Caravaile

The only time he's ever looked sad around her is when he thinks she's going to leave him.

He's also been the one to most notice when she's upset or scared, and will go out of his way to comfort her, even for the smallest things

Part of that is just his unnaturally high insight, but he never really puts that level of focus and concern towards anyone else on a day-to-day basis

However, i don't think Ichi would recognize these feelings as romantic. He's been alone for most of his life, he's still learning about what friendship and family mean, let alone something as complicated as romance.

I imagine he'd act on those feelings as best he could- by complimenting her, getting close to her, getting excited when she's around, cooking hotpot and sharing it with her, asking her to be family with him- etc.

Ichi is a creature who acts on instincts and feelings, and if his emotions told him to act like that towards Kumugi, he would, even if he didn't understand the reason for it yet. And he's started doing some of these already

But imo, it would take a long time for him to realize what those feelings mean, and even longer to try and figure out how he should consciously act on them, if at all.

(Should he try to push a romantic relationship? How would he even do that? What would that mean for them? Would that hurt the friendship they had now? Should he risk that? Etc)

Meanwhile, with Kumugi, i don't think she'd notice Ichi's feelings.

Ichi seems to be the first person to really compliment her. She's so unused to this behavior towards her, that she immediately tries to downplay it and play it off when it happens

Since meeting him- since he called her amazing - she's gotten better about not doing that. But a lifetime of being convinced that you were a failure is hard to move past. It took Ichi directly explaining his thoughts to her, and bluntly stating his opinion, before she accepted his words

So, if Ichi did develop feelings for her, I don't think she'd notice. Her self esteem is still recovering, and the idea that- someone would be interested in her? Really? Might be too much of a stretch for her to even consider for a while

And as for her feelings towards Ichi- well. She clearly admires him deeply. But I feel like she would be similar to Ichi, and not realize she had any sort of romantic feelings towards him. In fact, she might not think about romance at all unless it was brought to her attention that it was even an option in the first place. Bc someone as amazing as Ichi having those kinds of feelings??? for her????? What???????

This is the first time she's ever really had friends, and honestly i think she's just happy to be having fun with everyone.

The biggest difference between Ichi and Kumugi in this scenario is that, i think Ichi would subconsciously act on his feelings (wanting to get closer to her in various ways, not understanding why, but knowing he wanted to bc instinct), while Kumugi would subconsciously refuse to consider alternate reasons for his behavior besides "It's just Ichi being Ichi."

Sooo... If Ichi did start crushing on Kumugi, i think progress would be really slow and awkward. Mostly Ichi stumbling in his accidental attempts at courting her, and Kumugi having no idea what he was trying to do, but being flattered regardless.

Kinda like a cat bringing dead things to their owner to show their affection, and the owner being confused, but happy that the cat considered them anyway

I've seen some of Nishi's writing in Iruma-kun, and i wouldn't be surprised if it went in a direction like this, since she's very adept at writing slow burn romances. Idk where it might develop after that tho, we just don't have enough info to speculate yet