I wonder where the romcom that I praised in the early chapters went. I guess this might not even a romcom after all?
The trauma each of them carries is starting to crack the surface. Haruki and her issues with her actress mother and Hayato's trauma(?) involving his mother.
Man, his dad is a wingman who'd be welcome in any other romcom with that spare key offer, but did Hayato really have to react that way? It feels like Haruki is slowly pulling out the stops to appeal to him, but it's not working so well against this brick wall. Even his reaction to being shown a bit of her "assets" was something more like a prepubescent boy would do... the hell was that bonking on her head, man? That came across as lame and immature to me, not cute. It's worse than the typical looking away while flustered and stuttering, he's hitting her (comedic violence, I know) and it's not funny to me.
And of course we have an annoyingly persistent love rival attempting to crash the party. This interloper invited himself to join their would've-been-a-date-without-a-third-wheel and now there's a wannabe fourth wheel hanging on.
Comfy? Did I ever think this was a comfy read before? Ah well, on to the next chapter.