I even did a 180 after getting Kiyoi's POV. For instance, I had been glad during ep 4 when he was jealous of Koyoma and thought he deserved to have some competition after being so dismissive of Hira. But after seeing how vulnerable he was and how hurt he was about the disconnected phone number, I switched and thought, "Hira, wake up to poor little Kiyoi's feelings!" lol.
I also raced to rewatch all the eps and saw tons of signs that Kiyoi liked him all along. The most obvious was how Kiyoi defended him against Shirato's crowd at school. He defended him 3 times -- after the water pail incident, when they teased Hira for liking glasses-girl, and when Shirato yelled at Hira for getting the wrong sandwich. Kiyoi also got Hira around him by choosing him to go to the cafe to stand in line for them, and then by choosing Hira's house to hang out at that summer. He goes to Hira's bedroom to seek him out. He seeks him out again on the bicycle. He goes to Hira's house that night after the water fight. He started hanging out with Hira one-on-one after Hira beat the shit out of Shirato. He kissed him on last day of school.
After high school, he invited Hira to the play's after party not once, but twice. And he asks Hira why he changed his number (yet Hira misses that this mean Kiyoi must've called him). He asks Hira who he likes, him or Koyoma. And then he flat out TELLS Hira, "Did it ever occur to you that I love you too?" Yet Hira still -- still! -- misses it. LOL. Now, I missed a lot of those signals too, and had interpreted the kiss as a mercy kiss just as Hira had. But I still noticed that Kiyoi was aware of Hira and wanted him around. I just wasn't sure how the show was going to make it believable that Kiyoi loved him after portraying him as having been so aloof and, as Hira said, "like a king." But man, the show did this beautifully! And in only 20 minutes with ep 5. That's great directing. Of course, it's great directing based on a great novel!