@degriech Because if they weren't, this story would have ended like 13 chapters ago. The driving plot point of this entire story is how bad at communicating what normally are very simple sentences the 2 main characters are. Noel is by far the biggest defeatist I have seen in a while. It almost seems as if she is trying to find something to prove Luca isn't interested in her like she is in him. Where unless you literally carve it into her cornea's so that the right words are the only things she ever can see again, she would never know for sure if it was still true to this second.
It is beyond ridiculous. Just because one said it now, in 2 hours the other loses all confidence in their words. Noel is so blindly afraid of the rejection that she goes out of her way to be either as vague as fuck, speak so softly that no one hears her correctly, trusts her own misjudgments over actual things said by others, or indirectly questions other people about Luca. I would bet that Luca could be balls deep in her the night after their marriage and she would still question if he was only just seeing her as a friend.
Luca is an asshole who does not realize he is an asshole (the worst kind). He says things that literally no one does to answer what normally are blatantly obvious answers. Only to realize days later what he said was 100% opposite of what he meant. If Noel somehow managed to ask him on a date (while using the word date), he would answer that it would be better for her to forget his entire existence since she should not be seen with him in public so as to not cause a misunderstanding for when she wants to go on a date with someone she likes in the future. But 2 days later he finally realizes his misunderstanding (which in itself is a miracle) and tries to ask her on a date, but really asks "Hey, me an some other girl you do not know are going to do this and this but need help deciding on something to give her. I was thinking some kind of jewelry, maybe a ring". He is the guy that will date you forever, but never marry you because he wants his options left open in case someone he likes better comes along, even though he would never cheat on you nor would he break up with you.
In other words this is a story about a girl and a boy who actually love eachother and have gotten 90% of the way to becoming an actual couple, but the girl has cripplingly low self esteem issues, while the guy has commitment issues and a crippling speech impediment which prevents him from giving direct answers. Or 2 people who literally need a third, maybe even fourth party to act as the glue for their relationship because they can't do it themselves.