It was unclear how long Haku had been sitting. Could have been minutes. Could have been hours. It was already late evening when he found an empty bench and sat down. Time slipped away from him as he stared at a group of apartments across the street. The longer he stared at the buildings though, the more the emptiness consumed him.
His home had been taken away from him for decades now. What was once a free flowing river now laid buried under feet of concrete. No one that lived in the very apartments that crushed his very being would have a clue what it was that was sacrificed to give them a home. And with more decades that passed, no one would even remember the Kohaku River.
Haku didn’t know why he traveled all the way here. It had been months since the last time he tortured himself by visiting the graveyard that was his spiritual home. Either way, with each visit, it was all the same. A chain of emotions cut through him the longer he stayed in the town and stared across the cold, still environment. The longer he surrounded himself among this still emptiness the more he mourned over the once roaring signs of life that had passed this very spot.
Grief. Pain. Anger. Numbness.
It was the same emotions in the same order. He learned that time will never heal the wounds that came with that first visit to the place where he lost everything. Especially when the time passed was spent trapped in a world that was not his own.
Haku sighed deeply as he collected his things and left his bench. The town was quiet, its residents fast asleep in the comfort and warmth of their homes. No one would dare bother their peace to investigate the lone man sitting across on a lone bench in the middle of the night, especially while it appeared that he was harmless. So Haku walked about this town uninterrupted. No stray human out at the odd hours of the evening stopped to watch him. In return, Haku extended the same courtesy. He kept every human he saw and passed well alone.
Before long, Haku found himself standing outside the gate of a traditional style house. Having been trapped in his own thoughts, he failed to notice his travels. It was only as he stared up at his temporary home while he was stuck in Tokyo—and then watching as the nearest street light flickered off—that he figured out what happened. What should have been a two hour drive home was only an hour walk for him. He lifted his gaze to the sky, closed his eyes and tuned into the winds that flowed past him.
It was the subtlest breeze in this warm, summer evening—or, the beginning signs of morning at this point—but it was enough to push and lead Haku back where he needed to be. As he opened his eyes, he whispered a private thanks to the wind. Then he remained frozen in his spot until he no longer felt its presence.
“Haku? Is that you?”
Haku stilled briefly to lift his gaze up from his shoes to look across the dark hallway. The house was dark, but he could sense an awakened presence through the narrow halls and small rooms. Then his gaze focused on the faintest strip of light peeking from the bottom of the bedroom door at the other end of the hallway.
Instead of responding immediately, Haku busied taking off his shoes and hanging his coat. He made sure to make as much familiar noise as he could so as to appease the one that spoke out to him. Long before he situated himself in this home, he knew that raising his voice would do him no good. He completely ignored the strange phenomenon that his movements were better heard than his voice throughout the house.
After a quick knock, Haku carefully slid the door open and peeked his head into the small bedroom. He was not surprised that the source of light he saw at the entryway was the light from the television. The volume was all the way down. Were he simply human, he would have thought it mute. But as he turned away from the bright colors and brighter subtitles, he heard the faint hints of sounds and voices.
“Hello, Yamamoto-sama. I’m home,” he greeted, projecting his voice so that the elderly woman could hear him.
Haku moved in with Yamamoto-sama a couple weeks after he decided to stay in Tokyo. At the time, he had been using the money he saved up over the years to stay in a hotel since he hadn’t quite yet figured out why he felt compelled to come into this loud, congested, bustling city. But the moment his purpose was made clear to him, he wasted little time finding an actual place to stay that wouldn’t eat up all of his savings. With help from the winds, he found a place to stay in no time.
Yamamoto-sama refused to be known as his “landlady” despite paying her rent every month. Despite her old age—or maybe because of it—her stubbornness had tried to persuade Haku to refer to her as “obaa-san” or even “obaa-chan”. But the very thought nearly caused Haku to break out in hives. He had never referred to any of the previous landlords and landladies so casually. So to compromise, Haku offered to refer to her as “Yamamoto-san.”
Obviously, Haku has failed his side of the bargain.
And, unfortunately, Yamamoto-sama noticed.
“Did you really just get home? I woke up as soon as you left, and I haven’t been able to go back to sleep,” the elderly woman huffed, crossing her thin arms over the layers of blankets on top of her. “You should have told me you were going to leave.” She paused to chew on her gums. “I would have convinced you not to.”
Among the many things he learned once moving in with Yamamoto-sama, Haku learned to simply let the woman talk. He knew just from the air around her that in her youth, Yamamoto-sama had a fiery spirit. While that spirit didn’t burn bright and hot in her old age, the embers still flickered every so often, especially when she was annoyed at him for being just as stubborn. But Haku knew that the fire would never burn him. If he let the woman just talk, her fire would calm to provide nothing but comfort and warmth.
“You look like you got carried by the wind. Did you travel far?” she asked, patting the space on her bed. Haku quietly stepped into the small bedroom and took a seat on the offered spot. As soon as he lifted his gaze to meet her old, tired ones, he knew she saw the answer. “You will find what you are looking for soon enough. Patience.” They sat in silence for a long while with the television being the only noise around them. By now, Yamamoto-sama ignored the program completely to focus on his expression. It was a small discomfort to Haku how attuned this woman was to even the smallest of emotions. To everyone around him, Haku was straight faced and stoic. But to the woman resting in front of him, he was practically an open book.
There were times when he wondered if she actually knew what he truly was.
“Go,” Yamamoto-sama suddenly said, patting his hand gently. “Get some rest. It would not do you any good to look tired for work.”
She was right, of course. But for Haku, it was easier said than done.
Ever since he got stuck in the human world, Haku has had trouble sleeping. Between the stress from being unable to return to the spirit world and the overwhelming feeling of being displaced in a world not his own, he struggled to turn his brain off long enough for a decent sleep. On lucky nights, he could manage a couple hours or maybe waking up every half an hour and then going right back to sleep. But those nights were rare and far between. Tonight was just that night.
In the house, Haku took up the entire second floor. At Yamamoto-sama’s old age, she no longer walked up the stairs for fear that she would fall and break…well…anything. So he had the second floor all to himself…so long as he didn’t mind sharing the space with everything that had been brought up here for storage. He didn’t. In fact, during the nights he found it impossible to sleep, he spent it cleaning up and organizing the clutter left up here. There was still so much to get through, but he was making some progress. He was no longer sharing his own small bedroom with all the sewing equipment Yamamoto-sama used to utilize before arthritis weakened her grip.
He was just about finished putting away most of Yamamoto-sama’s late husband’s clothes in boxes when he heard faint sounds coming from downstairs. He paused to figure out specifically what the elderly woman was doing, hobbling from her downstairs bedroom to what he could only assume was the kitchen. Sure enough, the first sounds of pots and pans told him that she was working on breakfast. That was when he looked over at the small digital clock resting on his bedside table. He was due to head to the cafe soon.
When he returned downstairs and walked right over to the kitchen, Yamamoto-sama had already prepared a small spread for breakfast. As he took a seat at the small table, he could feel the woman appraising his appearance. There was no escaping the brief sigh of disappointment at the obvious signs that he hadn’t slept like she instructed, but he picked up from his peripheral a nod of approval at his work uniform. She seemed to be satisfied that a man like him knew how to dress himself without “looking like those hooligans”. Whatever that meant….
After breakfast and making sure Yamamoto-sama was comfortable for the rest of the day, Haku announced that he was leaving from the entryway while slipping his shoes on and grabbing the rest of his things.
A strange sense of anxiousness settled deep in his stomach as he walked toward the nearest train station from the house. It was strange that this sensation didn’t seem to lessen the more times he traveled on this daily commute. Every day since he first moved into Yamamoto-sama’s house, he has waited for this feeling to settle; to feel comfortable in this new environment.
Today was not going to be that day. And as he waited for the train to slow to a complete stop so he could walk in with the rest of the commuters, he fought back the twisting anxious anticipation that suddenly crept in.
Suddenly, he flashed back to that day. And in that very moment, he knew exactly why he could never feel settled.
Flashbacks crossed in front of his mind as he rested against a railing. It wasn’t the exact spot from that day, but every train car looked exactly the same so it was easy for him to put himself back to that moment. Back to the moment he looked away from the train route at the very same moment something inside him told him to look. And there she was.
The entire time he had been stuck in the human world, Haku had never considered looking for Chihiro. Not because he was avoiding her. Of course he would take any chance he could to be with her again, but after being separated from her all this time, he couldn’t get himself to fulfill the promise he made her when she was ten. Would she even remember?
That day, he got his answer. Haku had been in the human world long enough to know not to approach someone out of the blue. Especially if that someone considered you a total stranger. He knew from the moment Chihiro looked up from her phone and looked right into his eyes that she had forgotten about him. For the first time in so many years they were finally face to face. This has been a moment he has imagined and dreamed about since he let her go, but it was all for nothing. She didn’t recognize him. And for the third time since she was ten, he let her go.
Only fate or some other higher power had other plans for them. Except that this time, it was Chihiro that came to rescue him. After that, one thing led to another and suddenly, he was employed at her place of work: Just Deserts.
Although he had been an employee at the cafe for over a week now, Haku still felt as if this entire situation was a kind of fever dream. Even after he clocked in and tied his apron, he often struggled to differentiate dream from reality.
Today was no different as he stood behind Chihiro at the drink station, listening and watching carefully while she demonstrated how to properly prepare JD’s apparent “summer specials”. There was the productive, rational part of him that paid close attention to the task at hand. He remembered as much of the instructions to the best of his ability and asked questions when necessary. But the other part of him, the one that he so often pushed to the dark when he deemed it pointless to have around, that just…could not believe she was standing right there. Right in front of him. Chihiro. In the flesh.
His Chihiro.
Only, he couldn’t help wondering if she was really still his Chihiro. The last time he had been this close to her, she was a naive child of ten; a scared little crybaby that somehow found her strength when she most needed it. Now, the Chihiro in front of him was a woman. Any trace of that little crybaby was gone and what he was faced with now left him breathless. From the first moment he caught a glimpse of her on the train that day, he was in awe of her beauty. She had grown up, that was for sure. She was now mature and seemed to have a decent head on those small shoulders. Would she have any need for him? Would she even bother?
Would she ever remember the time they spent together in the spirit world? Would she care about the troubles and horrors he had to deal with, alone, for the past few years?
No. His problems were not hers to deal with. They never were. Not all those years ago when she was just a child. And certainly not now as an adult. He had done everything he possibly could to protect her from his world. And he would continue to do so now.
“Thank you, Chihiro—” He barely stopped himself from adding the appropriate honorific to her name. She had already lectured him a handful of times that she didn’t wish that of him. He was getting there, but it was a struggle.
Haku quickly cleared his throat and stepped closer to the drink station. He briefly looked over the couple pages of recipes before returning his gaze down to Chihiro. “Which would you like me to prepare first?”
By the time the stream of morning regulars started to arrive, Haku had managed to prepare most of the new drinks by “okay” standards. He wasn’t offended when he was advised that his first attempts would need more practice. That was honestly to be expected. Besides, even after over a week as a barista at JD, he still was not fond of using the blender. Even with the cover, it was just too unbearably loud. Luckily for him, the other barista, Ken, had finally arrived for his shift and was advised to take on most of the specialty drinks for today—but to also make sure Haku took on a few orders for the practice.
Chihiro was right, though. None of the morning regular customers bothered with the summer drinks. This left him with some “paid down time” to continue learning foam art from the cafe’s owner, Jiyoon. The woman took pride in continuing her family’s legacy at the art of…foamart. And while Ken was decent at the basic leaf design, Haku showed some potential the first time he attempted a teddy bear for a little girl’s hot chocolate. From there, Jiyoon would take up the last half hour before his first break to continue teaching him more images to try for future requests. “My halbae would be so proud,” she would often say with each successful attempt.
Before Haku knew it, he was given the go ahead to take his lunch. He nodded as he finished cleaning up his work station then walked over to the back to hang up his apron. After grabbing his phone and wallet from his locker, Haku returned to the front of the cafe. For a random weekday, he was surprised to find the place pretty busy. Most of the tables were occupied by couples out on summer day dates sharing a bowl of ice cream or a piece of cake or families with small children creating more happy memories together. Haku watched for an extra second as a little boy tried to shove a big bite of cake into his tiny mouth before turning toward the cashier.
Chihiro was already looking at him with that unbelievably bright smile on her face. Has she always had that smile?
“Chihiro-sa—Uhm, sorry.” He rubbed the back of his neck and cleared his throat. “Hisakawa-san relieved me for lunch and I was thinking of going out to buy something to eat. Would you like me to pass by the convenience store and get you an onigiri before I return?”
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