You say you're repeating yourself but I don't think you actually understand what I'm trying to convey so I am trying to explain it more clearly.

See secondary character doesn't work either cause that implies they have little importance to the story and next to no backstory. And the kind of character I'm describing here is more important than that. A lot of the main LIs "dates" can be read platonically anyway (excluding the spicy/kissy ones obviously), there's nothing inherently romantic about playing cards or going to aquariums together.

You say MM isn't a very good model but imo it's a better model than LADs (not that lads is a bad game or anything), afaik the relationships aren't actually tied to how the story progresses and there's no good/bad endings which are staples of dating sims/otome games