Ok, now that I've whined enough about how short it is, here's some thoughts about what's going on using both what's shown in the manga and what's said in the novelization of this chapter:
It bugs me how she's treating her situation with Yuu - sitting with her back to Yuu's house, purposefully avoiding him but somehow expecting him to be the one to seek her out. This is Yuu we're talking about - Mr. Avoidance himself...though he does have the decency to stay in semi-contact by texting Hikari.
I don't like what Yuu texted. It seems he's gotten the wrong idea in that he shouldn't have confessed. What both of them need is to talk to each other. I get why Hikari sought out Yami right after Yuu's confession but I don't understand why she's being so stubborn and dragging her feet with Yuu. She knows how wishy washy the guy is. Expecting him to come to her is naive. I'm hoping she takes his last text message about her friends visiting him as an excuse to just GO TALK TO HIM.
It's interesting to me in the novel when she calls out what lie Yuu is apologizing for because she lists two things: Yuu hiding from Hikari what was going on with Yami and "for confessing something you didn't even mean" which implies that Hikari legit thinks that Yuu might not have meant his confession which must be heartbreaking for her and goes to show why she's hesitating to meant with him. However, she also bounces back from that pretty quickly to rage about how he needs to give her an explanation and she still wants to see him.
As far as Hikari and Yami - yes Yami said awful stuff to her but Hikari knows that a good chunk of that is Yami purposefully trying to push her away (as she did when they first met) and knows that Yami still needs help. She acknowledges that someone needs to be helping Yami but also says "But who's going to do that?" which implies that this time it's not going to be her.
I'm wondering if this is going to lead to Hikari and Yuu talking and Hikari trying to persuade Yuu to "follow his heart" and go heal Yami (maybe she's thinking he's still in love with Yami) and end up with a Yuu/Yami pairing.
The only reason I'm okay with Hikari stewing and wishing Yuu would come to her, is
precisely because Yuu's been so passive and a bit cowardly with his reticence to being proactive all the way through this.
If Hikari is going to be the one who has to once again reach out to either of the other two, then that well and truly feels like she's the only one who values either relationship, to whatever extent each might exist.
Asking her to do all of that labor, time after time, doesn't seem fair to her. Yuu is the one who's pined after her since they were children. But once again, he's cut and run, apologized while seemingly not understanding
why she was mad at him, and now he's even told her two best friends that he's not worried about her because he thinks she'll be fine like she always is.
It just....feels like Yuu actually doesn't care, which sorta reinforces Hikari's concerns that he
didn't truly commit to his confession to her. And that phrase of his during that chapter of "I felt like I had to do it now", seems to reinforce that fear of hers - like, "oh, maybe I was a backup option to Aya-chan", type deal.
But just in terms of character arcs and progression - Ayami simply disappearing feels just correct for her. I don't know what sort of resolution she can even face that wouldn't require literal years in-story of hard work and therapy and a dramatic change of environment and support.
But Yuu has a prime chance to put his money where his mouth is and actually reach out to Hikari. He said he loves her. But, what, not enough to try and fight for her, to explain himself?
Hikari will likely still be the one to take the first step, because that's just who she is. But I really,
really think she should reexamine whether she thinks Yuu will make her happy, because he's shown repeatedly that he'll simply back down and flee at the first sign of hardship.
Hard to believe any relationship between them will be balanced, if he refuses to grow.
