My two cents:
LovMav was written and/or bankrolled by Grandpa to deal with his memories and regrets of his highschool years and the girl who got away / he never dared to ask out. He lived vicariously through LovMav, and wonder o wonder, his grandchild has a striking resemblance to his lost love...
2 months. For this. 16 pages.
I also agree with the other commenters w.r.t the sour note Machino-san left the chapter with. The impression we got in the previous chapters is that she’s quite aware of the dynamics between her and Nitanda, and how he is awkward, but values her, and is much more...
That’s why "walking landmine"/"PTSD: All" Sagara only trusted Chidori to cut his hair, while having panic attacks when anyone else so much as approached his head with a sharp object. Another FMP:Fumoffu episode.
Sunao assumes Lemon’s wording is objective and accurate, while he was eavesdropping onto his colleague and their boss both. Lemon on the other hand has shown to be acutely aware of and accomodate the atmosphere of a room, and given the conversation she chose a wording that was tailored towards...
They’re going on dates. They’re not dating.
I remember that time in my life. At the time it made perfect sense internally, but externally it would have been frustrating to pin down.