Suguha's relationship with Hebishima has always been one of convenience. She doesn't love him or actually like him in anyway besides his dick and only uses him to comfort herself from not having Kirito. That event in Kirito's room gave her hope that she might have a chance with him. So when he turned Leafa down she is sad and immediately goes to Hebishima for comfort. I think her behavior is very believable.
Currently Kirito has no romantic feelings towards Suguha but once Kirito loses Asuna's interest and if Suguha is there to comfort him then maybe she can be his rebound girl. My biggest support, which I admit is very flimsy, is Suguha actually liking Kirito's dick after experiencing NTR character's dick is almost unheard of. That scene must mean something for Suguha since Kirito doesn't know and Fujino purposely put it in.
I think we will just have to agree to disagree or we could be arguing about this eternally, but I just can't see the Suguha that suddenly acted that way towards Kirito and tried to get Hebishima killed literally yesterday would revert like that not even 24 hours after the whole ordeal just by feeling sad about Kirito not wanting to spend time with her, no matter how you try to frame it, it just doesn't make sense to me in the slightest, and combined with how despite how many wanted it the entire story-bit leading to the Treehouse was CLEARLY rushed if you compare it with how Fujino's slow-burn-narrative was going for Asuna the very previous day too, it just makes a whole lot more sense if Fujino just decided to revert whatever he was going for with the update before that because it was easier to write in the context of making the story go faster :O
Plus, I don't think she even entertained the thought of "having a chance" with Kirito at all, the entire thing about the new approach Suguha's character was taking was essentially a borderline Yandere thing, she was purposefully taking advantage of Kirito while he was out of it/unconscious by being online, and TWICE in a row, then started badmouthing Asuna when he rambled about how they couldn't spend time together, that attitude just doesn't fit at all with 24 hours later being sad about him not wanting to spend some time online with her while NOT knowing who she is XP
Mind you, I also DON'T want this particular plot-line with Suguha to be dropped, which is why the previous update was the one I was looking forward to the most in a while, but after how it turned out I just can't see it being pursued anymore. However, if Fujino surprises me/us with a twist regarding that, I will be quite happy, I just don't have any big expectations for it at this point.
I also don't like the hypnosis trope, though the one exception I'll give here is that with deep dive VR I'm more willing to buy that it's possible. If they keep the hypnosis within FOG, it'll be fine. But if the VR hypnosis starts affecting her IRL, thats a massive can of worms for the implications of how dangerous the tech is.
It's basically all but confirmed at this point that the hypnosis will somehow work IRL too, Alice being 'taken down' by this criminal group they're investigating is now clearly the path Fujino chose to take for her story after all. At BEST the other option may be that they record her in-game and use that to blackmail her IRL but I wouldn't be surprised if Fujino made the hypno-thing work IRL too, is not only easier to write than another blackmail plot but also it wouldn't be the first time he's writing the entire BS of something done in VR affecting you IRL from FoG (Also, he can just handwave it and said it was Administrator's fault as an 'explanation' too XP).
