Yu Xi is my dearest friend. She has been since childhood, through every storm.
From the park where we first crossed paths to days in the same high school, that thread held. With my chin lifted like a banner in the wind, I told anyone who bristled at her: Yu Xi is my dearest friend.
She didn’t glitter in ways that draw envy; her shy, shadowed manner drew trouble like damp draws mold. I said it to make a sign in the rain: even if Yu Xi walks alone under heavy clouds, I’m the umbrella at her side.
She’s quiet as winter water. Her birth parents died in an accident when she was little. I still see our first meeting in the park under a brewing thunderstorm: her small face blank as a drained pool, despair draped over her like wet ash, making anyone who met her eyes shiver.
I thought she’d sink for a long time, like a stone in deep water. Somehow, she surfaced fast, acting normal—but she never again spoke of her birth parents.
Until high school, I couldn’t say I truly knew her. Her few words were mist; I couldn’t see what her heart reached for.
Only when the city birthed the Great Mist did I glimpse her real shape. She changed—like a sky flipping from drizzle to sun. Gone was the timid rabbit; a new scent rose off her like smoke: brash, confident, brazen. Deeper still, an almost uncatchable edge ran under her skin, an ominous current.
She was a stranger, a rose newly grown with thorns. Yet I felt no urge to pull back; my heart leaned in like a moth to a lantern. I wanted to know her, to name the iron and fire that forged this version of her.
Thankfully, the Great Mist gave me my chance. Reasons lined up like stones in a stream; I could step closer without guilt. We walked to school together each morning. After class, I’d even follow her home to hang out. Time with her stacked up like sun-warmed bricks, yet a wall rose between us all the same—unseen, higher every day, untouched by the river of time.
I grew restless. My approaches turned frequent, like sparrows pecking at a locked window. I thought effort would mend us. The truth slapped me cold: it didn’t.
“This is Misty Tide. She’ll be living with us for a while. Please look after her.” One day, Yu Xi tossed that line without even lifting her head, and a soft-faced little loli stepped into our orbit. Only then did it hit me: the thing prying Yu Xi away wasn’t some stranger or the slow hand of time. It was this harmless-looking, black-hearted gremlin.
She was a schemer, through and through. To woo Yu Xi, she weaponized her age—cuteness deployed like sugar-coated arrows. I despised that. I’d tried the same routine—pouts, puppy eyes—why did none of it land?
Was Yu Xi secretly into lolis? Or was my act too forced, lacking the easy charm of an actual kid? I chewed on that thought, and the answer came quickly. Maybe Yu Xi keeps no idle people at her side.
One time, I watched Misty Tide, alone, cut down nearly a hundred Corpse Devourers. After that, Yu Xi gifted her a bloom of power. The answer was plain as daylight, even if it surprised me: Yu Xi doesn’t keep slackers close.
If I could tear into Corpse Devourers like Misty Tide, would the distance between us shrink? With that thought burning like a small coal, I steeled myself. I forced contact with those things that used to turn my stomach and kill my appetite. First one corpse-eater, barely. Then two. Three. Five. Ten.
I grew steady, my hands finding rhythm; fighting Corpse Devourers became a craft in my bones. Yu Xi was fair—she shifted a bit of the attention she gave Misty Tide toward me. It was only a sliver, but it kept me glowing for days.
I don’t know when I became like this. When I looked up, all of me was already tilting toward her like grass toward the sun. Even after the Great Mist ended and society slid back into its polished age, that didn’t change. Yu Xi stayed my one and only, irreplaceable.
“What?! Misty Tide is moving in with Yu Xi?!” The news made my voice spike like a startled bird. My hands sped up on my luggage. “No way! I’m moving in too!” I wasn’t about to leave that little imp alone with Yu Xi.
Misty Tide is sharp, that brat—gone for a bit, and her schemes multiplied like ivy. Yu Xi keeps saying Misty Tide is truly dumb, and that she’s not into lolis. I don’t buy it. The kid wears the mask of the wise fool; how am I supposed to believe she’s actually stupid?
As for whether Yu Xi might start liking lolis… emmm. Spend enough time with one, who knows what habits take root. When you face a rival, you keep your guard at full power. If she blindsides me and steals Yu Xi away, no one will buy my mistake.
My parents, long settled with me in the city, didn’t get why I suddenly wanted to return to the Fog City. They even pushed back. After I laid out my reasons as clean as a clear sky, they accepted my choice.
I dashed to the government station and bought a one-way ticket back to the Fog City, heart thudding like train wheels. Before I left, plenty of folks in the polished world had opinions about Yu Xi living there. Some even claimed she fabricated Corpse Devourers to terrorize civilization—cheap smoke and mirrors.
None of that mattered to me. I knew her before the rumors rose like gnats. I didn’t come for her fame, and I won’t be driven off by their noise. In my heart, she’s always my irreplaceable, dearest friend. As for judging her character, that’s no longer my business to fret over.
