My Childhood Friend is Too Efficient — Part 2

2

At five in the morning, with the faint light of dawn filtering in, I woke up. It’s a little early for breakfast, but too late to go back to sleep.

I filled a glass with water in the kitchen and sat on the chair beside the bed.

Taking a sip of water, I glanced at the bed where he was peacefully breathing in his sleep. Looking at his carefree, sleeping face made the corners of my eyes soften.

He thinks I’m this extremely efficient, cool-headed person, but the truth is, I’m nothing like that.

Back then, when I asked him to play on the swings with me, it was only because he looked so sad. The whole “efficient” thing was just an excuse, a fancy word I had picked up somewhere to cover up my embarrassment.

“You know that, don’t you?”

Feeling a bit mischievous, I poked his sleeping cheek. It was soft.

Even in middle and high school, we were always together, and people often asked, “Are you two dating?” I was fine with that, so I never denied it. In fact, I forced him to stop bothering with people by telling him it was “inefficient.” Looking back, that was pretty harsh, but then one day, I happened to overhear him explaining to someone, painstakingly and in great detail, how he had zero romantic feelings for me. And that made me… furious. It hurt. So, I’m not the bad one here, right? Right.

When we became university students, I still wanted to be with him. I used the word “efficient” as a weapon, coming up with all sorts of ridiculous reasons to justify living together. Looking back, I was bold—living together, even sharing a bed. What an idiot I was.

Still, maybe all that effort paid off. Because finally, after all these years, he started to notice me romantically.

Then, on a winter night just before we graduated, he confessed his feelings to me. I didn’t expect things to skip straight to marriage, but I was happy. So happy I cried.

The early spring air felt a little chilly against my nightwear, so I crawled back into bed.

Since we’re both off today, I decided to go back to sleep. Feeling his warmth against my cheek, I closed my eyes.

He said that when we’re together, we can create a hundred times the happiness with just one effort.

But even if our relationship only yielded one unit of happiness for a hundred efforts…

—There’s no one else I could ever imagine being with but you.

Because that has nothing to do with “efficiency.”  

[The End]

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