Youichi has cracked the case of the Mysterious Night with the Male Stranger in the Love Hotel!
To preserve his dignity, let’s say this strip is taking place an indefinite amount of time after the last one, without stating precisely how long it took him to connect the dots. >_>
The solution is simple, though: Youichi is gay and in love with Hiroki.
As Sherlock Holmes was so fond of stating “It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” After Youichi had reviewed all of the evidence he found placed strategically around him on that bed, he didn’t even have to exclude the impossible, since the ‘Youichi is gay and in love with Hiroki’ solution was the only one that actually showed up for the competition, winning by default.
There might be slightly more to it than meets the eye, but we’ll get to that on Monday.
P.S.: Comedy aside, perhaps there is a useful lesson here: If you’re questioning your sexuality, try not to overlook the obvious evidence, even if you’d like to. It’ll only save your time. Imagine Sherlock Holmes was trying to figure out how fruity you are from analyzing your actor obsessions, fashion choices, taste in music and browser history. What would he conclude, looking objectively from the outside? Perhaps there you have your answer.
Noooo, he lost his pompadour!
On one hand, that’s a pretty good way to indicate he’s left the Yanki lifestyle, so good job there from a character design standpoint.
On the other hand, I feel like this makes him like 30% less rough and tough, and those feel like bad stats to lose points in when the ultimate goal is to get him to join the Cricket Club…
Gaslighting has been elevated to an art…