Okay so we know Noelle's heavily implied to be suicidal, especially considering the weird route. But like. The fact that in the normal route, Susie picks her up, keeping her from touching the water she drowns herself in in the weird route. The fact that if they go on the ferris wheel they can't even SEE the lake. Like look I don't even go here but the reason why Suselle works, specifically for Noelle's arc, is that her relationship with Susie is the first time in a very long time where Noelle's bond with someone isn't complicated.
She loves her dad, but he's very sick and possibly going to die soon, so she feels anxiety and pre-emptive grief while also still hoping he'll get better
She loves her sister, but Dess has been missing for years. And Noelle has never stopped missing her or looking for her online, and she says it herself that ever since Dess disappeared her life got so much worse
She cares for Catti and Berdly, but they both do that thing that pretty much everyone else in her life does: treat her like a delicate maiden that is in constant need of protection and can't make her own choices. They both make assumptions about her and can be pretty annoying sometimes, even if they mean well
She cares for Kris deeply, they're one of the few people she feels comfortable saying no to, and understands them on a deeper lever than pretty much anyone else, even Susie who's only known them for a few days and thus can't tell that they've been acting out of character lately. But Noelle and Kris are nowhere near as close as they used to be, and its hinted at the fact that their relationship was always complicated even as kids, possibly due to outside forces. But with how often Noelle brings up and reminiscences on stuff that happened in their past, its pretty clear that she's haunted by how distant they've become but can't bring herself to make the first move because what if it was all in her head? What if they were never as close as she thought? If Kris wanted to reconnect, they would have already tried to do so, right? So she keeps her distance, because she has no idea how to approach them anymore
Even with Carol, I dont think Noelle HATES her, but she's definitely scared of and frustrated with her
Hell, she's so good at hiding it but this girl is already barely hanging on by a thread by the time the game starts and the weird route is just us pushing her over and over towards the edge until its too late
But with Susie? Sure she's worried about how her mom will take it, but for the first time in such a long time, things feel easy and freeing when she's with her. She doesn’t have to stress about how Susie feels about her or mold herself to meet her expectations.
And I get why that uncomplicated nature of it may make them as a couple boring to some (again i don't go here) but you'll never catch me saying that it doesn't work narratively.
With that being said I do think its possible that the next chapter will introduce some suselle angst. Rudy may actually be dead or very close to dying and Noelle said that part of the dark world's appeal for her is that every injury/wound in there can simply be healed with magic, obviously thinking about her dad while she said it. So its not off the table that when she finds out that Susie lied to her about the dark worlds not being real, she may not take it well.
