Can you believe this series didn’t have a romance tag for 90% of its run? I don’t know what people were smoking.
The first volume and a half of the LN, nobody had feelings for anyone, let alone was pursuing them. (Yeah, there's that one couple in the background at this point, but they're barely even that.) It isn't until Saki becomes an active character that any of that changes, and even Haruki's current feelings are a bit unsettled rather than fully realized
as they'll be a couple of arcs from now. Sure, we all knew it would get there eventually
and, boy howdy, does it, but it made sense to wait.