Home Again (Spirited Away)

Something Lost and Something Found

It's weird, but being close to Haku again is . . . less calming than I remember, to be honest.

     This may have something to do with the fact that we're flying about two feet above the earth's surface and I'm not used to anything faster than the bus in the mornings. Also, it's Haku, and he's after Ryo for whatever reason he won't tell me, and this is not how I intended our reunion to go, and, besides, we're less of close in the emotional-type way and more in the physical-type way and I'm not sure if I'm cool with that right now.

     Okay, I totally am, but this is weird, and where are we going, anyway?

     But I can't ask that. When you're flying maybe one point seven feet above the ground at maybe one thousand point seven miles per hour, you're really more worried about hanging onto your supernatural buddy than asking any rational questions.

     "Hold on!" Haku says, whipping around the gates outside the entrance to the school.

     Oh, yeah, sure, like there's another option at the moment.

     I guess we're tracking Ryo down, which may or may not be futile depending on how good of a head start I gave him. I don't know what he did to get Haku on his tail, but I'm not sure I can be on his side anymore. This is Haku, after all, someone I trust more than I trust myself. If he's after Ryo, then I guess I'm after him, too.

     "Do you have any idea where he could've gone?" Haku asks me as we're barreling down the road back into town.

     I fight for the chance to say something instead of Uhhh, ummmm . . . and come out with, "Depends . . . on . . . what . . . he's running . . . for."

     "He stole a sizeable amount of money from the Bath House," Haku explains, making my heart start or maybe settle at the sound of the name of a place I don't want to go back to but loved nonetheless. "That's why he's running from me."

    "So you're . . . playing . . . bloodhound," I say.

    "What?" Haku asks, completely confused.

    "Never mind," I say. "I don't know . . . how on Earth he got past Yubaba, but I do know that he's trying to pass as human. So . . . there's one . . . of two options: either he's staying as far away from humans as possible, or he's somewhere in a really big crowd right now. . . . Does he know . . . much about you, and would you follow him . . . into a crowd of humans?"

     "I suspect he knows a lot about me," Haku answers, hanging a left that makes me kind of feel like puking. "So you're saying he would do exactly what he thinks I would not do?"

      "That's about right."

      Haku stops abruptly, but the break in speed doesn't affect us. It's like he was moving the wind, instead of us, so when we stop, we are simply suspended in midair, hair and clothes thrown forward, floating safely back down to the ground. I watch in awe as I step onto the pavement, my hair windblown, myself undamaged.

       "Then, Chihiro, I need you," Haku says, turning on me with those eyes. "I would not disrupt the human world; he knows that. But he doesn't know that I have you to get me through it. Will you help me?"

       So Ryo went right into a large crowd of other people. Since he though Haku wouldn't follow him there. And of course I'll help Haku; it's like when he helped me in the spirit world all those years ago.

       "One-way trip to the nearest large gathering," I say, finding it hard to smile and pushing through it anyway. "Civilization, here we come. No flying this time; we're walking."