I surrender! I surrender, okay?! I seriously never knew Mana had such a shameless side to her?!
Next, it was Ash's turn to ask questions.
His method of checking had indeed been a little rough, but it shouldn't have been enough to wake someone up. Ash had that much sense. If so, then there was only one possibility!
"So you were never asleep at all? You pretended to be asleep and used bait enforcement to lure me out?"
Who would have thought? After tricking her so many times in the past, he had actually been tricked by her this time?
Ash was unwilling to accept it, unwilling to accept that she had really managed to fool him.
"I did originally plan to do that."
Brushing her messy hair, which had been tousled by the pillow, Ai smiled a little awkwardly as she said this.
"But while I was waiting, I accidentally really fell asleep... I only opened my eyes again when I vaguely felt a little pain around my chest."
"...When did you see through me?"
"Actually, I didn't."
In truth, Mana had become suspicious earlier when she saw that Ash was holding the same "toy phone" as Ash. Though she had no concrete proof, a certain kind of "intuition" had given her an answer.
"And that child named Ash... I do like children, but feeling so inexplicably close to him right from the start was strange when I thought back on it, wasn't it?"
As for why Mana had instinctively taken such good care of Ash... this "Ash" had originally been disguised using Ash's own appearance from when he was twelve. It wasn't as though she had never seen it before. Wasn't it only natural that she would feel such familiarity and closeness?
"So once I felt there had