About Being Childhood Friends with Matsuda and Hagiwara

[The Matsuda alternate-universe story, Everyday Romance with Matsuda, is now open for preorders. See the blurb at the end. The Hagiwara storyline is still in the works.] I have two childhood friends, one named Matsuda and the other Hagiwara. My mom always says the three of us are so close we'd share a pair of pants. I looked down at my nice blue overalls and said that even Matsuda and Hagiwara couldn't make me share them. My mom stared at me in shock, and I stared back at her in confusion. Matsuda and Hagiwara came over to play. My mom waved us off, saying she was feeling a little worn out. I didn't understand why she looked like that. Hagiwara told me it might be because we'd been caught stealing eggs in the countryside a few days ago. I thought he was probably right. * We started kindergarten, and I was voted the prettiest girl in class. I didn't care much about being the prettiest girl. Even if I was, Matsuda still wouldn't go easy on my face when we fought. "I did go easy on you!" Matsuda insisted. And that was the end of the prettiest-girl business. Then one day, I noticed that boys often brought me snacks and asked me to be their girlfriend. "That happens?" Matsuda cried in shock. After studying my face for a long time, he solemnly promised, "I'll try not to hit you in the face from now on." I nodded in satisfaction. The three of us shared the snacks, and I wondered if Matsuda and Hagiwara could become pretty girls or school belles too, if I really made them wear my overalls. * We started elementary school. We weren't four or five anymore! It was time to grow up! I told my two childhood friends that from that day on, I wouldn't be a glutton or cry anymore. I was going to be strong. A few days later, I was holding my failing math test and bawling my eyes out, thinking it was so hard to be a strong grown-up. Matsuda was crying too, because he'd laughed loudly while my mom was scolding me, so his dad had beaten him. Hagiwara didn't cry, but he wore a long face. He'd been waving a pile of snacks in front of Matsuda and me, so we teamed up and beat him up. So I got scolded, Matsuda got beaten, and Hagiwara got scolded again... We were trapped in an endless cycle. In the end, the three of us shared the snacks and secretly swore that starting tomorrow, we'd be strong grown-ups! Everyday Romance with Matsuda At our high school graduation reunion, I drew a dare. I looked pleadingly at Hagiwara, who'd drawn the king card. I hoped my sociable classmate, who was always so gentle with girls, would go easy on me. "So our school belle drew it! In that case, we can't use any of those mischievous tricks from before," Hagiwara said earnestly. Then someone set a huge, ice-cold mug of beer in front of me. Wait, what?! How could you do this to me?! In the ensuing chaos, Matsuda, who was sitting across from me, stood up heroically. At that moment, he was shining in my eyes. "Come on, Hagi, that joke went too far." With those words, he coolly downed all the beer and told everyone to stop giving me a hard time. I was so moved I could almost cry. Three minutes later, I was assigned to take the drunk Matsuda to wash his face. Matsuda's tall body leaned completely against my shoulder. His face was red, and he kept breathing out hot air. He looked like he was really uncomfortable. But his face was so close! His warm breath brushed over me, and my face turned red too. "Are you okay, Matsuda?" I noticed him staring at me and got really worried, thinking he must be feeling awful. "...You're so cute." Matsuda gazed at my face with unfocused eyes for a long moment before finally saying it. Wait, what?! And then I had a boyfriend. QWQ Matsuda had been interested in a classmate named Usuba Aiki for a long time. She loved to draw, was popular, and was an incredibly cute girl whom everyone liked. "If you like her, go after her," his childhood friend Hagiwara said. "If I didn't know you'd already fallen for her, and that you met her first, I might try to win over a girl as pretty and cute as her myself." Matsuda answered with a hard elbow to the ribs. Confessing? If he did, they might not even be friends anymore. In the end, he confessed anyway. At their class reunion after graduation, after Hagi had "put her on the spot," when she looked at him with wide eyes full of him. He couldn't help it. Loving her was something he couldn't hold back. Even if he didn't say it, it would show in the way he couldn't stop himself from standing up for her, and in his eyes. Would she turn him down? She probably would. In the three seconds she stood there stunned, Matsuda, who could only say what he really felt with the help of alcohol, thought this. Then he got a gentle kiss. A sweet, bewitching kiss that made it impossible not to get lost in it. Theme: Cherish the happy times of childhood.