Spirited Away: The Wait [ORIGINAL]

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“Promise me you’ll never forget me because if I thought you would, I’d never leave.”

-A.A. Milne

     A woman with extensive long strands of brown hair crawled through a passage with a basket in hand. The moment the passage door opened, she felt the immense heat attack her skin and just like every other day, her resulting perspiration would be absorbed by her pink uniform, making it all the more uncomfortable and unbearable. Oh, what she would do for a bath. With her bangs matted to her forehead, she stood up, wiping the sweat away with the back of her hand.

     “Dinner’s here, Kamaji!” she announced as her hand reached into the basket to pull out a huge bowl of ramen.

     “About time! I’m starving here!” the grumpy old man replied.

     She scowled at him. “Some stupid yuna was the one holding me up, alright! Geez…”

     He chuckled as he stopped working and dug into the meal. “Dinner time!” he yelled to the working soot balls which then dropped all their coals, rushing over to Lin for their favorite, and truthfully, their only choice of food.

     “Do I want to know what happened?” the old man asked while chewing his noodles and slurping on the soup eagerly. “Tastes better every time,” he remarked to himself.

     Lin threw out star-shaped crackers to the soot balls while her face held the same scowl in place, though it seemed to have grown bigger as she fumed thinking back.

     “Thanks to her, the bottom floor is a wreck. Customers are going crazy and she’s actually feigning illness as a poor excuse to slack! The next time I get a hold of her job schedule, she’s going to be in charge of clearing the dump out back.”

     The soot balls seemed to whimper when their beloved crackers broke into a million crumbs in Lin’s tightly balled fists. The woman sighed as her hand delved into the basket to get more and threw it into the eagerly awaiting stick-like hands of the little creatures.

     “Ahh… this place just gets hotter and hotter, doesn’t it?” the weasel spirit grumbled in frustration.

     “It’s not getting hotter; you’re just getting angrier, Lin. Cool down a little,” Kamaji replied calmly before taking in another mouth of the noodles.

     She rolled her eyes. “Tell me when you’re done with that. I gotta head back soon to help clear up the mess. If you saw it those sunglasses of yours would fall right off and you’d be as angry as me…” Lin continued in angst.

     “I don’t think I would be, Lin. Could it be any worse than the mess Chihiro made the last time she was here?” Kamaji said, smiling at the wonderful memories of the past.

     A sad smile appeared on Lin’s face, making the wrinkles that had initially appeared on her forehead vanish.

     “I guess not… That girl was really…” her voice trailed off as she paused to remember the endearing human whom she’d long regarded as her own little sister, a sibling whom she’d longed to have for the last few centuries in her lifetime. How was she doing? Was her life good? Did she still remember them? Was she ever coming back? Were they ever going to meet again?

     The questions swarmed and bombarded her mind like they always did whenever she recalled the baby-faced human girl who was much stronger than her wimpy outer appearance was. A force to be reckoned with, she was.

     The woman sighed and opened the passage door to leave, knowing the call of her duty awaited her. “I miss her too, Lin,” Kamaji voiced out, “we’ll meet her again, I’m sure.”