This was bothering me so much I had go back and break down exactly why the drama got on my nerves so badly.
Vol4 Ch3 - Haruka starts her "special relationship" with Sumi.
Vol5 Ch3 - A volume later, Mitsuki discovers that Haruka is "going behind Yuu's back"
Vol5 Ch4 - Mitsuki tells Yuu that something is going on between Haruka and Sumi. Yuu gets jealous.
Vol5 Ch9 - After five chapters of status quo with Yuu not acting jealous at all, she finally remembers she's supposed to be upset right now and confronts Haruka: "you're hiding something from me, aren't you?". They're conveniently interrupted. Cue end-of-volume cliffhanger.
Vol6 Ch1 - Rather than continuing where the cliffhanger left off, the previous conversation is forgotten as though it never happened, and it's a new day. After 10 pages of acting upset, without any context whatsoever, Yuu tells Haruka: "I... I'll wait until you're ready to tell me your secret." Yuu kisses her, and the subject is then dropped and never mentioned again.
So, like, Haruka was worried she was being unfaithful, but she convinced herself Yuu would do the same thing to help out a friend. It was never something she had intentionally decided to hide from Yuu. And then, several chapters after finding out, Yuu finally confronts her, only... Yuu never mentions Sumi, at any point. Haruka has no idea what she's talking about, and the second time that Yuu brings up her "secret" Haruka never responds. They aren't even interrupted this time, there's literally just three panels of no text afterwards before cutting away. We never see Haruka's thoughts on any of this after the first time Sumi propositioned her.
I know "manga characters are aliens that are incapable of human communication" is the bog-standard, go-to way to artificially draw out drama in romance manga of all flavours, but this is headdesk-inducing, one of the most frustrating examples I've ever seen. And this kind of thing just keeps happening again and again throughout the manga... I loved all the sweet moments and self-contained chapters where some small insecurity about their relationship popped up and was properly resolved by the end of the chapter, but the bigger drama arcs between Haruka and Yuu were so poorly handled. I remember being annoyed by this when reading along with the releases but I originally put it down to the the usual pain of having months between chapters, but no, it was actually just written that badly.
last edited at May 25, 2022 9:19PM