Anyway, this is all just an argument to prove that it isn’t Hayama, and while it seems like we’re just picking at the straws for clues, I’m hesitant to believe it is her, or that her being the “Sunset Girl” would impact the story at all (or at least, compared to Amane being the girl instead).
And I do think the “Sunset Girl” photo is important to the story since it was brought up and Tarumizu specifically asked about it. Hayama also followed up commenting on her slump, and the year it was taken seems to add up with Amane and Nene’s middle school years, so I remain skeptical of it.
I do agree with this. I also find it interesting how Hayama addresses Amane without honorifics and Nene with a "-chan", iirc (but please do correct me if I'm wrong) dropping the honorifics when calling someone's name is akin to being close to that person enough to have the privilege to do so.
I do believe that Hayama is close to Amane to some extent, maybe on a friendly level of a sort? Because I am questioning how she knows that the two dated back in middle school, from how Nene acts, she seems like the type to be private about such things so I doubt they'd act like lovers openly around people unless alone or in a different place away from home. The only thing I can think of on how Hayama would know if it's Amane who tells her about it because Amane seems like type to do so.
I wouldn't be surprised if Hayama might be the indirect reason why the two broke up, but that's an idea that's stretching things too far so it might be about the "Sunset Girl" photo. And since I'm already saying this, I might as well throw out the idea that maybe Hayama likes Amane, I won't be surprised if she does, because some things will make sense if she does happen to like her.
Tbh, with the way Nene acts around Amane, I'm not sure if they'll even get together, that'll probably take a lot of time and a really good push and I'm not so sure if Nene's feelings are even intact unlike Amane's from what I see. I won't be surprised if Nene even starts to like Tarumizu.
I do know is that something's very fishy about Hayama and I can feel the "evil" aura from her.