Spirited Away: The Wait [ORIGINAL]

Small Beginnings

     The gemstone lay in his open palm as his thumb stroked the treasure. Haku leaned back in his seat and glanced at the calendar sitting on his desk. It was 5th August again. Another year had passed without her.

     He sighed, a mixture of feelings clouding his eyes. All at once, guilt, sadness and frustration attacked him and he closed his eyes, trying to find some peace.

     “Hey Haku, I’ve got something for you!” she giggled happily. At the sound of her voice, he wiped the perspiration from his brow with the back of his hand and put down the basket filled with a day’s efforts of collected herbs.

     As she joyfully made her way over to him like a prancing child, a smile spread across his tired features and he asked, “What is it?”

     She cheekily eyed him and then opened her palm to reveal a beautiful gem. It had a beautiful green outer covering, and it was pink at the core, with faint brown streaks dancing throughout the little thing. “Well, what do you think?”

     “I think,” he eyed the object, scrutinizing it, “it’s a miniature-sized watermelon you got there.”

     She slapped him on the arm playfully, sticking her tongue out at him. “I thought dragons would be more observant than this, but apparently not. It’s most definitely not a watermelon,” she rolled her eyes, “it’s a watermelon tourmaline.”

     He sent her a teasing flat look. “Terrific, you just discovered a new species of watermelon.”

     Her withering look made him grin. “It’s a gemstone! Don’t you think it’s beautiful, and inedible?” she added. 

     “It is quite pretty. Good for you.”

     “It’s yours. I’m giving it to you.”

     “Why? I thought women like gems and stones and all that?”

     “Well yes, but I want you to have it.”

     “You keep it.”

     “Why do you want me to have it so much?”

     He watched amusedly as she struggled to come up with an appropriate answer. “Well, friends can give each other presents, can they not? I want you to have it.”

     Without waiting for his answer, she thrust it in his palm and was off, calling behind her, “We should get back soon; I think we’ve collected enough herbs for a day.”

     Relief flooded Haku as he stretched out his back which had gone through an arduous day or bending over and squatting. Then he turned his eyes back to the gift and smiled.

     Haku had gone to find out the meaning of a watermelon tourmaline gemstone, and find it bitterly ironic to how he felt right then.

     It was said to be able to attract love, remove imbalances and guilt caused by conflicts and confusions, and the green part served to feeds one’s life force while the pink would soothe and harmonize.

     His fingers unconsciously curled around it tightly while he travelled back in time, to the times spent together with his dear friend. And then the man rose from his seat in a trance-like state, dropping the gemstone and opening the windows.

     In a flash, his dragon surfaced and out he flew.

********

     “Shou, Shou? Shou!”