fic, Sen to Chihiro, "Wet Spell" (1/2), R
In belated honor of saying_yes_2010, the promised Haku/Chihiro. Adult, PWP, NSFW etc. All parties are of vaguely legal age. Second part contains dragon/girl in the most literal sense, whiskers included. <--This means xeno ._. (but if that's a dealbreaker for you, part 1 should be readable on its own, I think).
Comments are welcome, even if they consist of gaping emoticons and/or painfully accurate remarks like "Needs moar divine mystery."
Thanks to flamebyrd for idea-bouncing and beta-reading services, without which Haku might have sounded suspiciously like Lassie. :D;;;
Wet Spell
On the first day of summer vacation there's a message from Zeniba, brought to Chihiro's window by a magpie with bright, clever eyes. I'll be going away for a few days, and Kaonashi's coming with me, so I need someone to look after the house and garden. If you're up for the job, I'll see to it that you don't lose any time at home. I don't expect trouble while I'm gone, but you may as well bring the dragon with you, just in case.
In case of what, Zeniba doesn't say, but Chihiro supposes witches have their secrets. The invitation is too good to refuse. When she mentions it to Haku, on one of his rare visits to her side, he says only: "Of course I'll come with you. We can fly there together."
--
The door to the cottage opens for them when they arrive, though there's no one waiting behind it. On the table they find a note full of instructions, and a green tea cake covered with a checkered cloth. The cake has its own set of instructions: Eat Me. Chihiro sets down her duffel bag to read the other note aloud.
"Potted plants and window boxes morning and evening. Beans and eggplants and cucumbers and melons if it doesn't rain." She thinks of hauling buckets from the rain barrel, or from the well behind the cottage, and glances hopefully at Haku. "Can you make it rain?"
He shakes his head. "Not here. But I'll help you with the watering, if need be."
"Okay. Thanks." She starts to read again, then notices the way he's pacing, prowling around the single room of the cottage, looking at everything and nothing with a strange unsettled cast to his stare. "What is it?"
He halts without turning toward her. "It's no matter. Only...the last time I entered this house, I was a thief."
"Oh," says Chihiro, with a rush of understanding. "But Haku--" It helps to say his name, even a small part of his name; when she does he always hears her. "That wasn't your fault, and you aren't one anymore."
He nods, though his eyes go on traveling the room. It occurs to Chihiro that maybe Zeniba really did want a house-sitter for more than just the sake of the garden. There might be other thieves abroad. Chihiro fingers the note anxiously, turning it in her hands.
"Do you think--do you think she left that seal here? There's nothing about it in the note."
"I expect she keeps it with her, now," says Haku. "Having lost it once. But whatever is here, you and I are here to guard it."
"I guess we are." Chihiro reads on. "It says there's a place to sleep in--" She glances up. "The loft?" She blinks. A wooden ladder with gleaming rungs leads to an upper level on the side of the cottage opposite the hearth. The undersides of the thick crossbeams are painted, all twisty vines and hidden flowers and delicate leaves. A carved banister runs along the ledge, also painted, with curved pickets of red and blue. "I don't remember there being a loft, before. Was there one?"
For a minute Haku looks uncertain, and baffled by his uncertainty. Then again the cottage is a witch's house. Chihiro trots over to the ladder and grabs hold of the rungs. "There is now, anyway. I'm going up to see!"
She clambers up, sure-footed, and doesn't stop until she reaches the top. The air should be stifling there, with the day so warm outside and the roof so close, but somehow it isn't stuffy at all. Witch's house, she thinks again. Against one wall there's a tiny dresser, more like a nightstand, with a lamp sitting on it and an oval mirror fixed to the top, and against the other wall stands a low shelf laden with books. A rug that looks like a tapestry blankets most of the floor, and beside it sits a folded futon.
One futon. A big one. With two pillows on top.
"Thank you, Granny," says Chihiro fervently, under her breath. Maybe she ought to be blushing, but instead she's only grateful. The crossing between worlds is too difficult for Haku to manage often. Even when he does come to her world, they can't very well spend the night together in her parents' house. Recounting marriage customs from ages past isn't going to save her if her dad gets wind of a boy staying in her bedroom overnight, and she doesn't like sneaking around any more than she likes the threat of getting caught. They shouldn't have to sneak. It's not as if they're doing anything bad, no matter what her dad might think.
The slant of the roof in the loft is too low to let her stand up fully, but if she and Haku duck their heads they'll be all right. Or if they sit. Or if they just stay horizontal all the time. By the quiver in the rungs under her palms she feels him coming up the ladder behind her. Her ponytail swings over her shoulders as she tips her head to smile down.
"It's nice," she says.
--
Before the afternoon can shade into dusk Haku leaves the house--to go fishing for dinner, he says, though he carries neither bait nor tackle with him. While he's gone Chihiro gets a fire going in the hearth to make rice in a cast iron pot, following another note from Zeniba. Without the instructions she would've been lost: at home she's only ever used the electric rice cooker. While the rice simmers she goes up to the loft to stow her duffel bag and lay out the futon, just to have something to do.
The mattress is white, the comforter pale yellow strewn with a pattern of white magnolias. It's pretty, she thinks. It'll be even prettier when Haku's stretched out on it. Since he quit his apprenticeship he's traded his suikan for yukata, not just for festivals but for every day. Blue or white, usually, with an obi of blue or white or green. Today it's blue, not quite dark enough to be navy, and the obi is a paler blue, the color called mizuiro threaded with white. She can picture him already, lying on his side, maybe, watching her with his faint smile and waiting for her to--
She blinks down at the pillow in her hands, then doubles over to bury her face in it, squinching her eyes shut. Her cheeks feel hot, and not just her cheeks. She puts the pillow down and stares blearily at the futon, facing the thought of exactly what she wants to do on it. Soon. As soon as possible. What did he have to go and disappear for? Although it was nice of him to go out and find dinner. She supposes she'll be hungry for food soon, too.
After smoothing the comforter one more time she goes back down the ladder, then out into the garden to see if any cucumbers are ready to be picked. She's slicing one into thin medallions, to sprinkle with vinegar for a side dish, when Haku returns to the cottage.
His hair looks like it might be wet, like he's been swimming, but it's always so sleek she can't tell for sure without touching it. He's tied it back--it's just long enough to stay put if he binds it at the nape of his neck, though a few strands tend to fall loose on either side--using one of her hair bands borrowed when she wasn't looking, a plain one, not the glittery one Zeniba gave her years ago. Chihiro-style, he calls it, instead of a ponytail. He carries a brace of freshwater eels in one hand. The eels are still wriggling.
"I'll clean them," he says, but he pauses beside her at the cutting board, lowering his chin. He's so quiet about it that for a minute she doesn't realize he's sniffing as he leans toward her. Then he smiles. "Chihiro."
"Hm?"
"It smells good."
It, he says, and he's not talking about the rice in the pot. She nearly squirms like the eels in his hand. Her cheeks are burning again, she can feel it--not with shame, really, because he's said things like that before, and knowing he knows she's in the mood is kind of delicious in a way--but he doesn't have to come out and say it right while she's trying to help cook. She puts down the knife and huffs.
"That's mean! Teasing like that."
He looks amazed. "Teasing?"
"And here I've been all patient--'Restraint, Chihiro!' That's what I've been telling myself. Restraint."
He looks even more amazed, like he's on the verge of asking but why would you do that? and the eels are twitching and the rice is nearly done and come to think of it she is hungry for dinner, after all. She puffs her lower lip at Haku, not quite woefully. "But we might as well eat."
The amazement gives way to assent. "I never meant to tease," he says. He promises to be quick.
And he is. As he disappears into the back garden, taking only the cutting board and the knife, Chihiro puts the kettle on to heat water for tea, but it's scarcely boiling before Haku reappears with the eels filleted. Together they grill them on skewers over the fire in the hearth. Beads of fat dribble onto the logs below as the eels cook, sizzling into heady, fragrant smoke. When the fillets are done--it doesn't take long--Chihiro lays them in bowls on a bed of rice, and sets out the sliced cucumber on a plate.
The first bite of eel tastes so good she curls her toes and shuts her eyes and kicks her feet as if she were doing the backstroke. She has to swallow her happy whimper before it turns into a squeak. Haku smiles at her pleasure and agrees that the food is very good.
"How did you catch them?" she asks. "The eels. With magic?"
He answers placidly. "With my teeth."
"Oh." Of course that would be the easiest way, for him. Feeling silly, she watches him eat with his usual unstudied grace. She's wondered at times whether the whole business of cooking seems like a waste of effort to him, when in his other shape he could simply swallow whatever he catches whole. But he enjoys doing lots of things that can't be done in his other shape, like talking in words, or writing poems, or holding her hand in his. Among other things.
Although come to think of it she's not so sure some of those couldn't be done, if he and she made the attempt.
More detailed thought in that vein while eating dinner is a mistake. Haku lowers his chopsticks with concern while she wheezes.
"'M okay," she manages. At least if she's choking there's an excuse for her cheeks being pink. She swallows--carefully--and takes another bite of eel and rice together. "At home we always have unagi in the summer, but these are better than my mom's."
He reaches for his tea. "I used to watch fishermen catch them. Sometimes they would build fires and do their cooking just beside my banks. Now and then one would leave an offering in gratitude to the river."
"Is that how you learned to grill?"
He nods and gets up to refill their cups. It's rare for him to speak much about what his life in the river was like, and only lately that he's begun to do it more. Chihiro hopes that means the memories of what he's lost are growing easier to bear. When she was ten she hadn't really understood the extent of his hurt, the magnitude of loss. She doubts she can understand it even now--not because she's merely human, but because she's never been torn from something that was her entire life. But she tries, and listens to what he tells her.
When they're too stuffed to eat any more she waves him away from the empty bowls. "I'll wash up. You did the hard part, with the eels."
He tilts his head, considering. It's not as if there's much to wash in any case. "All right," he says. "I want to look at something in the loft." He goes to the hearth to bank the fire, heaping ash over the logs, and then disappears up the ladder.
While she rinses the bowls and chopsticks Chihiro wonders about taking a bath. She showered in the morning, before she came through the tunnel, but that was in the morning. It doesn't seem right to go to Haku in any state other than clean. Laying the dishes on a towel to dry, she goes to the foot of the ladder.
"Haku, I haven't had a bath, and I probably should, so, um--"
His voice floats down from above with perfect ease. "Leave it for tomorrow. We can take one together."
Which sounds like genius, except she really ought to have one now. "But--I got kind of sweaty on the way here, and from the fireplace, and..."
His hand appears, draped lazily over the banister that runs along the edge of the loft. His sleeve follows, then his chin, and then he's gazing down at her like some incongruous version of Juliet on the balcony, his eyes glinting green like underwater lights. The idea of bothering with a bath drains from her head as if a plug's been pulled in her brain. If she's still sweaty she no longer feels it.
"Tomorrow," he says mildly. "Come up here, now."
Climbing a ladder has never felt so much like running down a diving board to take a wild leap into the deep end. At the top his hands are reaching out to catch her, to keep her from tipping astray as she pitches forward into his embrace. She winds up mostly on top of him, her legs tangled between his. Finally. Finally.
She smothers her face against his chest, rubbing her nose against his breastbone. He smells like clear water, nothing more, nothing less. Like a long, sweet drink of it. She probably smells like sweaty randy human girl. "Hakuuu," she groans. "Am I weird, do you think?"
"Weird?" She can feel his head draw back slightly. His hand cups her cheek, then tilts her chin up. The pupils of his eyes have gone very wide, the irises very dark. "Why?"
"Because I want to do this, like, all the time."
He exhales a laugh. "Why should that be strange? If you are strange, I must be, too."
"Well, you're not weird." Sighing, she lays her forehead against his, so their noses bump, and they stay like that for a minute before he tilts his head to nuzzle her cheek, her temple, the curve of her jaw. She nuzzles him back and sighs again as he kisses the side of her neck.
"I would be sorry if you didn't," he murmurs. "Want this. You haven't been the only one practicing restraint."
A mix of guilt and gratitude and rue washes over her. They're supposed to be married, in some sense of the word, even if the vows were private, but they've hardly had a chance to act like it at all.
"We could quit that?" she offers, a little shyly, even though it's kind of absurd to be shy when she's plastered up against him, chest to chest. "The, um. The restraint thing."
He rubs his nose against hers in agreement, and then his parted lips against her lips the same way. It's hard to tell exactly when the rubbing blurs into kissing. His mouth is open, and hers is too, and then it's wet on wet and they're tasting each other, while his hands slide under her shirt and hers wind around his back. They kiss like shallow is as good as deep, tiny kisses where their tongues just barely brush, or his just barely strokes into her mouth. There are plenty of chances to breathe but pretty soon she's breathless anyway, hot through her entire body and tight between her legs.
When her clothes start to feel like a nuisance she pries herself away from him to pull her shirt over her head. That musses her ponytail, so she crooks her finger in the band and pulls that off, too, shaking her hair loose around her bare shoulders. Haku watches, stretching out on the futon just like she imagined he would, wearing a look of immense and obvious satisfaction.
As she crawls back to him she notices a book sitting by his elbow, one of the leatherbound volumes from the low shelf against the wall. Diverted, she peers at it, but can't make out the title on the spine. It doesn't seem to be in any language she can recognize--Japanese or Chinese or Korean, or the English she's learned in school.
"What were you reading?"
"Spells," he answers, reaching around her back. She shrugs off the straps of her bra when he unhooks it, then pitches it toward her duffel bag. Haku spreads his hands over her back, drawing her closer, so he can close his eyes and press his face into the hollow between her breasts. His hands slide under her arms, down her ribcage to her hips. "It's a book of magic. But much of it isn't new to me." He sounds distracted. "'A spell to render fertile the earth before seeding.' 'A spell to hasten growth, or cause flowers to bloom out of season.' 'A spell to double the yield of fruit.'"
He spares one arm to sweep the book off the futon toward the shelf, then settles a hand on each side of her waist. His fingers rake gently at the shorts she's still wearing. They're knee-length, denim, the pair her friends swear makes her rear end look cute.
"These," he says, "take these off, too."
If she were the eyelash-fluttering type--but she isn't. "You don't want to help?"
His eyes narrow to slits. She's barely got the zipper undone and the shorts dragged down a handspan before he seizes her in earnest, turning her onto her back and lowering his face to her navel, while she tries not to giggle too much at his single-mindedness. They get the shorts off all the way, and then her underpants--she wore the lacy ones that match the bra, but he never seems to notice that sort of thing. He might notice more if she didn't wear any. As he settles between her legs he lets out a long breath, then props his chin on her belly.
"Chihiro. I'm glad to be here."
She strokes his hair. "Me, too."
His eyelids droop as if he were sleepy, which he isn't. He breathes deeply, deliberately, to catch her scent.
"I used to flow to the sea, you know," he murmurs. "My river did. When I came close enough to the sea I could taste it. The brine. How near it was, how near I was to the verge. It made me want to dive into it and lose myself, but I never could."
She wonders whether this is the equivalent of talking about an old girlfriend. The sea's too big to hold a grudge against, even if the idea weren't so funny. "So you did this kind of thing with the Pacific Ocean?"
His laugh huffs across the curls of hair on her mound--which are damp already, some of them, and it seems like there's no point in being embarrassed about that. She used to be embarrassed, in the beginning, when she learned she could get dripping wet just from thinking of him, let alone from thinking of him doing what he's about to do. She isn't dripping yet, but she's getting there, getting closer as he parts the sticky curls with one finger that he swirls in little circles. He answers in earnest, the way he does, though she knows he knows she was teasing.
"No," he says into the curls and the damp. "That was different."
She plays at doubt to keep herself at bay a minute longer, not because she doesn't believe. "Hmm. Really."
"It was different." He noses in, sighing warm breath over her clit. "But you taste like the sea did." He nuzzles again as if he regrets having stopped to talk. "Chihiro. I hope it's all right if I do this for a long time."
That should be daunting, maybe, considering what he is and what his idea of a long time might be, but right now with her spinning head she can only think please and yes, a long long time, a few thousand years sounds good. A few tens of thousands. The miracle is that he talks about it like it's something he craves, like it's a favor she's doing him and not the other way around. She makes some senseless enthusiastic noise. He makes a low noise in return and starts to lick, long and slow, and then there's no keeping anything at bay anymore, not the pounding of her heartbeat, not the shudders of her hips.
His hair and skin are cool against her inner thighs, but his tongue feels as hot as her own body does--as hot, as wet. He's done this enough by now to know how she likes it: he kisses as if he were kissing her mouth, sliding his tongue between her lips and stroking deep. Before long her arms give out, and she flops back on the futon, clenching her fingers in the bedding instead of pawing blindly at his hair.
Whimpers keep rising in her throat. She bites them down until she can't remember why she's bothering to, when there's no one but him to hear, and then she doesn't bother anymore. Maybe she's starting to turn dragon too, now--maybe she and he are getting all mixed up together--because she wants so badly to curl her whole self around him and make that sound he makes in his other shape, the purry growly one. Or maybe that's something everybody wants to do with the person they love like crazy, human or dragon or whatever else.
When he lifts his chin, his lips are glazed. She knows it's her making them like that, and she's really got to quit thinking because thinking only makes her dizzier. He licks his upper lip and stares at her, eating her up with his eyes. Part of her can't believe she has the nerve to divert him from what he's been doing, even for a little while, but she wants his mouth on her in other places, too. She puts a hand under her breasts.
"Haku--here, too? Would you--"
Before she can finish he surges down to do what she asks. "Forgive me," he says, and his breath on her nipple makes it go harder than before, hard as a button. Chihiro shivers. She has no idea what the apology is for.
"Eh?"
"For making you ask." He laps gently, then covers her nipple with his mouth. It feels so good she can't even moan, can't manage words again until he lets go to turn to the other side.
"Ah--but I don't--mind asking?" She cradles his head, willing herself just to cradle and not to mash his face against her chest. "I could, nnh--write it on a wooden plaque? Ah!" He nips her, almost too hard, not her nipple but the inner curve of her right breast. She pants with laughter and lets her head slump to the bedding. The ache between her legs is twice as bad as before, until his fingers nestle there and start rubbing, reveling in the wet. She pushes into his touch, begging for more with her body and with her voice. He raises his head from her breast, breathing like he's just surfacing for air. His finger curls into her slit.
Suddenly she can't wait any longer, doesn't want to, doesn't want him to wait to slake his own need a minute more. She catches hold of his yukata, drags on the obi like a lifeline only to undo the knot. He half-rises to his hands and knees, pulling his finger from her, then claws the obi aside with restless force.
"Haku--" Come in, she thinks, come in come in, and maybe she groans it aloud, or maybe she doesn't and he hears anyway. He gives a wordless hiss and slides against her, grasping her hip to hold her steady and open as he surges in.
It always feels like being flooded, like a dam's crumbling and the water's roaring to fill a place it was meant to fill, while she clings to him and gulps for breath. Of course he's not water, not really, he's solid in her arms, hard inside her, but somehow when he moves--when he ripples--it feels like everything goes to liquid at her core. Sometimes it's all she can do to wrap her legs around him and moan.
This time she needs more than that, needs to feel the way she does when they're flying, with him underneath her and gulfs of night sky stretching below. She shifts her weight toward him, pressing him deeper in. "Haku, can I--I need to--"
Hissing through his teeth, he rolls to let her ride him, pulling her astride. She braces herself on her arms with her hands planted, tossing her head back. She has a muddled sense that you're not supposed to do it like this--you're supposed to lie there and let the boy do the work--but that must be a human rule, not a dragon one, because Haku never holds her to it. He doesn't seem to know it exists. He's so quick, always, like he can see in her mind what she craves, or smell it on her skin, and maybe when they're joined like this he can. His fingers clench her hipbones as he arches up into her, cresting like a wave about to break.
Her arms are shaking now. She can't hold herself up much longer, can't roll her hips down any harder than she already is. He says her name, fiercely, and just like that the last barrier cracks. In the depths of her body something perfect unfurls. The dark behind her eyelids goes white as a torrent, white like stark glitter on a sea too bright to bear. Relief overtakes her, and sweetness in a tide that rushes through her, overflowing all the way to her heels.
When it ebbs she folds onto Haku's chest, limp. He eases them both onto their sides again, slowing in her, and with another small hiss he goes still.
For a long while neither of them moves except to breathe. A soft reluctant sound escapes from Haku's throat as he withdraws. He tangles his fingers in hers.
"Chihiro," he murmurs, "thank you."
She tucks her forehead against his again. She feels sodden, drenched and content; the bedding floats her like a raft of air. "Mm?"
"For being the sea."
If she weren't so drowsy she would giggle. "Are seas supposed to fall asleep after you swim in them?"
"This one is allowed to."
"Oh good." It might be a while before he joins her--he sleeps less than she does, except in the winter--but she knows he's not going anywhere, and it's a luxury to be with him, to have him with her the whole night through. With a sigh she burrows against him and lets herself drift.
--
There are no windows in the loft, so when she wakes in the morning the only light is welling up from below, cloudy and gray, diffuse. The dimness reminds her of being submerged in a quiet pool. She feels Haku beside her, hears the hush of rain on the thatched roof, both assuring her there's no immediate work to be done outside, no need to get up. The blue blanket draped over them isn't a blanket but Haku's yukata; she feels the weave of it against her hip, her bottom, her breast. Underneath it she shifts her body closer to his, so that even more skin touches skin.
"I thought you said you couldn't make it rain," she says sleepily.
He speaks into her hair. "It wasn't my doing."
"Uh-huh."
"Truly, it wasn't."
He's never lied to her, though sometimes he doesn't think to tell her everything he should. The rain still seems unduly convenient. As Chihiro stretches her legs she feels slickness between them--again, already. It's a neat trick of his, to let her fall asleep and then slither into her dreams, so she wakes up wanting him all over again. "Greedy," she mumbles. "You were in my dream."
"Should I not have been?"
"No, you should." She reaches for him. "It was a good dream."
Even in the gray dimness his eyes glint. Then he's sliding over and onto her, matching her belly to his, and she laughs a little and calls him greedy again, though he isn't really, or if he is then she is, too. They have so many missed nights to make up, along with all the other mornings when they couldn't wake up in the same bed. She's too languorous to move much this time, except to fold her arms around his neck, so she lets him do the moving when he sinks in. He keeps to easy eddying, now and then slowing to a purl, but she's so susceptible that slow motion is enough to carry her. When she comes it's like tumbling over tiny rapids into a basin, with him tumbling in her wake, and afterward she feels revived instead of sleepy.
Revived and starving. When her stomach growls he smiles and pets her belly, indulgent. Straggling upright, she bundles his yukata around him and sends him down the ladder first, in case her legs are so wobbly that she slips and needs to be caught. Then she digs into her duffel bag and pulls on the sleeveless nightgown that got no use during the night.
It turns out her legs will still hold her. For breakfast there's rice leftover from dinner, and Haku makes miso soup with scallions from the garden and dried wakame from the kitchen cupboard. On top of that there's Zeniba's green tea cake. Despite her sense that cake for breakfast is much too decadent, Chihiro decides she needs the energy and cuts a slice. It tastes better than anything she's ever had in a patisserie.
When they've eaten she asks hopefully, "Is it bathtime now?"
Haku blinks. "In the morning?"
Okay, she thinks, this is getting suspicious. A water god ought to be more encouraging of bathing. Probably he's just sitting there secretly delighted that she reeks of sex. Or maybe he thinks getting doused with his essence a couple of times is bath enough. "You said."
He bows his head, which doesn't fully hide his smile. "So I did."
The bath is in an outbuilding behind the cottage, next to the watermelon patch and the trellises of beans. It houses a wooden bathtub, squarish like the building itself, old-fashioned and deep. Chihiro hates to think how long it would take to fill it if you couldn't use magic as its owner can. When he tells her it's ready she follows him out the back door in her sandals, carrying soap and shampoo, towels and a pale green sundress to change into. The morning rain has lessened to a drizzle, hardly enough to moisten her skin, but it feels pleasant and a little daring to be outside in the misty warmth, wearing nothing but a cotton nightgown that doesn't reach her knees.
On her way past the raised beds of vegetables she pauses. Between the neat rows of eggplant a host of weeds is bursting up from the dirt. She'd noticed one or two when she was picking cucumbers, but they seem to have multiplied overnight. Multiplied to the infinite power. Frowning, she calls to Haku.
"Doesn't it seem like there's a lot of weeds?"
He halts at the door to the outbuilding and surveys the garden. "The witch is away," he says at last, as if that explains everything. He's holding the door for her, so Chihiro turns from the eggplants and goes trotting inside.
Wooden slats cover the raised floor of the narrow room, with gaps between them to let washwater drain. Half of the space is occupied by the bathtub. Chihiro sets down her bottles, shimmies out of her nightgown, and reaches for a bucket. Haku merely sheds his yukata and climbs straight into the tub.
"It was the same at the bathhouse whenever Yubaba left," he continues. "If I didn't keep watch."
She blinks. "You mean the garden plants went crazy?"
"Not the gardens. The staff would do things they wouldn't otherwise dare."
"Oh." That made more sense. "So you had to be mean and act like the boss." The water in the bucket is warm, not too hot. Chihiro splashes a palmful over her face and wipes it away. Much as she'd like to just jump in the tub with him, there's sweat to rinse off first, and she wants to wash her hair. "No wonder she used that creepy bug on you, to make you do what she said. You're terrible at being mean."
"Yesterday you said otherwise."
"Eh? I--oh, I did." She rubs soap into her hands to lather. "But I didn't mean it."
"No?"
He's baiting her, or as close as he ever comes to baiting in his constant mildness, lounging with one arm over the edge of the tub. Twisting her lips, Chihiro holds up her soapy hands and waggles her fingers. "I'm sorry I called you mean," she says fondly. "If you come here I'll scrub your back?"
--
Continues here.
Comments are welcome, even if they consist of gaping emoticons and/or painfully accurate remarks like "Needs moar divine mystery."
Thanks to flamebyrd for idea-bouncing and beta-reading services, without which Haku might have sounded suspiciously like Lassie. :D;;;
Wet Spell
On the first day of summer vacation there's a message from Zeniba, brought to Chihiro's window by a magpie with bright, clever eyes. I'll be going away for a few days, and Kaonashi's coming with me, so I need someone to look after the house and garden. If you're up for the job, I'll see to it that you don't lose any time at home. I don't expect trouble while I'm gone, but you may as well bring the dragon with you, just in case.
In case of what, Zeniba doesn't say, but Chihiro supposes witches have their secrets. The invitation is too good to refuse. When she mentions it to Haku, on one of his rare visits to her side, he says only: "Of course I'll come with you. We can fly there together."
--
The door to the cottage opens for them when they arrive, though there's no one waiting behind it. On the table they find a note full of instructions, and a green tea cake covered with a checkered cloth. The cake has its own set of instructions: Eat Me. Chihiro sets down her duffel bag to read the other note aloud.
"Potted plants and window boxes morning and evening. Beans and eggplants and cucumbers and melons if it doesn't rain." She thinks of hauling buckets from the rain barrel, or from the well behind the cottage, and glances hopefully at Haku. "Can you make it rain?"
He shakes his head. "Not here. But I'll help you with the watering, if need be."
"Okay. Thanks." She starts to read again, then notices the way he's pacing, prowling around the single room of the cottage, looking at everything and nothing with a strange unsettled cast to his stare. "What is it?"
He halts without turning toward her. "It's no matter. Only...the last time I entered this house, I was a thief."
"Oh," says Chihiro, with a rush of understanding. "But Haku--" It helps to say his name, even a small part of his name; when she does he always hears her. "That wasn't your fault, and you aren't one anymore."
He nods, though his eyes go on traveling the room. It occurs to Chihiro that maybe Zeniba really did want a house-sitter for more than just the sake of the garden. There might be other thieves abroad. Chihiro fingers the note anxiously, turning it in her hands.
"Do you think--do you think she left that seal here? There's nothing about it in the note."
"I expect she keeps it with her, now," says Haku. "Having lost it once. But whatever is here, you and I are here to guard it."
"I guess we are." Chihiro reads on. "It says there's a place to sleep in--" She glances up. "The loft?" She blinks. A wooden ladder with gleaming rungs leads to an upper level on the side of the cottage opposite the hearth. The undersides of the thick crossbeams are painted, all twisty vines and hidden flowers and delicate leaves. A carved banister runs along the ledge, also painted, with curved pickets of red and blue. "I don't remember there being a loft, before. Was there one?"
For a minute Haku looks uncertain, and baffled by his uncertainty. Then again the cottage is a witch's house. Chihiro trots over to the ladder and grabs hold of the rungs. "There is now, anyway. I'm going up to see!"
She clambers up, sure-footed, and doesn't stop until she reaches the top. The air should be stifling there, with the day so warm outside and the roof so close, but somehow it isn't stuffy at all. Witch's house, she thinks again. Against one wall there's a tiny dresser, more like a nightstand, with a lamp sitting on it and an oval mirror fixed to the top, and against the other wall stands a low shelf laden with books. A rug that looks like a tapestry blankets most of the floor, and beside it sits a folded futon.
One futon. A big one. With two pillows on top.
"Thank you, Granny," says Chihiro fervently, under her breath. Maybe she ought to be blushing, but instead she's only grateful. The crossing between worlds is too difficult for Haku to manage often. Even when he does come to her world, they can't very well spend the night together in her parents' house. Recounting marriage customs from ages past isn't going to save her if her dad gets wind of a boy staying in her bedroom overnight, and she doesn't like sneaking around any more than she likes the threat of getting caught. They shouldn't have to sneak. It's not as if they're doing anything bad, no matter what her dad might think.
The slant of the roof in the loft is too low to let her stand up fully, but if she and Haku duck their heads they'll be all right. Or if they sit. Or if they just stay horizontal all the time. By the quiver in the rungs under her palms she feels him coming up the ladder behind her. Her ponytail swings over her shoulders as she tips her head to smile down.
"It's nice," she says.
--
Before the afternoon can shade into dusk Haku leaves the house--to go fishing for dinner, he says, though he carries neither bait nor tackle with him. While he's gone Chihiro gets a fire going in the hearth to make rice in a cast iron pot, following another note from Zeniba. Without the instructions she would've been lost: at home she's only ever used the electric rice cooker. While the rice simmers she goes up to the loft to stow her duffel bag and lay out the futon, just to have something to do.
The mattress is white, the comforter pale yellow strewn with a pattern of white magnolias. It's pretty, she thinks. It'll be even prettier when Haku's stretched out on it. Since he quit his apprenticeship he's traded his suikan for yukata, not just for festivals but for every day. Blue or white, usually, with an obi of blue or white or green. Today it's blue, not quite dark enough to be navy, and the obi is a paler blue, the color called mizuiro threaded with white. She can picture him already, lying on his side, maybe, watching her with his faint smile and waiting for her to--
She blinks down at the pillow in her hands, then doubles over to bury her face in it, squinching her eyes shut. Her cheeks feel hot, and not just her cheeks. She puts the pillow down and stares blearily at the futon, facing the thought of exactly what she wants to do on it. Soon. As soon as possible. What did he have to go and disappear for? Although it was nice of him to go out and find dinner. She supposes she'll be hungry for food soon, too.
After smoothing the comforter one more time she goes back down the ladder, then out into the garden to see if any cucumbers are ready to be picked. She's slicing one into thin medallions, to sprinkle with vinegar for a side dish, when Haku returns to the cottage.
His hair looks like it might be wet, like he's been swimming, but it's always so sleek she can't tell for sure without touching it. He's tied it back--it's just long enough to stay put if he binds it at the nape of his neck, though a few strands tend to fall loose on either side--using one of her hair bands borrowed when she wasn't looking, a plain one, not the glittery one Zeniba gave her years ago. Chihiro-style, he calls it, instead of a ponytail. He carries a brace of freshwater eels in one hand. The eels are still wriggling.
"I'll clean them," he says, but he pauses beside her at the cutting board, lowering his chin. He's so quiet about it that for a minute she doesn't realize he's sniffing as he leans toward her. Then he smiles. "Chihiro."
"Hm?"
"It smells good."
It, he says, and he's not talking about the rice in the pot. She nearly squirms like the eels in his hand. Her cheeks are burning again, she can feel it--not with shame, really, because he's said things like that before, and knowing he knows she's in the mood is kind of delicious in a way--but he doesn't have to come out and say it right while she's trying to help cook. She puts down the knife and huffs.
"That's mean! Teasing like that."
He looks amazed. "Teasing?"
"And here I've been all patient--'Restraint, Chihiro!' That's what I've been telling myself. Restraint."
He looks even more amazed, like he's on the verge of asking but why would you do that? and the eels are twitching and the rice is nearly done and come to think of it she is hungry for dinner, after all. She puffs her lower lip at Haku, not quite woefully. "But we might as well eat."
The amazement gives way to assent. "I never meant to tease," he says. He promises to be quick.
And he is. As he disappears into the back garden, taking only the cutting board and the knife, Chihiro puts the kettle on to heat water for tea, but it's scarcely boiling before Haku reappears with the eels filleted. Together they grill them on skewers over the fire in the hearth. Beads of fat dribble onto the logs below as the eels cook, sizzling into heady, fragrant smoke. When the fillets are done--it doesn't take long--Chihiro lays them in bowls on a bed of rice, and sets out the sliced cucumber on a plate.
The first bite of eel tastes so good she curls her toes and shuts her eyes and kicks her feet as if she were doing the backstroke. She has to swallow her happy whimper before it turns into a squeak. Haku smiles at her pleasure and agrees that the food is very good.
"How did you catch them?" she asks. "The eels. With magic?"
He answers placidly. "With my teeth."
"Oh." Of course that would be the easiest way, for him. Feeling silly, she watches him eat with his usual unstudied grace. She's wondered at times whether the whole business of cooking seems like a waste of effort to him, when in his other shape he could simply swallow whatever he catches whole. But he enjoys doing lots of things that can't be done in his other shape, like talking in words, or writing poems, or holding her hand in his. Among other things.
Although come to think of it she's not so sure some of those couldn't be done, if he and she made the attempt.
More detailed thought in that vein while eating dinner is a mistake. Haku lowers his chopsticks with concern while she wheezes.
"'M okay," she manages. At least if she's choking there's an excuse for her cheeks being pink. She swallows--carefully--and takes another bite of eel and rice together. "At home we always have unagi in the summer, but these are better than my mom's."
He reaches for his tea. "I used to watch fishermen catch them. Sometimes they would build fires and do their cooking just beside my banks. Now and then one would leave an offering in gratitude to the river."
"Is that how you learned to grill?"
He nods and gets up to refill their cups. It's rare for him to speak much about what his life in the river was like, and only lately that he's begun to do it more. Chihiro hopes that means the memories of what he's lost are growing easier to bear. When she was ten she hadn't really understood the extent of his hurt, the magnitude of loss. She doubts she can understand it even now--not because she's merely human, but because she's never been torn from something that was her entire life. But she tries, and listens to what he tells her.
When they're too stuffed to eat any more she waves him away from the empty bowls. "I'll wash up. You did the hard part, with the eels."
He tilts his head, considering. It's not as if there's much to wash in any case. "All right," he says. "I want to look at something in the loft." He goes to the hearth to bank the fire, heaping ash over the logs, and then disappears up the ladder.
While she rinses the bowls and chopsticks Chihiro wonders about taking a bath. She showered in the morning, before she came through the tunnel, but that was in the morning. It doesn't seem right to go to Haku in any state other than clean. Laying the dishes on a towel to dry, she goes to the foot of the ladder.
"Haku, I haven't had a bath, and I probably should, so, um--"
His voice floats down from above with perfect ease. "Leave it for tomorrow. We can take one together."
Which sounds like genius, except she really ought to have one now. "But--I got kind of sweaty on the way here, and from the fireplace, and..."
His hand appears, draped lazily over the banister that runs along the edge of the loft. His sleeve follows, then his chin, and then he's gazing down at her like some incongruous version of Juliet on the balcony, his eyes glinting green like underwater lights. The idea of bothering with a bath drains from her head as if a plug's been pulled in her brain. If she's still sweaty she no longer feels it.
"Tomorrow," he says mildly. "Come up here, now."
Climbing a ladder has never felt so much like running down a diving board to take a wild leap into the deep end. At the top his hands are reaching out to catch her, to keep her from tipping astray as she pitches forward into his embrace. She winds up mostly on top of him, her legs tangled between his. Finally. Finally.
She smothers her face against his chest, rubbing her nose against his breastbone. He smells like clear water, nothing more, nothing less. Like a long, sweet drink of it. She probably smells like sweaty randy human girl. "Hakuuu," she groans. "Am I weird, do you think?"
"Weird?" She can feel his head draw back slightly. His hand cups her cheek, then tilts her chin up. The pupils of his eyes have gone very wide, the irises very dark. "Why?"
"Because I want to do this, like, all the time."
He exhales a laugh. "Why should that be strange? If you are strange, I must be, too."
"Well, you're not weird." Sighing, she lays her forehead against his, so their noses bump, and they stay like that for a minute before he tilts his head to nuzzle her cheek, her temple, the curve of her jaw. She nuzzles him back and sighs again as he kisses the side of her neck.
"I would be sorry if you didn't," he murmurs. "Want this. You haven't been the only one practicing restraint."
A mix of guilt and gratitude and rue washes over her. They're supposed to be married, in some sense of the word, even if the vows were private, but they've hardly had a chance to act like it at all.
"We could quit that?" she offers, a little shyly, even though it's kind of absurd to be shy when she's plastered up against him, chest to chest. "The, um. The restraint thing."
He rubs his nose against hers in agreement, and then his parted lips against her lips the same way. It's hard to tell exactly when the rubbing blurs into kissing. His mouth is open, and hers is too, and then it's wet on wet and they're tasting each other, while his hands slide under her shirt and hers wind around his back. They kiss like shallow is as good as deep, tiny kisses where their tongues just barely brush, or his just barely strokes into her mouth. There are plenty of chances to breathe but pretty soon she's breathless anyway, hot through her entire body and tight between her legs.
When her clothes start to feel like a nuisance she pries herself away from him to pull her shirt over her head. That musses her ponytail, so she crooks her finger in the band and pulls that off, too, shaking her hair loose around her bare shoulders. Haku watches, stretching out on the futon just like she imagined he would, wearing a look of immense and obvious satisfaction.
As she crawls back to him she notices a book sitting by his elbow, one of the leatherbound volumes from the low shelf against the wall. Diverted, she peers at it, but can't make out the title on the spine. It doesn't seem to be in any language she can recognize--Japanese or Chinese or Korean, or the English she's learned in school.
"What were you reading?"
"Spells," he answers, reaching around her back. She shrugs off the straps of her bra when he unhooks it, then pitches it toward her duffel bag. Haku spreads his hands over her back, drawing her closer, so he can close his eyes and press his face into the hollow between her breasts. His hands slide under her arms, down her ribcage to her hips. "It's a book of magic. But much of it isn't new to me." He sounds distracted. "'A spell to render fertile the earth before seeding.' 'A spell to hasten growth, or cause flowers to bloom out of season.' 'A spell to double the yield of fruit.'"
He spares one arm to sweep the book off the futon toward the shelf, then settles a hand on each side of her waist. His fingers rake gently at the shorts she's still wearing. They're knee-length, denim, the pair her friends swear makes her rear end look cute.
"These," he says, "take these off, too."
If she were the eyelash-fluttering type--but she isn't. "You don't want to help?"
His eyes narrow to slits. She's barely got the zipper undone and the shorts dragged down a handspan before he seizes her in earnest, turning her onto her back and lowering his face to her navel, while she tries not to giggle too much at his single-mindedness. They get the shorts off all the way, and then her underpants--she wore the lacy ones that match the bra, but he never seems to notice that sort of thing. He might notice more if she didn't wear any. As he settles between her legs he lets out a long breath, then props his chin on her belly.
"Chihiro. I'm glad to be here."
She strokes his hair. "Me, too."
His eyelids droop as if he were sleepy, which he isn't. He breathes deeply, deliberately, to catch her scent.
"I used to flow to the sea, you know," he murmurs. "My river did. When I came close enough to the sea I could taste it. The brine. How near it was, how near I was to the verge. It made me want to dive into it and lose myself, but I never could."
She wonders whether this is the equivalent of talking about an old girlfriend. The sea's too big to hold a grudge against, even if the idea weren't so funny. "So you did this kind of thing with the Pacific Ocean?"
His laugh huffs across the curls of hair on her mound--which are damp already, some of them, and it seems like there's no point in being embarrassed about that. She used to be embarrassed, in the beginning, when she learned she could get dripping wet just from thinking of him, let alone from thinking of him doing what he's about to do. She isn't dripping yet, but she's getting there, getting closer as he parts the sticky curls with one finger that he swirls in little circles. He answers in earnest, the way he does, though she knows he knows she was teasing.
"No," he says into the curls and the damp. "That was different."
She plays at doubt to keep herself at bay a minute longer, not because she doesn't believe. "Hmm. Really."
"It was different." He noses in, sighing warm breath over her clit. "But you taste like the sea did." He nuzzles again as if he regrets having stopped to talk. "Chihiro. I hope it's all right if I do this for a long time."
That should be daunting, maybe, considering what he is and what his idea of a long time might be, but right now with her spinning head she can only think please and yes, a long long time, a few thousand years sounds good. A few tens of thousands. The miracle is that he talks about it like it's something he craves, like it's a favor she's doing him and not the other way around. She makes some senseless enthusiastic noise. He makes a low noise in return and starts to lick, long and slow, and then there's no keeping anything at bay anymore, not the pounding of her heartbeat, not the shudders of her hips.
His hair and skin are cool against her inner thighs, but his tongue feels as hot as her own body does--as hot, as wet. He's done this enough by now to know how she likes it: he kisses as if he were kissing her mouth, sliding his tongue between her lips and stroking deep. Before long her arms give out, and she flops back on the futon, clenching her fingers in the bedding instead of pawing blindly at his hair.
Whimpers keep rising in her throat. She bites them down until she can't remember why she's bothering to, when there's no one but him to hear, and then she doesn't bother anymore. Maybe she's starting to turn dragon too, now--maybe she and he are getting all mixed up together--because she wants so badly to curl her whole self around him and make that sound he makes in his other shape, the purry growly one. Or maybe that's something everybody wants to do with the person they love like crazy, human or dragon or whatever else.
When he lifts his chin, his lips are glazed. She knows it's her making them like that, and she's really got to quit thinking because thinking only makes her dizzier. He licks his upper lip and stares at her, eating her up with his eyes. Part of her can't believe she has the nerve to divert him from what he's been doing, even for a little while, but she wants his mouth on her in other places, too. She puts a hand under her breasts.
"Haku--here, too? Would you--"
Before she can finish he surges down to do what she asks. "Forgive me," he says, and his breath on her nipple makes it go harder than before, hard as a button. Chihiro shivers. She has no idea what the apology is for.
"Eh?"
"For making you ask." He laps gently, then covers her nipple with his mouth. It feels so good she can't even moan, can't manage words again until he lets go to turn to the other side.
"Ah--but I don't--mind asking?" She cradles his head, willing herself just to cradle and not to mash his face against her chest. "I could, nnh--write it on a wooden plaque? Ah!" He nips her, almost too hard, not her nipple but the inner curve of her right breast. She pants with laughter and lets her head slump to the bedding. The ache between her legs is twice as bad as before, until his fingers nestle there and start rubbing, reveling in the wet. She pushes into his touch, begging for more with her body and with her voice. He raises his head from her breast, breathing like he's just surfacing for air. His finger curls into her slit.
Suddenly she can't wait any longer, doesn't want to, doesn't want him to wait to slake his own need a minute more. She catches hold of his yukata, drags on the obi like a lifeline only to undo the knot. He half-rises to his hands and knees, pulling his finger from her, then claws the obi aside with restless force.
"Haku--" Come in, she thinks, come in come in, and maybe she groans it aloud, or maybe she doesn't and he hears anyway. He gives a wordless hiss and slides against her, grasping her hip to hold her steady and open as he surges in.
It always feels like being flooded, like a dam's crumbling and the water's roaring to fill a place it was meant to fill, while she clings to him and gulps for breath. Of course he's not water, not really, he's solid in her arms, hard inside her, but somehow when he moves--when he ripples--it feels like everything goes to liquid at her core. Sometimes it's all she can do to wrap her legs around him and moan.
This time she needs more than that, needs to feel the way she does when they're flying, with him underneath her and gulfs of night sky stretching below. She shifts her weight toward him, pressing him deeper in. "Haku, can I--I need to--"
Hissing through his teeth, he rolls to let her ride him, pulling her astride. She braces herself on her arms with her hands planted, tossing her head back. She has a muddled sense that you're not supposed to do it like this--you're supposed to lie there and let the boy do the work--but that must be a human rule, not a dragon one, because Haku never holds her to it. He doesn't seem to know it exists. He's so quick, always, like he can see in her mind what she craves, or smell it on her skin, and maybe when they're joined like this he can. His fingers clench her hipbones as he arches up into her, cresting like a wave about to break.
Her arms are shaking now. She can't hold herself up much longer, can't roll her hips down any harder than she already is. He says her name, fiercely, and just like that the last barrier cracks. In the depths of her body something perfect unfurls. The dark behind her eyelids goes white as a torrent, white like stark glitter on a sea too bright to bear. Relief overtakes her, and sweetness in a tide that rushes through her, overflowing all the way to her heels.
When it ebbs she folds onto Haku's chest, limp. He eases them both onto their sides again, slowing in her, and with another small hiss he goes still.
For a long while neither of them moves except to breathe. A soft reluctant sound escapes from Haku's throat as he withdraws. He tangles his fingers in hers.
"Chihiro," he murmurs, "thank you."
She tucks her forehead against his again. She feels sodden, drenched and content; the bedding floats her like a raft of air. "Mm?"
"For being the sea."
If she weren't so drowsy she would giggle. "Are seas supposed to fall asleep after you swim in them?"
"This one is allowed to."
"Oh good." It might be a while before he joins her--he sleeps less than she does, except in the winter--but she knows he's not going anywhere, and it's a luxury to be with him, to have him with her the whole night through. With a sigh she burrows against him and lets herself drift.
--
There are no windows in the loft, so when she wakes in the morning the only light is welling up from below, cloudy and gray, diffuse. The dimness reminds her of being submerged in a quiet pool. She feels Haku beside her, hears the hush of rain on the thatched roof, both assuring her there's no immediate work to be done outside, no need to get up. The blue blanket draped over them isn't a blanket but Haku's yukata; she feels the weave of it against her hip, her bottom, her breast. Underneath it she shifts her body closer to his, so that even more skin touches skin.
"I thought you said you couldn't make it rain," she says sleepily.
He speaks into her hair. "It wasn't my doing."
"Uh-huh."
"Truly, it wasn't."
He's never lied to her, though sometimes he doesn't think to tell her everything he should. The rain still seems unduly convenient. As Chihiro stretches her legs she feels slickness between them--again, already. It's a neat trick of his, to let her fall asleep and then slither into her dreams, so she wakes up wanting him all over again. "Greedy," she mumbles. "You were in my dream."
"Should I not have been?"
"No, you should." She reaches for him. "It was a good dream."
Even in the gray dimness his eyes glint. Then he's sliding over and onto her, matching her belly to his, and she laughs a little and calls him greedy again, though he isn't really, or if he is then she is, too. They have so many missed nights to make up, along with all the other mornings when they couldn't wake up in the same bed. She's too languorous to move much this time, except to fold her arms around his neck, so she lets him do the moving when he sinks in. He keeps to easy eddying, now and then slowing to a purl, but she's so susceptible that slow motion is enough to carry her. When she comes it's like tumbling over tiny rapids into a basin, with him tumbling in her wake, and afterward she feels revived instead of sleepy.
Revived and starving. When her stomach growls he smiles and pets her belly, indulgent. Straggling upright, she bundles his yukata around him and sends him down the ladder first, in case her legs are so wobbly that she slips and needs to be caught. Then she digs into her duffel bag and pulls on the sleeveless nightgown that got no use during the night.
It turns out her legs will still hold her. For breakfast there's rice leftover from dinner, and Haku makes miso soup with scallions from the garden and dried wakame from the kitchen cupboard. On top of that there's Zeniba's green tea cake. Despite her sense that cake for breakfast is much too decadent, Chihiro decides she needs the energy and cuts a slice. It tastes better than anything she's ever had in a patisserie.
When they've eaten she asks hopefully, "Is it bathtime now?"
Haku blinks. "In the morning?"
Okay, she thinks, this is getting suspicious. A water god ought to be more encouraging of bathing. Probably he's just sitting there secretly delighted that she reeks of sex. Or maybe he thinks getting doused with his essence a couple of times is bath enough. "You said."
He bows his head, which doesn't fully hide his smile. "So I did."
The bath is in an outbuilding behind the cottage, next to the watermelon patch and the trellises of beans. It houses a wooden bathtub, squarish like the building itself, old-fashioned and deep. Chihiro hates to think how long it would take to fill it if you couldn't use magic as its owner can. When he tells her it's ready she follows him out the back door in her sandals, carrying soap and shampoo, towels and a pale green sundress to change into. The morning rain has lessened to a drizzle, hardly enough to moisten her skin, but it feels pleasant and a little daring to be outside in the misty warmth, wearing nothing but a cotton nightgown that doesn't reach her knees.
On her way past the raised beds of vegetables she pauses. Between the neat rows of eggplant a host of weeds is bursting up from the dirt. She'd noticed one or two when she was picking cucumbers, but they seem to have multiplied overnight. Multiplied to the infinite power. Frowning, she calls to Haku.
"Doesn't it seem like there's a lot of weeds?"
He halts at the door to the outbuilding and surveys the garden. "The witch is away," he says at last, as if that explains everything. He's holding the door for her, so Chihiro turns from the eggplants and goes trotting inside.
Wooden slats cover the raised floor of the narrow room, with gaps between them to let washwater drain. Half of the space is occupied by the bathtub. Chihiro sets down her bottles, shimmies out of her nightgown, and reaches for a bucket. Haku merely sheds his yukata and climbs straight into the tub.
"It was the same at the bathhouse whenever Yubaba left," he continues. "If I didn't keep watch."
She blinks. "You mean the garden plants went crazy?"
"Not the gardens. The staff would do things they wouldn't otherwise dare."
"Oh." That made more sense. "So you had to be mean and act like the boss." The water in the bucket is warm, not too hot. Chihiro splashes a palmful over her face and wipes it away. Much as she'd like to just jump in the tub with him, there's sweat to rinse off first, and she wants to wash her hair. "No wonder she used that creepy bug on you, to make you do what she said. You're terrible at being mean."
"Yesterday you said otherwise."
"Eh? I--oh, I did." She rubs soap into her hands to lather. "But I didn't mean it."
"No?"
He's baiting her, or as close as he ever comes to baiting in his constant mildness, lounging with one arm over the edge of the tub. Twisting her lips, Chihiro holds up her soapy hands and waggles her fingers. "I'm sorry I called you mean," she says fondly. "If you come here I'll scrub your back?"
--
Continues here.