After a De-Aged Matsuda Was Taken In by His Childhood Friend

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Matsuda died.

He was killed by a countdown bomb.

In the second before the explosion swallowed him, he heard a "Ding!" followed by: [Successfully bound Host. Newbie gift is being delivered. Loading mission...]

Matsuda hadn't heard the rest before he lost consciousness.

When his consciousness woke again, it was seven years later.

He stood before a familiar door, looking up at a familiar number plaque, while the cold voice of a System sounded in his ear.

[Gift delivery successful. Host, please begin your mission.]

[Opening gift... Gift opened successfully.]

[Host, I've found you a marriage match.]

Matsuda: ?

Matsuda looked down at his small body, then at the age displayed on the System panel: seven.

Matsuda demanded, "I'm only seven. What kind of marriage match did you find me?"

[I found you a dad.]

Matsuda: ??

A coworker tried to set up another coworker, who'd been single for years and was almost thirty, with a date.

Coworker: It's fine. You're only a single parent with one kid. You could be a single parent with ten and still have people interested in you!

Hagiwara: ...Thanks, but no thanks.

After his coworker wouldn't stop pushing, Hagiwara finally got fed up. "This kid is the child of the person I love. He's using my last name now, so he's the biological child of me and the person I love!"

His coworker fell silent.

What a brazen homewrecker!

The coworker asked seriously: Does the guy know?

Does your childhood friend who died on the job know you're coveting his widow?

Hagiwara: The person I love is a man.

Coworker: Oh no.

That's even worse than being in love with a married woman.

How could anything this hair-raising happen in real life?!

For Matsuda, all he did was close his eyes and open them again, and suddenly he was looking at his grown-up childhood friend.

His childhood friend had quietly grown up while Matsuda couldn't see him. He'd quietly become someone who could cry, and quietly fallen in love with someone.

Matsuda, uneasy: If I'm here, will I cause trouble for Hagi?

Hagi has someone he likes. Would having a kid affect how that person sees him?

I'm more like a burden here.

[No, Host. In other people's eyes, you are your own orphan.]

[Besides, your childhood friend treats you like his biological child. Do you know what that means?]

Jinpei Matsuda remembered the outrageous things he'd overheard Hagiwara Kenji say about a photo of the adult version of himself, and ventured a cautious guess: He likes me?

[Why would you think that? You're a child right now. If he liked you, wouldn't that make him a pervert?]

[And you've said yourself that the relationship between you is only the friendship of childhood companions and the familial love between father and son!]

Matsuda didn't understand. When had he ever said that?

[Congratulations on completing the mission: Meet with an FBI agent.

Reward: A repaired counterfeit ID.]

[Congratulations, Host. You now have an adult body for a short time.]

Note:

Out-of-character moments ahead.

A brain-storage-box story.

Many original settings and alterations.

Lots of rambling.

Read with caution.

Currently updating every other day.

New chapters at 9 p.m.

Theme: Discovering my childhood friend has a crush on me after I got younger