Right. Now let's see what Arya's got to do. Thanks for reviewing, Himeno Kazehito.
The rest of the day was different for the girls, to a point. While Chihiro was dealing with a spirit who turned out to be a polluted river spirit, Arya only came in when her sister needed help pulling out all of the junk in his river. The rest of the time, she was given the jobs that had to do absolutely nothing with customers. She suspected that she wasn't trusted to be polite to the customers, while shy Chihiro would be just that. As a result, her day was spent fetching things and cleaning. It was very mundane, until she joined the pulling with pretty much all the other employees, while Yubaba yelled orders.
Among all the junk was specks of real gold as payment, which everyone except the girls tried to grab until Yubaba yelled at them.
After the spirit was gone, Chihiro held a little bunch of something in her hand that the spirit had given her, and had gained a lot of favour. Yubaba actually hugged her. "Sen, you did great! We made so much money!" Arya had to put a hand over her mouth to keep from giggling at her sister's expression.
"That spirit is rich and powerful." Yubaba continued. "Everyone, learn from Sen. Sake is on the house tonight, but first hand over all the gold you picked up."
That night, the girls sat on the deck outside their room, quite a bit after lights out.
"How come you managed to gain so much favour with the old witch and I'm nearly burned out but didn't get a single speck of recognition?" Arya complained (although actually, a lot of the workers were starting to accept the two girls, seeing them as a package deal – Chihiro did a good job, therefore Arya did too).
"It was pure luck." Chihiro shrugged. She held out the gift from the river spirit. "You could do whatever you want with half of this, I guess."
Arya shook her head. "I don't want it. Weren't you going to give it to Mom and Dad, anyway? I would too, if it broke the spell on them."
"It will." Chihiro said confidently. "I tried it and it tastes awful, so it can't be for humans."
"Who says it can't be for spirits?" Arya said. "If roasted newt is a delicacy, than I'd expect they'd like the gift."
Lin was on the balcony with them. "Hey!" she protested. "Don't knock roasted newt until you've tried it."
Arya laughed. "I'll let my sister do the taste test. Then maybe I'll try it."
"Who says I won't lie?" Chihiro challenged.
"Cause every time you don't like something, your face screws up and your version of lying about food is to make a big production of swallowing, then smile weakly and tell whoever made you try it that it's good."
The next morning, Chihiro was up later than anyone else. Well, Yubaba wasn't around, but everyone else was.
Chihiro noticed immediately how quiet the room was, and she saw the steam rising up.
"Kamaji lit the boiler already? How long was I asleep?" Kamaji hadn't even been up when they'd gone through the boiler room the day before.
When Chihiro got dressed and left the room, Arya was already coming up. "Hey, I was just coming to wake you up – Lin told me to. Remember the masked guy? Well, he found a voice and is giving everyone handfuls of gold. Everyone's serving him food and he's just gobbling it all down...it's kind of creepy. Everyone's trying to get as much gold as they can before Yubaba turns up and discovers that everyone's taking it for themselves."
Chihiro shrugged. "Is Haku back?" she asked. She'd asked after him the night before, but Lin had just said that he disappeared sometimes for some reason.
Arya shrugged back. "I haven't seen him. Why?"
"Just wondering." Chihiro said. "Did you see him yesterday as a dragon? Just before we left the bridge, I saw it...he was beautiful."
Arya smiled. "Let me know if he comes back in dragon form. Until then, are you coming to see the masked guy again? Personally, I'm bored of him."
Chihiro shook her head. "No. We've already talked to him, and it looks pretty crowded down there."
As it happened, Haku came back that very same day. The girls waited out on the balcony of their room.
"Arya...do you still remember what our parents look like?" Chihiro asked out of the blue.
"Pigs or humans?" Arya asked.
"Both." Chihiro said. "I'm still finding it hard to hang on to my own name when everyone's calling me Sen, let alone what our parents looked like before this. I can remember them as pigs, but it's harder to remember how they were before that."
Arya thought for a moment. After all, she was the one that took in appearances. "Mom had hair like yours." she said. "My hair is more the same colour as Dad's. They both had brown eyes...I'm not sure where I got blue eyes. Maybe it's cause Mom is only half-Japanese and her dad had blue eyes. Anyway, Mom was kind of skinny, and Dad was big. And jovial. Remember that? Mom was a bit more sensible."
That was when the dragon Chihiro had seen. "Look!" she cried. "It's Haku!"
The girls watched these strange origami birds chasing him, noticing the blood leaking out.
"Haku, fight them!" Chihiro called, but then stopped, seeing the blood.
"He's hurt." the girls whispered together.
Once Haku had gotten inside, the paper flew off, but Haku attempted to fly to the top of the bathouse, leaving the rice paper doors blood-spattered.
"We've got to get there before he bleeds to death!' Chihiro exclaimed.
"Let's go!" Arya said. She genuinely cared for the spirit by this time, and was scared for him. He'd been in honestly terrible shape. The girls began to run to find their way to the elevator.
Neither girl noticed the origami shape that stuck to Chihiro's back.
OK, so nothing really spectacular in that chapter. But review anyway, please!