. "What was I supposed to do? Leave him?"

"Yes!" She struggled to keep her voice down. "He knows how to calm himself down but you disrupted that. Not to mention you started him off."

"What are you talking about? I didn't do anything!" I was slightly annoyed at Kiki's hostility.

"You said that you didn't care for anyone in here." She said bluntly.

"So? It's true." I shrugged.

"It's tactless is what it is. He thought you were nice, wanted to be friends you know? You upset him." She said calming down a little bit.

"Oh, so you're saying that no one should ever upset Howl?" That was ridiculous, he shouldn't get special treatment.

"Yes, that's basically what I'm saying."

It was my turn to get annoyed at her. "Look, I don't see why he should get special treatment when-"

"Chihiro." Kiki half yelled, she successfully got the attention of half of the cafeteria with her volume. She stared at me with a look that told me not to breathe and waited for her audience to settle down. "This isn't your spirit world. This isn't even your world outside these walls. We play by different rules here. You don't get the luxury of parading around like a spoiled brat! When someone-"

And that was the end of the conversation because Howl had entered the cafeteria.

Everything went silent in the room. Everyone seemed to be focused on Howl as he made his way from the entrance to the serving line. There was an array of different faces, from fascination, to terror, to worry, no one laughed, and no one snickered. We all just watched with caution until he had made his way through the line and sat down at an empty table in the corner. Then everything resumed.

I was still in slight shock from seeing him though; I was also slightly confused that he hadn't come to our table, pulled up a chair or something like that. I realized that I was slightly disappointed by this, so instead of remembering that I had just been scolded, I stupidly opened my mouth. "Why isn't he over here?"

"Did you see him? He's ashamed." Kiki hissed at me.

I looked back at Howl and realized that he did look ashamed. His head was tilted downward and his blue eyes refused to look up for anything. His whole slender frame seemed to slump as he ate his food. How had I not caught on to that when he walked in?

I felt bad, so I stood up to go over to him but I was stopped by Kiki.

"Don't go over there; he's not going to want to talk to you right now."

This time I listened to her, and sat back down.

"Shouldn't I go apologize or something?"

"Not right now." Kiki was obviously getting tired of my stupidity.

I would have gotten up and left but I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do on Saturdays. So I waited for Kiki to finish her meal, and then followed her out into the hallway. "Saturdays are mostly free days." She said. "Everyone gets taken in for one on one therapy once in the day and there are group sessions around six. It's the same on Sundays."

I was silent for a moment. Trying to think of something that I could do to occupy my day other than staring at the white walls of my room. Kiki suffered me for a few more seconds and then let out an exasperated sigh and walked away.

I took to wandering.

It was slightly harder to wander around this place than it was to wander around the bath house in the spirit world. There were a lot more restrictions, Every once in a while I would get shooed out of places by nurses or doctors. They often told me to go to the rec room but I was bound and determined to avoid it.

After a few wrong turns had led me to the same place, the nurse, who was grumpily cleaning up a mess that another nurse had left behind while grumbling about the lack of responsibility in this place, approached me.

"What's your name?"

"Chihiro." I said, already beginning to turn around to leave.

"Are you getting lost? Do you need directions?" She seemed annoyed, but it wasn't directed at me, like Kiki's anger had been, so I turned around.

"No, I'm just walking around. I don't really know what to do."

"Why not go to the rec room?"

"I'd rather not." I said uncomfortably.

She thought for a moment." Well then, do you like to read?"

I looked at her in awe. "yeah."

"Well, there's a library on the second floor, open to everyone, if you want directions I can give them to you."

"Please!" I said eagerly.

The nurse wrote out directions on a scrap of paper for me and I immediately knew what I was going to spend my weekends doing from now on.