Probably more like 3.5 stars, but it's such a warm, cute story I'm bumping it up a little.
The recipes still make me laugh; one was largely made in a microwave, and one chapter is just "canned corn soup" from a vending machine, to keep the food theme going while the friend group is on the road to watch the new year's sunrise. I was pleasantly surprised, though, that (spoiler I guess?) Aki's career choice isn't going to be a chef. I'd assumed it was going to head that direction, but he's not really that creative or elaborate in the kitchen. It's just cozy home cooking that he does because it makes him and the people around him happy. And that's more the theme of this story.
There still isn't much (any?) progress on the romantic front, although Haru's sister does show up to give them knowing glances and to compare them to her relationship with her live-in boyfriend. And Haru is definitely struggling a good amount with the idea of a future that might not have Aki in it. It would honestly be pretty easy to keep reading this as just a solid friendship thing, if it wasn't labeled BL. But the author's note indicates they're happy to keep this on a slow, steady pace for a while. I wonder how long it will take to get there.
The art seems to have improved some in this volume - Haru seems a lot more attractive, anyway, and flashier than I remember him from the first volume? So the pages are fun to look at. And I'm also experiencing a good amount of Haru's photography professor's nostalgia for how great college life was. There was a lot of schoolwork and stress about a variety of things, but it was also just really, really nice to have that many friends all engaged in the same sorts of things, and spending a lot of time hanging out, eating, and talking about the future. It's a nice little escape, although it makes me a little sad. Like Haru thinking back to flashbacks of his friendship forming with Aki, I suppose.
There's a random bonus story at the end of this rather slim volume, which honestly just kinda seems like a portrait of the author...a bit pointless to include here, but I suppose it was a space filler.