I love Tohru-kun.
I love his kindness, I love his hardworking nature.
I love his undying passion to become an author.
I love the way he works towards his goals, never relenting.
I love the way he can easily cheer people on, I love his carefree and cute smile.
I love that when something is delicious, he says it straight up.
I love his lonely stubbornness, even if I can sense it.
But most importantly, I love that I can show my weaknesses to him.
I love everything about Tohru-kun, there isn't anything I dislike. I'm just overflowing with love, what do you expect?
Even with all these feelings, we're still just childhood friends, nothing more. I haven't been able to change it. I am confident that there are a lot of things that Tohru-kun loves about me. However, I'm unable to take that necessary step forward and same goes for Tohru-kun. Perhaps we're getting too complacent.
In science class, I learned that human beings by nature don't like change. And since we haven't changed, Tohru-kun is able to spend his days peacefully with me by his side. Perhaps we surrender ourselves to this comfortable distance long ago. And while our physical distance is as close as family members, our emotional distance is still a step behind. Perhaps this relationship will last for much longer...
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The turning point in our relationship came during the tail end of our school year in high school, around late February.
"You know, Isao-kun was sleeping on my shoulder earlier. His face was so cute."
"Ehh, is that so? You've been spoiling him a lot lately."
It was lunchtime and I was spending it with Hiyori-chan and Yuumi-chan. Lately, Hiyori-chan has been talking about her new boyfriend non-stop. She seemed really happy and I got all warm and fuzzy listening to her.
Ping
"The childhood friend revenge genre is so popular right now, don't really like it ngl."
The notification sound went off on my phone, displaying that Kamino-sensei, basically Tohru-kun, tweeted out something. I decided to send out my usual short reply. But I understood immediately what Tohru-kun meant with that tweet. Lately, the most popular stories in the modern romance genre were the childhood revenge kind. It wasn't like I disagreed with Tohru-kun.
Considering his personality, it made sense that he wouldn't really like that genre. Even I would get the chills when I tried to read those stories. Our relationship as childhood friends definitely wasn't like that at all. Well, maybe a bit, but that was a different story. It had already been four years since I had been commenting on Tohru-kun's stories as Nira. I told myself that I wouldn't interact with Tohru-kun as Nira except for in the comments. However, looking at his tweet, I felt myself in complete agreement. Before I knew it, my fingers were moving.
"Yeah, I agree."
I would never have thought that reply would change anything at all, not in a thousand years. Not even a minute later, I heard the notification sound.
"Nira-san, thanks for your sympathy! Actually, in real life, I have a childhood friend who I always loved since elementary school. These revenge stories give a bad mental image in my head and it makes me heart hurt. Instead of being mean to childhood friends why not shower them with love! What I'm saying is that we should make childhood friends as happy as possible!"
The moment those words flew into my eyes, I could feel myself boiling up.
"Ahh... ehh...?"
Anyways, my fingers started moving on their own, typing a cliche response.
"I see"
Thud
My head banged right into my desk. My brain shut down on me, trying to process everything. "R-rin-chan?" "Rin-chan, what's wrong?" I heard their worried voices.
"I-it's nothing."
"Nothing? It doesn't seem lik-"
Yuumi-chan was especially worried. My senses snapped back to me as I could feel my ears, lips and body shivering. My face was probably beet red too. I was a total mess. The childhood friend in Tohru-kun's tweet was definitely me. Reading his tweets and knowing that Tohru-kun had liked me since elementary school made me beyond happy.
"Are you alright Rin-chan?"
Hiyori-chan supported me as I was still swooning. Like I was being controlled by someone else, I opened my mouth.
"H-hiyori-chan?"
"Wh-what's wrong? Want me to call an ambulance?"
"No, it's fine. Umm... I have a question."
"Question?"
As she tilted her head, I fired away.
"Is dating... really such a good thing?"
For a good second, Hiyori-chn gave me a blank stare. However, she clapped her hands together and put on a big smile as she understood my question
"Hmm, yeah it is."
She placed her index finger on her chin as she traced her memories.
"With Isao-kun, it was like we got together at the spur of the moment, or something like that. Just because you go out with someone doesn't mean things have to change completely."
Hiyori-chan appeared to be in deep thought, which was pretty rare for her. As if she just thought of something, she looked at me and started speaking again.
"When you start going out, you get all happy imagining what will happen after!"
"Happen... after?"
"Yeah! I wonder what will happen to us in the future, like, dating someone isn't a permanent relationship status, like there isn't a chance to imagine it at all."
Slowly, Hiyori-chan started swaying her body to and fro. She often would do that when she was happy.
"What will happen after a year? Three years? Will we be married in five years? Will we have kids in ten years? Mwhaaaaaaaa, you know."
She placed her hands on her cheeks as she danced around merrily. She really was all happy. But that made me think. If Tohru-kun and I started dating, I'm sure our relationship would be even stronger. I started imagining what would happen afterwards...
A lot of wonderful things popped into my mind. Before I knew it, I was smiling. What was this...? It feels, really good...
I steeled myself, as I felt my chest burning like the sun. I had made up my mind.
"Hiyori-chan?"
"Yeah, Rin-chan?"
I took hold of Hiyori-chan's hands. Conquering his stomach was the first step.
"Can you... teach me the secrets to cooking a good meal?"