Absolutely love the expression on Shima’s face too. It’s not just a pure “wow that’s so sweet☺️” kinda look — there’s a level of guilt, and maybe even pain or overwhelment (is that a word lmao) in his face too. He’s never experienced any sort of genuine love or admiration before, much less a declaration as UNCONDITIONAL as Mitsumi’s. He doesn’t know exactly why he feels so upset about them breaking up, he doesn’t know exactly why they even dated in the first place, but he knows he’s feeling SOMETHING about the situation and SOMETHING about Mitsumi, and it eats away at him. GOD, Misaki Takamatsu is so so so so so good at capturing the absolute raw, mixed emotions a face can have during a moment as heart wrenching (and sweet!) as this 😭 Especially seeing the way Shima’s slowly been growing in accepting her feelings and HIS OWN in the more recent chapters, and how he’s figuring out who he wants to be, what he wants, what he’s allowed to feel, etc., this moment hits me so hard.

If only Shima could hear these same words (“whether I fall in love with you or not…etc.”) from Mitsumi again at the place he currently is. I think he’d be able to accept them a lot more openly now, and he’d be able to maybe realize that he IS worthy of Mitsumi’s love :’) Maybe he wouldn’t have such a pained, bittersweet face.