One Summer's Day

The Moon, The Sun, The Stars

After three days, three long days, Haku comes back to work in charge of the bathhouse. How do I feel about it?

I don't remember anything after I grabbed his hand over the edge of the bridge. Lin told me that I didn't let go. Others rushed over to lift him back onto the ground. She said I held onto him, and blacked out in his arms.

I close my eyes and feel embarrassed just thinking about it. I try to convince myself that it's not true, that never happened, she's lying. But she's not. I can feel the candor of the memory underneath my skin.

I do my best to keep myself busy and distracted with work. But I know it won't help for long. I'll see him eventually. How long will it be until I can no longer avoid him.

"Chihiro", someone says. It's a worker, who seems to have crept up on me.
"Master Haku calls you to his office immediately."
I groan and tilt my head back in dread. She sees it and laughs, which only makes me feel worse. And I partly hate her as she walks away, still laughing.

I try to think of ways to stall, or come up with an excuse, but I think of nothing. And eventually force myself to go upstairs to the apartment.

I cringe before I walk in the door, bracing myself for what's to come. But I do walk in, and I go to his office. He sits at his desk working, and looks up once I step in front of him.

He gets up. "Please sit", he says, ushering toward the right. I now notice the quilt set out in front of the fireplace with a gorgeous China tea set.
I follow him to his little picnic, and sit down across from him. 

He stares at me with wide eyes. Bold eyes. I try not to notice that they are looking at me, in these awkward and silent moments. Until finally he speaks. I expect that sharp and professional Haku. The one who's always dedicated to doing things with class and control. But the voice that comes out of his mouth isn't anything like that. It's a real genuine voice.

"I..", he starts. Not really knowing how to continue. "I want you to please forgive me. The anger you have towards me is just eating away at me. I can't take it much longer. What I said was wrong."

My head perks up, not intently interested in where this conversation is going. 

"You're right", he says. "Everyone here is seeing you for who you were four years ago. And all they get is someone else who can't remember the important memories she made here. And the truth is, you're not that same girl."

He pauses for a long time, thinking hard about what he wants to say next.

"I didn't think it was possible, but you're so much more than that girl four years ago."

His words take me completely by surprise.

"You have gained so much confidence and strength in the time I haven't been with you. You are a new girl. A better one. I see you grow stronger every day I see you, and it's the most extraordinary thing. To see you still make friends here, and to work just because you can, to stand up and take charge. To save my life! You're an amazing girl." His head turns down in shame.

"I was wrong to say those things about you. I was distressed and mad. Please, forgive me."

All I can do is stare. At those pleading face and those pleading eyes, looking into mine. This time I look back into his.

But a small part of me doesn't want to forgive him.Not yet. Not because I don't believe what he says, because I do. But oddly because I want to hear him talk. I want him to prove himself through his words.

"What's the point", I say. "What really is the greater good of forgiving someone? Why is it the right thing to do? Right now or anytime at all?" It wasn't until I said it out loud did I realize that I didn't say that to stall him or hear him speak. It was because I truly wanted to know the answer. That question had haunted me for years. Plagued my mind with wonder. And I believed that the boy sitting in front of me right now could answer it. 

He stares out a long time. I can mentally see gears in his head. Turning back and forth, working hard to come up with an answer. I take a sip of tea. Its sweet and soothing. A flavor I've never tasted before. 

I see the gears in his head stop. The answer is there. He got it.

"Someone a long time ago told me a story. It was a simple story, not much meaning. There once was a wolf. He had joined a good pack, and he believed he was happy. One day he was just minding his own business, eating his dinner of deer, when someone from the pack, snags it right from his mouth, and won't give it back. The wolf is hurt. And he's angry at the wolf who stole his food. He knows he will never forgive that wolf for what he's done. And so he leaves. He leaves the pack, and he becomes a lone wolf. And time passes since that day he left. And he lies there in the middle of the night, all alone in the woods, and he does something he never thought he would do in a million years."

"He forgave the wolf", I say.

"He forgave the wolf", he repeats. 

"But why? What's the point of forgiveness?"

"You wanna know the point?", he asks. Inviting me to know the greatest secret alive. 

I nod.

"There is no point. There's none at all. He just forgave him."

I laugh. I'm confused and curious. And, amused.

"Wait then what's the point of the story?", I ask.

"There's no point to the story either. It's just like forgiveness. They both have absolutely no point at all."

Now I really laugh. Out loud, and he laughs with me.

"But why?', I ask again. "What made him forgive?"

"No one ever told me the answer to that", he says. "I'd like to think it was the earth around him. The moon, the sun, and the stars."

I stare at him, repeating those words in my head.

"It was the moon, the sun, and the stars that made him forgive. It's who we are. It's everything around us, that makes us forgive. It's in our nature. Whether we're spirit or human, we all have the power to forgive."

I smile at him and he smiles back. I inch closer to him and he does to me. And we stay like that for a while.

It almost scares me when that smile leaves his face. And he says to me, "could you find it in your nature, to forgive me Chihiro?"

I close my eyes, and I look up. When I bring my head down and open my eyes, I move closer to him. I take his hands in mine and hold them up to my heart, just like he to did to me the first night I was here. I can see that same memory replaying in his mind.

"Of course I will forgive you."

He smiles again, and like feathers in the wind, all of his pain and sadness from the past few days just fly away and out the window. As if they were never there. How funny it is to so easily forget pain, but always remember those beautiful and joyful moments in life.

We don't move. My hands begin to tingle. He looks at our hands intertwined, and then looks up at me. I've heard of butterflies in your stomach, but I feel the ocean. A thunderstorm of waves falling back and forth in my chest and in my heart. And even though it hurts, I don't want it to stop. 

All of the sudden I jump up and run. I run as fast as I can, out of the room, and out of the apartment. 

But this time when I reach the elevator, I look back. I look back for the first time in what feels like centuries. 

I look back to the entrance of the apartment, and see Haku standing there watching me.