This chapter is a pretty blatant parallel to the scene in chapter 4 where Kon is driving while begging Ai not to die, and Ai is telling her to look at the road. In the next chapter, Kon apologizes for it and says that she doesn't want anyone to get hurt. Here, though, Kaede is totally unapologetic about it and later keeps pushing for a double suicide. So it goes.
There's the thematic parallel of Kon telling Ai, "If you die, I'll die, so don't die," and Kaede telling Ai, "I'm going to die, so come with me." Kaede drags Ai along behind her, and Kon chases after Ai.
Sadly, I'm definitely getting the impression that things aren't going to work out for the better this time around. It was a series of coincidences (or fate, if that's how you want to think of it) that brought Kon and Ai together time and time again, and now, coincidence/fate will drive them apart forever.
I think if anything, my main criticism of this author is that she doesn't know how to write actual happiness. Whenever there's a moment during the story where things are supposed to seem truly alright, it just feels incredibly fake, like you're just waiting for the other shoe to drop. And those parts also end up feeling obviously rushed, like you can tell the author doesn't really like writing them, and is just eager to "get back to the good stuff". It makes it a little hard to get invested, because a tragic ending feels utterly inevitable. I don't think this author even knows how to write a truly happy story, so I can't believe she'd write a happy ending for this (and for the record, I know she's written non-angsty manga, but my opinion is that they all feel similarly empty and "off").
I suppose that might be fitting for this particular manga (what with the aforementioned themes of "fate" and "inevitability" and all that), but it just makes it a little hard to get emotionally invested when there's not at least some impression that there might be hope, you know? In this case, the story is just so relentlessly miserable the whole way through that it feels monotonous, like wading through Depression Sludge, so even though it's playing with some genuinely compelling themes, I just end up feeling like, "Ehhhhh..." In short, there's too much darkness and not enough light to balance it out, at least for my tastes. Bit too indulgently angsty.
I also think the author is kind of mishandling Kon as a character. Her core conflict was set up so well in the first chapter, but it has been so underutilized and poorly integrated into the rest of the story since then that it feels practically criminal. For one, the parallel between her and Ai having a shared background of being abused seems ripe for exploration, yet it has gone completely unaddressed, and Kon's abusive mother barely has a presence in the story, in stark contrast to Kaede, whose abuse of Ai is the primary driving force of the plot. Kon has had some wonderful moments of characterization sprinkled throughout the work despite that, and she has the makings of a great protagonist, which is why I feel especially sorry for the misery she will soon experience as everything goes to shit.
Well, those are just my thoughts and predictions, at least. I'd love to have my pessimism proven wrong, so we'll just have to wait and see.
(As an aside, I think the color symbolism is interesting. Kaede is red, while Kon and Ai are both blue. Kaede's desire is to merge with Ai and become one with her, but in actuality, Kaede and Ai are on completely different ends of the color spectrum from each other, whereas Kon and Ai are "gradient neighbors" and are therefore much closer to actually merging with each other... That's how I'm inclined to interpret it, at least.)
