Thanks for the insight. Was wondering why he ran away 3 years early when his home life didn't seem that bad. Sure his dad and older brother were a little annoying, and one of his sisters seemed a bit bratty, but he seemed to have it under control and didn't appear to be starved of love.
As soon as I saw him dissing chess to her I knew he would be on the chess team, assuming he suspected she would be great at it and wanted to keep her away.
Serious doubt it's his first time feeling them, wouldn't be surprised if it's the first time he realized he can probably reach now and tries tasting them.
At some point it was mentioned how Fine learned all of their skills through effort, so perhaps he actually learned the skill through training in that short time.
Certainly being a bit arrogant, but I believe his skills allows him to be so a little. He is putting some thought into it, but his only skill he considers is close to art is his sword making, so he is trying to make do with what he has.
That is a common technique to speed up drawing. I still remember those anime that had the texture of clothes as a static background and the clothes would move through the texture, although I think those ones were more of a style choice. Haven't watched much lately, so not sure if that is still done.
I'm not certain in this case, but I have often noticed them to give a dark tan to the flamboyant gay characters rather than them being naturally dark skinned. That being said, have noticed a fair number that are naturally dark skinned as well in this role. Not sure if it's some weird bias, or if...
That suddenness of the last page made me forget what I was going to say here, so I had to reread a bit. How often has he tried to let others ride his familiars to know they don't usually allow other people to ride them?
A little bit too gung-ho about that ambush. Waiting for someone to warp out generally feels like you should wait to confirm the identity before attacking, especially as a military operation.
Following the scene, that feels like an odd place for the bruise to end up. Could have shifted his hand to on top of her shoulder mid fall trying to catch her, or perhaps his elbow glanced off the top of her shoulder, but I would expect his arm to be placed somewhere to suggest that in the scene...