A Second Glance

Overlapping Thoughts

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Chihiro woke up with a dull headache. She blinked her eyes open to see that the room was empty, and then shut them again. A lantern swung from a hook in the center of the ceiling in time with the ship, letting out a mournful squeal each time it passed back and forth, pulling the shadows this way and that. Chihiro shifted to rub the sleep from the corner of her eyes and curled up on her side. The pile of burlap sacks that she was lying on itched at her skin and stuck to her hair, pulling the strands in different directions and tangling them together. After a few moments, she sat up and tried to flatten her hair down as best she could. It was easier to manage now that it was short, but it could be just as bad at times because she could never seem keep it out of her face. The boat gave a dramatic lurch as she stood, sending her towards a stack of wooden crates. Chihiro caught her balance less than gracefully, but held steady. She had fallen down enough times for one night, she decided bitterly. The room swayed with the boat, making her feel slightly dizzy, but it wasn't much of a bother. She knew where she was heading, at least. That was all that mattered.

Stretching her arms out and letting out a great yawn, she fell backwards onto the pile of burlap bags, feeling the air whoosh out from under her as she landed. Chihiro thought up little plans of what to do once she got to the Aburaya, plotting out the scenarios and conversations in her mind as she lay there watching the lantern swing. She purposely left everyone she missed exactly as she had left them so long ago, pushing six years of change to the back of her mind. Change…change was a strange concept; the way people become so different without even realizing how it happened. Despite the good that working in the Aburaya had done for the ten year old Chihiro, all of the character she had gained melted away so quickly once she was back in the human world. Chihiro would have liked to think that she had changed for the better since she had left the mahou no sekai, but all she could think of was how at ten, she had more maturity than she did now, bordering on sixteen. Thoughts of what ten year old Chihiro would have done in this situation replaced thoughts of what was to come ahead, bubbling up in her mind in a soup of regret. She regretted so many things. Those regrets tore at her and pushed thoughts of all the things she had done wrong through her whole of her mind while all the things she could have done to correct those wrongs filled in the cracks between.

'I should have just left him alone, left the papers alone. It's not my business what they do. It wasn't my place, I hardly see more than two hours of either of them a week, I don't know them. I don't know them. Neither of them deserved that. I could have talked to them more, tried to figure okaasan out, to get otousan to stop drinking; I could have tried to fix things.'

She exhaled and blew her bangs out of her eyes. This was getting her nowhere. If she were to try change for the better, even if it took a very long time, then she would have to remember what it was that made her do what she did at the age of ten. She closed her eyes and tried to clear away the irrelevant regrets from years ago that battered her mind, calling entry to the deepest part of her. She let out another deep breath, pushing out the memories of bad school experiences, memories of all the days she had come home to an empty house looking as if it had been ransacked, or worse, her father hung over and still in it. She pushed remembrances of staying up late by her window, sometimes till two am waiting for her mother to come home, far, far into the back of her mind where, she decided, they could stay forever.

Chihiro turned her thoughts back to where she was going, to where she was. The spirit world surrounded her, oozing magic from the very air she breathed. It was strange how she could feel safe there in another world, in the hull of a ferryboat with no idea of the time. Well, maybe not strange, but very abnormal. She had reasons for her sentiments. For one, Rin was there. Rin was real friend, someone who she could trust with her life. There were others, too, others like Kamajii and Zeniba, Kaonajii and Bou. She had even befriended some Yuna in her three month stay. And Haku…the mere thought of him made her feel safe inside, safer than she had ever felt before. Chihiro tried so hard to remember a time where she had felt completely safe in the human world, but gave up, feeling terribly disappointed. It was scary to think she had spent six years, six years not ever feeling secure. But, along with this feeling, thoughts of the river god put a knot of fear in her stomach.

She still didn't know if he was even there anymore. And what if he was, and he was different? What if he had forgotten her, what if he had changed his mind and never wanted to see her again? Maybe he knew just how pitiful she really was and never really meant…

No. Of all the things she could doubt, she couldn't doubt Haku. That was one thing she was sure of.

… … …

A cloud drifted over the moon slowly, obscuring the light cast through the ornate windows on Yubaabas floor of offices. Sitting behind a large desk in one of those offices, Haku stared blankly at a pile of papers in front of him. A candle flickered to his left, causing shadows to dance across the trinkets scattered over his working area. His head rested in his hand while he tapped the end of a quill absently on a sheet of blotting paper. It had run dry of ink almost a full minute ago, but he couldn't seem to bring his attention back to focus. Something was pulling at the back of his mind, pulling at his attention and not letting him get any work done. Sighing, he set his quill down and rubbed his temples, trying to rid himself of the stress headache he had built up over the week. It would be a simple thing to make a potion for correcting this, but more and more paperwork was piling up on top of all the other things he had to get done. Anyway, it wouldn't be very befitting of a dragon to let a little headache get the better of him. It was just on principle that he wouldn't take anything for it, and it was screwing up his work schedule.

He needed something to get his mind off the mountain of paperwork. Haku leaned back so that his chair was resting against the wall behind him and its back two legs. The bathhouse was boring him recently, its unusually grandiose customers seeming ordinary to those who saw them every day. Daily arguments over dominance in the business had become routine, a meaningless goal to be pursued for lack of a better one. When had he become so apathetic? In comparison to Chihiro, the girl who gave her everything to save her parents, he was nothing. She was emotional. She tried so hard with every fiber of her being to reach her goal, and yet he couldn't even decide what to do with his spare time. Even with four thousand years of sentience on his side, he could still waste away empty minutes with practiced ease. He really should have learned from her. Or, at least kept what he had learned and not let it slip away as quickly as it had.

Now that she was in his head, Haku realized how long it had been since he had last thought about her. Chihiro. He missed her, but after finding that the gate to her world would reject him, he had given up on ever seeing her again. It had taken a good year and a half of frequent visits to the gate for him completely resign to the fact that she was lost to him. There was no use in even trying anymore; the magic that bonded the gate together was twice as old as he, and more complicated than he could conceive. He had to grow up, let his childish body begin to age and mature. It was time to let things go, and the incompleteness he felt without her was soon covered up with the duties of holding a partnership with Yubaaba. Still, even six years after he had last seen her, a wave of loneliness would wash over Haku the odd time he thought of Chihiro. It was the sentimental side of the dragon that held on to her memory, while the rest of him was trying to forget what he couldn't have.

Besides,she would have long forgotten him in her human word. He would be easily replaced with a boy her age, someone who would treat her right, someone of her kind. She deserved better than him and would have no trouble finding someone, he told himself. And who saidChihiro had ever held romantic thoughts at ten years old? No, he had imagined it.

Haku let his chair fall down onto all four legs and got up. He would take a walk around the Aburaya, maybe visit the gardens. The flowers were usually blooming around this time of year, but one could never tell with the types of plants that grew in his realm. His paperwork could wait, he decided, and left his office.

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A/N – LOVE. Yesssss, I started writing again! I realize that this chapter is short,butIhave chapter seven started, and ideas are SWARMING. Sorry it took me so long, too. Transferring schools really messed with my schedule, and any thoughts of writing just went completely out the window.

BUT I'M BACK. I swear. (P.S, reviews keep me going!)