| Spirited Away... again... and again. A/N:This time, Spirited Away, with the beautiful Haku and his lovely angsty nature. I actually quite like this one. But then I'm too deeply attached to that anime. Enjoy. As a spirit would you age? Did those others, seemingly older spirits change in appearance, change in emotion or personality when the years wrought past? Would you be doomed to an eternity of childish arrogance, misunderstanding and the hopelessness of being without... Just without. He shouldn't exist. He no longer had his source, only a trickle of water between the crushing weight of cement. The Kohaku River was no more, to the eyes of men and sometimes to the spirits. What did that mean? Would he finally fade away when he dries, when the memory of Kohaku fades from all of their minds and he will have no place anymore, not that he has one now. He feared that. He feared The End. Another forgotten trickle of water. Chihiro would ground him, as long as she remembered, as long as she remembered and loved him like he knew she did, he would live on. She was only mortal however, while he would live on, and on, and on. He never saw her again despite his promise. He saw other Chihiros, girls, and boys that came to him like a passing family tradition, where he would make them love him, remember him. Like distorted mirror images of each other as each came and went, all with the same promise given and never fullfilled. Did he change? Did he grow in their eyes? Was he evil for making them love him? If he didn't change, where did the original Kohaku go? He only knew that everytime another came along, he would fall in love too, for a short while. Then he would forget, while living in obscure fear over their forgetfullness. He often wandered the Spirit Land in search of answers, in search of a place he could stay and call his own. He never stayed in one place for long. The ocean would wash him away, turning him into another trickle of water. He would go back to the Bath House, Yubaba would laugh at him, and he would gladly take another job for her again, lose his name once more and feel belonging for a short while. Until the next Chihiro came and freed him once more. He didn't know if he hated or was thankful to them for it. It was regular cycle that made him lose track of time and placement, the magic of the Spirit Land protected him. Yubaba would remain as she was for all eternity, all those in the Bath House would remain, and if they died, another would replace them the instant they spent. The Chihiros would be lured in by tales told to them by generation upon generation. The girls never questioned, it was magic, this is what they had been told, this was what was suppose to happen. They would fall in love with him, and him with them. They would leave without arguement, basking in the joy of having freed him. The boys... there were never many, had not been many, but certainly more memorable than the girls. Unstable elements that threatened the structure of the Spirit world. They would hate him first, wanting adventure, excitement and certainly too proud to have the help of some boy to fulfill it. WAS he a boy to them? They struggled against everything, one stayed working for Kamaji until Kohaku took pity on him, another would fall in love with Lin and be cruelly turned out, and once again Kohaku would save him. Others would try to escape forcibly, killing spirits, killing themselves, swim to the distant shore they believed to be the mortal world, learn magic to fight. All had to be bailed out by Kohaku eventually. The Boys did not just love him by the end, they needed him. Most of them would try and take him with them, to be 'friends forever'. They didn't understand he did not have a place 'out there', even less of a space than he had here. One tried to stay. Kohaku didn't know what happened to him. Time had passed, and the boy had... faded. There one moment and gone the next. He hoped he returned to the mortal world. He worried he would be forgotten because one boy did not return. However, another Chihiro came again soon enough. Eternity withered away, new sounds came trilling into the spirit world, new spirits, and combined powers, Lightning and Thunder melded with something called electricity. Gods in the form of metallic dragons from manufactured rivers. More spirits of pollution and waste that had to be ridded of by Yubaba instead of greeted as guests. Still, the Bath House remained unchanged mostly. The same cycle. Girls, boys. Servitude. Freedom. Wandering. Lost. Had he grown? Haku ran from the dipping sun, a hand gripped tightly in his, swiftly moving over barrels and people, warmth channelling from the contact of another person. "Hey! Who are you!? What's going on?!" A boy this time, older than others, almost without all the childish belief that enabled entry into the Spirit World. Haku didn't smile, and wordlessly watched as the boy gasped, looking at his fading hands, panic lighting his features, beautiful in his mortality, black hair, brown eyes. Wordlessly, he placed the yellow and by now, familiar pill in his own mouth, and pressed lips to the boys, the intimate touch of being one and without at once as their mouths passed through each other and joined. Haku did smile as he shoved away by a very solid body glaring angrily at him. He took the boy's hand again. The boy would come around. The cycle will turn again. It was only a matter of time. ~owari~ |