I just realised that, other than a couple of brief flashbacks set years in the past, chapter 10/11 is the only time Sea and Fah have actually had a conversation on-screen, and it's just them saying their internal monologues at each other. Always seems weird how often authors will skip actually showing characters spend time with each other and acting like they care about each other, in favour of going all in on the drama and just having them say they "I love you" a lot to make up the difference.
Well put. It's a shortcut . . . seems like it's easier to just claim to the audience that people are connected than to show that they are. For instance, to show them enjoying time together you'd have to know your characters well enough to know how they like to spend time. For some reason I'm thinking of the old shoujo "Lovely Complex" where the main conceit early was that the two leads were both theoretically into different people who fit their idea of "their type", but they could never stick to their plans to go after those other characters because the moment they got to somewhere for a double-date kind of opportunity their styles and enthusiasm meshed so well with each other that they forgot all about what they were supposed to be doing and just had fun together. And their banter just energized whole rooms. Long before they realized they were romantically into each other, you understood in your gut that it had to be that way. Not that Love Com was particularly deep or anything, but it was such a beautiful example of showing the characters more than telling you about them.
