lul, ppl wanting to excuse the tropey forced drama writing. It's fine to shift focus away from the main couple, but the execution here is just straight up bad and full of the usual drama tropes.
and yes, this is so predictable cliche of "oh she secretly loves her" and ensuing drama of "oh we'll be first and then you talk" just to end up in a place human beings can reach by talking -_- And we all know it's going to be shiko x aki in the end
rather the manga focused on the other members of the band instead of this... or if this was better written