If there’s one thing I can't stand, it's taking the bus. Everything’s cramped and sultry; everywhere you see, there’s always people yelling and hollering; innumerable smells mixing together to haunt the gushing stream of air from the AC in the middle of dry season, all become so unbearable that one could only wish to leap off the vehicle to get some fresh air into their lungs. But what disgusts me even more is the car sickness. That indescribable dizziness that voids any sense of direction feels nothing like being drunk. All you want is to escape from that state, but the more you try to shake it off, the deeper it drags you into itself. The worst part is, if your immune system is as weak as mine, the nausea kicks in. I've tried abstaining from snacks, I've tried motion sickness pills, I've tried getting myself to doze off during the trip… nothing really worked. That feeling held onto me like a plague, until the bus suddenly took a sharp turn over a slope, leaning me all over to one side. My stomach churned as it tried to squeeze every impurity in my stomach out of my throat. I doubled over as burning, salty, bitter fluid gushed out. It mixed with saliva, leaving a bitter, burning aftertaste in my mouth. Before I could wipe it off, before I could find a wet tissue to clean up the vomit, before I could realize that the person sitting next to me had already stood up and changed seats as the bus had stopped, I hastily put my glasses back on and looked through the window.
A sign caught my attention, "Welcome to Mujin" was neatly written on it in clear black letters. The bus revved up and continued its journey, leaving me behind with my luggage in hand as I slowly walked on the dirt road near the edge of the city. Looking at the avenue, I saw a hazy wall of mist, hiding the scenery and separating the diluted air filled with dust and the smell of asphalt from the other side. I swallowed, the nausea had already passed.
"You will return to your hometown in Mujin for a few days to research the anomaly. In the meantime, Deputy Director Yun will be in charge of your position. We will provide further information when you understand the nature of SCP-8540. Don’t worry, you’ll still be Site Director when you return."
The Council said as they were "inviting" me to leave. It might have sounded polite, but I guess that was how they cleverly fired me without any fancy farewell party or monetary compensation. My colleagues also knew, so they just texted me to let sleeping dogs lie. Or perhaps they wanted this to happen, which explains the half-hearted treatment. Either way, none of my business; I still had to go to Mujin anyway.
As I grew up, I only had memories of Mujin when I was in high school during the time my mother brought me here to live in her hometown. The fog had been there since then. I used to be quite passionate about it during my teenage years; my thesis for Foundation selection was about the fog, and it was what carried me to my current position. Returning to this place to research the fog, a… rather strange feeling welled up within me. Is this what they call being back to square one after failing spectacularly? The further I ventured, the more Mujin's fog enveloped the scenery. I pictured myself as a fly, diving head-first into an invisible web, only to squirm and struggle in a desperate attempt to escape that does nothing but invite the insidious spider from beyond the veil to come out and enjoy its soon-to-be meal. Feeling this way was understandable - the fog wasn’t this thick back then. It used to emit a dream-like allure, that of an early morning before daybreak. It embraced the town like a daenggi on a lovely damsel, leaving us all head over heels in love, praying to wake up every day before the rooster crows in hopes of a fateful rendezvous. Perhaps the fog heard our prayers after all, as it became the spirit that haunts Mujin. It spent time adorning, arriving quietly in the night, then waited for us to wake up. Sadly, no one responded, leaving it to sulk in a dying light. And perhaps that's why, day by day, the breath of that mist holds hatred for our world. Its breath carries the eternity of resentment, as those ungrateful people who once begged her to stay by their side have now tried to banish her. My mind lingered on that thought, as I swung the flashlight in my hand to find the path forward.
Until.
"Mr. Yoon!", I was startled by the voice echoing from ahead. The footsteps gradually quickened, becoming clearer as they ran towards me. I subconsciously raised the flashlight in that direction, causing the person to cover his face with hand.
"It’s too bright, can you turn it off?", a clear voice said. When I finally composed myself, I saw a tall young man. Aside from the dark suit and those round black eyes, his appearance strangely matched with the fog. He had white hair and a pale skin tone, his face composed of balanced features, completed with under-eye circles from nights of overwork. His hair covered up his long eyelashes, adding a hazy look to his eyes that were hidden in this foggy realm.
"Allow me to introduce myself, I am Jeong Tae-yong, diplomatic representative of Site-64K. You’ve had a hard time traveling. Let me guide you to our new facility."
"Thank you," There is no reason for me to refuse him.
"I know it's easy for you to get carsick, but we can’t use the helicopter in this weather. Please forgive me, just bear with it for another half hour and we’ll be there." Jeong said as he drove his vehicle into the thick fog, along with me sitting by his side.
"I understand, don't worry, it's not your fault that the fog is this thick. There is nothing we can do about it."
"You're right. But it's our procedure that caused the problem. The fog may cover up problems, but they are still there. So saying that it’s our fault isn’t quite wrong either." The young man's words made my heart skip a beat. I didn't know how to respond properly.
"But, fortunately for our Site, the senior of this place has returned. He is the one who has the closest ties with this fog, so I don't have to worry anymore. Perhaps, soon there won't be any fog left in here!” the young man joked and chuckled.
"Nice try distracting me from the carsick.", I replied.
"I got busted!" After hearing that, I felt a little more comfortable. On the way, we chatted for a bit, and then I drifted off without realizing it. Strangely, carsickness didn't bother me this time.
"Wake up, Mr. Yoon. We’re here."
I opened my eyes, the car stopped in front of an old warehouse, which gave off a gloomy and exhausting feeling. Next to it was a lighthouse illuminating the way into the facility. Indeed, this was the typical appearance of a Foundation Research Site if they didn’t spend any money on such desolate a place, I sneered at that thought .
"How many people here are your age?"
"There are 42 people around my age, sir."
"That many? You folks are trying really hard despite your young age, huh?."
"Yes?"
"I mean, still trying to survive in this place. If you want, I can promote you to a place in Seoul."
"Thank you for your consideration, but for now, I don't want to leave."
"Is that so? Is there any specific reason?"
"Just like you, this is also my hometown, Mujin. I don’t want to leave this familiar place behind. Waking up everyday and watching the fog of Mujin is enough to make me feel happy. Besides, I'm not talented enough to discover the anomaly myself and get recruited directly into Foundation like how you did in the past.
"Don’t idolize me too much. I just got lucky."
"But, being lucky is also a skill in this field. Anyway, let's go inside."
"Mhm, let's go." The fog carried moisture in the air, therefore, I had to walk slowly on my slippery leather shoes to avoid tripping. Jeong, on the other hand, was moving swiftly like the wind. He was so fast that I had to remind him several times to slow down and wait for me.
As I stood there before the steel door of the “warehouse” and waited for that young man to enter the password to go inside, I tried to observe the whole surrounding scenery, hoping that my eyes would catch something familiar. It had been twenty years since I left Mujin, and now I’m here watching the fog, I thought this place was still the same. Yet I was wrong - the buildings were new, there were more people living than before, and the landscape had changed a lot. Thinking about it again, I realised my stupidity - even the trees must grow, let alone other things. Perhaps this fog is the only connection I have left with Mujin, and even the fog itself was slowly changing, as if, it's brushing off my past.
"I’m done with completing the verification, please come in, sir.", as the gate steadily opened, the young man hurriedly moved aside and waved his hand, inviting me to step in first. I could not see clearly the dark space inside, but at least I could finally avoid looking at the fog. When the gate behind me closed, the lights were turned on, and the warehouse… was empty. There was no furniture nor tables and chairs - it made me feel as if this place had been abandoned and forgotten since long ago.
"A disguised facility? So that’s what it is. You guys will never agree to stay in this storehouse, I figured as much.", I turned back to Jeong and said.
"Site-64K staff still worked in this place before the reconstruction, sir. This facility isn’t very big though, but at least it has enough space for everyone and their piles of paperworks."
After finished saying that, he walked to a dusty corner covered in spider’s webs, which made me feel a little confused. He fumbled in the dust for a bit, until the room made noises and dust started falling down to the floor clump by clump, showing a hidden entrance. I felt something shaking underneath my feet. The ground under me was gradually sinking, making me rush to where Jeong was standing.
"Why didn’t you tell me earlier!"
"I thought the other Sites also do the same thing to go downstairs."
"Using an elevator is not the same thing as this!"
Before I could calm down, the tremor had already stopped just a few minutes later. The hidden door opened again - this time, before me, there were pure-colored walls and dozens of people - wearing blouses, white as Mujin’s fog - standing neatly in rows to applaud me. Here, this really is Foundation facility. I gulped.
When I came in, the noisy atmosphere paused for a moment. I could hear people in the office tittle-tattling with others. They might know who I was, I guess.
“That man… is he Yoon-…"
"…he’s very successful in…"
"He… the first one to accomplish research… with…"
"…why… go back here?"
That last sentence still reached my ears. I expected that they would be a bit more indifferent - just saying "Welcome, sir", like the first time I’d been to Seoul. If there was one thing that was not the same, maybe it was that I was more connected to this place, wasn’t it? Back there in Seoul, people weren’t overly interested like this, they only needed to know that "Oh, a new Director arrives. I should know who they are and their title on the first day they introduce themselves with our Site, and that’s fine enough", then continued working. And that was it. The only things left to do were just usual things at a typical Site - continuing researching on anomalies, conducting experiments, interrogating, typing the results and posting it on the internal database, taking a break for lunch, reporting to the staff team and going back to the dorm after everything. At that time I thought, that was the meaningless life cycle recurring again and again and again, and I did hope they would - for once - take some of their time to step out of that loop, painting a new color on their plain black-and-white canvas they had been drawing line by line, day by day. And if they had done that, they might have taken a look at me, wondering why I could be there in that position at that so-young age. Ironically, now I only wanted the completely opposite things, that the people here would be the same as people in Seoul - please, forget me.
How weird life is.
"You good, sir?" Jeong said from behind me, just after we went past everyone to come into the corridor of the main hall.
"It's alright, I'm good."
"Glad to hear that, sir. That's all for today, you can go take a break in your own room at the end on the right side of the hallway. You can find it by the nametag on the door, though. We will meet your acquaintance tomorrow."
"And who will that be?"
"Ah- it's Mr. Seonwu, our current Site Director."
"Seonwu… Seonwu Anan?"
"Yes, sir. That one of the two most successful people in Mujin, although only if you're not counted."
"So that bastard is still here.", I thought to myself.
"Thank you very much."
"My pleasure, sir. If there is any problem, you can call me through the telephone in the room. My office's number is written in the notebook beside the telephone.” As Jeong finished his words, he nodded his head to say goodbye, and then, he got away so quickly, once again harmonizing with the workflow in this Site. He must have a lot of work left to deal with - yeah, no one is free in this job. Yet, he still looked okay as hell - ah, like a wise soul once said, the strength of youth brings the spring with them, making everything bloom everywhere they come to.
Coming into the room, I picked up some prepared snacks and ate them, then immediately jumped on the bed for a nap. Before my mind could be rewarded with a proper sleep, it kept recalling the far, far, too far away memories of Site-64K Director.
Seonwu was a friend of mine in Mujin Middle School. He was a close friend—or rather, the only friend I had back then. People in Mujin were kind of unfriendly to ‘outsiders’ back then, so a friendship between a child of a widow and a half-breed child was sure to happen. Seonwu was not much of a talker, having the white skin tone of foreigners, with the face that clearly had do-not-even-think-about-approaching-me written on it, just like those street cats. And he was extremely tall for a students those days, so I usually said to him with envy that I wanted to be tall as him. Everytimes I told him so, he would always give me some tips, like drinking more cow’s milk, buying some supplements, or just putting some plastic pads in my shoes, and the list still went on. Yet, at the end, none of those tips worked, and at the graduation ceremony, he was still a head taller than me.
Putting that aside, we had the same hobby - investigating Mujin’s specialties. Only when we did that would his usual bored face sparkle to the extent of being so strange. Our middle school was near a hill, and every afternoon after school, I would always climb the hill with him to examine where the fog came from. At first, it was just some small works like taking pictures in each juncture to see when the fog was thicker during the day, would it sometimes disappear, and then, we became more professional - we started writing detailed analyses and posting them on the internet. Seonwu was not so good at technology, so I was the one posting and managing our blog.
Then, one day, the Foundation found out about our blog, noticed its creator, and they contacted me. I agreed to go with them. At that moment, I did not think, even just for a second, about where Seonwu would go, and could go after graduation. I left Mujin on my own, got in the car, and set foot in the prosperous Seoul. I had forgotten about Seonwu, I left him without giving him my contact information, I left him without a goodbye, I left him… alone in this place. If I hadn’t had my “chance” to go back to Mujin for a few days and meet Jeong, would Seonwu had stayed in the abandoned place in my mind forever? Like, think about it - when you get lost in the fog, and suddenly you’re blocked by a tree. If you ever can go past that tree, you will forget about it immediately, and you will only focus on worrying about what will come next. Perhaps forgetting is the bitter aftertaste of Mujin’s “specialty” that I am forced to taste, isn’t it?
I sighed, hid myself in the blanket and tried to sleep, telling myself many times that tomorrow I will talk things out with Seonwu.
So that our story in the distant past will be settled.
The early morning in Site-64K was so bustling yet so quiet - strange, wasn’t it. Stepping out into the hallway, I saw two girls walking together. I asked them how I could go to the cafeteria, and they cheerfully showed me the way. After I finished breakfast, the kitchen staff even told me about a coffee corner on the top floor. They all were so friendly that I felt… surprised. Or it was just me who hadn't faced such an attitude for a long time.
The coffee corner was designed to be open to the outside, using reflective glass so that we could relaxedly take a look around Mujin without being detected. I sat at a table near the windows, looking towards the North, covered in fog. Inside that fog, I could see a faint silhouette of a school next to a hill. Maybe that school was now more spacious, no longer crumbling, some of the walls had been cleared of vines and ivy, and the mold on the ceiling had also been wiped away. Perhaps that school now had more teachers and more students than before. Mayhap that school also had a pair of close friends always wandering together, spending their youths together, until the cruel reality came and pulled them out of Mujin. And they might run up that hill and take pictures in specific times, every day.
"Ah, my body will be fully covered in fog if I ever climb up that hill again.", suddenly, words slipped out of my mouth.
"Not that much though. It will cover half of your body at most.", the voice occurred from behind me, as familiar as ever, even though it had been twenty years since we separated. That’s a man who’s a head taller than me, wearing a dark suit, with slicked-back hair. He now had a beard, his eyes were older, there were more wrinkles on his face, and his hair was partly gray. Yet, when facing that face, I could still see my youthful companion.
"Seonwu?"
"It’s been so long, Yoon. You look old, mate."
"As if you look younger than me."
"People at our age gotta start pampering, you know. Switch to a cut like mine, I swear, instant youth boost!"
"I don’t remember you’re this much of a sweet talker. Back then, your mouth was shut for eternity."
Just by that, we went back to our immersed-in-flowers days in the past. We both sat down, looking toward the hill.
"What an era.", I said.
"Right.", Seonwu replied, seeming to understand what I meant, as he always did.
"Sorry for not personally welcoming you earlier. I just got promoted recently, a lot of paperwork comes with that."
"Oh please, drop the formalities, you silly. How come you got that Director seat being like this all the time. Lets go celebrate your promotion, shall we?"
"Of course, you have no idea how hyped I am knowing they sent you here to do research, lets go get some bulgogi, my treat."
In my mind, I knew Seonwu had no bad intentions. Yet, those words still sounded fake as hell, just like a superior talking from the above.
"Nothing new though. Just go back and fumble in this hella fog again… As if I can never escape."
"But you’re still passionate about this, right?"
"Needless to say. There’s no place with fog like this."
"I can’t decide your life, mate, but I’m your close friend, and as your close friend… just wanna say, try to consider it your strength, for once. Tell me, Yoon, since you left, have you accomplished so-many projects?"
"Nah, just like usual. It’s still just the fog in Mujin. I’ve tried other projects, even taken over some more important anomalies of the Foundation, yet it all came to nowhere. The position of Directors only lacks gifted and skilled people like you, there’s no need for those one-hit wonders like me, right?"
"You misunderstood it, mate. In the Foundation, anomalies under containment are all equally important. An anomaly that needs to be hidden in a better way, or one that needs higher authority to access them, is not ‘more important’ than the others. It’s just that such a containment process is necessary."
Seonwu stood up, then pointed at a white thread of fog flying like a kite in the sky.
"We still have only one mission: To contain anomalies and protect this world. You have the method to "contain" Mujin for the Foundation, that already means you’re now a precious part of many onerous efforts from us - those one who live in the darkness."
"Still, with my brain, I should have done better. Since I can stand in this position, I should be at least more skillful than those PhDs under me. That will be the only time they will respect me for what I’ve achieved, what I’ve done, and for that they should know I’m better than them. If I can’t do much-"
"You’re not a super-man, Yoon. You’re a normal person, just like me, and we normal people all have limits."
Seonwu invited me to, for once, go back to our old school. I nodded my head in agreement. We went together, yet I could see that it was not the same as our journey in the distant past. Back then, I did think that being promoted to Director at that so-young age meant that I was an extraordinary genius, and for that, I could look down on everyone else.
And for that, I was "a head taller" than Seonwu.
"What are you doing now?" I kept asking Seonwu, trying to see if I had fallen behind in anything else besides “his current height”.
"Same old same old, like back in high school. I'm still chasing the fog of Mujin."
"Are you still trying to unravel it, even after more than twenty years?"
"Yeah, cuz it’s special. The entire Site-64K was established to study it. Anomalous phenomena have been appearing in the fog, and various groups of interest are keeping an eye on it, among many other things. I wish you'd come back once in a while to see how it's ‘evolved.’”
“Maybe choosing to leave was a mistake. I’m sorry."
“Yoon, there are things in this world that we don’t have the right answer—only choices. You chose to leave, to walk on your journey, and I’ve always respected that. So do the people here. When they whisper about how successful you are in Seoul, it means they’re intrigued by your different path.”
"How so? I always thought they were mocking me behind my back."
"There are jerks everywhere. But most people in Mujin still respect our ‘prodigy Yoon Hee-jung.’ Even your mom opened a sandwich shop with that name on the signboard. Whenever she serves customers, she will brag about her precious, ever-absent son. And you bastard, never come home—just send handwritten letters. As if your mom can even read!"
"Thank you for taking care of her for me, Seonwu."
"She’s like a mother to me, too. Sometimes when she talks to me, I feel like I become the lesser son, a bit jealous for not making it to Seoul."
"Have you ever hated me?"
"Of course not. You’re my best friend. Seeing you succeed—I couldn’t be happier."
"Sorry for leaving you here alone."
"Apology accepted—halfway. If you want to be more sincere, then clear your mind and focus on studying the fog with me again. Like we used to."
Seonwu turned around and held out his hand. I took and gripped it tightly. The fog seemed to witness the moment—it slowly faded away, revealing a newly reconstructed, spacious high school beside the hill lined with ginkgo trees. We gazed at it and burst into joyful laughter.
Seonwu and I spent every day for two weeks conducting research on the hill. Years ago, we had built a “fort” there—an abandoned ranger’s wooden cabin. Seonwu said he had been maintaining it through the years. Now, it looked more like a small Foundation research outpost, equipped with all kinds of modern measuring instruments. Two weeks weren’t long, and we didn’t uncover any major breakthroughs, but we were able to measure a steady decline in EVE levels.
Seonwu noted that after I arrived here, the readings had ticked slightly upward. Perhaps Mujin fog responds to the local population size? I couldn’t form a solid theory yet, but the idea that I might personally be linked to the fog couldn’t be ruled out. Every now and then, we’d stumble across our old high school documents—like a pirate’s buried treasure. Those memories still hold value even now, helping us identify minor anomalies hidden within the fog. Each time we uncovered something new about this fog, my heart stirred with a strange emotion.
It felt like meeting someone I once loved deeply—someone who had slowly drifted out of my life. Now I understood why Seonwu and I had once been so captivated by it. We had both, in our own way, once had a fleeting crush on Mujin fog.
Sometimes, I’d run into Jeong. Whenever we met, he’d always joke that I looked much more refreshed than when first time I was there. He wasn’t wrong. I had to admit that my mind had felt far more at ease since I could finally breathe freely again— here.
On a Sunday, I invited Seonwu to visit my mother’s grave, and he agreed. We set off early in the morning. My mother passed away after I had settled in Seoul for four years. At that time, the Foundation had just started investing in the South Korean branch and was on the rise, so they didn’t encourage personnel to take time off for "family visits". I obediently followed their orders, often asking my subordinates to visit my mother on my behalf. One year, two years, three years, five years, ten years… and now, this ungrateful son had finally returned to visit her.
My mother’s grave is located in a small cemetery near the beach. She requested to be buried there. I had never seen my mother go to the sea, but she once told me that her mother had been a haenyeo in Jeju before settling here to make a living. My mother was born here, but perhaps she truly wanted to return to her roots.
"Your mother was kind."
"Yeah, she always considered you my elder brother."
"Of course, what kind of older brother would be shorter than his younger brother?"
When we arrived at her grave, it began to rain. The raindrops fell, carrying the salty taste of the sea and landing on her tomb. We forgot to bring umbrellas, but we knew what was truly important during this visit. By the time we got there, the grave was drenched in the salty rain. I gently took a raindrop into my palm and brought it to my lips. I wanted to taste the sea, just like my mother had.
We began to clear wild grass growing around the grave. It wasn’t thick, and it was lush in this drizzling rain. Afterward, I knelt before the grave, and Seonwu stepped aside. He probably wanted to give his younger brother a moment alone with their mother after so many years apart. All the time I had wasted, I couldn’t get it back, so I just hoped that she was happy in heaven, no longer worrying about her ungrateful child. I prayed for a while, then stood up and walked over to Seonwu.
"I’m done now. I want to look at the sea for a bit."
"Alright, let’s go."
When the rain stopped, Mujin would momentarily lose its gloomy appearance. The sea looked brighter, and there was a hint of a rainbow at the edge of the horizon. I took off my shoes and let my feet feel wet sand.
"Mujin has always been this beautiful, hasn’t it?" I said to my friend who had lived here his entire life.
"It depends on the moment you think about it. Sometimes you’ll find it beautiful, other times you’ll despise it to your bones. But one thing’s for sure: it will always be here, waiting for your criticism."
I didn’t say anything more but gestured for Seonwu to sit down on the sand with me. The waves crashed against wet sand, bringing shells, periwinkles, and occasionally seaweed ashore. The rain poured down on the sea, tapping against it, creating soft background noise that still drowned out the croaking of frogs in rice fields.
"How’s my mother's house now?"
"Since you don’t have any relatives here anymore, I’ve used Foundation authority to purchase it. Just let me know, and I’ll transfer everything to you—"
"Nah, it’s fine. Thanks. With you taking care of it, I feel more at ease." I pointed up to the sky, sketching a few childish lines in the air.
"Yeah. Sometimes—", Seonwu looked out at the waves before continuing.
"—back when we were at school, sometimes I’d see you deep in thought, as if you were trying to understand every distant, obscure matter of this world."
"Pathetic, isn’t it?"
"I’m not criticizing you. Those moments when you’re lost in thought are when you’re truly living for yourself, thinking about your future. That’s a good thing. Keep thinking like that, like you are now."
"Are you sure they made you Director just because you’re better at speaking than before?"
"I hope it’s not just that."
By the afternoon, a figure hurriedly rushed toward the beach. It was Jeong, sprinting from a distance to where we were. The young man was panting heavily, still trying to say words that barely made sense, so we had to rush him into the nearby café.
"So, what brings you here?" I asked.
"Mr. Yoon, I’ve just received a notification from upper management. There’s good news and bad news. Which would you prefer to hear first?"
"Choose that by yourself."
Hearing that, Jeong widened his eyes, looked straight at the two men opposite him, and softly spoke.
"You’ve been informed that the Council has selected you to become Director at a newly established facility, with details to follow later. But… you’re also requested to return to Seoul this weekend to report on the SCP-8540 documentation. It’s urgently needed by them… Council also mentioned they always accept the documentation online and respect your decision regarding this assignment."
Three of us fell silent, listening to the sea breeze hitting the shore, the croaking of frogs after the rain, and the faint rays of sunset as the clouds parted.
"You could consider staying at Site-64K, with me and Mujin. They haven’t assigned two Directors here yet, but if you temporarily accept the role of Deputy Director at the site, things will settle down after some time. What do you think?" Seonwu spoke up.
"I think it’s better to just enjoy the fog today. I’ll make a decision tomorrow."
"Yeah." Seonwu replied with a soft sigh, but I could still hear it.
"Seonwu, have you ever had moments when you become distasteful to yourself?" I asked, looking out at the beach that smelled of salty brine, the sound of drizzling rain fading away. It was the first time I saw my close friend at a loss for words, not knowing how to respond.
The visit to my mom's grave ended with that question.
That night, I lay awake in my room, struggling to fall asleep. Once again, I had to make a choice. But this time, it wasn’t one-sided like before– it was between leaving or staying. The frogs stopped croaking, their silence replaced by the continuous chirping of crickets in a white, foggy night. I wished the fog could decide for me, but unfortunately, it couldn’t speak.
The phone rang quietly on the table beside my bed — it had been so long since I last heard such a sound. Among a sea of missed calls and lingering voicemails, my eyes were drawn to just one solitary message, glowing softly on the screen.
"Let’s meet in Seoul tomorrow to discuss the handover of site management at your new location."
After reading that short message, my heart tightened. My head and mind were spinning. But I still had to make the decision myself. In a daze, I tried to sit up, grabbed some paper, and carefully wrote each line as legibly as I could.
"To Seonwu,
Thank you for always keeping me in mind and trusting me. During our short reunion, I managed to see myself again. I saw a reflection of "me" within you. "Me" - the person I could have been, had I chosen to stay here and lived a happy, fulfilling life. For me, a glimpse of that long-lost version of "me" was more than enough. Thank you for the offer, but there can't be two of "me" in one place. Site-64K needs only one talented Director, and that is you. Despite my envy, my shame, my self-pity, it is my decision. I'll move on, because I've seen the version of "me" that chose to stay in Mujin."
I saw a sign behind me, waving goodbye before slowly disappearing into the distant blankness. "You are Leaving Mujin. Goodbye" was neatly written on it in black letters. The bus shook violently, still bringing that constant feeling of car sickness. But I didn’t want to vomit anymore; I forced myself to swallow salty, bitter fluid, sometimes burning and unable to dissolve in my mouth. I closed my eyes, pushing it down into my stomach. My wretched body still refused to leave anything behind, unwilling to leave a part of “me” in Mujin. In the end, I accepted that I had to leave. I accepted letting go of the memories of this place, forgetting the land of Mujin shrouded in painful white fog. I would try to bring happiness to others, to those young researchers like I once was. I silently hoped that they would see the true nature of the fog sooner, so they wouldn’t waste their lives avoiding it like I did.
Suddenly, I felt an intense shame.
.
.
.
.
.
