The Only One For Asuka is Yu (Akanesasu Shoujo)

The Asuka of a fragment where "marriage" was a theme. Ie getting married at 17 because it was the way of the world. This Asuka sees herself having a "moment" with Nana. At which she decides this will be the new her. She approves of herself being with girls. This was a fun scene, but at the time  other than "Yay Yuri", I didn't really think too much about it. Yet this turned out to be an early hint for a relationship that was finally realized in episode 11. This wasn't the only case of "hints" that back then could also be discarded. See part of the issue here is with the premise .

The premise involves traveling to alternate realities known as fragments. Within each fragment are variants of the characters. Variants effected by the world they live in. Thus there was always the question of what traits also applied to our main characters. So when we see this Asuka  approving of the idea of herself being gay for Nana, we couldn't assume that was true of Main Asuka.

But then the next arc introduces to a variant of Yu that gets dubbed the name Sexy Yu. Like with Serious Asuka, she's not a one shot appearance. She becomes a major part of the story. She's also highly gay for Asuka, Asuka, and well Asuksa in general. No, seriously she repeatedly makes her move on Asuka and doesn't care for the fact the main Yu is well so boring. In hindsight, she's basically Yu with her limiter removed. However she's still a variant of her. Thus there always a bit of doubt her. Were they just trying to have it both ways? After all they could have easily claimed "Sure this Yu is gay, but it's only because with enough fragments, it was bound to happen. Look forward to the main versions being super hetero"

 

Thus even with Sexy Yu seducing Asuka (which hinted at the idea that Asuka liked the concept of being won over by Yu) I was prepared to accept the idea that nothing would come of it. That's not to say that I didn't keep hoping. Especially since Sexy Yu kept being a major part of the story ever since she fully introduced herself and even before that when she was just the mysterious character that hadn't yet revealed herself beyond a few clues that should have been obvious had I paid more attention.

Still one major clue to Asuka and Yu's relationship had to do with how Serious Asuka and Sexy Yu would clash with each other. It was clear they didn't like each other much or did they? While Sexy Yu has issues with Serious Asuka, she's still an Asuka and well Sexy Yu is still Yu. Thus their relationship was a bit more complicated. Perhaps they'd have been closer if not for the issues of the multi-verser. Multi-fragment? Regardless together and separately the two of them served the purpose of being another way to view both/either Asuka and Yu. Especially during the final arc.

Because of very bad events (as per the nature of a final arc) the characters find themselves having to cope. Asuka's way of coping leads to a confrontation with Yu where they have a fight. Yu hurts Asuka with her words causing Asuka to leave. You may consider this to be a lover's spat if you want. One thing leads to another and they need to search for Asuka. The one elected to do the search is the only one qualified which is Yu. It's made clear that Yu shares bond with Asuka strong than any of the other girls.

Then the big moment happens. The very idea of losing Asuka to well "Asuka" causes Yu to let it all out. She pretty much confesses out right to Asuka,. Her emotions are driving her. All of her actions leave no room for denial.  No longer could "Yu loves Asuka" be written off as just being the trait of a variant. It was now confirmed as being part of Boring Yu. I'm sorry I mean Main Yu. The scenes from before all served the purpose of building up to this moment.

The confession between Yu and Asuka is one of my favorite confessions of 2018. It was given proper build up over the coruse of the series. Perhaps even the "doubt" helped a bit.  Said doubt allowed the confession to be a surprise for some of us. But at the same time when you look back, you can see it didn't come out of nowhere. Not that I'm implyng any series this season would do that. In conclusion Yu/Asuka is one of my favorite coupls this year.