Chapter 11 - Rebirth of Childhood Friends

I led Shizu to my room and brought in some snacks and refreshments for her to enjoy.

We both sat down on cushions that surrounded the small table I had in the middle of my room.

Now that we were both seated and directly facing each other, I needed to find out the specifics as to her return.

"So, ah... U-um..."

AGH?! Why am I stuttering so much?! This is beyond uncool!

When Shizu saw me stuttering and struggling to speak, she started giggling for some reason. "Fufufu, same as always..."

It made me extremely embarrassed to see her laughing at me, so I averted my gaze.

Without even looking, I could tell that my face was dyed crimson.

"Same as always?" I weakly asked.

Shizu looked upon me as if she was a mother watching their child grow up. "Whenever you overthink about something, you freeze up. I guess that part of you still hasn't changed after all these years."

She kept on looking at me with a sympathetic smile, which only made me more confused.

"So, what are you doing here?" I finally managed to ask. "Where have you been?"

After six years of having no contact with her, Shizu just randomly shows up at my school on the first day of the new school year.

What a coincidence... I think not.

If my intuition is telling me anything, our reunion is certainly not by chance.

As if setting the mood, Shizu's expression lost the relaxed feeling it had and changed into one that was more serious and fitting for the situation.

"As you know, I moved away. Somewhere far far away," Shizu began. "It broke my heart that day we were separated, I was crying all day."

I didn't know what to say in response to her honest feelings, but I knew it tremendously hurt my heart.

"For the last six years, I have been doing nothing but trying my best to become the best person I could possibly become in order to hopefully reunite with you one day," Shizu explained. "It was looking bleak until very recently."

Shizu's depressed expression changed to one of hope and happiness. "Seeing how depressed I was, my parents generously gave me an opportunity to move back here from overseas. They allowed me to live here on the condition that I keep my grades up."

She did all of this... for me?

The past six years for me have been nothing but normality and boredom, I negligently spent those years wasting away my youth.

As I was doing nothing, she was doing everything.

Everything for me.

What a waste of space I am.

Haruto Renzaki, the biggest loser alive.

Without noticing my gloomy thoughts, Shizu continued with her explanation. "My parents rented an apartment close to here for me to commute to school easily. They got in touch with your parents recently and asked what school you went to," Shizu said. "As you can see, the rest is history."

Even my parents were in on this?! They probably wanted to surprise me so they didn't say anything...

"So, how is it? How disappointed are you now that you've seen me?" I self-deprecatingly said. "Has your illusion of me been shattered?"

I was happy to know that she remembered me and that she had worked hard to reunite with me, but my guilt for doing nothing was outweighing any other feelings.

In contrast to what I had been expecting, Shizu warmly looked at me with a gentle smile. "Why would I think of you any less than I had before? I think you've grown up to be a splendid man, if I do say so myself."

After saying something extremely embarrassing, Shizu began to play with her hair to try and hide her crimson-dyed face.

Cute. So cute. Beyond cute.

Wait, this was my childhood friend?!

The one I had innocently played with?!

When did she become such an enchantress?!

Putting the jokes aside, she said that I had become a splendid man.

Hearing that from a top-tier beauty was enough to pull me from the depths of doom and gloom and into the light of heaven.

"I see you still get easily embarrassed as well. Remember that time you almost self-imploded due to me patting your head after you caught me in a game of tag?" I cackled. "You were unable to form a coherent sentence for a whole hour!"

"W-wha?! So that's how we're playing? I'm not the person who stayed home for a week after they lost an arm wrestle bet with me!" Shizu yelled back at me.

Grr, of course she had to remember that time.

Shizu and I made a bet with each other and the deciding factor was who won the game of arm wrestling.

At the time, I had thought there was no way I was going to lose to a girl in terms of strength.

I was wrong, oh so wrong.

Shizu had overpowered me so easily that even she was confused when her hand slammed my hand down.

"Eh? I think that was a fluke, so let's try again."

She had said those words of pity and allowed a rematch since she thought that there was something wrong with me.

Let's just say that the second and third matches didn't go my way either.

"Cut me some slack, I was only eight-years-old!" I yelped. "I promise I'm a lot stronger now."

"Do you want to test that claim?" Shizu mischievously smiled.

I scowled and laid my arm on top of the table. "Bring it on, you gorilla woman!"

"Were you talking, mister jelly arms?" Shizu giggled, as she also placed her right arm on the table.

Just like that, two childhood friends reunited after several years of being apart from each other.

Although there were many future obstacles in their relationship, the two were tied by the red string of fate.

It was not something that broke easily.