Rival!!
Milk Morinaga is so fluffy with sprinkles on teen angst. I feel like some of this is like other series, yet with a nice spin to still keep things interesting? Maybe I'm just biased to love Milk Morinaga works even when I'm like "I've technically read this elsewhere" because I got into her works young, lol. I just like Morinaga's particular flair to things - but I still haven't really identified what that is. Could just be art.
Her art is nice and an important part of what makes her works good. What makes her special to me is that she paces her stories well, with a defined beginning, middle, and end, and she understands the importance of friendship in romance better than almost any writer I've seen. She shows you how and why two people come to love each other, and she sells it believably even using very standard tropes, which most love stories, at least for me, fail to do.