Yggdrasil*
Everything around Chihiro felt foreign when it should have felt familiar. This was the moment she was waiting for, yet a part of her felt empty like her surroundings were a blur. Her baby, Peaches, was in a completely different realm. The boy she liked was in a completely different realm. Her new friends... in a completely different realm. This was what she prayed for at night for weeks in a depression. This was what she cried for, stopped eating over. Yet, she didn't feel the happiness she thought she would walking once familiar halls. The walls of her school looked different than she remembered, the faces of her classmates staring at her like they'd seen a ghost... felt unwelcoming. Whispers surrounded her, surely the whole school knew by now. Chihiro Sato was awake after two months.
Hana was holding one hand while Kai held her other arm for support. Chihiro insisted on leaving the hospital wing, she needed to be back in her dorm to think. She wanted the four walls decked out in her tapestries and posters to make her feel at home once again. Maybe laying in her bed would bring a constant back, so she'd feel better. Her friends expected her to be overjoyed when she awoke, but she was blank as they hugged her. Confusion racked her mind as she tried to comprehend waking up in a different place than she last remembered. It brought stress down onto her body as her chest became tight and a soft ache crept into her head.
The air felt stuffy, like her surroundings were being covered with a hazy smoke where all she could hear were voices. She could smell the faint hints of wood and paper, the normal for the old creaking school. The scent was suffocating her as tingles were filling her body, a pit in her stomach... an aching need to lay down, to be alone with her friends. Had time passed the same? With each step they took down the winding halls, taking a right then a left, she let them drag her along. She let her eyes flutter closed as she trusted Hana and Kai to get her back to her dorm. Her nostril was on fire from the burning fumes invading her brain, making her feel blank.
"We're here." Chihiro looked to her friends who still appeared as if they were gazing upon a ghost. A ghost of their friend they didn't know would ever wake up, standing right in front of them.
Chihiro just nodded, fingers reaching to the handle after Hana unlocked it. It took her a few long seconds to walk in, a familiar scent hitting her nose as it made her eyes spasm. Her dorm appeared untouched, yet as her fingers began to trace along the wallpaper they felt on fire. The fine fabric of the uniform she'd forgotten all about clung to her warm body as her hands began to claw at the top. Chihiro undid the top few buttons to try to breathe, to try to regain herself as her heart began to palpitate. Her friends watched her with worry yet they were unsure of what to do, Hana's hands lingered near Chihiro's shoulders trying to decide whether to touch her or not.
She sank to the tile of the small kitchen, an L-shaped island that overlooked to her bed and dressers, and desk. The tile was cold on her bare knees, her skirt riding just above it. Her fingers looked so minuscule as she rose them up to her line of sight, as if they'd changed on her. Hana grasped her, looking to Kai for help.
"It's all the same... yet it's different. Like I haven't been here in so long." Chihiro murmured exasperated.
"Do you... want us to leave?" Kai asked.
Hana shot him a look, "we'll stay. This is a lot."
Chihiro had insisted she didn't need to stay at the infirmary any longer, that she was safe. If she had to stare at the curtains that surrounded her bed to keep her from curious eyes any longer, she'd lose it. So many questions were tossed her way that with a dry throat she couldn't bear to answer.
Hana helped Chihiro to her bed, which she propped herself up on leaning against the wall. She had a hard time believing this was real. Hana and Kai still looked at her as if she were a ghost. She also wondered if at any second her room would disappear. There was tension in the air, not necessarily a bad one, but uncertainty of what to say. Chihiro felt as if she'd have an anxious break if she couldn't maintain control of the situation knowing what her friends thought.
"Where's Kas?" she asked quietly. She pulled her knees to her chest, feeling her once familiar comforter plush against her bare legs that stuck out from her uniform skirt.
"You know Kasumi'll be bursting down that door any second. No way she hasn't heard."
"How has she been?"
"Be thankful you've been gone for her reign of terror." Kai groaned, "you thought she was crazy about people doing what she wants with all her damn pep? She got worse."
"She was just concerned and wanted to try to find a way to wake you up." Hana jut in, "she's not totally crazy."
"She is a little." the boy remarked.
BANG.
"Speak of the devil. You summoned her!"
Chihiro smiled as Hana stuck out her tongue at Kai as she stood up to get the door. Hana disappeared behind the wall where the doors to the hall and private bathroom were.
"Where is she!" Kasumi's high pitched, nasally voice hit her ears making her jump.
Kasumi froze in her track as she rounded the corner and saw Chihiro.
"No fucking way. CHICHI!" she shrieked as she began her running start towards the bed.
Kai got in her way as to scold her, to stop her from flopping onto Chihiro, "steady you'll knock her back out."
They hugged. It wasn't how Kai and Hana held her earlier- it was suffocatingly tight and filled with emotions. Kasumi was her first friend at Eva Academy way back when, she'd always had her back. Chihiro wanted to cry once more as she squeezed her close friend back, letting a cheek rest on Kasumi's shoulder.
"I've missed you so much." Kasumi breathed out, pulling away to get a good look at Chihiro, "I mean you look the same."
"I look different to me." Chihiro sighed with a dejected voice.
"Huh?"
When Chihiro first saw her reflection when she awoke, it was the Chihiro from two months ago. It was the one in her school uniform with slightly shorter hair, paler skin, and dull eyes. It wasn't the face she was used to- the one that would spend hours in the Konoha sun laughing at whatever escapade she was up to. Though her journey there started disaster-fully and had its moments- she saw a difference. It was spooky to see herself as her ghost of the past.
"I wasn't exactly in a coma or sleeping." her friends gave her weird looks as they all took a seat around her on the bed, "you know how we were spirit drifting to Konoha that day?" they nodded, "well I woke up there. I've spent my last two months living there, so seeing my old reflection is just strange."
"What?"
"I don't understand.."
"It's confusing to me too. I couldn't understand how I ended up there, how I could be living in their time. All those people we've learned about, historical events all happened and are still as we speak. I got to meet the people who lived there. I acclimated with them."
"Wow." Hana remarked, "was not expecting that. I thought you'd just have some fucked up dreams to share."
"I know it wasn't a dream. Everything was so real, like how we are now."
"Isn't that like... physical drifting?"
"I guess so." she shrugged, she hadn't put much thought into it since waking up.
"But Chihiro you don't really meet the qualifications for that? No one's been one of those in so long."
"Trust me," Chihiro shook her head, "I don't know. I haven't even met with any adults outside the nurse, I have no explanations."
"It's a lot to take in, you need to rest for sure."
"I'm okay right now. I don't even know if I could sleep if I tried."
"Understandable."
"What was it like?" Kasumi's voice being timid for once, made everyone feel panic in their chest. The brunette looked sad, "were they good to you there?"
"Yes, very. I was taken care of."
"So like they're actual ninjas?"
"Yep, real ninjas with their jutsus and stuff. I'm not exactly the one to ask." she blushed, slightly embarrassed by her lack of knowledge for the terminology.
Chihiro sighed heavily, her hands trembling as she moved them to under her thighs. Her eyes stayed downcast as her mood changed, the shift making the air run dry and her friends shift uncomfortably. Like utter calmness surrounding her, Chihiro wanted to tell them all about her time in Konoha, about those she met. That she'd been safe. Happy after bumpy weeks.
"I'm not sure if I can sum of two months but, I'll try. I want to tell you guys all about Konoha then I want to hear about your lives."
What was the feeling in her chest? The tingling along her skin like she was being etched with a knife?
Bare-ness.
Chihiro felt bare under their eyes as she spoke. Even as she lamented about her fears in Konoha, how hard it was at first to adjust, it was as if she was romanticizing it. She talked of her time there so lovingly, reminiscing on moments with her new friends. She told them about karaoke, bath houses, her cat, all the shopping she'd done- it felt as if she was talking about a completely different person. But that person was still here. It was like she had a new identity from her time in Konoha and she connected with it more than herself in Yggdrasil.
It all connected. Like a puzzle piece snapping into place.
She loved Yggdrasil, but there was something drawing her to Konoha. Like she still had more to do there- someone to be with. An ache in her chest, a hole in her chest that suddenly she realizes used to be her normal. And that hole was filled when she awoke in Konoha.
She thought she was riddled with anxiety to her core, why a piece of her felt missing.
Her friends watched her curiously as her sentences stopped forming, as she got lost in her mind. Just as she'd explained the mishaps she had, the stranger who was trying to control her, she stopped talking. It freaked them out. That she hadn't actually been safe in Konoha like she let on. Chihiro left so much out and she felt bad, but it wasn't important at the moment. Her thoughts were elsewhere.
"I need to tell you about someone."
"Wait wait did you meet someone? Like a guy? Which first off we're not skipping past you almost dying, we'll get back to that." Hana retorted.
"I sorta did..."
"Oh my gosh she's blushing!" Kasumi squeaked. Hana just shushed her.
"His name's Neji, he's a member of the Hyuga Clan. We were on a kind of like.. unofficial date of some kind?" Chihiro shifted as her voice raised a few octaves. "and then I passed out, woke up here."
"That's some serious cock-blocking, poor guy." Kai laughed.
"That's not funny." Hana sent him a death stare, "she's upset."
Chihiro's lips were trembling as her face slowly became red and splotchy, "I think I'm falling in love with him."
Kai didn't have a comeback for once. Kasumi was left speechless, finally. Hana shifted closer to Chihiro, wrapping an arm around him, "sounds like someone would rather be in Konoha."
"It's that ironic?" Chihiro laughed through her pained emotions, "I spent so long wanting to come back here, fighting to. And now it's like, I already need to go back."
"For a guy..." Kasumi murmured, "times have changed."
"But," Chihiro frowned, "but what if I'm able to go back and forth? Maybe I can come and go-"
"That would be ideal, you still gotta graduate girl."
"I know. I know." her head was starting to hurt. Too many 'what ifs' and bad outcomes whirled inside of her and she needed relief, "Can you guys tell me about you all? Fill me in on all the drama?"
"Then you'll tell us about your mystery stalker?" Hana reminded her.
"Yes."
But as she sat there with a somber smile listening to ber friends talk, she yearned to be with Neji. She yearned to feel the safety that came with his presence and the way he made her feel. Missed his pretty, chiseled face and how his lavender eyes would soften upon seeing her. It was like his cheeks would always burn pink and the temperature would rise between them as they were steps apart. She missed how his knuckles would whiten if someone else approached her or she got too far- as if his jaw clenching was him desperately trying to keep her close.
Was she forgetting his face? The thought panicked Chihiro as she tried to trace over his ever feature that her mind could muster. Like she was guiding her fingers along his soft skin as her fingertips tingled from the thought.
Chihiro could remember their last moments. Guilt berated her chest at the fact she left him a wreck, calling out to her so she'd awake. She wondered how he was doing, it her body was no longer there, if he just forgot about her. Neji had found his way into every inch of her heart, into her being and she ached to see him. To tell him she was okay and not to worry, she could imagine him ripping apart Konoha or the rest of the lands for answers, to find her once more. That thought made her feel sane.