No, that first interpretation is just what some of us (like me) hoped for. But it was clearly never the intention. Which is why I hate what this has become, in either timeline. It was the whole reason I started reading this.
I too hoped for that, cause what's the meaning of the title otherwise? Unless it actually refers to Gotou.
Here's a fun game to play: count the number of times you can see the MC's whole face where he is not making a dumb OoO expression. I counted 2.5 in this chapter despite him being in almost every panel. (The .5 was because in one of them his mouth was open but not to a cartoonist degree.)
If he's always gobsmacked, it ceases to mean anything. This author has no sense of impact. Or anything else, really. Seeing those sales numbers saddened me. Is the Japanese market really this dumb?
He seem to have a terrible sense of pacing, that whole chapter with the toilet and the one after, they might have as well have no meaning or weight on the story. The .5 with her getting with other guys, it wasnt fun, it wasnt sexually appealing, it didn't bring any insight.
The art looks like a preserialization sketch, I am fine with it, it can be interesting but it kinda looks cheap. The author should be grateful for this all attention, I have seen better drawn thing with better pacing and more progress that got axed earlier than this.
