FicWad

The next morning Chihiro sat at the large dining room table alone, staring in adaze at nothing in particular, picking through the rice in her bowl but not eating it. She couldn't seem to stop thinking about Haku and the fact that he had kissed her, though she had yet to see him this morning. As their lips had met something had sparked inside her, and strangely enough the feeling hadn't gone away yet, as if something dormant inside her, something long forgotten, had been awakened. She felt a freedom that she had never felt before. Warmth had flooded her senses and for once she felt like she was exactly where she was supposed to be.

With this warmth also came a new awareness. Chihiro could feel the spirits around her, even the spirits she could not see with her eyes. She could sense a new and frightening danger in the air. As all these strange feelings flooded through her, her mind remained focused on one thing, Haku.

When he had left her in her room the evening before he asked her to have breakfast with him and of course she readily agreed, but for some reason he was late. Haku was not the sort of person to be late for anything so as the minutes passed she became increasingly worried about him. Just as Chihiro had made up her mind to go find him, if only to assure herself he was okay, she heard footsteps entering the room. As her mind told her it had to be Haku, her sense of danger grew stronger. She glanced over her shoulder to find a strangely familiar man walking into the room. He walked past her with a knowing smile on his face and sat in the chair next to her.

"Hello Chihiro."

"I'm sorry, do I know you?" Chihiro asked, finding it odd that he knew her name.

"No,"his smile widened "I have merely heard about you."

Her brows formed a frown of confusion. How could he have heard of her? Here she was only a worker and not many people remembered her from before. Questions raced through her mind but before she could put any of them into words she heard more footsteps and knew instinctively that this time it was definitely Haku.