Disclaimer: I do not own Tonari no Kaibutsu kun.

He should've known better, and I should've too. He surprised me, because back then I never thought he'd be one to immerse in such things. I wanted to make some peace, but he blew it off. So the next day I told him not to say things like that again, and not to look at me the same way. I did my best to scold him whenever he did.

So I got very good at pretending.

But why does he laugh instead?

See, I've been very good at counting too. Seconds when our eyes would meet. I try my hardest to beat my usual score, but I never get past three. Were his eyes always that hard to look at?

And when he smiles, gosh, he smiles everytime. Why would he even do that?

I get it, he's the kind who looks at life as easily as possible, and he never thinks too hard when he has problems, and he laughs at almost every joke somebody says. But he smiles at me, even when I haven't said a word yet.

At school, I always find him sitting on desks while he go on and ramble about many things with his friends, and I sit there by the window. For a short guy like him, he does have a very loud voice sometimes. He distracts me when I try to look at the people outside, and each time I look at him, he doesn't notice it. So it's at these times when I try to focus my sight on him alone, try if I could get past three.

Four, five.

And then he turns at my direction, the color green stares right back at me. He calls my name before I can count back to zero. The others look at me just when I realize I was staring at him, looking at his face for that mere five seconds he hasn't turned yet. See, it takes a thing as simple as that for my face to turn red.

So when I go out and lie about going to the bathroom, I'd appreciate it if he stayed with his friends inside. But instead he waits, for I guess ten, twenty seconds after I'm out the door, and he follows me and he always finds me, because I suck at hiding at different places. He knows I find the presence of a familiar chicken quite comforting. I sit on the ground, looking at Nagoya until he stands there, keeping his distance so that I can't reach my hand out to punch him.

If someone tells you they like you, is it really necessary to like them back?

For my case, it's a big NO. A lot of guys told me the same thing over and over again, but I just can't return it. The same way goes for him.

He's tricky though, because I can't help but count the seconds on the gap of my thoughts before he starts reappearing their again. He says good morning, no harm done. And I greet him back, so in that moment, I count a second of me thinking about him because he greeted me first. And then he sits on his chair and I sit on mine too. I see Mitty, and I go around trying to tackle her, but she dismisses me with a greeting instead. He laughs at me, because he thinks it was ridiculous of me to try that trick on Mitty each morning, so I counted another five. At that duration I stick my tongue out to him.

Then I make sure I don't look at where he's sitting until the math teacher comes. The professor gives an awful lot of questions, and I try my hardest to shy away at the back, never ever letting my gaze turn to him. I manage the whole duration without being called to answer on the board, then we are told to get some paper because it's time for him to hand out the quiz. I swear, I spend two minutes just rereading the same question over and over again before I feel the urge to pull my hair out. I sigh and knock my head on my desk. A half-hour is just enough for students like Mitty, but surely not for me. So while the time to write answers on my paper shortens, I take a peek at him, Sasayan. I laugh because he's just as clueless as I am. Ten seconds, I rejoice on that thought, but then I notice that even if he's not that good in math, he's surely better than I am. I can see that he's already on the third problem, then I look at mine which is as unfortunate as a failing paper, so I knock my head again. A two second-transition from that rejoicing thought happens before I spend the rest of the minute being pissed about him because he always wins.

And I realized, I spent more than half of that half-hour thinking about him than I should have on the test.

He's tricky because he has those eyes, and his hair is funny, and he is short. When I'm bored, I try to spend my time with Mitty in the library, but I learned that I'd done that five times, and those five times all ended up the same way – me snoring on the table.

So once I tried to go out, slip some coins into the machine, sipped on orange juice and sat on the bleachers while I looked at a bunch of boys all running and throwing and hitting on the brown field while the sun burned them. He's very easy to spot because he's the littlest in his team. I put my hand over my eyes to shield me from the sun, and he has found me. The moment I locked my eyes on his face, he was staring back. Even though he's pretty far, he's got sharp eyes, and a really obvious smile too. Two seconds, that's it, because he broke contact first, and I was very relieved with that. His hair poked out even if he was wearing his cap. It's funny how it grew unnaturally weird. I watched them play.

For about fifteen minutes, I sat on the rows of chair, alone. Then they were on break and I was a minute too late to realize that I should've left. He was walking towards me, and I wanted to throw my juice at him. But I didn't. If I did, he'd be lucky it was empty.

He was sweaty, and he approached me with a distance. Not that he was afraid, well yeah, because he was sweaty too. He asked me why I was there, the tone in his voice was excited. I told him I was bored and he chuckled. The sunlight reached him, and the way his cap cast shadows on his face made his eyes darker and his smile mysterious, so I focused on that thought for some time, until I hear his captain call him. I then proceeded sipping on my straw, even if I tasted nothing already.

"You should really stop doing that whenever I smile." He says before he runs off.

That did the unsanitary act of throwing the carton of orange juice at him, but I'm bad at throwing. If only I was three seconds faster, I could've at least hit him on the back. But he was already far off, and he looked back. He noticed the juice and told me loitering is not cute.

He's annoying because he held my hand once. Okay twice, the first time happened before the whole because I do like you thing. I haven't counted the time it took when he first did that act because I was crying and I was trying to stop myself from doing that because it was embarrassing having him see me in that state.

No, it's okay. I mean why would I care?

The problem was I did. And I wondered why I didn't shake his hand off. I didn't count the seconds, but I was sure it reached to up a minute. Because when I cry, I don't get done very easily, and the whole time I did that, he was right there with me, holding my hand without even looking back at me.

And then at the festival on our third year, I was pretty sure that's the reddest my face had ever been. My stupid sandal strap broke, so he held my hand so I can walk less harder. We were in front of a lot of people, and gosh, I swear I was really embarrassed. My thoughts were nothing but filled with why he was holding my hand, or why I let him do that. But we walked, ten, twenty, thirty seconds? I was with him for that long! Holding his hand for that long!

Or maybe longer, then he just pulls me in and tells me to hurry up.

Hurry up with what exactly? My stupid sandal strap broke, he expects me to walk faster?

Hurry up and fall in love with me is what he said. At that moment my face was already red…

My face was already red and he said that.

My face was then heating up BECAUSE he said that.

After always telling him not to say things like that again.

It took him the same amount of time I can manage to stare at him. The same amount of time for him to tell me to hurry up. Three seconds to say words that could make up a whole sleepless night for me.

Of course, I didn't say anything. I was too stunned to speak.

But see, at that time, I swear I managed to beat my three. I looked at him and I reached five, or was it six, or seven, or eight, or longer than that.

I'm sure it was longer than that, because then I memorized his face. The way it lit up with a mixture of embarrassment and courage.

Ever since he told me he liked me before, I've been very good at pretending.

But he laughs instead.

And when he smiles, gosh, he smiles everytime. Why would he even do that?

I don't know how much more seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or even years it would take until I can tell the same to him, too.

So…

If someone tells you they like you, is it really necessary to like them back?

In my case, it's not possible.

But for his case,

…

I was sitting under a tree with my laptop on when I heard something snap from behind me. I had to stop typing. When I found out he was peeking behind the trunk, my eyes went wide. I quickly closed my laptop.

"Did you see that? How much did you read?" I frantically asked.

"Not much. Just the part about the question whether it's necessary to like someone back?" He says, quite cluelessly.

I was relieved, sort of, and so I stood up and walked away from him.

"Hey!" He called, I turned back. "What's your answer for that?" He smiles.

I didn't reply. Instead I turned around and resumed walking. I can hear him following me, and then after a few seconds, he was right there beside me, grinning like an idiot.

And I knew, I'd be spending eight minutes with him until I reach my house.