@SuperOniichan
You saw a couple of important-looking guys interacting with girls at a high level international competition, and now it's a romantic story where it wasn't before? Guys that were nowhere to be seen when Baka Updates's description was changed, two years ago, to what it is now?
I'm thinking that maybe they could be, just like Mitosho and Akito, characters who share similar interests and happen to be from the opposite gender, no? Not every interaction has to be ship tease. I think the series has already proved itself to be more mature than that.
And I'm not saying there can't or won't be any "romance," even involving characters we already know, only that even if there were to be, it likely won't be the focus of the story just like it has never been so far--which doesn't prevent it from being "romantic" in other ways, like I said.