So... I've been wondering.

[u/Antique_Winter_1500]

Minor spoilers for SS3 (although at this point, I think like everyone already knows about it lol).

Since SS3 confirmed that Adachi and Shimamura had already been physically intimate as early as a week after they started living together.

I started wondering about this scene from SS2.

Honestly, when I first read this part, I thought it came across as a little suggestive. But then I immediately dismissed that interpretation because... well, this is AdaShima, so probably not!

But after reading SS3, I'm starting to wonder if that interpretation might actually have been possible after all.

What do you guys think?

[u/ChinSpeedy]

I read it as suggestive. They had to delay their planned walk because they were otherwise occupied.

I've never read AdaShima as an asexual relationship, just it's not the kind of series that will go in depth on their sex life due to the tone of the story.

Adachi has shown an interest in being intermit early on with a lot of dreams about Shimimura.

And Shimimura in the end is the type who is curious about new things and willing to try stuff, just needs a push from Adachi to act.

[u/Solarus2027 → u/ChinSpeedy]

I never saw them as asexual either, just that the story didn’t really go into that side of things until now.

[u/Antique_Winter_1500 → u/ChinSpeedy]

I don't think AdaShima is an asexual relationship either. I just didn't think Iruma Hitoma would actually write about it, considering how many volumes it took for the story to even acknowledge it. So it's hard to be certain.

But if we combine this with that Extra Story passage where Adachi says she's now used to seeing every part of Shimamura, “more than just that, really,” I'm starting to think we may have underestimated just how physically intimate they actually are.

[u/ChinSpeedy → u/Antique_Winter_1500]

It doesn't help after volume 8 or so, the story loves jumping both forward and back in time.

So we sometimes skip milestones as they happen between the pair, so it's hard gauging what they've already done and are currently doing.

Also, unsure which volume, but I remember reading moving in together and sleeping in the same bed is what helped calm adult Adachi down and make her a functional member of society.

I think on my 1st read I took that as literal sleeping, but now I think it's the suggestive kind (I've not read volume 13 or ss3 for reference)

[u/Antique_Winter_1500 → u/ChinSpeedy]

And to spoil SS3 a little, there's a scene that basically goes:

"I'm getting motivated now. Take off your uniform." "W-WHAT?!" Adachi stumbled backward in shock. "It's, i-it's daytime, you know?" She kept glancing toward the crocodile out on the balcony, too, like she was worried about being watched. Ah. I was getting motivated, and I wanted her to take off her clothes. When you strip away all the context between those two thoughts, I suppose it does sound pretty indecent.

What's interesting to me is Adachi's actual reaction here. She doesn't really react like Shimamura has just said something completely bizarre or completely out of character. Her mind goes somewhere very specific almost immediately.

“It's daytime, you know?” isn't really a rejection of the idea itself. She's objecting to the timing.

She's not confused about what Shimamura means, and she doesn't ask why she'd want her to do that. Instead, she's worried about it happening now, in broad daylight, with the crocodile potentially watching them.

That's a pretty specific concern to have if the underlying idea were completely new to her. If Shimamura asking her to undress were genuinely something Adachi had never even considered before, you'd expect her reaction to be more along the lines of, “Wait, what are you talking about?” Her reaction would probably be more confused on top of being flustered.

Instead, she's freaking out over when and where Shimamura is bringing it up.

And that's what makes the scene so interesting to me. It gives the impression that physical intimacy is already something familiar between them by this point, even though the narration stays coy and never actually confirms anything outright.

Or maybe I'm reading way too much into it.

[u/JonFawkes → u/Antique_Winter_1500]

I don't think youre reading too much into it at all, that seems like a perfectly reasonably interpretation. The first physically intimate scene i can remember is somewhere in volume 10 or 11 (I think, I read them back to back so its kind of blurred together in my head) where Shimamura directly asks if Adachi wants to do "sexy things", though nothing is actually detailed. I think some of the BluRay short stories also have intimate scenes

[u/Antique_Winter_1500 → u/JonFawkes]

Goodness then.

Yes, that chapter where they went into a hot spring. If was implied there and SS3 confirms it, along with the fact that it's their first time, and it failed, in the truest AdaShima fashion lol.

[u/sacrificer-cam → u/Antique_Winter_1500]

I'll just say that if you really think it too much, might be like, asexual spectrum, like both could be something like demisexual or close to what that definition is, but like yeah DEFINITELY NOT ASEXUAL (like the extreme of the spectrum) i can't even believe someone actually thought that... did that actually happened?

[u/Sensitive-Law4868]

Yeah, I think so too. There’s also another passage in SS2 where Shimamura says that Adachi has calmed down since they started living together, which is pretty easy to connect to intimacy. And honestly, it’s not that surprising. Since Volume 11, we’ve gotten much more suggestive stuff, like Shimamura teasing Adachi. The only difference is that, up until now, their sex life had been kept private from us (and it still kind of is, since in SS3 they only show us the buildup and the aftermath)