>>280926454
I forgive her for this because it's not a plan that could realistically ever work. Hotori and Shizuka really aren't that alike, aside from them both having good deductive minds. If Hotori learned of that and got interested in mysteries via Shizuka, clearly something in Hotori responded to that and found it interesting in and of herself. If it had bored her she would have just done kendo or played card games or whatever instead. The Arashiyama family seem comfortable openly pursuing their own interests.
So although Shizuka has been a great influence on Hotori, and perhaps her motives were slightly impure in that, overall I think it's still a very wholesome relationship.
There's a nice level of muddiness to what you might infer from this chapter here. For instance, I could assume the flashback Shizuka in this chapter is of a similar age to Hotori here, and the spiky-haired guy was her first boyfriend. Then that might partly be why she remininsces after assuming Hotori has a boyfriend. But it could also simply be that this is one of the first stories Hotori has presented to her, and that brings her back to the memory of planning to get Hotori to write mystery stories. Regardless, it's interesting seeing Shizuka, who cultivates a cool and disaffected know-it-all air, being taken off guard by someone else's imagination and reasoning.
