Leaving Mist Valley

"Don't you think it feels strange?"

Strange?

Yuliang let the question hang in the air between them, unwilling to tear his attention away from the web novel glowing on his phone screen. His thumb hovered over the button for the next chapter, eyes skimming the final lines of a paragraph before he sighed and gave in, acknowledging his twin with a distracted, "Hm?"

"Finally leaving, I mean," Yukio clarified.

That got Yuliang's attention. He looked up, glancing at his brother. Yukio wasn't looking at him, though. Instead, he sat hunched against the car door, his fingertip tracing idle patterns on the fogged-up glass, drawing lazy arcs and spirals that disappeared almost as soon as he made them. The low rumble of the engine filled the silence between them, punctuated by the rhythmic swish of windshield wipers sweeping away condensation and the occasional bump in the road.

"Don't get me wrong, I'm glad we're leaving." Yukio's voice was quieter now, barely audible over the drone of the tires. "Honestly, you should've listened to me. We should've left a long time ago, but…"

He hesitated. His fingertip stilled against the glass, the half-formed curve of an unfinished pattern dissolving into the condensation. Slowly, his hand withdrew, curling loosely in his lap—uncertain, caught between tension and release. Then, finally, Yukio turned toward him.

For the first time since the conversation started, their gazes met.

Amber eyes—mirrors of Yuliang's own, yet somehow entirely different. In them, unspoken emotions flickered like candlelight behind a window.

Uncertainty.

Regret.

A quiet, aching nostalgia.

"But it's still home, isn't it?"

Yuliang exhaled slowly, shifting his gaze to the world beyond the glass.

"But it's still home, isn't it?" 

Yuliang exhaled slowly, shifting his own gaze to the world outside.

Mist Valley.

The rolling hills, blanketed in perpetual mist, undulated like the folds of a rumpled silk sheet. Rustic cottages, their dark, sloping roofs weighed down by years of rainfall, clung to the slopes. Chimneys exhaled tendrils of pale smoke into the damp air, where they curled and thinned before vanishing. Narrow stone paths, slick with moisture, wove between the homes, their surfaces worn smooth by generations of footsteps. Wooden signposts stood at every fork in the road, carved with talismans—inked prayers and protective wards against things no one dared name aloud.

Beyond the cottages, the rainforest loomed. A vast, tangled labyrinth of ancient trees, their gnarled roots twisting over the earth like the veins of something slumbering beneath the surface. There were paths there, but they did not belong to the people of Mist Valley. Not truly. Even now, elders left offerings at the crossroads—small bundles of fruit, pressed rice cakes, sticks of incense smouldering despite the damp. The scent of them lingered in the air, mingling with the ever-present petrichor. A quiet, unseen agreement between those who lived in the valley and those who did not.

Children of Mist Valley grew up knowing which paths to avoid after dusk. Which trees not to touch. Which thresholds to step over without hesitation.

Some things were better left undisturbed.

Yuliang pressed his knuckles against the cold glass, watching raindrops chase each other down the surface, merging, splitting, disappearing into the mist.

"Yeah," he admitted, voice barely above a whisper.

"It is."