I'd be more intrigued if the main character did ANY work at all to get this relationship started.
Straight or queer, I hate stories that are, "I moped about a girl and then she threw herself at me."
normally i'd agree with you there, but she knew the other girl had boyfriend(s) and thus wasn't set on making a move for obvious reasons. She didn't know until the very end she was single, so it got dropped into her lap after being found out. Telling someone you're interested in dating them while they're seeing someone else would be a dick move, so really it's not so much that she moped but more that she got noticed at just the right time.
And, to a certain degree, she did do SOME work... She noticed that Nika was feeling down when everyone else around her just saw her normal, upbeat personality that she tries to portray to the world. This, combined with noticing the eraser writings, clued Nika in on the fact that Kurumi seriously pays attention to her and probably honestly cares about her, not just about her looks.
There are LOTS of characters in yuri who date a lot of guys, even kissing them, before awakening to the fact that lesbians exist. I'm not sure why this one in particular gets the "slut" treatment when this one or this one or even this one even though the last one actually does sleep around before she commits to one woman, really don't.
Exactly! (And the third one there might have less a than charitable opinion of her former self, now that she's settled down and come to the realization that she's a one-woman girl.)
Alternatively, she removes the bow because she wears it at school to look cute but it's actually kind of uncomfortable and can give her headaches if she keeps it on too long, and there are no plot implications whatsoever. :p
I know that's roughly how I feel about putting my hair back in a ponytail for semi-formal occasions.
That would be hilarious, but probably a bit too much realism.
And, now that we have chapter 3... I think we all know why she was letting her hair down, eh?
As for chapter 3...
Kyou: Wow... you didn't follow your own advice to Kurumi and now she's got herself a girlfriend... and it's one you don't approve of... TOUGH $#!% Get over it! It's your friend's life, not yours! And you have no idea what's going on in her life! You don't KNOW that she ever two-timed anyone because you don't know the real relationship between her and the guy that picked her up. You also don't know if she was actually still dating that boyfriend anymore at the time. (You know she doesn't stay with them long, right?) If you would have talked with your best friend more about why she fell for her, you MIGHT have found out about her seeing her crying in public... It looked to me like she was working as a host, despite being underage. But YOU work at that place as well, so how different is her job from yours? Or did you not figure out that is what she was doing?
Yeah... It's pretty clear that Nika is working as a host. She probably has some sort of serious monetary issue, either because her father doesn't send her enough money or because of the medical bills from when her mother died. I'm betting that the guy that was in this chapter is a relative or close friend, not someone she has ever been romantically involved with. (Though I'm not going to rule out the possibility that HE would like to be romantically involved with HER.)
As for her history of being a serial dater, I'm starting to think that was all shade. I'm thinking she made up boyfriends to hide her job.