I, too, am pissed that he never delivered something neither he nor the publisher promised.
Yes, the ending was flawed, but my problem isn't that it wasn't sufficiently gay. It was that the idea of them moving pretty much came out of nowhere, even for people who were obsessively analyzing small implications in the story, dealt with the ex-boyfriend situation far too simply to be satisfying and off-camera to boot, and things with the mother never really were resolved but handwaved away instead. Generally speaking it was like he was in a rush to wrap things up and generally made a mess instead.
As to the gay, I've said it before that this feels like the end of the second act of a romance novel, where the woman who's been holding back from love separates herself from the situation and comes to realize that yes, she does return those feelings. Keiko's definitely the type who needs some solitude and time to work through her feelings, especially after working through her personal trauma. We're just missing them reuniting a year or whatever down the road and beginning a real relationship. I can handle not explicitly seeing that, since the door seems wide open to that storyline continuing. They're not together at the moment but they're both in each others' lives still while pursuing their goals, and neither seem interested in other relationships. Given that the narrative never was about a romance between the two of them, but rather Keiko exorcising her personal demons, the fact that there was subtext at all, with Ran making her feelings quite clear, was a bonus.
Do I wish there was a kiss and a confession and them having a HEA ending? Sure I do. But I figure not getting that is the least of the ending's sins.
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