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Lavi was three when he first noticed the mist outside the window.
He looked around the nursery, seeking the reassuring presence of his nurse, but the stout woman had left the room to rinse out a vase for a fresh bouquet of flowers, leaving him to his own devices. The boy looked once again at the window, watching the white furls press against the glass panes.
Childish curiosity fought the gallant battle with fear and won, as it often did with spirited children. Lavi left off the book he was reading and clambered, with some clumsy movements of his pudgy limbs, onto a chair that stood under the window sill. The ivory fog was opaque enough to blot out the sunlight and cast a faint grey dimness into the room. Lavi couldn't even make out the street below, or even the reaching branches of the peach tree outside which were the frequent perches of red-breasted robins. His fingers touched the glass and found it to be as cold as if the sweltering heat of midsummer in west London had been pushed back by the mysterious haze.
Peering with a faint feeling of incomprehensible fright out of the window, Lavi thought he saw something dark shift in the thick white vapours. He squinted, desperately trying to make sense of the apparition.
Suddenly, a pair of nightmarish eyes as dark and hollow as endless pits, as the lifeless orbs of a long-rotted corpse, emerged clearly from the mist and advanced flying towards him.
The boy let out a small shriek of terror and tried to step away from the window. His little foot was met with thin air; the chair collapsed onto the ground with a loud crack, and with it fell the redheaded child, who burst into tears loudly.
In came his nurse and mother in an anxious hurry. “Good heavens, child, Lavi my dear, what is the matter?” cried his mother, scooping him up into her arms and cradling him against her warm bosom. Sobbing, Lavi pointed at the window.
“Ghost! Ghost!” he bawled.
“What ghost?” asked his nurse, striding towards the window confidently so as to banish the nonsensical fears of the boy, “What ghost, Lavi? I see nothing outside at all!”
“No ghosts, sweetheart,” Lavi’s mother cooed to her whimpering child. She looked worriedly outside. “Don’t you open the windows, Helen,” she said quietly to the nurse. “Ghosts aside, that mist is so thick. It won’t do to cloud the rooms with it.”
“Madame!! Oh, Madame, come quickly!!” came a sudden shout from the lower floor of the house.
Lavi’s mother and nurse looked at each other, their faces turning pale from a shared sense of foreboding. Lavi was deposited gently onto the floor, and the women rushed out of the room. A few moments later, anxious voices were heard conversing downstairs, and the wailing cries of Lavi’s mother echoed throughout the house.
Lavi looked up at the window. The black eyes gave him a single glance before retreating with the mist, both gone without a trace, as if they were never there.
Twas not until three days later, when he was standing before the sunken soil bearing his father’s coffin, that he suddenly thought of the mist.
*****
After the death of his father in a carriage accident, the lustre went out of Lavi’s mother forever. Her once glorious red-gold tresses fell limp and shaggy around her gaunt face, and the corners of her doe eyes and beautiful mouth were scored with deep crows' feet. She looked as if she had aged ninety years in the space of nine. On the streets, the neighbours whispered about her demise. The husband and wife had been the most loving couple on earth, they said to each other. Their beauty and stateliness constituted a heaven-made match, and one mere look at them could tell you how deeply they loved one another. It was little wonder to anyone that the happiness of her life ended with her husband’s.
Every day, she went around the house like a wraith, silent and lost even to her son. When Lavi tried to talk to her, she had but the briefest of responses for him. Often she would be in the kitchen, cooking the meals in complete silence. The kitchen, missing her old pleasant humming, turned into a sterile place that was pervaded with an air of solitude. At other times, she would be in her room with the door bolted, locking herself out of the rest of the world.
With the terrible death came also a penetrating chill to the house. It always felt cold in every room, even with the sun streaming in from all windows. Lavi could be wearing a thick cardigan next to the fireplace and still feel the biting nip of cold. Helen, the nurse and home teacher who had almost single-handedly brought him up since his mother’s withdrawal, complained about aching bones day and night for years until she could take it no longer and resigned from the household.
By then, Lavi was twelve, old enough to take care of himself, but young enough to sorely miss the affection of his parents and nurse in his childhood. With the nurse gone, he became an invisible presence in his own house. His mother cared only about sating his hunger and other necessary needs; she listened not to the poems he recited to her, nor did she see the flowers he arranged for her on the dining table every day.
Slowly, Lavi’s heart froze from the cold in the house, turning into a hard piece of ice. He turned into a recluse living in his own head, and it became no wonder to him why his mother would not so much as look at him, for who could love a son who was so silent and morose? Thus, he went as silent as everything around him, preferring to read in his room instead of going outside. Books became his only companions, and the stories he read brought him to places beyond the walls of his home where it was not so cold, so quiet, so lonely.
A year later, Lavi’s mother took ill. The disease wasted her very quickly; within weeks, her pallor took upon a deathly shade, and her flesh sagged on her bones from her confinement to the sickbed. She could not even stomach the thin gruel cooked by the maids. The family physician gave her various treatments and tonics, all to no avail. Lavi visited her room daily to try to uplift her spirits, but her hollow gaze seemed to go right through him and her throat yielded only rattling coughs.
When Lavi saw the curling white mist outside the window of the bathroom one day, he was dumbstruck. His childhood vision came back to haunt him: the dense white haze and the dead black eyes that were the harbingers of tragedy. A faucet ran and ran ceaselessly into the sink in front of him. In his mind's eye, the translucent stream turned a dark and viscous crimson, splattering the pristine porcelain. The stink of rust assaulted his nose. Uncertainly, Lavi staggered to the door and gripped its frame with white knuckles. His bloodless lips moved on two muted syllables. When he started to run, the name he shouted pierced the silence of the halls.
"Mama!" he screamed, feeling like he was three again. "Mama!"
Lavi arrived at his mother’s room and threw the door open. Tears were already spilling down his cheeks before he saw her inert corpse upon the bed. With horror, he realized that his tears were only half out of the grievous realization that he was the only one left in his small world; the other half was of relief that he had to suffer his mother’s painful negligence no longer. He let out a cry of anguish, beat his fists against his own breast, and tugged mightily at his hair. Cursing his own wretchedness, he sank to the floor and cried himself hoarse.
The ominous fog clung to the house for a week. By the time Lavi had packed to move away from the empty house, it had dissipated once more.
*****
At the boarding school he had been relocated to, Lavi felt greatly ill at ease. All the other students were well-accustomed to being around others of their own age, whereas he, who had been home-schooled all his life, was overwhelmed by the very presence of so many unfamiliar people at once. Like a shadow he shied away from the crowd, always eating and walking alone. The other students tried many times to engage him in conversation, and Lavi did try his very best to talk like one of them, but years of solitude retarded his social skills and he often withdrew too quickly whenever he felt like he was making a fool of himself.
Most of his time was spent in the musky school library, poring through its many tomes. He devoured book after book, eating up information and history like he was starving. One of the oldest teachers of the school, a wizened Chinese man who also seemed to be a permanent resident of the library, noticed his frequent visitations and avid reading. He took to quizzing Lavi on various subjects and found the boy to have a natural gift of brilliance. They began to have short conversations on different topics each day, which lengthened into hour-long lessons and debates when Lavi had warmed up enough to the stern but kindly old man.
After Bookman took Lavi under his wing, the boy's grades soared and he was constantly praised by his teachers. The other students were broken into two camps; one was awed by his intelligence but could not find in him a long conversation to be held, and the other was filled with jealousy and criticism. Those of the latter group mocked him incessantly for putting on high airs and being too clever and proud to speak to them. Their taunting forced Lavi even further into his personal corner, and save for Bookman, he often did not speak to anyone at all.
*****
Lavi was fifteen when he met Alma Karma and Kanda Yuu.
His studies with Bookman had proven so fruitful that his teachers put in a good word for him at the school board meeting, and he was advanced to the next grade, effectively skipping an entire semester. Apparently, his name preceded him; in his new class, he was met with many curious upperclassmen who had heard of his academic achievements.
He was seated beside a friendly-looking fellow with an unusual haircut and a scar across the bridge of his nose. The dark-haired boy gave him a wide grin upon their introduction.
“And here we meet the esteemed prodigy! I heard that you’re mighty clever. We finally have someone decent to copy our homework from, eh, Yuu?”
The boy ribbed the student sitting next to him, another boy with the most beautiful countenance Lavi had ever seen, with shoulder-length inky hair, a proud straight nose, and slanted sapphire eyes. The handsome boy gave Lavi a haughty glance and snorted at his friend in bemusement before turning his attention back to his work.
The cheery one turned back to Lavi and offered him a shrug and an extended hand. “Hi, I’m Alma Karma, and that sourpuss is Kanda Yuu. You can ask us any questions if you have them.” Alma cupped a hand next to his mouth and winked at him. “Also, I’m only joking about the homework-copying, but if you offer so very kindly, who am I to turn down your graciousness, if you catch my flow?”
For the first time in many years, Lavi felt a smile creeping onto his face. He reached out shyly to shake Alma’s hand, and its warmth seeped through his palm into his blood.
Alma’s friendship began the thawing of the ice in Lavi’s heart. Encouraged by Alma’s boisterous manner and easy friendship with the other students, he became more courageous in making friends and talking to them. Not only did he become able to make small talk with his classmates, but he, Alma and Yuu also became an unlikely, inseparable trio. Somehow, his shy intelligence was a perfect match with Alma’s giddy joyfulness and Yuu’s short-tempered malevolence. They spent their free time lounging under the shade of oak trees in the school garden, idling time away in relaxed company.
“Alright, here's a new question: what happens if you hit a baseball pitched at the speed of light?” Alma asked one fine afternoon, before he bit innocently into his apple.
Lavi looked up from the book he was reading and blinked. “Assuming that you actually manage to hit the ball?” he inquired casually.
“Yes.”
“Well, things won’t end well for you. At 600 million miles per hour, the ball will be travelling so fast, it would look like it’s just frozen in midair. The air molecules in front of the ball will be smacked into it so hard that they’ll fuse with the atoms on the ball’s surface. The thermonuclear explosion will—“
On his other side, Yuu groaned in annoyance. “My head hurts from all the scientific garbage you’re spewing. In short?”
Lavi pouted. “In short, the ball will reach the home plate 70 nanoseconds later, and then— fwoommmmm, the surrounding few hundred feet will be utterly decimated in a hellish firestorm.”
Alma laughed and threw the core of his apple high in to the air, mimicking the sound of an explosion. Lavi raised his eyes, watching the trajectory of the apple core.
And saw the white mist clinging to the treetops.
His mouth dropped open as he stared at it in horror. A ringing started in his ears, drowning out the sound of the other students in the garden. Alma and Yuu, noticing his expression of dread, looked up in confusion and noticed nothing but the harmless thin haze in the air.
“Lavi?” asked Alma, shaking his arm gently. “What are you looking at?”
Shaking, Lavi rose to his feet. His instincts screamed at him to do something. Who? Who was it this time? Horror seized his heart, and he bent to clutch both of his friend’s shoulders, assuring himself that they were right there with him. He could see them looking at him in worry and talking to him, but he wasn’t listening.
If it wasn’t Alma or Yuu, then who…
With wavering steps, Lavi made off towards the school building, with Alma and Yuu chasing after him in befuddlement. He tore blindly through the hallways without knowing what he sought for. He felt Yuu’s hand grasp his wrist, pulling him to a stop. At the same moment, he heard a scream from the upper landing of the building, and suddenly he knew who it was.
Immobile with sorrow he stood until Yuu and Alma dragged him along to see what happened. A huge crowd had gathered at the foot of the second floor staircase. A girl stepped back from the commotion and turned to her friend with a frightened expression.
“God, it’s Bookman, he missed a step and fell all the way down the stairs. He broke his neck, the poor old man!”
Face whitened with shock, Yuu turned slowly towards Lavi.
“You knew,” he said in a hushed tone. “How did you know?”
Lavi was not looking at him; his eyes were riveted towards the nearest window, where the mist was curling its tendrils away to the sky.
*****
Lavi disappeared after Bookman’s death. Alma and Yuu spent days looking for him until they found him in a dark corner of the library, curled up on himself, looking like his soul had wondered off to an unknown realm. Innately, they knew that it was not only Bookman’s death, but also the fact that Lavi had foreseen it in the appearance of the white mist, that had shaken the redheaded boy so badly.
They spent as much time as possible in the library, sitting with Lavi between them, offering their silent companionship. However, the old library had grown almost unbearably cold, as if winter had somehow wormed its way in through the cracks of the aged grey bricks. They brought thick blankets to huddle under, but still their bodies shook and their teeth chattered, Lavi’s most of all. Alma coaxed and bribed Lavi’s roommate into giving up his bed so that they could share the redhead’s dormitory room. With both beds pushed together, they laid side by side each night, calming Lavi whenever he woke up from his sleep with panicked cries.
It took them months of effort before Lavi slowly came out of his shell again. His cheeks took on a healthier flush and he regained the weight he lost. He still missed his old mentor, but he began to smile weakly at Alma’s jokes. One day, when Alma dramatically professed his undying love to a girl in the neighbouring class with the silliest attempts at flirtation, Lavi had burst out laughing, and the mood in the class lightened at the bright sound of it.
Lavi’s relationship with Yuu had also changed. During his period of heavy grievance, Yuu had started to act more amicably towards him, sometimes even sharing his snacks and books willingly. Lavi gained a better understanding of the sullen boy’s dark, sarcastic humour each day. His gaze began to linger on Yuu with an air of longing, although he turned it away with a furious blush whenever he was caught looking. In the night, whenever Yuu slept next to him in the beds still shared by three, Lavi had to turn to the other side to dull the sensation of Yuu’s warm skin and the clean smell of his lotus soap.
As swift as Lavi’s love affection for Yuu had arisen, it was crushed even more swiftly. Lavi had brought a box of sweetmeats to his room, intending to share them with his two best friends. He pushed the door open and was greeted with the sight of Alma sitting on the beds they shared, kissing Yuu with a sweetness that Lavi could only dream of.
He closed the door as quietly as he could before running to the library to be alone.
The days after, he sat in the school cafeteria with Alma and Yuu, laughing and acting like nothing had happened.
The nights after, he let his silent tears soak into his pillow.
*****
In the spring of his seventeenth year, the entire class went on a camping trip in the woods near the school. A mandatory survival course, the teachers called it. The class buzzed with excitement for weeks, and then off they went with their camping gears and tools.
It was a beautiful day. The sun could not be any brighter and warmer as they hiked into the heart of the forest, singing songs that wove harmoniously with the energetic sound of a small stream running somewhere amidst the trees. Alma complained about the heat and Yuu cursed vehemently while swatting at the mosquitoes. Lavi talked merrily to them, even as he hung back a little to steal glances at Yuu's sun-kissed skin.
Presently, they reached a flat spot of grass clear of trees and shrubbery, and the teacher commanded them to set up their tents. Lavi, Alma and Yuu worked together to assemble the wooden poles and waterproof tarps. When it was complete, the three of them crawled inside and lay spent on the groundsheet.
“Whew!” said Alma as he fanned his red face with his shirt. “I’m just about ready for some cooling down. Did we not hear that stream someways back? I wish we could look for it now, it would be heavenly to dive right into cold, fresh mountain water!”
“Stop talking, idiot, you’re filling the hot air with even more hot air,” Yuu grumbled.
“Yes Alma, shut your fly trap so I can catch a few winks here,” added Lavi, turning to his side and settling for a nice position to nap in. He had barely closed his eyes before Alma’s grumbling and Yuu’s snapping faded away.
*****
Lavi gasped back to wakefulness surrounded by a blanket of white mist.
He sat up abruptly and looked around him, disoriented from sleep. Where was he? Where were Alma and Yuu? Why was it so quiet, and when had the mist come? He waved his hand, and the white cloudy haze clung thickly to his arm, enveloping it in moist coolness.
Heart beginning to race, Lavi pushed open the flap of the tent and looked outside. Several students were in the center of the campsite, trying to light a fire without much success. Others were busy moving to and fro, transporting firewood and supplies. There was no sight of either Alma or Yuu. Two students were standing at the edge of the trees, observing the mist in interest. To them Lavi ran.
“Say, have you seen Alma and Yuu?” he asked them, feeling his tongue trip over the words in his parched mouth.
They shook their heads in unison. “Can’t say I’ve seen them since about two hours ago, actually,” the girl said. “Weren’t they in the tent with you?”
Lavi had to clench his hands behind his back to restrain his mounting panic. “They were, but I fell asleep, and now I can’t find them.”
The other boy looked towards the forest with a frown. “Wherever they went, they had better not have wandered from the campsite. The teachers have issued a command for us to step not a toe out of their sights. With a mist like this, you could go missing in the forest and not find your way back for hours, even days.”
The girl put her arms around herself and shuddered. “I don’t like this mist,” she said quietly. “It came on so rapidly, none of us really noticed it until it hung over us, as thick as smoke and so cold.”
Cold.
Alma had wanted to dive into the cold mountain stream.
Without another word, Lavi fled back to his tent. Both Alma and Yuu’s backpacks were still there. He rifled through them until he found their flashlights. His best friends were somewhere out there in the mist, blinded.
One or both of them were going to die.
Only Lavi’s clammy hand on his mouth stopped him from emitting a scream of hysteria. With shaking fingers, he grabbed his own backpack and found his flashlight, checking to make sure it still had functioning batteries. He left hastily and rushed to the edge of the campsite, trying to decide where to go.
Before him loomed the vague shadows of trees, only half-visible in the thick white fog. Everything looked the same in any direction. Once he went in, he would be as good as blind.
Ignoring the alarmed shouts of his classmates, Lavi ventured forth into the mist.
*****
He was right. After a few feet, Lavi glanced behind him, and the campsite was all but swallowed up by the mist. He could not even hear the voices of his classmates any longer. All around Lavi was an unnerving quietness and he could hear only the rushing of his own blood, as if his ears had been muffled. His entire body was rigid from tension and mortal fear. For a horrible moment, Lavi imagined turning tail and running back towards the safety of his tent, only to realize that he was lost and could not find his way. The awful imagination made his stomach churn, and he could only bear three more steps before he sank to his knees and retched into the grass.
Lavi allowed himself a few seconds of weakness, closing his eyes and pressing them into the crook of his arm. The coldness of the mist was already soaking into his clothes, raising small goosebumps on his skin; that it would sink into his bones was only a matter of time. It was so quiet, and he felt so alone, as he had all those years in the hollow skeleton of his childhood home.
He must find warmth again.
Spurred on by the thought of Alma and Yuu, he forced himself to his feet sluggishly and trudged onwards.
*****
How many hours had he been walking? Two? Three? He couldn’t tell; the passing of time could be marked by neither the turn of the hour hand of his pocket watch nor the setting of the sun, for even with his own hands outstretched, he could see naught but the all-encompassing whiteness of the mist. From time to time, he stumbled into trees and shrubbery which scratched at his face with invisible claws. Once, he was startled by a murder of crows that took flight close to him. Their wings glinted in a flurry of blue-ebony before the mist engulfed even their cacophonic caws.
Exhaustion dragged Lavi’s bones down, and each step felt heavier than the last. The thought of Alma and Yuu dying or already dead weighed down the soles of his feet even more. When he thought he could go no further, he stopped to catch his breath. The images of his mother on her deathbed, of his father’s sunken coffin, of his mentor’s broken body at the foot of the stairwell, flashed one by one across his mind. Tears of frustration and grief threatened to spill over, but he sniffled and furiously wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.
He couldn’t let his friends die like his mother, father and Bookman did. He had to be strong, had to find them. Had to.
When he looked back up, he saw two eerie black eyes staring at him from faraway in the mist.
A tremendous rush of fear froze him on his feet, and he broke out into a cold sweat. His heart hammered painfully in his ribcage. The dark eyes watched him for a few moments, and then they disappeared. The mist suddenly thinned out, and Lavi was able to see a few feet of clear path ahead. At the end of it, at the edge of the wall of mist, the eyes reappeared and hovered there, waiting.
Lavi gritted his teeth. Gathering all of his courage, he stepped forward. At his approach, the eyes disappeared again, and a path cleared in the mist. When it was clear he was meant to follow, he broke out into a run, pursuing the elusive eyes.
Every time Lavi caught up with the eyes, he could see them clearer through the fog. They turned from a dreadful empty blackness into a shade of deep blue, almost hypnotizing in their beauty. Of course Lavi recognized those eyes; he had chased them in his waking dreams.
He ran and ran until he heard the sound of the running stream in the near distance. He ran full speed ahead and cupped his hands beside his mouth. “Alma!! Yuu!!”
“Lavi!!”
The mist parted, and Lavi found himself looking at Yuu’s eyes, attached to the real Yuu, who was crouching next to the small stream with Alma lying halfway across the grass beside him.
“Oh god, Yuu!” Without the strange luminosity of the white mist, it was surprisingly dark around the stream. Night had fallen without him even knowing it. Lavi dug into his pocket for his flashlight, flicked it on, and hurried to Yuu’s side.
He collapsed onto his knees and examined Yuu’s face. He seemed to be frightened but completely unharmed. Lavi turned the beam of the flashlight down to Alma, who was unconscious. There was a makeshift bandage around his head, torn from Yuu’s shirtsleeve, and a rough tourniquet was set on his right leg, which extended in awkward angles from his body.
“What on earth happened?” asked Lavi.
Yuu looked at him with more distress than he had ever expressed before. “Stupid Alma kept saying that the heat was too much, and finally he decided to sneak away to take a dip in the stream. I couldn’t convince him not to go, he’s too bloody stubborn, so I could only follow him. The mist came out of nowhere, and we couldn’t see where we were going. I can’t believe you even found us. Alma took a wrong step and slipped in the water. His head cracked on the rocks, and he broke his leg. I don’t know if… his head injury…”
Lavi immediately pried one of Alma’s eyelids open and shone his flashlight directly into it. His pupil was dilated and barely flinched at the bright light.
“It looks like a concussion,” said Lavi in a low tone, his heart dropping into his sternum. “He needs help, and he needs it fast.”
Both he and Yuu looked at the direction from which Lavi came. It was enshrouded once again in mist.
“We can’t move Alma too much without a stretcher,” whispered Yuu. “To carry him blindly into the mist is to kill him before we have any chance of seeking help.”
The dark-haired boy rose to his feet. He held his gaze steady. “Stay with him, Lavi.”
Lavi’s hand shot out to grip Yuu’s arm tightly. “Are you mad?” he hissed, “If you go blundering into the mist, you could die! It’s too dangerous!”
“Lavi, he’s bleeding to death,” Yuu replied through gritted teeth. “I have to go.”
Lavi stared at the boy he loved, tears stinging his eyes. He could see the pain and dread in Yuu’s eyes, could see how afraid he was of losing Alma. He would give his life to save Alma.
And Lavi would give his life to save Yuu.
Perhaps this was how his mother had felt like when the cold mist took her life, Lavi thought. It had never occurred to him that maybe she, too, had felt so despairingly lonely without her heart’s love at her side. If Alma or Yuu was dead, surely he would also cease to live in the flesh. He would close his eyes to the world, so that he could chase them forever in a reality where they were alive and happy and warm.
A deep and weary acceptance touched upon Lavi. For the first time, he thought he understood, and he forgave his mother for many years of neglect. She was wrong, but she was only a woman bereft with heartsick. With that forgiveness, he could also forgive his childhood self, that young boy who always thought, in the deepest recesses of his little heart, that his mother’s lack of love was his own fault. It wasn’t, and it never was. He felt like a huge burden he had carried all his life had finally rolled off his chest, and tears of relief spilled over the rims of his eyes.
“Lavi?” Yuu asked worriedly, watching the redhead cry in alarm. He did not expect Lavi to sling his arms over his shoulders and hook them around his neck. Before he could react, Lavi’s lips were pressed gently on his forehead.
Lavi pulled back and gave Yuu a watery smile more beautiful than any he had ever seen.
“I love you,” Lavi murmured. “Yuu, I love you.”
The mist rushed forth in a moment, swathing Lavi within its white folds. His wet green eyes gazed adoringly into Yuu’s until they were out of sight. Yuu desperately yelled out his name as Lavi’s arms were ripped away from him.
And then Lavi was gone.
*****
Soon, their teachers and classmates came running to where Alma and Yuu were. Questions were hurled back and forth as the teachers carefully examined Alma’s wounds and placed him on a stretcher carried by their classmates.
“Lavi found his way back to the campsite then? How did you manage to find your way here in the mist?” asked Yuu in bewilderment.
“Somehow, he did,” replied one of the teachers. “He made us follow him with our medical supplies.” She looked around them in confusion. “Where is he?”
Yuu felt his blood turn cold once again. “He’s not here. He went back into the mist to look for you. That’s the last I saw of him.”
The teacher looked even more puzzled. “That can’t be. He ran ahead of us in that mist, and we followed the beam of his torchlight and the sound of his voice all the way here. Without his guidance, we would never have found the two of you.”
“Look! Look!” one of the other students suddenly exclaimed, pointing to the trees. Yuu’s face snapped in that direction.
He saw the white mist descend in the air, exposing the canopies of the forest trees bathed in pale silver moonlight. The ivory fog condensed near the ground and fell gently upon it like a blanket of snow. Within moments, it melted in the returning heat of the summer, leaving only faint glitters of white on the glass, and the crickets regained their chipper voices.
For the final time, the mist departed, and nobody saw the likes of it ever again.
They found Lavi at the bottom of the ravine at dawn’s first light.
*****
The first thing Lavi saw when he came to was Yuu’s dark eyes, with large teardrops clinging onto his long dark lashes. Then Yuu was pushed aside, and Alma was sobbing grossly all over Lavi’s chest, bawling about Lavi being his hero, savior and knight in shining armour.
By some astounding miracle, Lavi had been found with injuries no graver than a twisted ankle and dehydration. He grinned and joked that God had protected him for being such a selfless saint while letting Alma and his classmates fuss about his ankle.
The story he stuck to was that he found his way back to the camp and led the others towards the stream, but somewhere along the way he slipped and fell into the shallow ravine, knocking him unconscious.
The story he remembered was being whisked away by the mist and knowing nothing but the echoes of his mother’s humming as she cooked in the kitchen.
Lavi recovered soon and returned to his classes, where with newfound confidence he ribbed his classmates about his excellent grades playfully. They jeered at him and grew to love his new spirit. His old sadness sloughed off to leave him bare and light. He smiled and laughed with careless abandon, and everybody could not help but like him.
He spent his time like he used to, either reading in the library or lying around the school garden with Yuu and Alma. He still looked at Yuu, and Yuu began to look back at him. It took him months to ask if Yuu was dating Alma, and Alma interjected by saying God No, they’d tried to kiss a few times but he clearly was in preference of female bosoms, and Yuu was a nasty little bastard with a personality nobody could suffer, and why the hell did Lavi take so long to ask? Yuu’s only reply was to drag Lavi into the nearest empty corridor and lay a sinful siege upon his lips. Lavi pulled back and laughed breathlessly.
He was alive, and it felt good.