Hagiwara, Why Are You Black on the Inside?

The year he turned twenty, a crack split Hagiwara Kenji's world.

Matsuda Jinpei disappeared.

It wasn't a farewell or a departure. It was as if a shadow had been wiped away by the morning mist, its very existence quietly erased by some unseen force. He searched everywhere he could think of and questioned everyone connected to Matsuda. He even snuck into the archives in the dead of night, his fingertips gliding over the cold pages. But it was as though Matsuda's name had never existed.

As time passed, even his memories began to blur.

Hagiwara would sometimes wake with a start at dawn, half convinced that a lazy voice beside him should be grumbling about getting up so early. But when he turned, only an empty breeze brushed past his ear.

Until that day.

The target of the operation lay in a pool of blood. The person standing in the shadows wore a familiar pair of sunglasses, holding an unlit cigarette between his fingers.

Hagiwara's breath caught for a second.

(...Is it you?)

He didn't dare be sure.

Perhaps it was an elaborate trap. Or perhaps he had gone completely mad after waiting for so long.

But when the man turned around and said in that careless tone of his...

"Hagi?"

The world suddenly had a voice again.

Old Blurb:

When Hagiwara was twenty, he lost his childhood friend. Distraught, he traveled to many places and tried every avenue he could, but found no trace of him.

Matsuda Jinpei had vanished without a word. Everything about him was hidden behind a veil of fog. Then, while taking down a traitor, Hagiwara finally saw that familiar figure again.

He couldn't be mistaken about that sense of familiarity. It was Matsuda Jinpei.

But could the Matsuda Jinpei standing before him really be trusted? Was he a trap?... Hagiwara decided to test him.

·

After Matsuda Jinpei died, he ended up in a dark alley. Before he could even figure out what was going on, he realized that his childhood friend might have become a terrorist.

For some reason, he was surprised, but he didn't feel disgust or anything like that. It was as if he had no trouble accepting the truth.

It might have been more convincing if Hagiwara Kenji hadn't been pointing a gun at him.

#The angst is all in the past. Things get sweet later, but the author has zero romantic experience, so please be understanding if anything falls short.

#Leave a comment if there's something you'd like to see the two of them do together. I'll write it if it makes sense. ()

Theme: Cherish the people around you