Yeah I know it's not a rule, but once a game establishes it's formatting I don't thinking it's asking too much to more or less stick to it. Up until this episode whispers were always indicated by either (whisper) or *whisper* (even that wasn't uniform but still close enough and not confusing).
As for thoughts...sadly they don't actually always use the "thoughts" character as the speaker either in this game (more inconsistency). For example check out the shower scene with the landlady at the start of this chapter. Thoughts are done as words in parentheses for the MC... So you have the same exact parentheses notation for both thinking something and whispering something in the same chapter... Sloppy and confusing.
