Haha pain? Yes I rather like bread why do you ask?
It's hard when you're constantly trying not to inconvenience the people around you and forget that you deserve support too. I also feel like it's partially "if I keep pretending, hopefully I'll stop pretending at some point." I can tell you with complete certainty that that's bullshit. That's how you lose out on having genuine relationships with people.
I'm so relieved Aoi's dad actually is a whale researcher and not a whale ""researcher"". It would have been a weird twist but this show being willing to break the mold somewhat has me second guessing everything.
I don't know if I've seen another romance anime that managed to raise the tension this much after an accepted confession. Watching Ryuuji agonize over their relationship feels so much more engaging than all of the will-they-wont-they romcoms out there.