Satsuki notices it when Mei comes home from boarding school for the New Year celebrations.

She has never reacted like the others -- with much shock and fanfare -- at the fact that Mei is now a few centimeters taller than her, or that she's started doing her hair more fashionably, or that their conversations have turned more to society and politics and plans to renovate the house. That's just growing up. And just because her sister wasn't the cuddly little bundle of energy she once was, didn't mean that anything was fundamentally different.

And yet, Satsuki can't help but feel shaken when, upon returning from her usual welcome-back walk to Totoro's house, Mei stops to sit on the porch and is silent for a very long time. Satsuki doesn't have to ask; it had happened to her, too, many years ago. Yet oddly enough, this hurts more than it had hurt then.