After a Heartbreak, My Bitter Childhood Friend is now Sweet Like Sugar - V2 Chapter 7.5 & 7.6
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- V2 Chapter 7.5 & 7.6
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Chapter 7.5
I went back to my room and flipped through the book ‘Ningen Shikkaku’ that I had just bought.
However, I knew the contents of the book. It was in my Japanese textbook, and my teacher had explained it to me several times. I was familiar with it because it was often used as a fiction story.
“But what am I supposed to do by reading this book now?”
It is one of Osamu Dazai’s most famous works, starting with the famous opening line, ‘I have lived a life of shame.’ The story is about a protagonist who lacks understanding of others and desperately tries to fit into society. This story depicts a character tossed around by a succession of shitty characters who try to harm his spirit and ruin his life.
It’s the opposite of Kenji Miyazawa’s books, which I like, and it’s a story about the foulness and pettiness of humans. It is a story of a protagonist who suffers from the accumulated ugliness of human nature.
I didn’t think it was the kind of book I would read when feeling depressed, but as I was gradually exposed to the wickedness of the characters in the book, I felt like I was getting a little more comfortable.
I immersed myself in the book and read it to the end.
When I finished reading it, I realized that I prefer beautiful stories. For example, Kenji Miyazawa’s ‘Night on the Galactic Railroad’ on the bookshelf.
“By the way, I prefer Dazai Osamu because I can relate to him more.”
These are the words that Senpai told me a long time ago.
And now, somehow, I’ve found another reason why I liked her. Senpai said she liked those stories and tolerated them.
Oh, right, I was looking for envy in books, and that’s why I liked ‘Night on the Galactic Railroad,’ but what I was really sympathizing with was…
Just then, the phone I had in my bag rang.
I looked at the screen, wondering who it was, and saw Kokoa’s name.
For a moment, I wondered what I should do. I thought that I could mention the fact that I had rejected her.
I felt heavy and a bit nervous. I felt like I had to apologize.
However, if I ignored her here, I would have nothing more to say to her for the rest of my life. If I wanted things to get back to normal, I needed to act normal too.
I pressed the call button.
“!”
On the other end of the phone, I heard her gasp.
“What’s wrong?”
“Um, that…”
Kokoa shuffled her words back and forth.
I don’t know what she wants to tell me, but I guess it’s hard to say. Or maybe it’s just hard to talk about after what happened.
“I-It’s me. I’m in trouble! I need you to come to the park right away!”
“What?”
I couldn’t understand the meaning of the words and asked back.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m in trouble! So please come quickly! Hurry!”
The conversation was one-sided, and she hung up.
What is this? What is going on?
She sounded very urgent. Is it some kind of serious trouble?
I don’t know, but I do know that it’s not right to call back, and it’s not right to ignore it. I also know that I should hurry up.
I ran out of the room and started running as fast as I could towards the park.
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Chapter 7.6
As soon as I entered the park, I knew where to find her.
There was a huge cherry tree at the edge of the park, and I saw what looked like a human silhouette on a tree branch at least five metres off the ground.
What is that girl doing up there?
When I rushed over to her, I could clearly see that it was Kokoa in her uniform.
The tree branches were too thin to support a person’s weight. They were bending under her weight.
The branches looked as if they would snap off at any moment with the slightest impact.
“What are you doing, Kokoa?”
“I’m trying to threaten you.”
“A threat? What are you threatening me with?”
The person who was trying to scare me was scared herself.
In fact, she was so scared that not just her voice, but her legs too, were shaking. It was a height that even a normal person would feel afraid of. Kokoa, who was scared of heights, must be even more so.
“Yuu… Yuu, please go out with me!”
She wants me to go out with her?
“Just come down here for now. I’ll listen to you.”
“I don’t want to unless you say you’ll go out with me!”
“Yeah, well…”
“So you’re not even going to tell me the reason why not.”
“Well…”
I was going to fudge the reason, but now that it was like this, I had no choice.
I’m sure she wouldn’t be convinced even if I told her the real reason, but I might have to explain it somehow.
“I’ll talk to you.”
“I don’t want to talk about that. I’m not coming down until you say you’ll go out with me! I’m serious!”
She moved her legs in time with her voice, and the branches swayed and shook the leaves.
For a moment, she got spooked, but she managed to keep her position by grabbing a nearby branch.
“No, I know you’re serious!”
No matter how you look at it, she was definitely serious. Just looking at her made me nervous. I want her to come down as soon as possible.
“If you won’t go out with me, I’ll jump.”
“Don’t joke about it.”
“I’m not joking.”
Kokoa replied with a strong tone.
I’m quite familiar with her. I could tell that she was not lying. She was being serious.
“If I don’t do this, Yuu will try to cheat and run away. You are determined to dump me. And not for his own sake, but probably for my sake or something like that.”
“Wait, how did you…”
“So please don’t fool me! Because I know everything about you!”
The branches shook again with a rustle. If she’s lucky, she won’t get hurt, but if she fell on her head, there was a good chance she might die.
“T-this is my decision. This is how serious I am about pursuing a relationship with you. If you run away from me, I will chain you even with threats.”
“You can’t have a relationship with me if you do that.”
“Yes. I can because you care about me. You are kind. So you better go out with me for my own safety.”
What she was saying and doing was absurd.
She’s saying that I care about her so much that I’ll go out with her if she threatens me?
She was right, though. I didn’t want her to fall out of there. If she got hurt, I’d be devastated. If she were to die—if I were to lose Kokoa after Senpai, I would never be able to forgive myself.
If this happened, for sure, I would be stuck forever.
Huh, what?
Maybe I was afraid of that too? Was I scared of being in a relationship? Was I afraid of hurting, losing, seeing myself dirty, all of it, so I tried to end our relationship?
I huffed.
“… I don’t care. I might as well leave you and go home.”
“If so, I’ll just jump.”
“Maybe I don’t really care about you, Kokoa.”
“That’s not true. Because your eyes are fixed at me, Yuu.”
“So what makes you think…”
“I’ve been so close to you for so many years. Of course, I can understand that.”
Ah.
Did my voice leak out or not?
That’s right, Kokoa was watching me the whole time.
She had been looking at my emotional changes, who I was looking at, probably more than I was looking at myself.
“When I was rejected, I was so scared. I started to think of stupid things like I wasn’t good enough…”
“That’s not true…”
“It’s true. I didn’t intend to be in such a hurry. Whether it was one year, two years, three years, or ten years, if you couldn’t forget your past love, I would go out with you as much as I could and turn you to look at me! You shouldn’t have any problem with this situation. If you fell in love with another girl, you would just have to go out with her then.”
“It’s annoying that you keep making me feel that way when I don’t want to go out with you.”
“What’s wrong with being annoying?”
“─!”
Once more, she replied in a strong tone.
“I never told you how much I liked you so as not to bother you. I kept it to myself. As a result, I became close to you, but I still regret it. I was a coward. I still think that if I had told you how I felt before you met your senior, something might have been different. I still think about the possibility that I might have been able to go out with you and build up our memories as lovers. And because of being reserved, I’m about to be pushed away by you again like this. You’re forcing your one-sided good intentions on me and not even listening to my side of the story. I don’t want that. I hate it. That’s why I decided to tell you all the feelings I had inside of me so that it would never happen again. Even if you don’t want to hear it, even if you say it’s annoying, I think it’s better to tell you. I will do it. Because I know I’ll regret it if I don’t!”
She said all this out loud.
Halfway through, her voice became raspy. She was crying. It wasn’t because of the height but because her emotions were getting the better of her.
“When I was rejected by you, I first thought that I was mistaken about knowing a lot about you, but now that I thought about it, there was no way I was wrong. That’s because I know you so well! More than you do! I like you, and I have always loved you. I want to turn you around no matter what. If you really don’t want to, I might give up then, but if not, I’ve decided that I’ll die to make you love me. It’s for my own good. It’s not for your sake. I don’t think it’s better for me to think that it’s all right for the person I love to be happy. I want to make you happy with my own hands, for my own sake. That’s why I want to be with you…”
At that moment,
The branch that Kokoa was standing on gave a jolt.
As if her foot slipped, she fell.
That idiot…
I immediately ran towards the place where she was about to fall.
Hurry… I thrust my hands out in front of me. At the same time, I felt the weight on my hands with a thud. Then, I felt a girl’s touch on my hands. I was holding Kokoa in a princess carry.
I made it in time, thank god─.
“I’m sorry…”
I guess she was scared as her body shivered, her voice mixed with tears.
I looked at her face and saw tears in her eyes.
“Were you afraid of falling?”
“Of course, I would be scared if I actually fell.”
That must have been scary.
I was also scared just looking at it.
“… It’s so heavy.”
“That’s rude. I think I’m on the light side.”
“No, not that one. It’s about your feelings.”
Slowly, I lowered Kokoa to the ground.
She staggered to her feet and looked at me.
“You just found out about it?”
“I knew it, but it was heavier than I thought.”
“Did it bother you?”
“No, not at all.”
Kokoa giggled.
A moment ago, I would have been terrified by the weight of her feelings. But strangely, I didn’t feel that way anymore.
It was definitely because of Kokoa.
“I want to be eaten by you.”
[EDN: Bruh.]
“What are you saying out of the blue?”
“Oh, no, that’s not what I meant. It’s not that way.”
Her cheeks blushed as she waved her hands up and down.
“That’s fine, as long as you can use it to help you look forward. You don’t have to think too hard about it, I love you, and I know you also care about me. We can use each other’s favours. Isn’t that enough?”
“Does that mean you’re dating for profit?”
“I think that’s what it means to be in a relationship with someone, in no small part. We feed off each other, interfere with each other, and aim to make each other’s life a little happier than it is now. I would be happy to be in a relationship with Yuu. If you can go out with me, you can forget about Senpai. Isn’t that good enough for you?”
Her words, telling me to calculate, were more devoted than anyone else’s, and she was thinking about me.
And seeing her like that, one thing became clear to me once again.
I love her…
She is pretty, a good girl, a good cook, a caring person, surprisingly emotional, devoted but human, and above all, she knows more about me than I do about her.
I would never be able to find someone who liked me as much as she did. That’s why I thought about not going out with her, but that was me being arrogant and cowardly.
There was no way she could benefit the other person by leaving her own feelings behind even though she was saying it for herself. It was just delusional to think that I was doing it for the other person.
I love this childhood friend of mine tremendously, who pours me with her heavy feelings.
In the first place, I had to give up. Because even if I try to escape with an excuse here, this childhood friend will find another excuse and come after me.
Just as she said, I’m kind. And I love her. So, if she threatens me, I can’t resist.
It sounds absurd, but it’s absolutely true. There was no way I could refuse.
“O-okay. Let’s go out, Kokoa.”
“… Are you sure?”
I think I read something in a book that said it’s important to have an excuse for love.
It was my childhood friend who had made me the bad guy and prepared an excuse for me. I knew I had to give up.
“Oh, it’s true. I give up. I want to be in a relationship with you, Kokoa.”
“~~~~!”
That day, Kokoa and I became a couple.
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