A Second Glance

-Downhill-

A small brown bird hopped around on the school roof, pecking at the bits of grass that grew from between the cracked concrete. Chihiro watched from her seat by the window as it bounced, cocking its head at odd angles every now and then to look at some of the interesting things that had blown up there.

It had been almost three months since the dream, and Chihiro hadn't been out to the forest since then. As there was nothing that she could do other than dwell on the past (which she had done more than enough of), she decided to just go back to her schooling and stop thinking about it.

It was lunch break now, and Chihiro was sitting by herself again. The ten year old who could stand up and yell back at Yu-baaba had died inside of her with her loss of the spirit world, or had just been pushed down so far that Chihiro could never find her again. Slowly eating her sandwich, she gazed intently out the window. Most people had given up trying to talk to her long ago, thinking she was a bit of an oddball for not joining school clubs and spending so much of her time either reading or studying. Chihiro wasn't antisocial, she just let other people come to her, rather than seeking out other company on her own. She was perfectly content by herself, anyways (or at least that's what she said). Thankfully, instead of taunting her for her differences, the other students just let her be for the most part. She had seen other people completely humiliated by their peers, only because they weren't the complete norm.

"She's always looking out the window," Chihiro heard a nearby girl whisper conspiratorially, penetrating through the haze that was surrounding Chihiro's mind. "What do you think she-"

The warning bell rang, cutting off her sentence. The bird stopped its hopping and jerked its head sideways toward the classroom.

"I don't care," another girl answered flatly, not bothering to quiet herself. Chihiro winced inwardly. She couldn't place the voice, having never even leaned all of her classmates' names. She was able to recognize their faces, which was okay because they never talked to her anyways. It was pointless information to know what they were called if was never necessary to actually call them that.

"So what are you doing over summer break? I'm going with my family to Hawaii for the whole vacation. Six weeks on the beach!"

The bird stopped its bouncing and jerked its head towards a particularly stubby section of grass. No good. It took a few long hops and flew away, probably looking for some more suitable roofs to peck at. Though the bird was gone now, Chihiro continued to stare out the window blankly. It felt like the air was pressing in around her, giving her a headache and making it difficult to breathe. The corners of her vision rippled the way that light ripples above asphalt on a hot day, looking sort of like water.

The bell rang again a minute later, jarring her from her reverie. The rest of the students got up to throw away their trash, buzzing with conversation. Chihiro managed to clear up her lunch before the teacher returned and sat back down at her seat by the window. She glanced over to the majority of the class. They were all talking about their plans for the upcoming break. It took her a moment to actually process the major topic of discussion through her cloudy headache. Summer vacation. Summer had an equal amount of days as the other seasons did, but it had an irritating way of seeming so long to Chihiro that she was positive there was something wrong with her calendars. With nothing to do for such a stretch of time, everything just seemed to blur together so that she lost track of the dates sometimes.

The class sat back down and quieted themselves as the teacher entered the room. The lecture from before lunch resumed while a room full of teenagers tried to occupy themselves with something more interesting than the monotone of the elderly teacher.

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Chihiro rolled her scooter towards the base of the hill and sat down at the end of the sidewalk. The walkway turned into a set of stairs at that point, and her scooter needed to be folded up for carrying purposes. She would have ridden a bike to school every day if not for the semi short skirts that the uniforms required, so she had settled for using one of the slim folding scooters that had been all the rage a few years ago.

A fairly large tree provided a refreshing shade over a section of the concrete stairs, which Chihiro took advantage of whenever she needed the break. Resting for a minute or two on the bottom step, she leaned back against the slightly rusted pipe railing and closed her eyes. The weather had changed quickly over the past week or so, bringing in a wave of heat and humidity to the small town.

"Hey. Bother waiting up next time?" The voice drifted down from Chihiro's upper left a few minutes later. This was a voice she could place. She smiled slightly as a rustle of cloth told that her friend Eri was situating herself on the step next to her.

"What do I look like I'm doing?" Chihiro questioned back, her eyes still shut. Eri was a grade younger than Chihiro, and much more outspoken. She lived about 4 houses down the street, and was determined to pull a bit of conversation out of Chihiro ever day. It was probably because of her that Chihiro still had functioning social skills, and she was glad for the companionship on the walks to and from school.

"You look like you were on cloud nine when you left school and forgot to wait for me again…you know, if you sit in the shade too long, the mosquitoes will get you."

"Damn. You got me there, Sherlock. Lucky for the mosquitoes, I'm too hot to care." Chihiro fanned herself slowly and finally opened hey eyes. "Since when has it been getting this hot out?"

"Since June rolled around, honey." Eri sighed, rolling her eyes.

"Honey?" Chihiro pulled a face and stood up, brushing off the back of her teal school skirt. Eri followed, having finished folding her matching scooter. They began their daily trek up the steep stairs, thoroughly used to the amount of exertion walking up the hill gave.

"Yes. Honey. It's my new thing, starting today. Deary, too. Sounds nice, huh?" Eri seemed proud of her new terms of affection. "Just watch, it will catch on. Everyone will be saying it!"

"But you're younger than me. It just sounds weird," Chihiro stated bluntly. "By the way, what are you so happy about? You're practically bouncing."

Eri gave her a strange look and picked up her pace, racing a few steps ahead of Chihiro.

"It's the last day of school, Chi. What else do I need to make me happy?"

Chihiro faltered. She had forgotten that it was the last day, despite the amount of talking about vacation plans she had witnessed. Actually, she hadn't even begun to think of what she would do now, with school ending so soon. There had been an abundance of tests recently, but it seemed no different to Chihiro than any other time of the year. It didn't matter very much, but it bothered her that she would miss something like that.

'I should be more observant,' she thought admonishingly as Eri told her about her day. 'The date should have clued me in some, at least. Someday I'm going to miss something really big, and it will be right in my face.'

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Chihiro dropped Eri off at her house and continued on to hers on her own, feeling a little better after being relieved of her talkative friend. Thinking that way about Eri made her feel guilty, which only pulled down the black cloud that had been looming over her for the past few days even farther. She felt as though something bad was going to happen, like the anticipation of going down a roller coaster as you climb the hill. It had started as a slight tingling of her senses and turned into a dull throb of a headache throughout the week, making it difficult to concentrate on conversation for a prolonged amount of time. This made no exception for Eri, though she did cheer Chihiro up most of the time.

Chihiro dragged her feet as she walked into the driveway, not bothering to use the scooter. She reached up to dial the code for her garage door and absently noticed through the windowpane that her parents' car was still there.

"Damn headache. One…four…eight….seven." Chihiro had picked up the slight habit of swearing just from being around the other high school students. She thought it was crude, but had never made an attempt to correct her speech.

She narrowed her eyes as the realization dawned on her that neither of her parents had left for work that day. That was not a good sign, and usually meant that they were in the middle of another big argument. It was either that or something else was wrong entirely. As she made her way to the back of the dimly lit garage to deposit her scooter and go inside (she had always come home that way, not wanting to have to remember a key every day), she heard the faint sound of conversation through the partially closed door.

'They must be in the kitchen.'

She heard the tone of her mothers voice rise strenuously, but was not able to make out individual words. Her father's deep bass interrupted, but her mother continued on, her pitch still rising. Chihiro silently debated with herself to either knock to make her presence known, or to try and listen in. She stood for a moment in the middle of the garage, straining her ears. It would be better to be forewarned of her parents' being in a bad mood and to know exactly why than to go inside and have to watch what she said, incase she tread on an open nerve. There was nothing to stop her from eavesdropping, so Chihiro quietly crept up the few unpainted wood stairs and pressed her ear against the door.

Silence. Well, not exactly silence, but there was no talking anymore. She could hear someone walking around quickly inside, and from the sharp staccato of the steps she concluded it to be her mother. The steps grew closer suddenly, and Chihiro panicked. She started to back up to try and make it look like she had just walked in, but she didn't move fast enough.

Bang! The door collided severely with the side of her head, knocking her backwards.

"Ah!"

She tumbled down the three stairs that rose to the garage door and cradled her head, just as her mother stepped out of the house, a shocked look on her face and a suitcase in hand.

"Chihiro…" she breathed with wide eyes, looking like a deer in the headlights. Her gaze narrowed suddenly, and she glanced back in the house. In one swift movement, she slipped down the few stairs, swept herself into the little blue car, and tucked her tan business style skirt around her legs. She Chihiro a sympathetic look from the divers seat and closed the door with a click.

"Sayonara." Then she was gone.

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Disclaimer, since I forgot it last chapterI don't own spirited away. Pfft.

A/N - Well, I tried to write something a bit longer. I hope I didn't make too many mistakes…Anyways, I'll be trying to get out chapters as soon as I can, but I don't know how regularly I will be able to write with karate and piano lessons on top of school work. (being a freshman sucks).

JoJo – Thank you, I plan on it
SailoInu1 – I plan on updating every Monday or Tuesday, but I may get a little off track sometimes. I'll try and do my best!
Janelle – …beats you up in art class. You don't have to edit the story for me if you want; I think I have it covered now.
OceanicGoddess – Yeah, it's a little similar to other ones... sorry. I have no idea what I'm doing with this whole writing thing, so if any of you readers have the time, it would be awesome if you could give suggestions for the story.
KatsEye - Aw, thank you.