A little disappointed

hahah I was hoping the same. I really didn't want Shiratori to be evil, because if he is, like right now, it would make for an easy story. Imagine if he was kind..... how torn would we have been lol. But yeah at the end most BLs already set the pairings from the get go.

I don’t think it is cliche (except in the fact that Sumi and Utou where interested in each other before bonding and get together in end). The story progression you mentioned is a LOT more common in the Omegaverse. An Omega and Beta pairing is not as common and I know of only one story that involves an Omega and Beta pairing with a broken Alpha bond (maybe two but still not common).

Same here, but seems like we’re quite the small group that shares that opinion ^^

I get what you mean, but in my opinion it would’ve been more interesting to see Sumi torn between both. For me as well it is something uncommon for a beta and omega to (hopefully) pair

Rather than the gender aspect, I think OP was focusing more on the element of love rival/love triangle in this story. Love in rivals in BL usually turn out to be evil and that becomes a strong reason for the MCs to end up together, and that is quite predictable. However, it would be more interesting if the love rival was a good person because there'd be more internal conflicts occurring (e.g. Uke feeling guilty as he seems to be taking advantage over a nice person, the nice person realising that their bond is not for proper reasons, etc.)

Torn between both sounds like every single love triangle out there. It’s been done a hundred times before just as much as the kind guy turned out to be bad.

Exactly that’s what I meant.

Yes that’s true, but a love triangle with both being a nice person, the central part of the triangle (Sumi) using a part of the triangle (Shiratori) and it all being in the Omegaverse is quite rare (to me at least)