Chapter Text
"I made friends today,
But that phrase feels stranger now
I dream of pigpens."
Chihiro sat up, gasping. Her fingers worried at the hair band that was around her wrist, trying to think of what Zeniba had said. "So that I'll remember them." She said aloud, and picked up her pen, feeling comforted with the cobwebs of her nightmare chased away. On the back of the card from the flowers from when she moved, she scribbled the poem, and wondered if Haku thought of her. It was going to be the end of spring soon, and the flowers from the bath house gardens would be shedding their petals, blanketing the spot where she had cried for the human world in his arms.
School felt easy, most days, and her cleaning duties were the easiest part of it. Chihiro had gotten the floors done in five minutes her first day, rolling her sleeves up and whizzing back and forth across the room just as she had learned.
Her friends thought it was funny that she spent so much time at temples, leaving offerings for the spirits. It was a lifelong duty she had sworn to do once she got out of the tunnel, to pay back the spirits for her parent's actions, and she did it every day without fail. Maybe somewhere Haku was eating the berries she'd picked at the start of summer, just barely ripe enough to be considered ready.
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"River mud in my nails,
I dug for your presence, yet
It is rinsed away."
The flyer talked about tearing down the now condemned apartments, and how volunteers were going to excavate the river and let it flow through town again. Though her friends didn't understand why she was so insistent on spending the day in mud, they followed along with it, spending the day spraying each other with hose water and making runs to the store for cold drinks.
It seemed as good a paper as any to write on, and Chihiro thought Haku might like knowing that his river was being restored. Half of her had expected him to come bursting through the rush of water that they'd released, twisting and triumphant, but it didn't happen. Blinking, she could almost see a pink shoe being washed away.
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"Festival lanterns
Alight in the sky, floating
I dance through the night."
The end of middle school had finally come, and they chattered excitedly about which high schools they would attend. "No fair, Chihiro, I can't believe you got accepted there!" "Well, maybe if you'd studied with me you could have gone too!"
They bought tokens to bless their new beginning, as Chihiro's penitent nature had rubbed off on them, and prayed before running off to find a yakisoba stand. On a spare graduation invitation, she wrote, before putting it with the rest of the ema hanging at the shrine.
A sudden gust of wind rose, whipping her kimono with it, spiraling the leaves from the ground high in the air. She raised her hands in the sky with them, and for a moment, felt like she could fly.
----
"A rose petal falls,
As if to wipe free my tears
Which fall towards you."
The first day of high school, and she almost got into a fight. While visiting club rooms, she listened to the leader of the occult club for less than a minute before interrupting. "That's not how spirits look at all!"
"How would you know? I've spent the last four years researching it!" Everyone was whispering as Chihiro confronted the president of the club, confidence in her voice. "Why would they? Do you honestly think the radish spirit would be a skinny, serene court lady? It doesn't match up!" After all, the radish spirit and Chihiro had a history, one she couldn't share with anyone.
The debate didn't last, and Chihiro found herself alone in the hallway, picking at the shimmering purple band in her hair. She ran for the river, kneeling beside it and crying. The flowers she had worked so hard to plant were starting to bloom. Reaching into her bag, she rummaged until she found the edge of her schedule, and she wrote on it, sending it down the current when she was done.