My understanding of the romance interests is that Shouma will be the most likely option Akira goes with but only after Shouma finds out about her previous life and accepts her as she is. There's a number of hints sprinkling in the story that this will be the case.
Akira does a lot of grieving that a very reserved transwoman does in early adolescence that I perceive as her believing people have a lot more expectations on who and what she is than is truly the case. I'm not sure exactly how to explain the phenomenon I'm talking about but when growing up questioning gender in more reserved environments or places with more traditional values it is common to conflate and exaggerate gender roles and expression internally.
As for Rumi I think they just have an incredibly close sisterly bond, I really haven't read any truly romantic signals from any panels, though I can totally see why that perception might be there.
The dynamic between Shouma and Akira specifically comes off to me like a transwoman who has trouble processing and accepting attraction due to not recognising the emotions for what it is. I don't agree at all that it seemed like she was doing it out of a sense of duty as previously stated in an above comment. The crying, mental shutdown and the rememberance of previous experiences holding her back in the moment of confession and after was very reminiscent of childhood attraction with trauma and identity problems that have been left unresolved.
Akira does a lot of grieving that a very reserved transwoman does in early adolescence that I perceive as her believing people have a lot more expectations on who and what she is than is truly the case. I'm not sure exactly how to explain the phenomenon I'm talking about but when growing up questioning gender in more reserved environments or places with more traditional values it is common to conflate and exaggerate gender roles and expression internally.
As for Rumi I think they just have an incredibly close sisterly bond, I really haven't read any truly romantic signals from any panels, though I can totally see why that perception might be there.
The dynamic between Shouma and Akira specifically comes off to me like a transwoman who has trouble processing and accepting attraction due to not recognising the emotions for what it is. I don't agree at all that it seemed like she was doing it out of a sense of duty as previously stated in an above comment. The crying, mental shutdown and the rememberance of previous experiences holding her back in the moment of confession and after was very reminiscent of childhood attraction with trauma and identity problems that have been left unresolved.
