Childish

"Lets play hide and seek!" Chihiro suggested out of the blue once she finished sweeping some stray dust and dirt. She wrapped her hands around the top of the broom's handle and rested her chin on them, fluttering her eyes pleadingly at Haku.

Flicking his dark hair back into position, he stood up from his crouched position, previously wiping down the floorboards.

"Don't you have other duties left to finish?" Haku asked. Work before games, after all. Not that he actually would play some silly game when he should be cleaning. If he did, he'd have to hear it from Rin. And Haku did NOT want to start off his Monday with a nagging and raving Rin constantly on him.

Chihiro began to play with her ponytail nervously. "Well, uh. . .No?" she tried.

"Don't you think hide and seek is childish?" Haku asked, not noticing Chihiro's awful job at fibbing. He fixed his robe and sat down on a nearby step, avoiding a pile of dust that threatened the cleanliness of his white uniform.

"No?" Chihiro said again. "I'm ten." she clarified, as if it wasn't already obvious. It was normal for kids her age to play hide and seek back at home. Was the spirit world really that different? She lifted her broom and pointed it at Haku.

"How old are you anyways, Haku?" Chihiro asked slowly. She always thought he was somewhere near her age, despite how maturely he carried himself around.

He sighed, propping an elbow onto his thigh. He ran a hand through his bristle-straight hair. "Very old."

Chihiro sat on a step a few levels lower than Haku. She turned up towards him and rested her elbows on a step. "How old? Thirteen?" she began to guess.

She began to go on with her list of ages, repeatedly asking Haku is she was getting hot or cold. Every time she was cold, no where near guessing his age.

"How old then?" she asked irritably. She already guessed up to thirty and she STILL wasn't right!

"Probably higher than you can count." he answered. Chihiro pouted, clearly not satisfied with the answer. Haku couldn't possibly be older than Kamaji, either!

Haku shook his head. "I can't really tell you. I don't know exactly, myself."

Her jaw dropped. "You don't know how old you are! Do you know the year you were born in atleast?" Haku just shrugged.

"I used to be the spirit of the Kohaku River. I'm probably centuries ancient." Haku answered thoughtfully. "There's really no point in counting up the years when you're a spirit."

Chihiro squinted questioningly. "Why not?"

Haku looked up at the ceiling supported by sprouting wood beams. "It's only a record of the tragedies you've lived through, and others couldn't. Of all the things I've done. Good, and especially bad."

"Bad?" Chihiro murmured to herself more than to Haku. He nodded. "I used to be violent. A fierce dragon." he chuckled, dry of humour.

Quietly standing up, Chihiro offered her hand out to Haku. He took it and pulled himself up, expecting to finish their chores dumped on them by a moody Yubaba.

She lightly kicked the bucket of suds away from Haku when he attempted to reach for it. "Chihiro-" he started.

"Nope!" She smirked. "Were gonna play hide and seek!" she urged.

Haku began to protest. "Why? We have all this work to d-" he began to reason.

Quickly covering his mouth with her tiny hand, Chihiro explained sincerely, "So you'll know what it's like to be 'childish.'"

Looking into Chihiro's mysteriously colored eyes filled with life and pure good, things his cold eyes will never hold, Haku realized how genuine and thoughtful someone Chihiro's age could be. Whiny, loud and always pouting (not to mention energetic), was how he's always seen her. But now, he saw another side of Chihiro. She was completely self-less and had that vague sense of maturity to her. She could always take a solemn environment and pump happiness into it.

She was actually willing to do something like this for him. And she didn't even know it.

Sheepishly, Haku spoke behind her muffling hand. "How do you play?" Chihiro giggled. This was going to be great!

Once explaining in great detail to the ancient boy about the complexity of hide and seek and how to play, Chihiro camped out in a spare supply closet in the maid's quarters.

She was crouched in that spot for a reasonable amount of time, yet she was getting antsy. Where was Haku? Did that dummy already forget how to play and didn't come looking for her?

There were sudden shrieks and metal objects clattering to the floorboards in a chorus of what sounded like bullets. Chihiro was terrified. What was going on?

Cautiously opening the door of the closet, she poked her head out, the choas outside hitting her ears full blast. Right around the corner was the bath house. What she saw were workers and various spirits running around frantically, trying to find safety from. . . something.

"Rin? Rin!" Chihiro shouted out to the various bodies whizzing past in complete pandemonium. If any one knew what was happening, it would be her. She hit the floor with a loud thump when a plant-like spirit tripped her in an effort of saving itself.

No one replied to the helpless little girl. In fact, no one paid any attention to her lying on the ground. On her hands and knee's, Chihiro quickly crawled away into a corner to avoid getting crushed by the stampede.

"Haku!" Chihiro cried desperately to the boy who was across the large room. He was focused, using some kind of magic against whatever caused this mess. The swarming crowd of spirit world residents evacuating obscured her view.

Pushing herself up from the ground, she lunged into the crowd, getting pulled this way and that. "Haku!" she yelled again. She stopped and held her hand up, waving to get his attention.

Finally, he noticed her. A little too late. The last thing Chihiro's eyes saw was the complete and utter fear on Haku's face. That fear infected Chihiro in a rush that hit her like a bag of steel infused bricks. Haku was never frightened. By anything.

Anger suddenly took over the boy's face as his eyes darted to Chihiro's left. With a shout of rage that soon contourted into a horrid growl, Haku exploded into white and green scales and fur, carelessly sending everyone around him flying.

At the end of those bizarre ten seconds, something in Chihiro's mind told her to look to her left. A giant glob of muck was quickly advancing on her. Before a shriek could leave her wind pipe, she saw a dragon out of the corner of her eye, and than darkness.

Even though her eyes were still shut, she could tell the world was shaking viciously. There was something sticky and slimy covering her from head to toe, and it stunk.

"Chihiro. . .please!" someone was begging in a broken voice. She couldn't recognize who it was, but her brain said she did.

She squirmed uncomfortably, the horrible stench combined with the merry-go-round motion making her feel sick.

The person gasped and kept urging her to open her eyes. Chihiro's eyes finally fluttered open, expecting to be greeted with a harsh light instead of a face.

"Haku?" she mumbled foggily. What happened? She lifted a hand up to her face to see some sort of disgusting jelly-like substance coating it.

His face was over hers, upside down and was mostly occupied by his wide eyes. He stopped shaking her and grabbed her arm daintilly, scooting over to kneel by her side, bringing her arm back down. "Relax. I did a bit of healing, but i'm not sure if it'll work on the type of wounds you got." he whispered. Was she going crazy, or did it sound like Haku had been crying?

"What happened?" Chihiro asked, turning her head to face Haku. He held her hand as he explained.

"A stink spirit. It was powerful, more so than the one from before." he said. So thats what all this on her was. She got. . .attacked? "But ten times stronger and larger."

He looked away. "Everyone eventually fled and you were still standing there, frozen. It- it attacked you." he sneered at the thought. "You were unconcious for a while. I thought the damage was too-" he broke off and shook his head, giving her hand a squeeze. Just thinking about Chihiro's tiny body getting bulldozed over by that monster was too much.

Chihiro narrowed her eyebrows in complete confusion. Who was this person, and what did he do to sturdy Haku who was never phazed by anything?

"What happened to the spirit?" Chihiro asked worriedly. Was it still in the bath house? What if it came out of nowhere and hurt both of them this time? She didn't even know where they currently were.

Panicked, she tried to sit up, only to have spikes of pain inpale her in the back. She grunted and went limp, about to fall back onto the ground until Haku supported her back. He began to work on seizing the networks of pain pulsing under her skin. She finally rested her back against Haku's shoulder and observed the room.

They were still in the bath house. Or what used to be of it.

The destruction was one of the signs that hinted that a brawl happened between Haku and the spirit while she was out of it. The mucky remnants of the spirits gore was splattered and clinging to walls, rafters, and coated the floorboards. Chihiro felt Haku look away in shame.

"I vowed years ago-when I used to be the spirit of the River-that I would never hurt a living thing again. Whether it be a human or spirit." he muttered softly. "But I lost it."

"But you saved me." Chihiro pointed out.

"Yes, but I could have avoided adding another horrible tragedy to my list." he replied.

Chihiro was quiet for a moment. Their conversationg from earlier resurfaced in her mind. "You know what an important part of being childish is?"

This caught Haku off guard. What was Chihiro onto? He could sense that maturity coming out of her, see that fleck of Wisdom in her eye.

"Being afraid." she said as she turned around to look into Haku's forest green eyes. "You've never felt frightened until now, right?"

She was right. Nothing ever scared him before; he was a fearless dragon spirit. Until Chihiro crossed path's with Danger.

Noticing the realization dawning onto him, Chihiro smiled. "See? So in the end, no matter how old you are or what you lived through, you know what it's like to be a child." she poked him playfully in the shoulder.

Haku let a small smile spread on his face. "Thank you."

I FINALLY ADDED ANOTHER CHAPTER! This took me quite a while to type up, for some reason xP But I hope you guys thought it was worth the wait! I've also been thinking about ending this. What do you think?

Don't forget to leave a review!

~Sabby-Sama