diff --git a/Interop/Runtime/src/main/kotlin/kotlinx/cinterop/Utils.kt b/Interop/Runtime/src/main/kotlin/kotlinx/cinterop/Utils.kt
index 14a9b87e9cc..2a9ff2b2b0d 100644
--- a/Interop/Runtime/src/main/kotlin/kotlinx/cinterop/Utils.kt
+++ b/Interop/Runtime/src/main/kotlin/kotlinx/cinterop/Utils.kt
@@ -395,6 +395,7 @@ val String.wcstr: CValues<ShortVar>
  *
  * @return the [kotlin.String] decoded from given zero-terminated UTF-8-encoded C string.
  */
+// TODO: optimize
 fun CPointer<ByteVar>.toKString(): String {
     val nativeBytes = this
 
diff --git a/Interop/Runtime/src/native/kotlin/kotlinx/cinterop/NativeMem.kt b/Interop/Runtime/src/native/kotlin/kotlinx/cinterop/NativeMem.kt
index 4d9b25c1789..ef2a725d2a8 100644
--- a/Interop/Runtime/src/native/kotlin/kotlinx/cinterop/NativeMem.kt
+++ b/Interop/Runtime/src/native/kotlin/kotlinx/cinterop/NativeMem.kt
@@ -112,6 +112,23 @@ internal object nativeMemUtils {
     }
 }
 
+fun CPointer<ShortVar>.toKString(): String {
+    val nativeBytes = this
+
+    var length = 0
+    while (nativeBytes[length] != 0.toShort()) {
+        ++length
+    }
+    val bytes = CharArray(length)
+    var index = 0
+    while (index < length) {
+        bytes[index] = nativeBytes[index].toChar()
+        ++index
+    }
+    return String(bytes)
+}
+
+
 @SymbolName("Kotlin_interop_malloc")
 private external fun malloc(size: Long, align: Int): NativePtr