This happened before, when Mitsuki decided to reveal herself to Aya with a song on stage. We were going to finally have them confront each other and talk about whatever mess had been going on between them. But it got cut. We saw no diaogue, no scene, no resolution. We skipped back to school where we now had no idea wtf their relationship even was.
I want to highlight this part because people are trying to excuse this recent skip of a major moment with Mitsuki's "avoidance issues".

If you're talking about what I said about Mitsuki's communication issues, my post had absolutely nothing to do with where people then took the conversation about pacing, etc.

I was talking to the people saying, "They just need to talk." The MCs "needing to talk" and not being able to, not at first and not directly, is what this series has been about from the beginning.

I wouldn't class "resolving major drama off screen or skipping it outright" as a pacing issue. But no, I wasn't talking about you specifically.

if your analysis of Mitsuki's character is accurate, then whatever she did to "avoid" after quitting on stage would be shown and we'd see the specifics needed to understand what happened. Mitsuki may have shut down, but what about Aya? Did she not ask questions? Did she accept? What did she do in that moment? What specifically did Mitsuki do? Did she run off stage? Did she talk to her bandmates in any way? What were their reactions and how did they affect Mitsuki and/or Aya?
We can speculate about what their states of mind actually are right now to the moon and back but we can't actually know because the major event that caused whatever their state is at the moment is unknown to us. I didn't read them getting intimate as an avoidance because I have nothing to read from. That's the problem.

Again, not accusing you. Just using your interpretation to make a point.

One thing we need to remember is that "communication issues" have been a defining aspect of Mitsuki's character ever since the very beginning, and while she certainly has gotten better at expressing herself to others since the time when a crisis in communication meant she put a bag over her head:

https://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/the_guy_she_was_interested_in_wasnt_a_guy_at_all_ch27#3

Just being in a loving relationship doesn't mean that her personality is totally transformed--communication is something she and her loved ones are going to need to work on all her life. Mitsuki still best expresses herself via unintentional rizz and her music, and in fact the current crisis consists of anxiety about her music.

I know it's a relief to readers when characters finally "just talk to each other," but in real life "communication issues" are consistently the number one problem that therapists and family counselors see for very good reasons.

Honestly I think my issue is less with the poor communication between the characters and more that the series feels like it's poorly communicating with the audience. With time passage feeling disjointed, and character motivations and emotions feeling condensed and vaguely defined. It feels like more is happening off screen than it is on screen with most recent events, and we the audience aren't invited. That's just how I feel anyhow, and I've noticed other people feel differently which is equally valid.

I absolutely agree with you here, the time jumps between chapters is a bit hard to process, especially seeing where the manga was years before with a lot more direction and linear focus. I appreciate the glimpses of the characters' new lives as adults - it's fun! - but it's not the pacing many (myself included) expected from the manga. The introduction of Shu-chan felt super rushed, whatever tension was attempting to be made with their character got lost fast, only to jump into Mistuki's troubles with artistic integrity. I just wish it kept a more focused structure, but hey, who knows what's planned and what's in store?

It certainly feels like the story has no idea what it wants to do in the adult arc. But that's not even my main issue. There actually was one major story going somewhere: Mitsuki's band career. Then we get to a major moment and it gets cut from the audience to happen off screen.

This happened before, when Mitsuki decided to reveal herself to Aya with a song on stage. We were going to finally have them confront each other and talk about whatever mess had been going on between them. But it got cut. We saw no diaogue, no scene, no resolution. We skipped back to school where we now had no idea wtf their relationship even was.
I want to highlight this part because people are trying to excuse this recent skip of a major moment with Mitsuki's "avoidance issues". Back then that wasn't avoidance. She made the serious choice to confront Aya and we still didn't see it.
This artist just doesn't seem to know how to resolve drama so they cut it.

It also has nothing to do with the 4 page format. It's not about getting 4 or 20 or 100 or 1000 pages. It's what you do with the pages. Nothing about having 4 pages/week forces the story to hide the most important moments.

Wanting massively important moments of the story to actually happen isn't a nitpick. This is at least twice now that an incredibly major moment that NEEDED to be seen has been skipped and happened off screen. We're not talking about empty nothing being skipped. Mitsuki quit the band IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CONCERT!? And we don't get to see it!?

Regardless of whatever actually happened, we have to see it. Doesn't matter if it was juvenile or emotional or dramatic or violent. No matter what, it's important.

This IS the bone to pick. It's absurd.

It happened again. Another major moment that had been built up for a while. Skipped. Happened off-screen. We're teleported into the future where everything is back to the default slice of life state and told what happened in a text dump recap.
Don't build up drama if you don't want to write drama.

This is exactly what made me lose interest in this series before. It's not great to dare come back to it and see this happening again.

Best use of this meme yet

Alright. Potential confrontation coming up. Last time, the writer chickened out and skipped it. Will we have the necessary scene this time?

Here we go again. Building tension. Great, I love to see it. It's based on insecurities we already knew Mitsuki had and will potentially develop a few secondary characters and their relationship with Aya. I kinda have to wonder what their friendship is, really. We barely know anything other than Aya feeling her music taste doesn't fit. It will be nice to find out.

Hopefully this time it's brought to a conclusion instead of being skipped again. If we have another case where the resolution of the conflict is half-assed off screen, I'm out.

Being a 4-page manga, pacing is indeed an issue in this story, but I think that sometimes it is justified to just skip and give incomplete answers to the readers since the answers themselves are trivial. We know at the beginning of the chapter that they did not have a full conversation, because if they did, we’d get to see it. The author is simply skipping the boring parts and leaving it for flashbacks and assumptions which, given the format, is ok imo.

You can't seriously say that these answers are trivial.

The story is ignoring all the tension and conflict that had been building up for several chapters. Whatever conversation happened after Mitsuki asked the question would not only contain the answer to the question but also continuations to many other things: the fact that Mitsuki is a girl, the fact she pretended to be a guy, her reasons for doing so, the distance they kept from each other for a bit, why they care, etc. All of this was built up and none of it is resolved, addressed or developed simply by having us assume Aya said "yes".

Besides, even if we could make assumptions that answer all of these questions, why not show it? You came up with your own headcanon about what happened so even if we assume you're 100% right about the events, wouldn't you still want to see them? We've just been denied a major culmination of this story.

Imagine if in The Lion King, the story went from Simba looking uphill to see the wildebeest stampeding toward him to Simba having already left and we only learn through dialogue that Mufasa died and Scar took over.
This is what just happened in this story.

This latest chapter is funny and cute. No problem there.
But I'm very annoyed at something this series has been doing for a while and this is the worst instance of it yet.

What the hell happened between chapters?! This is astronomically unsatisfying.
Last we saw these two they were having a major moment in their relationship, a confrontation that had been a long time coming and should have been revelatory for both of them about what their feelings are, what their relationship is and will be, what they had been doing up to that point and potentially so much more.
Instead we skip to school?! And they're... chill? What is their relationship? Mitsuki asked a very direct question and I guess Aya just didn't answer? That must have been awkward... Was it? What was the dialogue between these two in the moment? We don't have definitive answers to any of these questions because it seems there is a mandatory time skip between all chapters. Either we get the important events in 4 pages or we just have to catch up and guess when the next 4 arrive.
This latest chapter should have been a direct continuation of the previous one. Even if the conversation had to conclude with "I don't have an answer yet" or something along the lines of that trope, we needed to see it happen.