I really dont want to bring the discussion down or anything but the recent chapters have honestly kinda cemented this series as true queerbait status to me.
Like more and more in this series I'm seeing a lot of implied gay but no following through ever, just implications because that sells copies and its far worse than I've seen in any series that isnt sound euphonium so its really sticking out to me and starting to affect my enjoyment of the series immensely.
I'd actually argue its worse than sound euphonium because they actually acknowledge these as crushes and/or homosexual attraction but never do anything with it at all, just continue to tease and tease and tease.
While I see your point and I agree with it to a certain extent, I can't deny that I'll still be reading it all the way through 'cause it's lesbians making video gamez, for God's sake. I'd argue, though, that it's better that they acknowledge Rin's and Hifumi's and whoever else's crushes as legitimately legitimate attraction as opposed to Hibike's "SCHOOLGIRL LOVE THEY BOTH GROW OUT OF" or whatever they tried to pass it off as. And since New Game ain't over, at least we can hold on to the hope that something may happen at some point as opposed to Hibike... (I haven't watched it 'cause of the queerbaiting, but I swear I'm actually gonna binge watch the entire thing in a day if KumiRei becomes canon somehow in that new movie that's coming out soon). I mean, that's what we've always said about Supernatural, and it's, what, the 12th season now and nothing fucking happened, so, yeah, nothing's gonna fucking happen here either but one can hope...