Written Rivers

Book 2: A Tie Amongst Rivers

Chapter 3: Tamatebako

Rumi sat across the table from Chihiro eating late breakfast after unpacking their things. The Ogino seemed to still be stewing over her encounter with the Suzaku of the Holy Beasts. Rumi had seen Ayame's playful smirk geared toward Chihiro and all she had to do from there was watch her friend start overthinking the implications and rise onto her toes out of heated habit.

"What's got you all riled up?" Rumi questioned, already knowing the answer, but looking for conversation.

"Haku… and Ayame-San…" Chihiro bit harshly on the next bite of food.

"Is this cuz they're a protentional power couple and you don't know what to do with it?"

Her friend gaped like a fish out of water. "N-no."

Rumi gave her a knowing look, eyebrow raised. Chihiro pierced her lips.

"Well… maybe… I don't know. Something just doesn't feel right. And didn't you see how uncomfortable Haku looked?"

"Then why are you so worried? He obviously isn't interested and even if he was, why would it matter to you? We're stuck now, but not forever. As soon as we leave, last I checked you're letting all of this go. Unless plans have changed?"

Chihiro's face fell at the mention of their permanent leave and her prior decision to let it all go. It was almost as if she were reconsidering the whole thing as she gnawed at her inner cheek. Was she considering staying? What changed?

"Chi-Chan?"

"I… No… Of course not…" Chihiro stuttered over her own thoughts.

Rumi nodded as her friend contemplated with herself. She looked up when her eyes catch someone walk in through the door to the food hall. It was the Ayame chick. Chick… she was a phoenix… they were immortal firebirds… immortal baby chicks… Well, at least she cracked herself up.

"Ah." She said aloud as the Phoenix spotted them and approached.

Chihiro paused her mumbling and gave her a quizzical look. She turned to look over her should where Rumi had been looking and blinked just as Ayame came around to the side of the table into view.

"Hey ladies, I was wondering if you wanted to chat for a bit." She smiled.

The thing that always got Rumi whenever the Phoenix smiled was that it always seemed like she had some ulterior motive. Like the ones characters made in tv shows. The ones with closed eyes and creepy smiles that screamed ulterior motives. Yeah, that one. Something just always felt off. Rumi looked over to Chihiro to gauge her reaction, especially after what had happened the when they first met. She had to step in last time before Chihiro could explode in Ayame's face. She had to admit, it did almost seem like the woman was teasing her with the way she was hanging herself off Haku. But she hadn't expected such a potentially explosive reaction from her friend.

But Chihiro seemed calm enough today and considered the spirit. "Sure. Do you want to go somewhere else?"

Ayame tilted her head. "If you don't mind."

Chihiro looked at her friend and Rumi shrugged. If Chihiro thought she could handle it, why not? Heh. Famous last words.

Chihiro and Rumi cleared the table and made their way upstairs to their room. Their room had a balcony area, so they thought it'd be a nice place for tea. It had a nice view of the river, so it wasn't a bad alternative to their usual garden spot.

"Well isn't this quaint." Ayame glanced around their living room space, walking along the bookshelves decorated with books and ornaments.

Chihiro seemed to eye her. "Thanks."

Ayame hummed and continued to look through the books until one caught her eye. "Ogino… Chihiro…" She sounded out the characters and her eyes widened. "No way! You have a book?!"

The sudden attention caught Chihiro off guard and she blushed. "Uh… yeah…"

Rumi watched her play with her hair tentatively. Rumi rolled her eyes. Now she was shy? "Yeah, she wrote it from the perspective of humans and spirits getting along and humans respecting nature and the spirits once again."

The Phoenix let out a light scoff.

"Do you think that's wrong?" Rumi asked, raising a brow.

A forlorn smile adorned her lips. "Humans haven't changed since their creation. They're selfish and destructive. There's little hope for them. We spirits have done our best to intervene and give them the benefit of the doubt… Most of the time, it falls on empty hopes."

"Creatures of habit…" Chihiro said under her breath next to her at the table.

Rumi looked at her empathetically, "Chi-Chan…"

"No, Rumi-chan, she's right," Chihiro said confidently. "But we learn. We fall, but we get back up. We fall and forget but we get back up and relearn. It's why I wrote that book."

Ayame smiled. "And that's where our hope is placed. In humans like you, who try to understand and change. Who try to revolutionize the world back to its roots. It only takes one human, Chihiro-chan, to make a change. Maybe your book will stir something up."

Chihiro seemed to blush again, but she was confident in her stance. Rumi smiled at that. Chihiro was starting to get her place. She remembered helping Chihiro through high school find out what she wanted to do with her life. She remembered how much Chihiro struggled and how anxious she would get over her future that it caused her to have anxiety attacks. She was the one that helped her through her attacks through high school.

Since she had all her memories, she remembered Chihiro's attacks clearly and the triggers. The first one she was there for was triggered by a spirit in their homeroom classroom and she started to panic when she saw a pretty scary spirit. Now, Rumi only knew what she saw because since the car accident and Yuuka took her as a host, she could see spirits as well. Fortunately, she had Yuuka and Makoto to seek comfort in, but Chihiro had no one. Yuuka and Makoto had forbidden her from talking to Chihiro about what happened or that the spirits she was seeing weren't just her imagination. All Rumi could do was comfort her and fight off those that bullied her. But she had been no better than the bullies. Rumi had hated herself during the whole time Chihiro struggled with her bullies and ability to see the spirits alone. She felt at fault. So, she did the only thing she could do, help her through it.

"It's okay. We're going to figure this out. This too will pass." Rumi recited those words to Chihiro after witnessing the first attack since their reunion. Chihiro had run out of class and into the hallway and Rumi chased after her and held her hands as the young Ogino found difficulty in breathing, her tear-filled eyes searching around as she looked for the spirits that hid in the shadows, watching them. "Chi-chan. Look at me. Listen to my words. It's going to be okay. They can't hurt you. We're going to figure this out okay? This too will pass. Breath with me." She guided Chihiro out of her mind and back to reality. But the unfortunate thing was, that Chihiro was already in reality. It was reality she couldn't escape, not her mind.

It was after that, Rumi wrote the words in a small notebook, helping her friend however she could to push through the bullying and spirits. She had spent quite a few nights at the Ogino household, talking Chihiro out of her attacks, helping patch up after cutting too deep, and suicidal thoughts. Rumi was the one that found her friend after Chihiro tried to overdose on her mother's pills. Chihiro had already been going through therapy but it just tipped from there. Even Rumi felt helpless and alone at that time, especially watching her friend get taken to a mental hospital. But she had to put aside her own impending dark thoughts, so she could be there for her friend.

It was around then at the end of their first year in high school, Yuuka started messing with Chihiro's memories, altering the space and memories around them so the spirits disappeared and Chihiro's anxieties started to fade. Therapy sessions started to become few and far between. Chihiro still had anxiety attacks, but no longer because of the spirits she once saw, they were more about her future and where she belonged. Rumi was no different. Lost… They were both lost… And now that she knew the truth of her family, she was more than ready to let go of the Human World.

"Rumi-chan?"

Rumi blinked and met the eyes of Chihiro. "Hm?"

Chihiro chuckled nervously. "You kinda blanked out for a bit. You okay?"

Rumi's eyes briefly shifted to Ayame, who was sipping her tea, eyeing her with mild concern. She looked back at Chihiro and smiled. "I'm fine. Just thinking about some old memories."

Chihiro bit her lip and nodded. "Anyway, Ayame-san and I were talking about the efforts the Phoenix makes to bring peace."

"Per se, I don't bring peace, I announce it. I can sense when trouble or peace is near, and I bring the awareness of it. However, you humans often mix it up and I can't really do anything about it from there." Ayame shrugs.

The girls nodded and then Rumi asked a question she'd been wondering about since they met Ayame. "So, are you really immortal? Or do you really get reborn from your ashes when you die? Can you lay eggs or are you the egg? Wait! Did the egg or the Phoenix come first?"

Ayame blinked with wide eyes at the sudden barrage of questions and glanced at Chihiro. "This is normal," Chihiro replied, nonchalantly.

"I see." Ayame placed her empty cup down and Chihiro refilled it. "Well, to answer your question, Rumi-chan. Yes, I am immortal but not yet exactly."

"Not yet?" Rumi questioned.

"Yes, I go through a cycle of rebirth until I become a fully mature Phoenix," Ayame explained. "Phoenix must meet a level of maturity to gain true immortality where we no longer have to go through the rebirthing process. Until we do though, we continue to resurrect. We have vague remembrances of our past life. I'm rather young in comparison to others."

"There are others?" Chihiro chimed.

"Of course! I'm not the only one, however, many of us will continue to the heavens after a time of true immortality. My mate and I have been switching the role of Suzaku every time we go through a rebirth since we're the only two Phoenixes at present-"

"Wait! You have a mate?" Chihiro interrupted.

"Hm?" Ayame blinked. "Of course, I do. I've just always been a bit rebellious as far as elegant Phoenixes go."

"But Haku?"

"Kohaku-kun? Oh, that." Ayame kind of brushed it off. "Before my mate and I were official, we had a small thing, but it didn't go anywhere. And that was a few lifetimes ago, I hardly remember it. I just like to goad Kohaku-kun sometimes cuz he does."

Chihiro looked astonished, an ecstatic look in her eyes. Rumi eyed her friend. Was her friend…

"Oh my, do you fancy Kohaku-kun?" Ayame asked for Rumi.

Chihiro's jaw slacked, then her whole face turned an unnatural shade of red. "What?!"

"It's okay, hun, it happens to all of us eventually. It's called love."

"Nun-uh. I don't know what you're talking about. We're friends! I think we have both made it very clear." Chihiro persisted, waving her hands frantically in front of her in denial.

Rumi simply bit her lip to keep from saying anything, desperately wishing she had popcorn at the moment as her eyes darted between the two's interaction.

"Friends?" Ayame scoffed. "I don't know what delusion you've been living in, hun, but I have never seen Kohaku-Kun act so friendly toward anyone. Not even myself from what I remember of our brief relationship. You two are such stubborn creatures, I honestly don't understa-"

"It's not like that!" Chihiro exclaimed, standing up. Her face was beet red and Rumi couldn't tell if it were from anger or embarrassment. "Haku was the first friend I made out here in the Spirit World. He saved me on several occasions and has been like a brother to me. And even if on some off chance, I did like him, like you say, I'll be returning to the Human World someday and I won't be coming back…" Her words faltered at the end as if remembering and doubting her original resolve to leave the Spirit World behind her at her return to the Human World. Rumi had seen her resolve waver over the last month, and with the gates closed, the likelihood of their state being indefinite was getting higher. She shook her head after a pause. "So, even if I did, I couldn't."

Ayame looked her over then Rumi. "Why are you so afraid?" She asked.

"What do you mean?" Rumi almost stuttered after the sudden attention.

"Why does the Spirit World scare you?" Ayame clarified.

Chihiro sighed and looked to Ayame and her friend then the table. "Y'know, in the Human World, we have a fable about a fisherman who came to the Spirit World after saving a turtle who was the friend of the princess, Otohime. Thankful for his good deed, she invited the fisherman to the Dragon Palace in the Spirit World. He stayed there for a mere three days and decided to return to his family. The princess granted him with a box as a gift when he left and warned him not to open it. Upon return to his village, his family and friends were nowhere to be seen, having died a hundred years ago. And even though the princess warned him not to open the box, he lifted the lid and a puff of smoke aged him to his lost years, making him a white-haired old man. He died a lonely man…" Chihiro sighed. "I've come to learn that that's not how the time thing works between the two worlds but it's a scary thought that my family may be long dead when I see the Human World again…"

Ayame hummed. "I can reassure you that you will one day see your family again. You are right about the time relations, and you won't become like the old man in your fables. However, I do believe you will see your family again."

Rumi narrowed her eyes. "What makes you so sure?"

"Something tells me that the one that closed the gate isn't that cold-hearted."

"You know who did it?" Chihiro said, placing her hands on the table.

Ayame shook her head. "Not officially, but I can assure you it is none of us Holy Beasts."

Chihiro gaped at her, her eyes blinking before she sat down and crossed her arms. "Well, that's no help." She grumbled.

"Sorry, dear, I may be able to sense peace and trouble but I'm not all-knowing. Even as Suzaku, I still don't have that kind of knowledge." Ayame shrugged. "But technically only the Beasts can control the gates, so it really doesn't make any sense."

Chihiro laxed her arms and stared at her. "I keep hearing 'Holy Beasts' this, 'Holy Beasts' that, but what is the purpose of them? And why are you so desperate to have Haku as your Seiryu?"

"Yeah, what's the big deal?" Rumi echoed. Admittedly, she had very slim knowledge of the details in the stories of the gods, at least in comparison to Chihiro.

Ayame blinked. "Ryu-san and Kohaku-kun haven't told you?"

"I've heard the story of the Four Holy Beasts from myths, Obaa-s- Zeniba-san, Ryujin-san told me Genbu-Sama's prophecy and all Haku has told me is that you all want him as the next Seiryu… Well, actually he's barely told me that…" Chihiro said, correcting herself. "I just want to know why it has to be him?"

Ayame tapped her finger to her chin as if considering her words. "Well, you've heard the prophecy, no?"

"Yes." The girls said at once. Chihiro had told Rumi the prophecy, though she couldn't say she understood any of it.

"The lost dragon shall rise with the sun, the scorch of the serpent bared on their skin." The Phoenix recited. "The prospective dragon must be lost and bare the scorch of the serpent. While Kohaku-kun bares no scorch, he has been lost in a way few dragons have…"

"Him losing his river…" Chihiro muttered. "But rivers get filled in all the time? How many can be called lost?"

"Yeah, can't that just be a coincidence?" Rumi asked. "Aren't there plenty of other dragons in Japan? Haku-san is a river god, right? Aren't there plenty of other river gods that are dragons? What makes him special?"

"You both sound just like Kohaku-kun." Ayame shook her head. "You're not wrong, Rumi-San, but the fact that he's been lost and has so many redeeming factors that he's accumulated over his lifetime, makes him such an excellent candidate. And Naoyuki-san has personally met him and he believes he's the next Seiryu."

"And how does he know?" Chihiro scrutinized.

She blinked. "Because he met you."

"Excuse me?" Chihiro gaped.

Ayame reversed the conversation. "What was the prophecy that Chimon-San gave you, Chihiro-chan?"

Chihiro seemed taken aback and sputtered her response. "You… You must find your path and follow it without falter. Your friend will have to make a decision soon and you will have to be their anchor. You must convince your friend of their duty." She scowled. "But what does that have to do with anything?"

"Naoyuki-san knows who you are and has spoken very highly of you. Saying how you helped clean his river and many others in the Human World."

"Cleaned his river?" Understanding dawned her face. "The stink spirit?"

"No way…" Rumi mumbled.

"Ding ding ding." Ayame chimed. "You saved his river. Didn't you go back when you were older to clean his river and many others?"

"Well, yeah. I and the Environmental Club went around and started cleaning out the rivers and restoring them. It wasn't easy, but it was the least we could do. I never realized he was Seiryu. He remembered me?"

"Of course. And that's why he thinks you are the innocent in the prophecy. 'The innocent shall make a final say, marking the path set before them.' The prophecy that Chimon-san gave you only confirmed his suspicions. You are to convince Kohaku-kun of his duty." Ayame explained. "Chihiro-chan. That's your role in all of this."

Rumi's eyes darted to Chihiro for her reaction. Chihiro was just staring at the Phoenix, a cross of shock, anger, and confusion on her face.

"My role?" She finally said. "That's it? Are you kidding me?" She scoffed. "And why is it my job to convince him? He clearly doesn't want the position. Why is it my role?" She seethed. Clearly, she didn't like her appointed role.

"Chimon-san's prophecies are never wrong, Chihiro-chan. And it's not uncommon that some correlate." Ayame said. "And Naoyuki-san doesn't have much time left. He needs a successor and all arrows point to Kohaku-kun, whether he wants it or not. If fate wills it, it will be done."

"But why?" Chihiro exclaimed. "It's his life. He can decide what he wants to do! Who cares about fate?" She crossed her arms. "I'm not convincing him of anything. If that is the role I have been striving to know, I wish I'd never been given it or the personal prophecy."

Rumi watched the Phoenix's expression harden. "I don't think you understand the importance of this role, Chihiro-chan. This is a sacred tradition and if Kohaku-kun does not take part there will be an imbalance in Spirit World and we will be short of a beast. Have you ever tried to make a four-legged table try to stand with three legs? It lacks balance and stability, which is what will happen if Kohaku-kun does not take on this role."

"Then your system is fragile and flawed if it can be taken down by the incorrect assumption of a specific dragon for the title." Chihiro bit back. "You're barking up the wrong tree, meanwhile, your real Seiryu candidate is off wondering how he got a stupid mark on his back. Leave Haku be!"

Rumi could see her friend visibly shaking with anger, causing her to gulp. Chihiro was always the passionate time, it's how she got things done in the Environmental Club and with her book. Introvert as she was, without leadership she was not. She glanced over at Ayame, who fumed just as much, the smell of burning wild flowers hinted the air. How did one diffuse this?

Here goes nothing.

Rumi cleared her throat, earning herself almost immediate attention. "Well… I think we need a break to cool off. Maybe some time to think things through before we all say or do something we regret-"

"There's nothing to think about," Chihiro said abruptly, crossing her arms. "I want no part of the Holy Beasts' plans. And as much as I admire and commend you, Ayame-san, I cannot do as you ask. If Haku does not want to participate, then I will stand on his word. If fate," she emphasized, "so wants it, then it will get what it wants, but let it be his will first, stop trying to force him." She stood. "Now if you'll excuse us, we have things to take care of before it gets too late." Her stiff posture screamed 'get out.'

Ayame narrowed her eyes and assessed the girl before rising to her feet. "I presume Rumi-chan is right. We do need some air." She softened her expression. "Chihiro-chan, I respect your stance, but must warn you that fate works in mysterious ways and always get its way." She then smiled. "I do wish you the best of luck with Kohaku-kun though. He's a great catch if you can get him."

Before Chihiro had a chance to even exasperate a blush, Ayame winks and vanished, leaving nothing but the smell of burnt wildflowers.

Chihiro glared at the place the Phoenix once stood. She huffed. "I don't know if I like her or not."

Rumi shrugged. "Neither do I…"

A/N:

Sorry guys! This last week kicked me in the butt with my new job, family stuff, and car troubles so I had literally no time to work on the chapter. I had it 75% finished on the scheduled update date. It's been a rough last week but I'm readjusting to my new schedule and I should be able to get back to our regularly scheduled program. lol

Tamatebako- is the jewelry box from the fable Chihiro tells.

Btw, I love writing from Rumi's POV. She's so sarcastic and sassy, I love it! It makes me find my inner Percy Jackson. XD

Note about the timeline… So, I noticed that there's a discrepancy in the timeline that I have written wrong on several accounts. I guess that's what happens when you write a story for this long no matter how planned out it is. Rumi and Makoto came into Chihiro's life when she was fifteen, near the end of middle school. Chihiro has been mentally unstable, seeing spirits, and being bullied throughout most of elementary and all of middle school. She was pretty unstable and suicidal when Rumi finally came into the picture. Rumi pretty much held her together the whole time until Yuuka altered Chihiro's memories their first year of high school. Note that the only memories Yuuka altered in Rumi's mind are the memories of her family (which is a lot to alter if you really think about it) nothing with what Chihiro went through. I just wanted to make this clear since I know I've messed this up in the past and will have to go back and fix it.

Thanks for reading and don't forget to review! And for those that do review, I thank you a bunches!

Thank you for the reviews from: picklesisadeadcat, RSBCS, Rosettaxfantasy, Kra and chimera-writes.

God bless! KawaChou