At this point, I'm hoping that this MC won't end up with any of the girls in this series lol. I mean, he's so dense asf. Most of the girls are trying to get close to him, but the MC is just being passive toward all of them. I'm not surprised if he also rejects the childhood friend (childhood friendzoned) before going back to Tokyo for his "forever sharemates".
A very flimsy defense for Hiromi is, he still doesn't have his own shit sorted out; and, dating within the sharehouse is still
technically prohibited, and he broke that rule once already with Lili and look how that turned out for him in the space before he ended up having to go back to care for his grandmother.
So in that sense, him "deflecting" both Tsubasa & Lili in this chapter could line up there.
He definitely didn't know the full extent of what Tsubasa felt (maybe a smidge; he said she'd not hinted at it prior in this chapter and that he'd been caught off-guard, but I'd honestly have to go back and reread the whole manga again to fully parse it all), but Hiromi's still very much not in the right headspace to be accepting a declaration from Tsubasa of that magnitude, at least from where I'm sitting.
And, Tsubasa did that out in front of multiple other sharemates, and they all did ambush him in his hometown out of the blue when he's got multiple plates in the air between his job at the inn, his grandmother, sorting out his actual life and what he wants, and so on. That was a
big thing to drop in his lap, the way she phrased it (it very much seemed phrased like a full-on proposal, anyway), so I don't know if I necessarily fully fault him for it.
He also was reflecting a bit after hearing what Anju had commented about how Tsubasa actually felt; and he didn't seem all that confidant he
could have returned her feelings, and that how he'd responded was the best he could do. My read on that reinforces my suspicions that he's just not yet sure what he wants, himself.
That aside, he thinks Lili wants closure, which is just because neither of them are actually talking, still, or having a true sit-down; I'd hoped that would happen when he was driving her around that one night, but, alas.
So from his perspective, he did what he thought was correct there, and that's just the breaks for Lili.
What I'm mostly curious about is what's going to happen when Tsubasa wakes up in the morning. No clue how plastered she was by that point (she'd been drinking prior, and she didn't fully appear "sloppy" like she has in the past when she's going around topless in front of Hiromi), so I guess it remains to be seen if she tries to blame the one-night-stand on alcohol, resist her coworker trying to pursue things further, or what.
Does she try to pretend nothing happened, and renew her resolve to go after Hiromi even after what he said? If she does, and her coworker continues trying to pursue her, that could make things quite messy for her as far as Hiromi is concerned, especially if she tries to actively bury that she slept with the guy at the hotel.
(She didn't do anything wrong, so it's not like she's obligated to say or not say anything; it's her life and business, but she
is now tied to that coworker, so if he makes assumptions that he has a chance and she doesn't fully reject him or something
and tries to continue after Hiromi, that kinda sets the stage for drama.)
This chapter
really set the stage for a lot of stuff to start moving at once, though.
And, seemingly also completely severing several threads - though I hesitate to assume that's the case because that all depends on people just giving up, and there's not necessarily a reason for them to do that yet, when they'll all be living in close proximity again sooner or later and "plot" could continue to happen.
