I have a problem, I don't know what the heck I'm feeling, and it bothers me since quarantine started here, last year on march 2020.

Or maybe before that. 

I have a friend, a girl, we've been stuck with each other for almost 5 years now, and while I couldn't remember where our friendship started, we still share a greater bond over these years, we're classmates by the way, but something bothers me in the third year of our friendship.

I don't know when did this start, but what is it that feeling when you always have an itch to see her, or maybe be with her, and her aura day by day never ceases to amaze you. But I only saw that at the time as an inspiration lol. 

But in the middle of our school year, we started to walk home, normally we would only walk by the terminal and sometimes, we would memorize each other's car's plate number and wait for one of us to show up at the same route that we took, and just wave, funny right?

But we decided or you invited me to walk home with you, with your older brother too, he's only a grade above us, and we share a pretty strong bond over months.

When your brother has a date, only the two of us would go home, we bicker, sympathize with each other, or rant about things that we didn't know we had in common, sometimes we bring back memories that we found funny, irritating, sad, or whatsoever. But every topic that we choose satisfies us both. I would always you until your in front of your house, because it's on the way in mine, and sometimes, when you're in the mood, you would or both of you and your brother would offer to take me home, which I appreciate but also worry at the same time, because you would have to go back to again to your house. 

And we would often decline our friends when they want to hang out after school, because we only want to hang out with just the two of us. Why? It's peaceful. Then I would tell you my problems about home, and you are often secretive, you have high walls built around you, yet you chose to open up to me, and I am very much honored up until now that we still did the same with that. 

Over those 5 years we hung out almost every weekday, we talked, laughed, yet we never ever initiated skinship with each other. 

Like ever. 

Well sometimes, but it's mostly required.

We will walk closely yet we always cross our arms when we're talking, we chat so close yet we both retract our fingers when they're about to touch, I find it comforting at the same time, irritating, or maybe i'm just insecure. 

I know it's bad to compare, yet you opened up this topic to me as we walked one time when going home. You compared how we treat each other to how we treat others, then I noticed it too. We would get to hug, to hold hands or just subtle touches with our other friends, boy or girl, but mostly us girls, we would always hold our hands when walking because we just liked it. But when there's only the two of us, there's hesitation, and I don't know why. 

Then you asked me one day that we should hold hands, we never held hands unless it was needed. At the thought, I don't know why but I beamed at the idea of it. I remember that day, we were about to cross a pedestrian lane, then I held out my hand and I snatched it without any hesitation. Well, that's easy right?

Except when milliseconds reach seconds, it isn't.

We held hands, we didn't intertwine it, we just held it like in a form of handshake, yet suddenly my heart beats fast, it's thumping out of my chest, literally as we crossed that pedestrian lane. My face suddenly became hot and I knew that wasn't the sun's fault, it's because we held each other's hands, then my stomach started to churn or I don't know what the heck is that feeling, like when you're about to have a tummy ache, yet it doesn't hurt, yes that's the feeling. I squeezed your hands a bit tighter, and you squeezed it back, we didn't look at each other's faces as we crossed, but as I saw you in my peripheral vision, I could clearly see light as day, that your ears that day, are red. 

After we crossed. You retract your hand as if our touches burn each other, we laughed awkwardly and promised each other never to do that again. 

And we didn't really. 

Then the next you opened up another topic which made my stomach flip. I still remember you just blurted it out of nowhere, without any warning.

"Why do we have this tension with each other" 

I remember it clearly because I choked at my own food as you said that and you handed me immediately a bottle of water. I couldn't answer it too, for I don't know why the heck we had that tension, we shrugged that idea, and we still avoid going to that territory again.

And we still have that ing problem until now, with 5 years of friendship, what the heck is wrong with us? What the is that tension? Can somebody elaborate what the heck we're or rather, I'm feeling?