Lovely chapter. A different variation of the "I can't change our friendship" dilemma. I like the way it's been implemented here. A lot of subtly and emotionality. Everyone is struggling with different demons but are still fundamentally good people. Sometimes good people clash. Really nice touches.

Eri is clearly uncomfortable with Fuyuki's "romance," but she's just not there yet. Fuyuki, for her part, has always been honest with senpai and chose to be even more honest this chapter. She laid everything out, even parts of her past that weren't necessary to share and she made it clear what this relationship is. Senpai already knew that though, so they're consenting to whatever they are for now. It's unclear whether senpai even genuinely likes her, since she also discussed the nature of this relationship in previous chapters. She has her own person she's been hung up on. This chapter more than anything, showed why Fuyuki and Senpai could get along so well in the past: they both can commiserate with one another and share with one another so well.

I still see Eri and Fuyuki getting together at the end. Unless both of them suddenly see worth in their current relationships, they're both putting themselves in unhappy positions in misguided attempts to help other people (mainly each other). And seeing as they're good people, I don't think the author wants to "punish" them by leaving them in unwanted relationships. Kyou is nice but I think he's unfortunately mixed up in the web of complicated feelings of Eri as she slowly better understands herself. A lot of that is just unconscious and Eri clearly doesn't mean to hurt him. This seems like a coming of age, in it's real world complex variety. But we'll see.

Well put

finally one with chisato domming as she should

i was not expecting this

i like shiho because she's a bitch and bitches are cool so she's slightly better than everyone else in this meandering melodramatic manga

seconded

HALLELUJAHHHHHHHHH

I thing that this story is showing the womanizer type as some kind of loser, like someone unable to keep a monogamous relationship or fear of having one because old wounds. They can have fun with some different womens, but at the end of the day they're just lonely and the cool shell is just to covers a sad and broken person. I don't know if I'm right, but if I am, soon we will see the story behind Cleavage-san.

"cleavage-san" is killing me lmao

:') good for them

what's the one where there are three childhood friends, one guy and 2 girls? one of the girls would clean the other girls ears lol

eri is the poster child for comphet.

also I love love love these characters, they're so complex and there's so much subtext making them feel so real. like this is such a common scenario and I like that we don't totally understand the characters' motivations or feelings because they could be construed a number of ways. it's such good writing

last edited at Jul 9, 2023 8:01AM

YES IT'S GETTING GOOOOOD

NOO BUT ALSO YES BUT ALSO NO BUT ALS-

i love themmmmmmm

LMAO atta girl

i love how much range there is in this series. it's so grounded in reality

being the person who sees them at their most vulnerable, them feeling so safe with you that they can be needy and unabashed about what they want, especially when they seemed so invulnerable before >>>>>

fuuko deserves so much better bruh

i need risa so bad

i neeed a sequel where the sex is so good they both end up confessing pls pls pls pls pls pls

stop now i want a girlfriend

When you act and speak in exactly the same way, it is the conclusion people make, and have made many times already all around.

Are you serious right neowww? lmao you sound pretty socially-unaware. claiming homophobes act and speak in the same way as queer people who at most talk shit and try to avoid het in the art they consume is very strange behaviour. i dont see queer people actively trying to get het shows off the air, for instance. and that's just a mild example of homophobia lol. go outside, dude.

EDIT: to be clear, i mean mild as in comparatively, unfortunately there are far more dangerous examples of homophobia

last edited at Jun 3, 2023 12:09PM

I read the raw of chapter 5 and, without discussing spoilers, I think it's mostly consistent with my interpretation.

Could you please spoil it for me, if possible? (with spoiler tags ofc)

Chapter 5 is...sort of a pseudo flashback chapter? It's framed around Fuyuki talking to the blonde senpai about Eri. According to Fuyuki, Eri is a little "selfish" and bad at "reading the mood" (basically means she has bad social manners) and so had trouble making friends. This came to a head in middle school, when Eri was confessed to by a female friend she finally managed to make; Eri turned her down, and apparently a (false, according to Fuyuki) rumor spread that Eri said something homophobic in the process, leading to her getting bullied. Later, in high school, Eri had a breakdown, asked if Fuyuki "likes" her (as you may know, "suki" in Japanese can mean both "like" and "love"), then begged Fuyuki not to betray her and to "always be my friend." Fuyuki says that she used to rely on Eri when they were kids, but now Eri is the one who relies on her.

So the major issue in using this chapter to draw conclusions about Eri is that it's all from Fuyuki's point of view, cobbled together from stuff Eri told her years later and Fuyuki's own speculations (which are almost certainly colored by the pride she feels at being Eri's only friend whom she relies on). While we do get to see certain scenes from Eri's past visualized, several key moments are not shown -- most notably, we don't actually see Eri rejecting her friend, so we don't actually know if Eri really did (inadvertently?) say something homophobic or not. We never once see inside Eri's head. The major upshot of the chapter, to me, is actually about Fuyuki; the lesson she took from Eri's past is that if she confesses her feelings, she'd destroy their friendship. But we don't know if that's how Eri sees things. That's why I think the chapter is consistent with a number of different interpretations of Eri's character.

Edit: I wrote this before I saw Kazu-kun's post. My only disagreement with their post is I don't necessarily think that Eri is using Fuyuki as an "emotional crutch." There's probably some codependency there for sure, but we can't completely trust Fuyuki's view of the situation because she clearly takes a lot of pride in viewing Eri as relying on her; in other words, she has a bias toward viewing Eri as this sort of weak damsel who needs protection and coddling. We can't know the full story until we get a chapter from Eri's point of view.

i appreciate both your perspectives on this. it fuels my curiosity even further because WHAT IS ERI THINKING I NEED TO KNOW

I read the raw of chapter 5 and, without discussing spoilers, I think it's mostly consistent with my interpretation.

Could you please spoil it for me, if possible? (with spoiler tags ofc)

I can do that for you if I don't mind.

First thing first, keep in mind that Eri is one year older than Fuyuki, as they said in chapter 3. That means they never went to school together. Also back when they were kids, Eri was Fuyuki's older sister figure. She was more mature and always looked after Fuyuki who was a bit of a crybaby. This is a stark contrast to their current relationship. Now Eri is sort of immature and childish in her behavior while Fuyuki is the seemingly more mature one. There's a reason for this....

Eri was a bit of a selfish kid that liked to do things at her own pace and wasn't that good at reading the room. As a result, she had problems making friends in elementary school. And this problem only escalated as she grew up. On top of that, Eri was kind of a badass back then, so when another kid threw her shoes to the garbage bin in an stupid attempt to bully her, Eri went and outright beat her up. Quite badass indeed, but this kind of situations just isolated her more from all the kids in class. Meanwhile, Fuyuki who was even younger and only met with Eri occasionally didn't know Eri was going through all this crap.

By the time Eri started junior high, she was all alone, so she ended up clinging to the first person that talked to her. She was so happy she finally made a friend, but it all came crashing down when that friend confessed to her. Eri rejected her, and after that, everyone else in her class accused her of being cruel and telling the other girl she was disgusting and whatnot.

Eri was all alone all over again, and then one day when she and Fuyuki were hanging out, Eri finally broke down and spilled all this to Fuyuki while crying her heart out. In desperation she made Fuyuki promise she will never abandon her, that she would be her friend forever. And ever since then, their relationship changed. Originally, Eri was the older sister figure, since she was the older one, but after this Eri became more childish and started clinging to Fuyuki and depending on her. Fuyuki became her emotional crutch.

Eri is way more messed up than we all thought. The hints were all there though, like the way she clings to Fuyuki and seemed dependant on her, or the fact she doesn't have any friends besides Fuyuki and Kyou, and even her relationship with Kyou is mostly superficial and empty.

Fuyuki was telling all this to her sempai, and she seems to have some sort of plan and wants her senpai to help her. But to be honest, no matter what kind of plan Fuyuki has, I think the main problem here is that Eri is deeply damaged, emotionally speaking, and I don't think she needs a girlfriend. I think she needs to fix her life first. She can't keep depending on Fuyuki and using her as her emotional crutch. That's just not healthy. And if they did get together, it would just make the problem worse, imo.

thank youuuuuu. definitely sticking with this more

I read the raw of chapter 5 and, without discussing spoilers, I think it's mostly consistent with my interpretation.

Could you please spoil it for me, if possible? (with spoiler tags ofc)

i have a crush on risa

this made me cry ;-; so sweet