Ichikawa should have informed Yamada about his visit to Moeko when he was dragged there. No doubt about that. But it turns out that Yamada isn’t angry because Ichikawa kept the visit to Moeko a secret —she’s liklely angry because they haven’t been able to spend much time together lately since school started again, which she has been "enduring" and she has let her feelings "pile up", but she agreed to this after all. I say it again: She seemed to be quite busy herself with her beloved job while Ichi was at Moeko's house. Yamada gradually being more and more busy with her job was established in Volume 12. So meeting up with Yamada privately was not an option anyway, at least for that day and the reason for that secret meeting is completely irrelevant because the outcome would not have changed. Yamada never, except for chapter 156, communicated her dissatisfaction about not being able to meet outside because she wants to be an adult so much and this is now the second time (?) since the school trip that she has kept her feelings bottled up and let them build. Turns out that agreeing to have home dates didn’t actually solve anything because both of them were busy with work and studying. At first I really felt for her when she crouched down crying. But when she denied the visit as the reason she was angry at Ichikawa, didn’t even explain it, and then did what she did afterward, I was honestly at a loss for words, because she consciously chose to keep her feelings to herself until it escalated into an emotional outburst — and at the most inappropriate time imaginable, right before his exams. She knows perfectly well how hard he’s struggling to get accepted into the school he wants.
I already said it before in a moderate tone but now I'm not gonna hold back this time: It is HER damn fault that, as an actress and model, she doesn’t have the backbone to inform her agency about their relationship, just as Ichikawa suggested in chapter 149 and hasn't done so months later! What has stopped her until now from asking her manager for help to address the issue and convince the agency that her relationship gave her career a huge boost instead of being a hindrance? Is he really that helpless after what happened at the end of Volume 11? How about bringing in her parents? But she has no problem to get advice from Pigman of all the people, even after her twitter meltdown, sucessfully convincing Yamada to put more focus on her work. This is a very important reason why he even proposed that they shouldn’t meet in public aside from his own insecurities and inferiority complex, which he still needs to work on — because he is completely justified in fearing a no-romance policy imposed by the agency at any time, which is a very real issue and chapter 81 set the stages. And again, she agreed to keep the distance and didn't say anything against it, which can only give him the impression that he is in the right about it. Her insistance to go to that wrap party despite being told it's no good (which she told him to say just moments earlier lmao XD) probably was just another reminder for him of how much she loves her job, which is part of the reason Ichikawa stayed away from Yamada at school in chapter 178 to avoid speculation because they were surrounded by couples. That means after everything that happened since the fake rejection, he literally has no reason to assume she won't follow whatever her agency tells her to do. Granted, she’s scared of the potential consequences of confronting them, but ignoring the secrecy issue really doesn’t help. It only postpones it as we can see the result in this arc. They will have to confront them sooner or later anyway and they can't get around that. One could assume that she’s capable of informing the agency, since this can be expected from someone saying they want to be an adult and it is normal to have demands, right? Why did she even give him this stupid idea that she wants to be an adult? Just to not make him worry about stuff like what happened with Pigman and the news about that sleazy actor? Remember the entertainment industry party earlier in this volume? Yeah?... That worked out really well, didn’t it? Made both boyfriend AND father worry to the point of boyfriend fearing a breakup of the Yamada family for god's sake! By saying you want to be an adult, you effectivly let him think you would be able to handle any situation and it took the father to correct Ichikawa on that matter after she gave him this speech about having an adult relationship.
Look, Yamada can say that she wants to spend time with him as often as she wants, but after the fake rejection, which Ichi signaled to her, she made it very clear that despite hating herself for it, her beloved job comes first— and this was BEFORE he told her he loved her for this specific reason, which she couldn’t have known until then. (That one other time he stated that he likes her for her passion was in his mind only, so don't bother use that to counter this argument) And Ichi reaffirmed his love for her with great emphasis in chapter 168, literally without her job having anything to do with it anymore. So to those people that keep saying he loves her for her passion: She no longer has any reason to assume that he only loves her because of her passion for her work. Yet, to avoid jeopardizing her job, he still sees no other option than continuing to avoid her in public because #1 he was directly warned by her manager that people don't want her to have a boyfriend, who can be seen as a distraction (Do people seriously forget about this?), no matter how nice and confident that guy is and #2, nothing really has changed since the fake rejection and they still have to keep the facade that they are not a couple, which - again - both of them agreed to in order to avoid trouble from the agency without her saying anything. I remember seeing comments on different platforms that even question if Yamada truely meant it when she said he was her everything because this seems to be edged out by her career. Their discussion right after the fake rejection is in a way connected to what happened during the school trip where she couldn't stop thinking about her audition and he hated the thought of being a burden to her. That's when his obsession with protecting her career began.
And now, after he made that one mistake and tried to explain himself, she completely ignores him and doesn’t even tell him the real reason she’s upset while being fully aware of his exam worries. The author has already made it clear in an interview that Yamada is pretty self-centered but still lovable. That was true at first, but at this point I have a hard time to think about the latter. Has she become so self-centered that she’s forgotten he has to worry about his entrance exams? After he already apologized for his mistake and even tried to call her at night, she has nothing better to do than do something that could easily count as playing mind games with him if it weren't for her emotional state? Ignoring Ichikawa entirely though he desperately wants to know what’s wrong and can reasonably assume that Yamada was fine with the limitations so far, simply because she can't open her mouth when she doesn’t like something? (Again, what they agreed on in chapter 156 doesn't matter because they can't meet at home when he studies and she works till late) And all of this during such an important time that is crucial for Ichikawa’s future (Do NOT lie to yourselves, this is a very douchey thing to do!). You can critisize Ichikawa for not expressing his feelings or emotions when it comes to going to extremes to protect her career and for the self-imposed restrictions, but you can also make the argument that he doesn't want to put her in a super uncomfortable position where she has to straight up make a decision between career or relationship especially after we saw what happened during the school trip. I find it interesting how no one has considered this. Also, that one time he didn't reveal to her that his overnight stay at her house improved his focus was because, though she would have been happy about this, he simply wasn't in the mood to be potencially teased for beeing needy. Yes, I think she is capable of doing that and it's okay if he doesn't want that.
