honestly - everything about this series has been a case of the world opening up before Shunpei's eyes.
He was bereft of "want and purpose" in the wake of losing the One Thing he had in his life before high school. By chance, he got roped into this fake club, and was pushed into walking home with an eccentric senpai who collected stickswords and weird rocks and talked to a Big Cat Who Might Be a Deitycitation needed.
And it was after Chokki-senpai entered his life that he started seeing in full color again, and in turn he began to change her perception of things, and brought light to her own world in discovering just how much more of life you could capture when you have someone to share the "little moments in-between" with.
They're both simultaneously helping and saving and nurturing the other. Yes, "conventional romance" is all well and good and I find it very difficult to see them not being together by the time this story ends.
But for 50 chapters now, they've been going at their own pace, and even making tangible progress--at their own pace, with minimal actual external "help" or interference from others.
Sayo kinda had it right, I think - they don't need help. But not because they're a lost cause; but because this is their path together, and if it's meant to be for them, then it'll happen with certainty because they're both invested in one another and--even if they think "it's fine as-is", they've both reached for more before now, and I'm sure they will again when the times comes.
If anything, I'd argue that another external force acting upon them--whether that's well-meaning friends or the completely-unnecessary love rival--would actually run counter to the spirit of the manga.
It's not about them rushing to the finish line. It's about finding all the small moments on the way between Point A and Point B. Between school and home, between friends and lovers, between being alone and being together.
