After a Heartbreak, My Bitter Childhood Friend is now Sweet Like Sugar - V1 Chapter 0.5 part 3

…

One day, we had this conversation,

“I have something to tell you if I pass the exam.

“Oh, what? Can’t you just tell me now?”

“It has to be after I pass.”

“Mmm, okay.”

In order to push me, I made such a promise.

And if I get into the same school, I’ll tell her.

.

.

.

It was during club time, the two of us were alone.

In a quiet room dyed in red.

“I’ve always liked you. Please go out with me.”

That day I confessed my feelings to her.

She blinked for a moment with a surprised look on her face, then slowly opened her mouth as if she was lost for words.

“Eh, yeah, no way, you want to go out with me? I’m not sure… this hasn’t crossed my mind before, because we’ve been such good friends…”

“Senpai please tell me, what do you think about me?”

To my words, she seemed to be puzzled… but,

“… I like you, too, Yu-chan. Haha, it’s kind of embarrassing to say it out loud.”

Perhaps I had been living for this moment.

The moment I heard those words, I felt like my entire life up to this point had been answered.  

It wasn’t an exaggeration, she was that important to me. 

“Then…”

“Yes. From now on, I’ll be counting on you, Yu-chan.”

 ◆ 

Then a lot of things happened.

She passed away, and I locked myself in my room.

………….  

I was heartbroken.

However, it was an experience that made me feel as if my life up to that point had been turned against me – as if I had lost everything.

Maybe when I grow up, I’ll be able to forget these memories like it was just a part of my life, given the experiences of bitterness and my dulled senses.

But I guess I hadn’t developed a tolerance for losing something yet, and I wasn’t ready for it.

It’s been a week since then, and I can’t even get out of bed now because of the high fever I think I got from the shock.

“You can’t be with me forever~, can you? I don’t want you to be dependent on me.”

That’s what she said, but I didn’t expect that she would suddenly leave me. When I remembered what she said, her lively appearance and sweet voice flashed in my mind, and I began to feel dejected again.

“… I’m pathetic.”

It’s not that I want to indulge in sentimental masochism. 

At any rate, one thing I’ve learned from this is that mental damage can reflect on the body more than I thought.

After all, I had never experienced such a high fever in my sixteen years of life.

As I was squirming in bed thinking about this, the doorbell rang. It’s hard enough to get out of bed, but to have a visitor, what a joke?  

Since I live alone, this visitor is here for me. I thought if I had ordered something through the mail, but I couldn’t think of anything. If that’s the case, it’s probably some kind of door-to-door salesman that I can’t be bothered to deal with.

I should just ignore it. As I was wondering, I felt my phone vibrate under my pillow.

On the screen of my phone was a notification. The name displayed was “Kokoa Shirayuki” and the message “Are you home?”

——The time that had been stopped, begins to move.