Imo the interactions between the girls— Hakarane specifically— doesn’t come off as a joke. They def have tension between them two + one of the GFs reads yuri. Literally in canon yuri, clearly stated, “a mature romance office story between two women” I think was the wording?
And it was brought up again by another GF tryna open her world up to yuri. Like, there’s NO WAY this is just bait or a joke. There’s an actual chance for some sort of dialogue between the two