Heart Eater | Spirited Away

IV.

Taking his time, the old man twisted around. Blinked slowly. Chihiro watched as his eyebrows rose high over his little spectacles, and his mouth fell open.

"Sen?"

Lin beamed, crossing her arms over her chest proudly. "The one and only."

Smiling, Chihiro waved a little. "Hello," she said. "It's been a while, hasn't it?"

By then the little balls of soot had noticed her and taken to squeaking and hopping and waving their tiny little arms. Chihiro blinked about four times, trying to hide how thrown by all this she really was, before carefully wandering closer.

"I suppose you all deserve a hello as well, huh?" she said, crouching down to their level.

The little balls of soot agreed, tumbling over one another in their excitement. They were very cute in an altogether endearing way. Her paintings had never quite captured that, instead always leaving them mostly cryptic and haunting.

This was a welcome relief.

Chihiro smiled a little before turning back to Kamaji who hadn't said a word. She glanced at Lin unsurely. Tried to think of something to say.

"I don't understand," he finally said. "How is this possible?"

Lin hesitated some, peaking sideways at Chihiro before clearing her throat to say, "don't know, don't care! All that matters is that she's here, she's really here!"

"Oh my," he murmured, struck. "Yes, she certainly is." He studied her closely. "You've grown so much."

Chihiro's lips twitched. "I'm not a kid anymore," she agreed. Frowned a little at the thought. "Now that I think of it, you guys don't seem to have changed at all. Except Haku... You said it's been ten years?" She looked at Lin.

"You're in the spirit world, kiddo," Lin said, stretching carelessly. "Things aren't always what they seem."

That's right. She kept forgetting. But if that was true, then that meant that they were all spirits. Did that mean they had once been human?

That they had died?

The thought of asking made her horribly uncomfortable, so she said "oh" instead, and fell quiet.

She wondered if she had asked once when she was younger. Though the thought was wasted. What does it matter what she learned in the past?

It wasn't like she could remember it now.

Lin smiled big at her. "Time to play catch up, kid," she said brightly. "What has ten years looked like for you?"

Chihiro hesitated a little, not knowing where to start. Ten years was a long time after all. "Well," she began unsurely, "I finished school a couple of years ago, graduated with decent grades. Moved out of my parents place after working for a while in my hometown and got my own place. Then I got a new job and yeah." She scratched her head a little bit. "That's about it."

Lin and Kamaji stared.

"That's it?" Lin said. "What about the good stuff? Adventure! Friendship! Romance!"