A more charitable interpretation is that Chinatsu was indeed a genuinely talented, important asset to the company, and when she resigned suddenly the leadership investigated. And when they discovered that it was caused by a baseless rumor from jealous colleagues, they were "encouraged" to follow her out the door. But because this is Japanese office culture, nobody just flat out said "stop spreading stupid rumors you ding-dongs."

Yeah they said she was still in contact with the boss while she was away. She must have spilled the beans and reported him. Everyone in the office seemed to know it was him afterwards.

This is an incredible development and goes a good way to giving insight into Hiro's mindset. Not completely shocking if you understand the kinda corporate working environment Japan promotes, traditionally, at least.

Oh, I see...well I never disliked Hiroko,and much less now...Let's see how this ends!

That explains everythinggggggggggggggggg!

Too little too late.

It was kind of weak tbh.

Like I get it but c’mon. There must have been better ways to handle the situation with Ayaka. But yeah, sucks to work in Japan, especially being gay. Big oof.

And even if you're not gay, sucks to be a career woman. "Only way for a chick to get this far is humping the bosses!" Seriously?

Yeah it’s hard for me to be too upset with Hiroko after seeing the full context. In an office culture like that, it’s survival above all dealing with gross treatment from a homophobic and misogynistic society. It truly disgusts me

I see, so, Hiroko was once in Ayaka's shoes. But what I don't get is that, she knows she isn'r as cruel as the Senpai she once pursued. So, why is she so afraid of reciprocating Ayaka's feelings?

Do we know that the Senpai was cruel? She might have suffered from what Hiroko is afraid of. She was apologizing here for getting Hiroko involved in something.

An apologizing Senpai, eh?

I actually never got around to those specials and the novels! I really should though. How were they? And hopefully this senpai isn't as much of a creep. The framing seemed sympathetic though.

Yeah I was thinking exactly what that other person was thinking. I guess being an avid Yuri fan has automatically wired me to think badly about any scene with an apologizing senpai. One where the senpai leaves the main girl because "we're just two girls and eventually we have to get married and have a family in order to achieve happiness" or some kind of bull like that. But reading this chapter now, I should've not automatically assume the worst. And you're right, I do sympathize with Hiroko's senpai.

I don’t want to work for a company in Japan.

I have some good news.

Oh, I know. But if there were any such fleeting thoughts anywhere, they’re gone.

Mmm mmm, don’t you just love when grown ass adults engage in high school rumor mongering?

Aaaaaaaand dropped

A more charitable interpretation is that Chinatsu was indeed a genuinely talented, important asset to the company, and when she resigned suddenly the leadership investigated. And when they discovered that it was caused by a baseless rumor from jealous colleagues, they were "encouraged" to follow her out the door. But because this is Japanese office culture, nobody just flat out said "stop spreading stupid rumors you ding-dongs."

Yeah they said she was still in contact with the boss while she was away. She must have spilled the beans and reported him. Everyone in the office seemed to know it was him afterwards.

Yes, it's pretty rare to get directly sacked, unless there is a crime and police get involved. Company image is ridiculously important.

But your bosses can make workplace feel like hell anyway. Either they stuff your desk permanently with menial work in such amounts you never want to see a piece of paper ever again, or they throw you into a broom closet and tell you it is your new "office", now stay there and shut up for the rest of your "career".

last edited at Jun 19, 2023 6:45PM

Do... people only want sickly sweet wholesome stories? There's so much anger in this thread, it's kind of surprising (but maybe I just don't read the threads much). But for me, I really like the realism of the story. Dating coworkers, especially when you're the senior, isn't recommended for a reason. It can be super messy.

I wonder if the path moving forward will be that there's been a change in the office's culture as more of the "old guard" was removed and the new people are a bit more open.

I wonder if the path moving forward will be that there's been a change in the office's culture as more of the "old guard" was removed and the new people are a bit more open

That's the hope, right? That Hiroko's sensitivities just haven't caught up to the changed landscape.

Do... people only want sickly sweet wholesome stories? There's so much anger in this thread

Is there? Not really that much IMO, and to the extent that there is, practically NONE of it is complaining about the story not being wholesome. Mostly there have been complaints about the characterization being unrealistic. Which, despite all the stuff since the early chapters making excuses for why the characters have been behaving in certain ways, is in my opinion still basically the case, but I never really minded--they were being portrayed in an exaggerated way for comic effect, and it WAS fairly funny. But still, whether I agreed with people being upset about that or not, it was not upset about the story not being wholesome enough.

Since then, there has been criticism of the personality and actions of the characters, but again, that does not in my opinion equate to criticism of the STORY for having imperfect people in it. It's like soap operas, people watch them SO THAT they can cut up the characters--it's part of the fun. It's fine to like stories about characters that do irrational or unethical things, but there remains a distinction between characters doing bad things and characters doing good things. Is there some compact I don't know about that requires people who like stories about train wrecks to PRETEND they're wholesome when they talk about them?

And even if you're not gay, sucks to be a career woman. "Only way for a chick to get this far is humping the bosses!" Seriously?

And the worst part is that there's some truth to it, precisely because no matter how good a woman is they're probably not going to promote her. It's like, sure, she's five times as good as any of the guys, but it's not like they'd promote her for THAT--she's a woman. In some ways Japanese culture is like a snapshot of the 70s in North America. Unfortunately I think it's stayed about there for some time.

Do... people only want sickly sweet wholesome stories? There's so much anger in this thread

Is there? Not really that much IMO, and to the extent that there is, practically NONE of it is complaining about the story not being wholesome. Mostly there have been complaints about the characterization being unrealistic. Which, despite all the stuff since the early chapters making excuses for why the characters have been behaving in certain ways, is in my opinion still basically the case, but I never really minded--they were being portrayed in an exaggerated way for comic effect, and it WAS fairly funny. But still, whether I agreed with people being upset about that or not, it was not upset about the story not being wholesome enough.

Since then, there has been criticism of the personality and actions of the characters, but again, that does not in my opinion equate to criticism of the STORY for having imperfect people in it. It's like soap operas, people watch them SO THAT they can cut up the characters--it's part of the fun. It's fine to like stories about characters that do irrational or unethical things, but there remains a distinction between characters doing bad things and characters doing good things. Is there some compact I don't know about that requires people who like stories about train wrecks to PRETEND they're wholesome when they talk about them?

"Wholesome" is the wrong word, I think.

If you surf Amazon's romance e-book section, and read the blurbs of all the various self-published romance e-books, an awful lot of them will specifically mention "HEA" in the description. "HEA" stands for "Happily Ever After", and is a way for the author of the work to let prospective readers know that, whatever acrimony the author happens to stir up between the two protagonists, there will be a happy ending.

So why are they literally spoiling the ending of their book to prospective buyers who haven't read the book yet? Because there are an awful lot of romance consumers who really just want that "romantic catharsis" (for lack of a better phrase). That feeling you get when all the awkward will-they-won't-they is finally resolved and the protagonists get a relationship upgrade and become an official couple, and then we can watch them be a couple for however much longer the story lasts. That moment when the reader can say "FUCKING FINALLY" because the protagonists just cleared the table of all the bullshit that was keeping them apart.

Speaking for myself, I certainly enjoy those moments. When Hana finally confessed to Hina. When Kase gave Yamada her first kiss. When Taiga told Ryuji "moichido" (though, granted, they'd confessed earlier). That's the payoff for reading a romance in the first place.

And I think there are a lot of readers of romance fiction who want just that. That's why they bother reading these stories in the first place. And they want it relatively quickly. And that's fine, right? One should not argue matters of taste, as the old saying goes. However, for folks like that, Hiroko is absolutely anathema, because as a protagonist in a romance story she is (so far) purely an obstacle to "romantic catharsis". Instead of clearing the table of all the bullshit, she just keeps adding more bullshit to the table. And doing so in a definitive way very different from the usual sorts of will-they-won't-they complications that pop up in other stories that don't draw as much ire. (Like, think how long it took Mari and Akko to finally confess.)

For me, that's fine, as I like the way the author is handling it so far. But it seems that many folks find it more frustrating than enjoyable, which has led to folks directing their frustration towards Hiroko and hoping Ayaka ends up with, well, anybody else.

Thank you to Sal Jiang for giving the new senpai character a mole so I can tell the characters apart, very nice of you.

I feel like folks are getting too deep into the weeds with Hiroko. Like they start with one conclusion and backtrack to fill in the rest. how the story is going so far, this chapter is the first time we really get into her pov. up till now, it was primarily ayakas, like can folks say much with incomplete info about a character.

YESS, explanation to her, rather confusing, reasonings !! It was inevitable on such a good story though. Imo it was understandable before the whole Chinatsu and the company story, but confusing 'cause it just felt like something was missing and they went a long way here.

Instead of clearing the table of all the bullshit, she just keeps adding more bullshit to the table

Just adding what I think to what Vankomycin said: and isn't that human-like as shit? I share the same feeling of also liking the "HEA" endings 'cause it really is a great feeling of relief and payoff, but I'm -also- here for how romance can ACTUALLY happen irl, with the concept that the most realistic story we could get is the one that sometimes things makes no sense, and the most unrealistic stories are the ones where everything falls into place like a glove right away.
Romance, love, human connections are simply... not simple, Hiroko is going through her shit, doing things to deal with her own shit and ofc it didn't feel like clean waters exactly because, probably, her mindset is: I really, really love and cherish this amazing person who also treats me well, but this same person basically sacrificed something for me to succeed. Now there's this really new, very interesting and daring person wanting to interact with me in a way that could pretty much destroy what the other person sacrificed for. She even said in the last page "I'll make sure this chance will not go to waste". So I understand why there's shit on top of shit 'cause honestly, if I was in her shoes, I'd be confused as hell on what to do now too...

Personally, when a story has these many rocks on its path, if the ending end up to be "Happily ever after", the feeling of happiness and relief I'm gonna get for these characters to finally be happy after so many battles is far bigger than stories like Can't Defy the Lonely Girl, where the main couple had tense situations, but not as tense and as complex as Hiroko and Ayaka's. (It did have the potential, but I at least felt like Kashikaze wanted to water down things?)
But if it ends and they're not together I'm personally also ok with it... romance doesn't always works. If I wanna see pairings have their HEA at the end I'll just.. read another story.

Mhmmm ... the fact that Chinatsu ended up resigning along with "all the old guard" and then refusing any further contact kiiiiiinda makes me vaguely suspicious that the "rumors" might not have been entirely unfounded, but obviously that's neither here nor there.

Nah. We explicitly got her internal monologue where she dismisses them as unfounded rumors. It's only when the risk of Hiroko getting outed comes to the forefront that she resigns, explicitly because that WASN'T an unfounded rumor. She was fine weathering lies, she quit to protect Hiroko's truth.

Thank you to Sal Jiang for giving the new senpai character a mole so I can tell the characters apart, very nice of you.

Her haircut is also neater in the back than Hiroko's, that's how I told them apart.

Thank you to Sal Jiang for giving the new senpai character a mole so I can tell the characters apart, very nice of you.

Once you become a senpai, the mole just appears. It's a rule of nature.

gonna say something controversial: I like Hiroko

I feel like my issue with this series is mainly that when we got Hiroko's POV it was just her freaking out over her gay panic. We could hypothesize that there was something that happened in her past but we didn't get a single hint. All the insight we got was her denial, excuses, and her friends at the bar trashing her for being a lady killer and liar. There was literally nothing there for us to sympathize with. I think that's on the story writer. I feel that dropping her exposition in just one huge chunk is offputting. I personally would have liked a little bit here and a little bit there. It's still been an interesting ride and the side characters are great. IMO Hiroko's character was fumbled.

last edited at Jun 20, 2023 4:52PM

YESS, explanation to her, rather confusing, reasonings !! It was inevitable on such a good story though. Imo it was understandable before the whole Chinatsu and the company story, but confusing 'cause it just felt like something was missing and they went a long way here.

Instead of clearing the table of all the bullshit, she just keeps adding more bullshit to the table

Just adding what I think to what Vankomycin said: and isn't that human-like as shit? I share the same feeling of also liking the "HEA" endings 'cause it really is a great feeling of relief and payoff, but I'm -also- here for how romance can ACTUALLY happen irl, with the concept that the most realistic story we could get is the one that sometimes things makes no sense, and the most unrealistic stories are the ones where everything falls into place like a glove right away.
Romance, love, human connections are simply... not simple, Hiroko is going through her shit, doing things to deal with her own shit and ofc it didn't feel like clean waters exactly because, probably, her mindset is: I really, really love and cherish this amazing person who also treats me well, but this same person basically sacrificed something for me to succeed. Now there's this really new, very interesting and daring person wanting to interact with me in a way that could pretty much destroy what the other person sacrificed for. She even said in the last page "I'll make sure this chance will not go to waste". So I understand why there's shit on top of shit 'cause honestly, if I was in her shoes, I'd be confused as hell on what to do now too...

Personally, when a story has these many rocks on its path, if the ending end up to be "Happily ever after", the feeling of happiness and relief I'm gonna get for these characters to finally be happy after so many battles is far bigger than stories like Can't Defy the Lonely Girl, where the main couple had tense situations, but not as tense and as complex as Hiroko and Ayaka's. (It did have the potential, but I at least felt like Kashikaze wanted to water down things?)
But if it ends and they're not together I'm personally also ok with it... romance doesn't always works. If I wanna see pairings have their HEA at the end I'll just.. read another story.

Very very well-put, I was going to say as much myself, but you beat me to it and probably better than I would have ^^;