Chapter Text
Chihiro doesn’t speak with the fish.
They’re fish. They don’t talk. His dad can think what he wants, but Chihiro has long known that he was a little loose in the head.
At least his dad had kept up with feeding them. It’s been about a month since he brought them back from the market, and they look as healthy as ever.
Chihiro watches them swish around the bowl, careless and free.
Fish can’t speak, but they can feel emotion, can’t they?
He would say they looked pretty happy.
…
“I’m sorry,” Chihiro mumbles to the three fish splayed out on the rubble, sunburnt and still.
He thought he might’ve been able to cry enough to revive them again, but clearly, it wasn’t working. It was stupid. The whole thing was stupid.
He was talking to the fish and they weren’t even in their bowl. Their bowl was probably somewhere underneath all the rubble, underneath all the soot and dust and blood—
“Hey, Chihiro, c’mon, look at me. I just need to see if you’re hur…”
Shiba’s voice faded in and out of his ears. He mostly heard static, made up of everything around him.
All the summer cicadas buzzing, the crashing of the river that was nearby, the crunch underneath Shiba’s shoes as he drew closer; everything was so loud and it didn’t feel real because they’d always lived so quietly so why—?!
The sword in his lap started to pulse. Something wet brushed his cheek. And, suddenly, he saw with total clarity.