Cure Narrative 43: It's Simple

Season: Fresh Precure

Characters: Soular (and Westar, Miki A. and Setsuna H.)

Summary: There's no need to overthink or analyse it.

Italics: thoughts

Bold: emphasis

"Sou— Shun!" Miki called to Soular, now under the guise of 'Minami Shun', as she approached their meeting point, "Sorry for the wait."

"It's fine," he closed the book he was reading, "Work went overtime?"

She nodded apologetically.

"Then we can't help it," he stated in an as-a-matter-of-fact manner, "Don't worry, Setsuna assured me that she'll handle the work, and even Westar said he'd help. So I have until evening to spend here on Earth."

As the People's Republic of Labyrinth advanced towards a new era step by step, the temporary arrangement of Eas, Westar and Soular being the administrators was slowly expanding into a larger and more effective government body.

Even so, the trio was still in a very high position, with a lot of work to do.

Westar was never the type to do paperwork (or to be responsible in general), and he wasn't exactly organised. Setsuna, albeit a responsible person, she was after all, the youngest in the entire government body. Therefore, since he didn't mind, Soular usually did most of the administrating.

But today, Setsuna, being the kind girl she was, offered to do the best they could so he could head to Clover Town for a hangout.

And according to his studies in socialising, he came to a conclusion that Setsuna and Westar would be pleased if he took up the offer.

So he did.

"So, Miki, what will be our itinerary for the day?" he asked as he followed Miki into a mall.

"It's tentative," she replied curtly, her eyes had already been caught by a dress on display in the store just ahead, "Come on."

"I fail to comprehend the importance of fashion," he complained for the fourth time, "Is it a girl thing? Or a human thing? Or is it a you and Erika and Hime thing? Why do you like dressing up?"

Miki only grinned as she held a t-shirt in front of him and asked if he liked it.

He briefly considered the colours and told her, "I suppose it's not bad."

After a lot of "Just try it on! It won't hurt to just try!"s, they decided to sit down at Kaoru-chan's since it was about tea time.

Miki talked about some interesting stuff that happened at school or at work, while Soular listened and commented from time to time. (He focused more on the donuts because the donuts Westar made in Labyrinth was nowhere near as good)

Since they still had a lot of time, they decided to watch a movie.

There was a newly released romance drama Miki wanted to watch, so they decided on that.

Though romance was never a genre Soular pay attention to, he didn't dislike it. Besides, he didn't really care about movies in general, so why not let Miki pick?

When Miki asked him for his opinion, he explained that, psychologically, the female protagonists would be far too traumatised after the climax to react to the male protagonist's sweet words.

He had been doing a lot of researches about humans in his free time.

As the sun began to set, Soular decided to return to Labyrinth.

Before he left, Miki said to him, "I'm so glad to see you smiling so often today, after all this time. Knowing that you enjoyed yourself today makes me happy too. Let's hang out again some time, maybe with Love and Buki, Setsuna and Westar too. Goodbye."

I've been smiling?

But I didn't feel like it...

All day, we've been doing things that Miki wanted to do, things that I normally wouldn't specifically care about. (Donuts is on the fence but anyways)

I do not understand.

Not even once have I done anything special today. Not even once have I felt the corners of my mouth curl up.

And yet she said I've been smiling?

How can this be?

What exactly makes a person smile?

"Ah, welcome back, Soular," Westar grinned when Soular opened the door to their office, "Did your date go well?"

"It's not a date, Westar," Soular stated.

"Eeh~~ You still have a tiny glimmer in your eyes when you came in," Westar inspected his expression, "But it's gone now? Aww, are you missing Miki already?"

"Stop it, Westar!" Setsuna nudged him.

"I just wanna know if there were any developments between them!"

"And the answer is no," Soular coldly denied and slouched into his chair.

"Did you not enjoy yourself today?" Setsuna inquired.

"..." he considered his answer for a moment, "I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"No! Because Miki said I smiled often today, but we have literally been doing nothing that I like to do, I don't understand how it works."

To his dismay, Westar and Setsuna bursted out laughing.

"Soular, did you go out today to analyse how smiling works?" Setsuna asked in between giggles.

"Partly yes, if I managed to figure out what makes a person smile, we could better our service to the people."

"I can't believe you've been trapped in this mindset for so long!" Westar was laughing so hard that Soular kind of wanted to kick him in the guts, "I thought you, of all people, should've figured it out by now."

"Figure out what?"

"Stop overthinking, you'll never arrive at a conclusion," Setsuna calmed herself from all the giggling, "Smiling isn't something that you do, it's something that... just happens, you won't even notice it."

"And enjoyment isn't always dependent on what you do, you just enjoy. But your attempt in trying to analyse it is hilarious," Westar, on the other hand, didn't even bother to stop laughing.

"Soular, our people are happy," Setsuna assured him, "And both them and us would love to see you truly relax a bit."

"... I see... Thank you."

"There, smiling is just this simple," Westar pointed at Soular's face, "There's no need to overthink or analyse it."

End of Chapter 43

A/N: Yes, I feel bad for breaking my streak of angsty chapters, and yes, I am ready to shatter your heart again soon.