I feel like this is the first time I've seen Kaoruko express hints of jealousy. She was completely fine with Subaru meeting him alone before, but it's because she's sure her best friend won't betray her... which doesn't apply to random girls she doesn't know. We've seen actually bad boys in this story before, but I'm sure actually bad girls exist out there too. Understandable.
Kaoruko's maybe blessed with inner strength, but that doesn't mean she'll also never act like a mildly jealous teenage girlfriend, who looks like she's mighty proud of being the first to know how awesome her teenage boyfriend is. She's afraid some other girl will also realize this and make a move on him. Cute, so long as it stays as just mild jealousy and doesn't fester into something more serious.
I like that they stopped caring about the Kikyo-Chidori conflict when it comes to dates. Now that they have backing from more students at Kikyo who'll take their side, I'm really only worried about the teachers now, but maybe we can put that overarching conflict to simmer on the backburner for a bit again. Excited for that "meet the parents" chapter even though Kaoruko and Kyoko already know each other.
But they can't even hold hands haha.
I won't deny that this is slow, but they literally held hands all the way back to the station in this chapter. It was even the focus of the key page spread.