Despite how they come off here I would still like to believe that his childhood friends do appreciate him, and that they just think of this as business, especially considering he was trusted with the heroes athletes foot.
Almost all characters in this story are half brothers, and yet it is one of the gayest manga I have ever read just going by the number of sparkly glances they shoot at each other. Not gonna diss it, but not to my taste.
I saw how this was chapter 60 of gori-sen, and then saw the "Mission 72" line and thought "whats going on?", but immediately understood the title of the chapter after seing "Mission 73".
If this was real life I could totally see her berating and mocking the blonde dude after he inevitably looses this race, at which point he starts beating her. She comes out of this shunned by her former victim, and now her own victim of physical abuse from a boy she was leading on.