Spirited away 2

Chapter Thirteen:

Sleep came peacefully to the young dragon as he imagined Chihiro's face; he had guessed that she would be quite beautiful as she aged. He hadn't seen her in years, but he felt as though he had a good guess what she would no doubt look like. 

Feeling his body clock begin to push him to open his eyes, Haku groaned and tried to savor the fleeting image of the young girl he once knew before the ceiling came into view. He laid his right arm over his eyes for merely a moment before he sighed and pushed himself out of bed. Standing upright, he paused and stretched his arms above his head only stopping after he heard a popping noise. 

Haku wasn't quite sure why but he felt good today, like physically good. Which was strange since he had just used quite a bit of energy visiting his river the days before. Perhaps he had finally built up a good stamina? Maybe his body was finally used to be on edge all the time? The brown haired male wasn't sure. 

Looking around his room, he raised an eyebrow when he felt his strength almost fully returning to him and he had just woke up. It was almost as if there was a presence in the bathhouse that was giving off a powerful aura that filled him with power. He wasn't sure what was happening but he chose to push it off; afterall it wasn't affecting him negatively. 

Making his way down through the bathhouse he braced himself for his run in with Yubaba, she would most definitely put a damper on his chipper mood but he had no choice but to make his way through his day. As he reached the bottom floors, he observed everything running in it's normal chaotic yet organized way. He paused and crossed his arms just observing his peers. Was he going crazy, or were they doing their work with smiles? Raising an eyebrow again Haku was about to say something before his name was screamed from somewhere inside of the chaos. 

Glancing at the crowd he watched as a tiny toad spirt, his assistant Pabu, fought his way through the sea of workers only to stop his hop infront of the older boy's feet. 

"Master!" he croaked while sucking in air and sweat dripped down his little nose. "Master Haku when did you return?" he questioned happily and loudly. Haku watched him for a second longer without a facial expression before his eyes slowly went back to the chaos around them. 

"Late last night." the dragon said simply before nodding his head towards the happy workers around them. "What's going on?" 

Pabu followed his gaze and saw the smiles everyone held before he nodded his head like he remembered something. "Oh! Master haven't you heard?!" 

That phrase caught the boy's attention and Haku's eyes went back to staring down at his assistant. "Heard what?" Had something wicked happened while he was away? 

"Sen is back!" the little toad said loudly hoping that his master would be pleased with that information. Being that Pabu is Haku's assistant, the little spirit played the role of therapist in many cases and knew a lot of sensitive information about Haku's feelings. He knew that his master missed the young human girl terribly and regretted her departure. 

Immediately a deep ragefilled glare came to Haku's face making the toad look down towards the floor on instinct. "That's not funny Pabu." he snarled, being a dragon Haku struggled at times to contain his anger. "You of all people in this forsaken place should know not to 'joke' about her." 

The small toad held his little hands together in front of him and shook his head. "I swear master! Sen really is back!" testing his luck, Pabu looked up and met his master's glare with pleading eyes. They stared into each other's eyes for multiple moments before Haku sucked his teeth and shook his head. 

If this were a joke he would have to make another example of one of his underlings. Sure Haku didn't enjoy playing the role of wrathful master, but what the spirits didn't understand was that playing the 'joke' that his human had returned to him broke his heart which in turn chipped away at the humanity he still held within his soul. 

Crouching down to be eye level with his underling, Haku observed every detail of his face before opening his mouth. "You should be aware of the consequences should you be lying to me." he threatened. He was hoping Pabu would stop while he was ahead so no further action would have to take place. But when the spirit nodded his head and gave him a kind smile Haku immediately felt confused. 

After a second the confusion left and instead his heart began to race. Was this actually happening? Had his human actually returned to him? His Chihiro? Flashes of his memories with the young girl as well as his imagined image of her as an adult played through his head at lightening speed and before he knew it, he had grabbed Pabu by his small arms and was standing at his normal height. 

"Where is she!?" he demanded. He wouldn't be able to believe until his eyes landed on her.

...

In another part of the bathhouse said human was working alongside her bestfriend while scrubbing away green algae looking scum. With two hands she held an abnormally large scrub brush as she used her whole body to scrub at the gross stuff. Suds bubbled up over the brush and landed on her face for the third time today and she groaned.

"What was in this freaking bathtub?" she complained in frustration while wiping away the dirty soap from her face and spitting some out of her mouth. Lin covered her mouth trying not to laugh as she leaned against the mop she had in her hands. 

"Eh, I don't really know." the older woman shrugged while looking around at the mess of work they still had. They had cleaned half of the bowl already but the noticeable green goop everywhere wasn't very motivating. It had taken them almost two hours just to get half of it done because the goop was like literal goop and spread all over the place when scrubbed. "Whoever, or whatever they were definitely needed a good bath though." 

"A good ol scrubbing." Chihiro shook her head when the new patch of goop she was cleaning smeared everywhere. She was frustrated; the young human had been on edge all day and she wasn't sure why. "See this is why I wish I could do that voodoo magic stuff that you spirits do."

"Voodoo?" Lin questioned with a raised eyebrow but Chihiro just shook her head and waved her off. The human had been thinking of her first encounter with Yubaba when she had first went asking for a job. 

"I mean seriously, then I could just snap my fingers and boom! We're done." she mock cheered before her whole body froze and she looked over at her friend with an unspoken question. Lin watched her confused before she shook her head and aggressively began mopping again. 

"No no, don't give me that look. Don't you think if I had magic like that, I would've already used it?" she said shaking her head making Chihiro pout for a mere moment before she nodded her head. 

"Fair enough." she went back to scrubbing at the goop before another thought came to mind.

"Hey don't we have like a special soap that we could use?" when Lin stared at her like she had grown another head Chihiro paused and started demonstrating with her hands. "Like in my world we have all different kinds of soaps for different jobs." she said aloud while looking at her friend as if she finally had it all figured it out. 

Lin paused before nodding her head. "I'll go check, I can't believe that we didn't think of that sooner." she said before climbing out of the huge tub. Both women were completely unaware of the set of eyes watching their every moves.