After a Heartbreak, My Bitter Childhood Friend is now Sweet Like Sugar - Chapter 1.3

Chapter 01 PART 03

Translated by Devxtt
Edited by Shish99

I returned home and had reflexively gone to the washroom to wash my hands, and just as I was about to turn the tap on, my brain stopped me.

I stopped twisting the faucet, refusing to turn it, every inch my body wanted to rotate it was met with a greater force from my mind, desperately refusing to let the water flush it away.

I didn’t want to lose this feeling, this warmth that I felt in my hands.

I held his hand when he was sleeping.

No, I’d already washed these hands while cooking, but I could still feel a bit of heat lingering from that touch.

I rubbed the tip of my nose where Yū bumped his head.

I wasn’t doing something bad anyways… right? Just looking at his sleepy face made my heart flutter but he woke up suddenly and hit my face.

I felt as if Yū’s touch was still held up against that spot.

”Oh gosh, what am I doing?”

I washed my hands and gargled to prevent illness. Washing my hands is important. It would be silly if I got sick because of this.

“Ha~”

When I returned to the living room, the eight-mat room felt awfully lonely.

My mother had told me that this apartment was too large and lonely.

This two-bedroom apartment, was far too luxurious for a high school student to live alone, was owned by my mother.

Six months ago, when she moved to the United States for work, I selfishly stayed here. My friends were here and, more importantly, transferring to high school would have been too much of a burden.

I didn’t plan to go to college over there, so it would be better for me to stay.

We had a talk about my studies, but I kept insisting on staying here, leaving her no choice but to accept my request.

It was my mother’s house, and knowing that made me feel much safer than what I would in staying in an apartment rented from some strangers.

At any rate, thanks to that, I’m still living in this apartment, in this room next to Yū.

”Even if you say that, you haven’t talked to me for so long. I think you’re the one who started to avoid me? I thought you hated me.”

I remember what he said earlier.

“That’s right. I hated you. I really really hate you.”

Because you had fallen in love with someone else.

When we talked, my chest felt heavy, it was so painful that the world felt bleak, as if the passing wind would drag me to some foreign land.

Then I decided to avoid him and hate him so that I wouldn’t have to suffer any more.

That was how it used to be atleast… but now…

“… What am I doing?… Sheesh!”

I don’t know why I fell in love with a guy like that.

We were born on the same day in the same hospital, we lived next to each other, and we played together.

If that was all it was, maybe I wouldn’t have fallen in love with him so much.

When I was a child, I was quiet and was often teased by boys.

“Hey, Shirayuki is a doll, isn’t she? Stop acting like you’re a human.”

I was in the second grade at the time.

Children at that age have a way of playing by abusing innocently. It’s no different from the way they are on the playground.

And since the one receiving that abuse was a child themself, they couldn’t consider things like the simplicity and childishness of the joke, leaving them wounded by the seemingly simple words.

At that time, I was hurt by the childish words. I tried my best to ignore those boys because they would take advantage of me if I let it show too much, but they never stopped attacking me.

Yū, who happened to see the scene, punched a boy who was teasing me.

Naturally, a fight broke out.

There were three boys who were making fun of me at the time, so it became a three-on-one struggle. Of course, the outnumbered Yū lost the fight, but after that day, those boys didn’t make fun of me anymore.

After the fight was over.

“Why did you do that?” I asked.

“I felt like doing so.”

That’s not all.

Three years later, when I was very depressed after losing my father, Yū took me to a famous theme park, which was over an hour’s train ride. Everything he did and paid for was from his savings, which he had desperately scavenged and held onto for years.

I asked him why he did such a thing for me, trying hard to hide the tears that were about to spill out, and he replied,

“I don’t know, I felt like it.”

[Maybe Yū is interested in me.]

Those thoughts sprouted within my heart.

As the year went by, my feelings for him grew deeper, and I was selfishly convinced that he liked me too.

The more I thought about it, the more I began to think about him.

Looking back, I guess I was wrong.

It was not Yū who was in love with me, but me who was in love with him, and I took each action of his to support my own feelings while refusing to look at what I didn’t want to see.

And two years ago I confronted this reality.

After entering junior high school, I saw him on the way home after school, chatting amiably with a senior who I didn’t know on the way home from school.

I know more about Yū than anyone else. So I noticed it right away.

He likes this senpai.

My premonition was right, as it should be, and he decided to go to the same high school as this senior, and after confessing his feelings to her, they started dating.

It was as if he couldn’t see me, all the while I went to the same high school with him.

By that time, I was already estranged from Yū.

No, to be exact, I always saw him, but I tried to keep my distance from him as much as possible.

I turned my love for him into hatred.

No.

I was under the illusion that I had changed.

ZETROTRANSLATION