Ane no Tomodachi - Vol. 4 Ch. 26

[dbzclamp]

She's also not stopping the romance from happening.

Unless you count her deliberately crashing their aquarium date.

She's pretentious and condescending because she's an author stand-in without any humanizing flaws. And every time tension from an interaction between Hina and Asahi--be it awkward tension or otherwise--she's there to be Hina's crutch and the cycle resets.

I'm going to add that the other characters are constantly telling the reader how amazing and beautiful and cool she is. That's incredibly off-putting to me, especially when she acts exactly like how you described.

 

[Valle_reading_manga]

Naruhudo

 

[Kosnope]

but in this story the MC just feels like a normal guy who is a little shy sometimes and is too scared to ruin his relationship with someone he's known for years and years by making a move.

Normal guy? A normal guy wouldn't screech at a girl (he supposedly likes) for doing exercises in her own flat, he wouldn't physically slap her cuz he could see a bit of her boobs, he wouldn't yell at the top of his lungs straight to her face about how dare she offer him a photo of herself and literally making her cry and stammer 'Oh, o-ok' after being rejected so strongly.

He's not a shy normal guy, he's retard.