Spirited Away Fanfiction: Chihiro is 20 and at university. Her brush with the Spirit World still influences her life today. She is trying hard to fit in with the "real world", but she is finding this difficult and the cracks are starting to show
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After moving into the new house, Chihiro had been quiet and reserved, very unlike her normal self. Her mother grew more and more worried, and after two weeks she sat Chihiro down for a talk.
"Whatever has happened you can tell me," She had pleaded. "Something is really bothering you; your father and I can't help you if you don't tell us."
"You wouldn't believe me," she had muttered.
"Of course I will! You don't lie Chihiro, you never have." Chihiro remembered her chin wobbling.
"It's just that I miss them so much."
"Who?" Asked her mother, "your old friends?"
"No my new ones, Kamajii, Rin, Haku, No-face and Granny Zeniba."
"Chihiro," said her mother gently. "Who are these people? What are you talking about?" Chihiro then told her the whole story. The next day a doctor came to the house and demanded that she told the truth. Chihiro remembered being so frightened that she gave even more detail to the doctor than she had to her mother.
Over the next few days, her parents kept asking her to tell the truth, but she was telling it. They had been pigs, and she had spent three days in the spirit world, and she had saved them. How did they explain the car? A practical joke they said. But why do that? Why not let down the tires or scratch the paint? Neither could answer to her satisfaction. How come the movers had finished and gone when they arrived back at the new house? Her father mumbled something about an efficient service but seemed to be thinking hard. It made no difference, for the next four years she was in therapy.
She had her first therapist for a year. He was not very good, but he was a kind man with white hair and a moustache. He would just let her talk. He never wrote anything down or made any assessments or recommendations; he just seemed to enjoy the story. She had liked him; he never said she was lying.
Exasperated by her lack of progress, her parents had taken her to another therapist in the city. A woman, she had had black hair, sharp face and the leathery skin of someone who had had too much sun. Goodness knows what she had charged. Chihiro had not liked the woman therapist; she could not even remember her name now. She had written a lot and questioned every sentence of her story.
Chihiro had come out of those sessions in a cold sweat. This went on for some time. She stopped talking about anything except school to her parents. They saw this as an improvement, and not for what it was, a loss of trust. She had problems at school too. Her grades were well above average, but somehow her classmates found out she was in therapy. No one knew what for, but after that, her presence was barely tolerated. She was not bullied as such, just ignored.
Every 6 months Chihiro's parents were called to the therapist's office after her session. At the age of 13, she was starting to get very angry with everyone for thinking she was mad. So one day with her parents waiting outside, she snapped.
