The road up the mountain was steeper than it looked.
It started gently enough, winding up out of the town through terraced fields and orchards, the trees heavy with small green fruit. Then the fields gave way to forest, thick and dark and full of pines. The road narrowed into a path. The path began to switch back and forth across the slope, climbing higher with every turn. Within an hour, the town below had shrunk to a cluster of grey roofs at the bottom of the valley, and the smoke from its chimneys was a thin thread drifting up into the morning sky.
Jin climbed easily. This body barely noticed the slope.
Haruka didn't complain. But he could hear her breathing getting heavier behind him with every turn of the path.
They walked in silence for a while. The forest was quiet. No birds. No wind. Just the crunch of their footsteps on the pine needles and the faint creak of the trees.
