Ok folks, I have a theory about that cryptic chapter. It's just an idea, I'm not sure. I didn't see this theory on the posts but if there were already, sorry.
So, there is Shizuka's haircut as an element, but also the eating problem of Kaoru. Indeed, she seems to not eat enough : Shizuka tells her "are you eating well" and Kaoru answers "I'm eating fine...neither of us are the same as we were then". So that means for Shizuka that she had long hair and for Kaoru she was kinda anorexic (that's first step of my theory).
It is confirmed that Shizuka did change : she cut her hair and, what goes with it, she's dating Mio (which is implicit in the text). But, Kaoru faints twice, and I think it's because she didn't eat enough.
So, maybe (final step) that means she didn't change that much in the (not as she said and not as much as Shizuka did change).
Does it make sense ?
Even tho, I'm in the team of "Kaoru making progress" (very slowly), but that's not part of the point here.