Honestly, I think Ritsu looked better with the ponytail. Though that's just a personal preference as I don't really care for female character designs with such short cut hair. If it wasn't for this being a yuri, I would have assumed she was a dude in half of her panels. XD

I hope you'll stick around for chapter 4, in which the reason for her haircut is discussed. It's my favourite chapter :)

That first panel. Hugging would be Embracing surely? Is she misreading it? Weird translation detail?

Read the credits page.

I didn't explain this specifically in the endnotes. The social media post uses dakitsuku (embrace) and Kanna says hagu (hug) instead. So not only did she misread the post, she also uses a word without romantic connotations. My guess is that the author needed Uno to be completely unaware that the post was about romance, because she currently thinks of Ritsu as just a good friend. It's a bit confusing even in Japanese, but that's how it is :)