@Kaarme Poor planning? Or maybe Japanese people just have this thing where they expect drink vending machines to be everywhere and are fine with using them whenever they get thirsty instead of having something to drink on them. It's funny how approaches to drinking are different--my wife noticed that in France and Spain, nobody ever seems to walk with a coffee in their hand. If they're gonna have a coffee it seems like they go somewhere, get it, and drink it there.
@Purplelibraryguy You might be right. The vending machines being everywhere in Japan, seemingly even in the middle of nowhere, probably has created a sort of culture where people automatically go to them. Even in a situation like in this chapter where they already had bought the drinks from the grocery store and thus there was no need for the vending machine. It's so ingrained in them that they do it automatically.
The fujoshi spirit in my soul would like to suggest the real possibility that he's bi, got hit hard when someone got a girlfriend and, on the rebound, picked up a nice girl with a mean look as a replacement-goldfish for the protagonist.
But realistically, I think he's supposed to be just a clingy guy all around, with people who become important to him.
(Either way, we already know he's gone out with girls before, from remarks in previous chapters. If he's straight-up gay, then he's deep in the closet and in a really unfortunate position. But, again, that seems unlikely to me.)
Can someone explain what she did on page 27? It looks like she just told him to look right, then up, then right, but why did he follow? Was he just caught in the moment that he did it without thinking?