Ah, the plot holes don’t bother me, I’m all about the drama of missing the feeling of touching someone. But the third wheel thing, I don’t know why all those indie otomes have this urge to make their characters banging each other. Their point probably is trying to make their characters more fleshed out, but there are so many other ways of doing this.
The thing that reedemed a little Variable Barricade (not all the game is bad but they fucked up so much in one of the routes - the MC was awful, the other LIs were awful, I would happily forget that route if I could) was the scenes that we got to see when the MC was not around: some silly and funny scenes of the LIs being friends and bonding. Instead of they banging, would be cool to see more of the LIs like that, supporting each other and being friends.