"Did Ash say he had no dreams... is that true?"
"If it wasn't true, would it be false?" The man grew interested again at the girl's initiative in approaching him. "What, do those with dreams feel superior in front of someone without one?"
Well, that was only natural. After all, I'd always drawn a sense of superiority from the citizens beneath me through my position as King~
"That's not it at all!"
The girl shook her head, utterly caught between laughter and tears, then spoke seriously again.
"I think being real is very important to Ash!"
"I'm not that boring..."
"I'm serious!"
The earnestness in the girl's eyes truly had not changed. No, after hearing Kirara talk about how he had always been "role-playing," she had become more serious about him than ever before.
"Ash, maybe... you're unexpectedly different from what we all thought. Maybe you aren't that kind of bad person."
If that was true, then it meant what I had seen before had not been wrong.
"What are you talking about, some plot from a novel or manga?"
"It's not a novel, it's real!"
She had indeed once caught a glimpse of that incomparably deep, heavy "black hole" within Ash. But on second thought, despite possessing such terrifying darkness, the only destructiveness Ash displayed was possessiveness. Didn't that prove he had always been suppressing himself? Wasn't that amazing?
"Ash really likes Pretty Cure, right?"
"Yeah, because Pretty Cure can radiate that kind of brilliance that even makes my heart stir..."
"No, there's no such thing as liking someone for no reason... At least, Ash wouldn't like me for no reason."
Haruka was a little saddened as she said this. After all, he had officially classified her as the not-very-pretty type, so it could hardly be love at first