"They don’t really have any reason to hate they’ve just decided they do which is why they never have any specific comment on what they don’t like except the nebulous concept of slow pacing."
This is rich, while everyone is talking about how bland and uninteresting both Chita and Tokio (and by proxy, their relationship) are.
Fucking gremlin that solely exists to make this manga worse smh.
Then that's people letting their bias and their preconceived notions blind them to what this arc reveals for Chiita.
Everything she's been doing is a result of her grappling with the fact that she's not experiencing the same sort of adolescent development that her peer group is, and she feels like she's being left out & left behind because no one is there to tell her that being this different is okay.
And, she is upset because she cares about Tokio, but the way they like one another is incongruent because Chiita doesn't feel or understand romantic attraction--and staying around Tokio would hurt him, but losing him would hurt
her.
Hence her trying to be the "villain" and push him away us causing her pain here, even if she thinks it's the right thing to do to spare him.
If people don't see what's been worked up by the author, that's entirely on those people for being unable to (or refusing to) change their mind with the introduction of new information.