Okay, serious reply this time. I read this chapter before in another translated version, so I‘be been thinking about what’s happening now and what I want for the story as a whole.
First of all, Ruruka is just a great girl. Love her to bits. I just adore those side characters who appear unreliable at first sight and maybe pretty perverted, but still has what it takes to be serious when they’re needed. Like that glasses rich young girl in “Gushing over magical girls”, and now Ruruka here.
After that serious talk, I can see that Itsumi turning down Kurohime’s request for love is the most responsible decision, because it’s really irresponsible to just take on another love just because you don’t want to hurt their feelings, even if they’re all genuine feelings and it wouldn’t be nice to decline them. Accepting it now is just burying a time bomb for later when they realize just how much of an indecisive player of love you were. If you can’t handle them or they can’t handle you, then it’s all yours to blame. (Looking at you, Amaori Renako!)
HOWEVER…HOWEVER…HOWEVER…I do NOT want to see Kurohime fail, not one bit. Not just because I like her character and she’s such a good girl, but also because she’s special among this MASSIVE cast of girls around Itsumi for so long. Nearly all others girls who’s slept with Itsumi or not, they’re either literally not interested (yet), formed their own ships, or moved on because they’ve given up after knowing Itsumi’s life of love personally (surprisingly, there are two girls who fit in this category, and you know who I’m talking about).
However, Kurohime’s different. She’s been here since chapter 8, and has been making appearances every now and then, to the point when she’s actually in love with Itsumi because of how she is, instead of the Love Potion’s effect, and we’ve known about her love for so long, that we witnessed it personally until it grow up to the point where she mustered the courage to kiss her and confess, not to mention she has her own group of friends supporting her to pursue her love so she’ll have no regrets.
And you tell me that after all this development, all this set up, all this romantic tension, she’ll go back to square one as a “friend”???
I will understand why if it happens, because that’s how it is in real life for someone so popular, but still, as a story, it just feels anticlimactic. Simply unacceptable. No matter who she chooses, no matter if Kurohime just gives up and accept their friendship, or abandon Itsumi because she somehow falls out of love.
(Rin needs to come back to this discussion ASAP, along with Kurohime, or I’ll literally lose my mind.)
I’ll wait eagerly for the next chapter, and thanks Asterist for the translation.
