Beatrice

The story is a concise, well drawn progression of Hioki and Watarai from strangers to boyfriends. The show manages to illustrate the inner life of both of the main characters so well, that it would have been nice if the writers were allowed to go even further with more episode runtime to explore some more of the psychology and the impact of the popularity hierarchical expectations that haunts the both of them and the other popular kids as well. The switch in perspective to Watarai was especially fascinating. Watarai himself is suffocated the unwanted idol status that has been forced upon him just because of how he looks, particularly in the way that his otherwise normal actions causes the class to smack talk a classmate that he just randomly lent a pen to. He hears the shallow way people gossip about him, which is why he's so incredibly touched to overhear Hioki describing Watarai the way Watarai sees himself to Hioki's friends, as a normal guy. We see through Watarai's perspective that Hioki is not an awkward loner at all, he's actually very sociable and well liked among his school sports team friend group. His own friendship with the other guys was also only formed because they happened to be in the same class and started talking to each other because of the weirdness of being grouped together as "The Big Four" by their schoolmates though they literally never met each other until that sophomore year class.

Both Hioki and Watarai are trying to figure out things as they go and it's lovely how they are both communicative through their feelings. I love how Hioki acknowledges how brave Watarai has been making the first steps to connect with Hioki and confessing to him and Hioki steps up to bravely ask the question to solidify their relationship as boyfriends. The supportive adult of the series is Ryoto who is the older brother of one of the popular kids Morisaki. He has a rather horrific introduction in which he tricks Hioki into thinking he's been kidnapped to be murdered. That's not a funny prank to anyone let alone a teenager. Though I think guys should be shown this scene to understand the perspective of what women have to deal with and fear. Outside of that terribly unfunny prank, Ryoto notices Watarai's feelings for Hoiki and lets Watarai know that Ryoto it was nice for him to subtly let this queer kid he just met know that he's not alone.