Yeah, this thing makes me so sad on some level. I always felt bad for Karen, since she's so nice to avoid putting Aoki in a tight spot, but that just makes it harder on her at the same time.
I'm glad the style ended up working. I fought with doing things chronologically for quite a while and it just wasn't working, so I threw the timeline out the window and that made everything better conceptually.
Also, nice catch on the roman numerals. I fixed it.