Flipped Romance: Alternate Universe (Part 1)

A comic from 2018 -It may be an AU but it still contains some spoilers if you haven't read Book 12 of the old comic.
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At least 2 friends have expressed a curiosity (or even insisted on) the potential for Yokiro and Tatsuma becoming a romantic couple. To be honest, I've had trouble visualizing it.

So much so, that I realized that I had to draw an entire comic just to see how it would play out and if any flames of romance could truly be sparked. No, not just that, but I had to literally create an alternate universe to remove Sikue from the picture to see if it could work! @__@ 

In other words, this comic was an experimental testing ground to shove two people in a jar and shake it to see if they'd fall in love or not.

For the sake of the comic/experiment, Yokiro's sticking around to help, but in reality, I can't imagine he'd be so bold. Sikue's kindness drew him into the party while Tatsuma basically just frightened him for the first couple of chapters. He's a teensy bit out-of-character in this scenario.

Also, another point of disbelief here is I'm not so sure Tatsuma would have survived that dragon fight without Sikue's help. Heheh

So what conclusion did you reach? Does it ship? Does it not ship?

I can see Tatsuma having a little crush on him, but it's hard to get passed the fact that Yokiro values Tatsuma as a little sister. (Plus, it feels dirty like I'm drawing him cheating on Sikue! lol)

ANYWAY, I got really into the story and drew a Part 2, from Sikue's perspective.