My Childhood Friend Is Dangerously Sexy and Cute - 34

Chapter 34: Feelings Covered in Contradiction

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— Spring, ten years ago.

I lost my parents. It was a traffic accident. On a rare day off, my parents took me on a trip. I didn’t remember where we went. It should have been a sparkling, happy memory. But back then, my mind was filled with the accident, and I ended up forgetting everything.

On the way back from the trip, it happened. Apparently, it was due to drowsy driving. My parents had been busy with work at the time, so they must have been extremely exhausted. In just a few brief moments, when their awareness slipped, they lost their lives. At the time of the accident, I had also been dozing off in the back seat. I was still a small child. I was probably tired from the trip too. Maybe it couldn’t be helped.

But when I woke up, everything was already over. I had lost everything. By some twist of fate, or maybe a cruel joke by God, I was the only one who survived.  What struck me then was deep, deep, deep sorrow… and regret.

Why did I fall asleep? If I had kept talking to my parents…. if I had kept sharing memories from the trip, saying I wanted to go again, making them happy, making them smile… Maybe this wouldn’t have happened. People would say I was just a child back then, that I didn’t need to feel responsible like that. But it wasn’t something I could simply accept. I couldn’t accept their logic.

An unerasable regret was born inside me. No matter how many convenient “what ifs” I imagined, none of them would ever become reality. I ended up being taken in by my maternal grandmother, all alone.

After the incident, when I returned to school, I was unstable. I got into a huge fight with classmates who were supposed to be my friends. There probably wasn’t even a good reason. I was likely the one who picked the fight.

After that, I lost my friends too, and I became alone at school. But I didn’t care. I didn’t need anything important anymore. Family, friends… I didn’t need them. Things like something precious, or happiness, they all could disappear suddenly, without warning. They existed only for a fleeting moment. If I was just going to feel pain when I lost them, then it was better not to have them from the start.

That was how I began to think.

It was around that time that I met a girl named Yuki Fujisaki. Deep inside a park I had wandered into by chance, at the far end of a forest of cherry blossoms, she was there. Her back looked so small, so lonely, like she might vanish at any moment.

At the same time, the silver color she carried was incredibly beautiful… dazzling. But I had no intention of talking to her. It had nothing to do with me. I was going to leave. But she spoke to me. And from then on, somehow, I started spending time with her. 

At first, it was probably just to pass the time. But little by little, I found myself drawn to her. She seemed somewhat like me, lonely. She tried, awkwardly, to tell me many things. The time I spent with her was warm… and peaceful. Before I knew it, I had fallen for Yuki.

Since then, she had always been by my side. After a certain incident, we became even closer. Yuki was the only one who lived in my heart. She became my one and only precious person. We spent many seasons together after that. And when I became a high school student, my grandmother passed away. I was sad, but I didn’t cry. I thought I would be sent to an orphanage, but an unexpected helping hand was extended to me.

Yuki’s father, Kento Fujisaki-san, became my guardian. I ended up living alone. That was when Yuki started taking excessive care of me. Even though I had planned to do everything myself, she ended up doing all the housework.

I spent much more time with her than before. It made me happy, and being taken care of didn’t feel so bad after all. In the end, even now, I still depended on her. Then, some time later, Yuki almost attacked me when she came to wake me up in the morning.

She nearly took my chastity. What had happened to my childhood friend? From that day on, she seemed to have evolved into a little devil. She became more physically affectionate, and started saying and doing more suggestive things.

What that meant…to be honest, I believed I understood. This was probably a message from Yuki. A message that she wanted to take our relationship one step further. Because of that, I also began thinking about our relationship. But I kept dodging her message. I tried to avoid letting things turn into that kind of atmosphere.

Why? At first… it was probably because I was afraid. To kiss Yuki, to go beyond that… meant promising to stay together for life, to love her for life, to make her happy for life. Call it heavy if you want, I didn’t care. I believed that was the shared understanding between the two of us, who were alone in this world.

Yuki had that resolve. I didn’t.

I had no family. I had lost my parents when I was young. All that remained there was regret. Could someone like me really enter a romantic relationship with Yuki? Could I really become family with her someday?

If we became family and Yuki died from some accident or illness, could I accept that kind of life? Or if I died first… did I have the resolve to make Yuki walk such a life?

The people you cherish would disappear someday. That dazzling happiness wouldn’t last long. It’d be better not to become a family. It would only deepen the sorrow. It’d be better not to seek something like that. But that was just my own selfish reasoning. I was only thinking about ways to avoid my own pain. And I hated myself for that.

So I tried to think again. I thought, and thought, and thought… And I came to believe that maybe, with Yuki, there could be a future where we became family. That maybe we could walk a path of silver-colored happiness. The ten years I had spent with Yuki, those memories, made me think that way. I truly wanted to make Yuki happy. I wanted us to be happy together.

But even so…

I had nothing. No money, not particularly smart, no guarantee of getting a decent job. Could I really make Yuki happy? Or would I just keep being a burden to my capable childhood friend? I couldn’t even guarantee that one simple thing, making Yuki happy. Because she was important, because I was serious, I couldn’t act carelessly, couldn’t speak carelessly. I was stuck. I couldn’t take responsibility for Yuki’s future. I couldn’t respond to her feelings. I was hopelessly childish.

So I postponed my answer, ran away, and kept thinking about how I could make Yuki happy someday in the future. I wanted her to wait until that someday. But I didn’t even have the courage to tell her that. While trying to be sincere, I remained insincere. I was living a life covered in contradictions.

Someone like me… it was only natural that I would make Yuki sad. Someone who made her cry like that couldn’t possibly make her happy.

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From that day, from that festival, more than a week had already passed. I had barely spoken with Yuki. She didn’t come to wake me up in the mornings anymore. How long would these days continue?

After school, I grabbed my bag and tried to leave the classroom alone. Then someone blocked the exit. A man with glasses, giving off an intellectual air. Isogai. I could also see Hoshino standing beside him.

“Move.”

“Hiro Asama. I have something to discuss with you. Mind coming with me for a bit?”

Isogai glared at me with eyes that seemed to hold a quiet flame as he spoke. Outside the window, heavy rain continued to fall.

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