>>283726354
Yes, Yotsuba is the one to forge a good relationship with him from the start, but it's Itsuki who's written to leave the biggest impression. She's the first that he meets, before being in the same class as him, the rejecting him as a tutor for being a dick during their first meeting, and finally the one that he chases into their apartment where he's fully introduced to the quintuplets as sisters. Shortly therefore when he's unceremoniously drugged and kicked out of their house, she's the one who sees him safely home and even meets and ingratiates herself with his family.
It's all just patently obvious that she's the main girl when you read it the first time. It's either that, or she's a huge red herring. And what do you know? That's exactly what she was.
Rikka exists in the same state of being as Itsuki. She's either so obviously Apollo that there's little point to the mystery at all because any jibbering retard could easily figure it out with the immensity of clues we've been given as readers combined with her presence in the first few chapters of the story, or she's a massive fake-out to add weight to the eventual reveal of whomever actually is. Those are the only two options.
Hell, Itsuki maintained the red herring role until immediately before the Yotsuba confession. She's the only sister that Fuutaro didn't kiss. With retrospect it's because he recognized that she wasn't the "Itsuki" that kissed him at the onsen just from looking at her lips (he'd learned to tell the quintuplets apart), but in the moment it was meant to be one last fake-out. A moment that says, "He doesn't even need to kiss this one. She's been the winner from the start. She was the first one he met, the one who became close to his family, and has been with him every step of the way."
And then she lost. Just like Rikka very well may.
