Forever Looking Back

Forever Looking Back (a Spirited Away fanfiction)

Don’t look back.

It took everything Chihiro possessed to follow those instructions. She repeated it over and over again, but it only seemed to make things worse.

The tears threatened to spill, but she willed them back, just as she willed her head to not turn around to grab one last glance at the bath house that had been her home for the last few months. She should be happy. She was about to see her parents. Her parents who were no longer pigs, but back to normal. But still the tears tickled her nose and made her vision blur slightly.

She would miss it, Chihiro finally admitted to herself, and that seemed to ease up the threat of tears somewhat. She would miss Lin, and Kamaji, and No-Face, and Granny, and Yubaba’s son, and all her friends in the bath house staff. She would even miss Yubaba, as terrible as she had been to her in the beginning. But most of all, it was Hakku that she would miss.

Just the mention of his name made the tears well up in the corner of her eyes. But once again, she willed them back, but this time she only barely succeeded. Nothing should hurt this much, Chihiro thought. Especially when her parents were so close.

In fact, she could see them, standing on the next hill, waiting for her. Chihiro ran to them and embraced them as if she hadn’t seen them in years, when it had been only months. It felt much longer right now, though.

They started walking back towards the entrance way, where their car was parked. Should be parked, at least.

Finally, after walking through the archway, Chihiro peeked back, but saw nothing, just like she had when she first started on this journey. Just grassy hills, stretching as far as the eye could see. No river spirit waving at her, feeling equally crushed. But she hadn’t really expected to see him, so it only hurt a little. A little more than it currently hurt, at least.

The car had been covered in dust and debris, which to her parents had seemed a practical joke at the time. It was only after getting to their new house and finding out how long they had been gone that it started to sink in. It must’ve been some sort of accident, Chihiro’s mother and father had reassured themselves and their daughter. Some sort of weird coma or something.

That had been the official story, as well. A few doctor visits and a few more trips to the hospital had confirmed nothing, but it still became accepted as truth. After all, what else could cause people to lose such long stretches of memory? Other than being turned into pigs and almost being eaten as dinner at a bath house for the spirits, that is.

But Chihiro said nothing about what had happened, and just kept the story to herself as she was poked and prodded, examined and examined again, by the doctors who couldn’t come up with an explanation.

It took three weeks for the doctors to finally give up and declare amnesia. Chihiro was finally able to start settling into her new life. Her parents worried, when it became clear that their daughter had changed so much. She had stopped complaining so much, was much quicker at doing her chores, and she seemed almost to appreciate life more.

But while she was showing a new maturity and polite attitude, she also became more withdrawn, which worried her parents. But as they had with their missing memories, they just decided that it was most likely something simple, like puberty, and let her be. She was only ten, but maybe that was when she was supposed to mature, mentally.

Chihiro had started a diary when she had gotten back, and started writing down her story, making sure to include every detail she could, before she could forget anything. It took over a month, but she was finally satisfied with her work. She had made sure to describe everything, from the scent of the bath water she used to clean out the tubs, down to how Hakku’s hand had felt in hers as they fell through the air.

She cried as she wrote most of the narrative, but it was worth it. She hugged the notebooks to her chest after writing the last part. It had caused her to cry the most, and the tears still streaked her cheeks as she sighed.

“It did happen,” she said to her empty room as she gripped the hair band Zeniba had given her. “It did.”

The next day she tried to find her way back, hoping that she had given it enough time. She knew, instinctively, that she couldn’t go back immediately, so she had waited until she had finished writing. She figured that should be long enough.

Chihiro walked past the little shrine boxes, and smiled. This was the right path. She remembered. She could even smell her bouquet, feel the tires bumping beneath the seat, if she tried hard enough. It took much longer to walk there than it had to drive, which she knew it would, but she still feared that maybe she had went the wrong way. But when she spotted the front of the entryway, she started running. So close, she was so close.

The wind was blowing as she entered the building. Everything was exactly how she had remembered it. Her happiness gave her an extra burst of speed, and she ran until she got to the empty river bed. It was how she remembered it, but the buildings beyond were not.

Every single stall was run-down and deserted. The layers of dust and debris were so thick that it seemed impossible that anyone could’ve been here in the last decade, let alone a few months ago. But still Chihiro went forward.

It was much smaller than she remembered. Only a few stalls, it seemed. But maybe it was just the wrong time of day. She followed the pathways to where the bath house should have been.

‘Should’ being the operative word. The bath house, the bridge, everything, it was all gone. It couldn’t be, Chihiro thought as she frantically retraced her steps.

“I took a right here,” she muttered to herself. “Then I went left here, and…” The bath house was still missing.

“Okay, maybe it was a right,” she said as she re-retraced her steps. But no matter which way she went, there was no bridge, leading to a bath house or otherwise. The theme park was as it should have been, not as she remembered it. There were booths long deserted, a few empty spaces where rides must have once sat, and a few small, crumbling buildings. Everything Chihiro knew was gone, replaced by these new things she had never seen before.

She collapsed in the spot where the bridge should have been and cried. She cried harder than she ever had, and she stayed there until the sun was gone from the sky.

Her parents would be worried. She lifted herself up and started walking back towards the riverbed, almost as if in a daze.

“Did I just imagine everything?” She asked herself as she balanced on a rock near the middle of the bed. “No, I couldn’t have. I remember it so clearly.” But those words did nothing to quell the fear in her heart, or stop the tears from returning. “Did I wait too long?” That question only made her cry hard enough to lose her footing on the mossy boulder. She slipped and fell onto the bank, dirtying up her clothing and cutting her hand without her even feeling or noticing.

She walked home. Trudged like a condemned criminal on his way to be hung, would be a better description. She was too late. She had lost everything because she hadn’t gone back in time.

When she finally got home, her mother fussed over her bloody hand and muddy clothing, while her father lectured her for being out so late. Chihiro said nothing, only nodded.

The next few weeks, Chihiro was melancholy. She had lost her friends. She barely spoke, and at night, she read and reread her story. She would then cry herself to sleep.

Her parents finally became worried enough to send her to a psychiatrist. She was forced to bring her notebooks with her to each visit, and the stern-looking woman would read out loud as Chihiro tried to sink away into the chair. After seven visits, she was finally forced to admit that she believed what she had wrote, and spent the next six months being all but brainwashed by the doctor into “realizing” that her fantasy world had been just that, a fantasy.

Even though Chihiro no longer believed she had worked at the bath house, she still dreamed about her friends. She started to write stories about them, about things that hadn’t happened, to keep them alive in her mind. They may have been imaginary, but she still loved them.

By the time she was thirteen, Chihiro spent most of her free time writing. She had filled up notebook after notebook with stories about Hakku, and Lin, and No-Face, and all the other people she had wished she had met. The psychiatrist said this was healthy and okay, so her parents never bothered her about it, and bought her notebooks whenever she ran out. An entire shelf was soon overflowing with notebooks, all filled with Chihiro’s scribbled stories.

When Chihiro finally started high school, she was withdrawn, but not as much as she had been. She had a few friends, none of whom were allowed to read her stories. They pestered her about them, but they were still not allowed into Chihiro’s special world, as she had started to call it. Even her parents weren’t allowed to read her stories. She protected her notebooks like a mother tiger would protect her cubs.

If she didn’t let anybody into her private little world, it would seem more real. Nobody to laugh at her dreams. It was why she never let her friends or parents in her room. She locked the door whenever she left her room, and would meet with her friends in the living room or outside.

Chihiro still went back to the abandoned amusement park often. She would take a lunch and her notebooks when she didn’t have school, and just sit by the river bed and write for the day. Or she would cross the trickling stream and go back to where the bridge should have been, and wish that Hakku would show up once again.

It was the middle of a school break during her sophomore year that she first heard the noises. It was a low-pitched mumbling. It sounded so much like No-Face that Chihiro started to cry. She turned around quickly, expecting to see the dark figure behind her, but saw nothing. She wiped her tears away with her sleeve and gathered her things into her book bag. She left for the rest of the day, fearing for her sanity.

But she still went back as often as before. The noise didn’t bother her the next day, but the day after, Chihiro could’ve sworn she heard a boiler going.

“I must’ve imagined it,” she said when the noise stopped and she could see nothing out of the ordinary. But right as she was leaving that day, she heard a faint whisper of a noise. It sounded like the chain being pulled to indicate the herb mixture was ready. Chihiro ran home that day.

The next day, Chihiro sat down in the place where the bridge should’ve started and just listened. She had heard the noises three times; maybe she would hear them again. “I knew the psychiatrist was full of it. It really did happen,” she said to the empty air, and stopped talking after that to strain her ears for even the slightest noise.

But nothing happened for over an hour. Chihiro sighed and moved back to her usual spot, the bank of the river bed.

Just as she was putting away the trash from her packed lunch, she was startled at a voice behind her. She jumped up and started to cry out “Hakku!” but froze when she saw that it was just Nakagawa-kun, her classmate.

“Your mom said you’d be here,” he said as he looked around him. “It’s kind of a weird place, isn’t it?”

“I like it,” Chihiro said quickly, with a bit of annoyance in her voice.

“I didn’t say it was weird-bad. Just weird.” Nakagawa-kun put his head down as he said this, and kicked at a rock.

“Apology accepted,” Chihiro said, knowing what he had meant.

“This is where your stories take place, isn’t it?” He said, looking around again.

Chihiro stopped what she was doing and stared at him. Had he read one of her stories? How?

“Your mom told me, when I asked where you were,” he said in response to the look of horror on his friend’s face. “She said they all take place in a bath house that’s supposed to be out here somewhere.”

“It’s not here anymore,” Chihiro said sadly, before catching herself.

“Did you, like, imagine it all when you were younger or something?” Nakagawa asked. He could’ve teased her about it, but that would defeat the purpose of coming here then.

“Uh… Yeah, I think so.” Chihiro would rather die than tell him she had recently decided that it really had happened. She looked down at her feet to hide her embarrassment. That was when she spotted the little bit of metal wedged between the rocks at her feet. It looked like a gold nugget…

She couldn’t believe her eyes, but when she moved the rock next to it with her toe, it winked in the sunlight. It was a gold nugget. Just like the ones No-Face had been spreading around. But hadn’t all those turned back into dirt?

“Well, that’s not really why I’m here,” Nakagawa said, and tried to control the blush that was creeping its way up his face. “You see, the thing is… I, uh… Thought maybe, if you weren’t busy… We could maybe, err… Go out some…” He looked over at Chihiro, who wasn’t even paying attention to his poorly-constructed attempt at asking her out. Instead, she was examining a bit of dirt.

It was a gold nugget, Chihiro found out when she had picked it up. It HAD happened. A smile broke across her face as she examined the gold, but after handling it, it turned back into dirt, just like all the others had.

“Aah, aaaah…” The mumbling that sounded like No-Face was carried past her by the breeze.

“What was that?” Nakagawa asked, puzzled by the odd noise.

“Nothing,” Chihiro said quickly as she dropped the bit of dirt. “Just the wind.”

“Oh.” Nakagawa was confused, but after a few moments, he became more determined than before. He had Chihiro’s attention now. “Anyway, as I said, I thought if you weren’t busy, maybe we could…” There went the new confidence. “Maybe we could, uhh… You know, go somewhere… Like on a… On a….” He stuttered, but finally gave it all he had and threw out the rest of the sentence in a rush. “Like we could go somewhere on a date… Or something…” His entire face flushed as he looked up at Chihiro. Hers quickly flushed to match.

Nakagawa-kun was handsome, Chihiro thought. He was a few centimeters taller than her, and had short, spiky hair and a nice face. But he was no Hakku.

“Nakagawa-kun,” Chihiro started, before she was interrupted.

It was just a whisper, but it was definitely Hakku’s voice. “Chihiro…” It only lasted a second, but it was enough for Chihiro. Without even answering Nakagawa-kun, she grabbed her bag from the ground and ran at top speed towards the spot where she had wished so many times to hear Hakku’s voice again.

Nakagawa blinked as the girl he had just bravely asked out fled before him. Somebody had called her name, and he had been completely forgotten. At least, he thought it sounded like her name. His face a mask of gloom, Nakagawa started back towards the road, knowing he had apparently lost his chance with Chihiro.

Chihiro ran with all her might as tears of joy streamed down her face. Hakku! He had called her!

“Hakku!” She shouted as she ran. “Where are you?”

She got no response, but still she ran. He would be at the bridge, she just knew he would. She rounded the corner and ran towards the empty spot where the bridge to the bath house should’ve been. But there was nobody standing there. She skidded to a halt and glanced around. No Hakku. No change at all. It was exactly as it had been when she had left it earlier.

“No…” she said, before her legs fell out from beneath her and her bag fell to one side. She put her hands on her face as she started to cry. “No, not again,” she whispered through the tears. She stayed like that as she cried, until her tears ran out a few minutes later. She stood up, and looked longingly at the empty spot, trying to will the bath house into being.

“Chihiro,” a voice sounded behind her, and she turned, expecting to see Nakagawa-kun again. Hopefully he would forgive her for being so rude. She was obviously going insane and hearing voices, so maybe he wouldn’t be as angry.

But it wasn’t her short-haired classmate. It was a boy her age, but he had long hair and crystal-clear eyes. He looked a lot like Hakku, actually…

“Chihiro,” he said again, and this time there was no mistaking it. It was Hakku!

“Hakku?” Chihiro asked softly, afraid to believe her own eyes, afraid if she blinked he would go away forever.

Hakku just smiled and nodded. That was all the encouragement Chihiro needed. She flung herself at him with desperate speed. She grabbed him and hugged him for all she was worth, and he hugged her back just as fiercely. “I missed you so much, Hakku. I was afraid you weren’t real,” Chihiro whispered, tears pouring down her cheeks, coming from some reserve she didn’t even know she had.

Hakku stroked her hair, and Chihiro was glad she hadn’t put it in a pony tail this morning. “I missed you too, Chihiro,” Hakku whispered into her neck, and she thought she felt a tear hit her shoulder.

Chihiro pulled away from the embrace, to look at her long-lost friend. “You’re real,” she said, more to herself than to Hakku. He just nodded. His smile was bigger than even her own.

It was then that Chihiro decided to try something she had been imagining for months, dreaming about. She leaned into Hakku, and placed her lips on his. Ever since she had heard No-Face a few days before, it was all she could think about at night. She was a teenager, after all.

Hakku was startled for a second as Chihiro kissed him, but that went away quickly as he started kissing her back. He moved his hand to the back of her head as he moved closer.

As many times as she had imagined this exact moment, the reality was still far superior. Chihiro sighed as her body seemed almost to melt into his.

When she could no longer breathe, Hakku pulled back. He looked at the girl in his arms, and his smile doubled. “I waited for you,” he said quietly, not wanting to ruin this perfect mood.

“I knew you would.” She hugged him tightly. “I always knew you would.”

They broke the embrace to kiss again, and as they did, the bridge faded into existence. The bath house followed, and then the entire landscape changed to the spirit world Chihiro had stumbled into when she was ten.

The world was once again as it should be.