It is insane how many people are dissing this highschool boy (he didn’t even get to go to graduation before he died so yeah he technically is still one) for not immediately catering to sora and instead re-asserting his boundaries, obviously his loner shtick is cringe and very clearly cope for the fact that he has no social life and obviously sora has good intentions in wanting him to open himself up more, but has anything good actually come from this rehabilitation plan for him?
She spends all her time verbally abusing him whenever they speak to one another and peer pressures him into social situations he has zero experience in maneuvering instead of actually giving him advice or maybe putting in a good word for him.
Every time he tries to close the distance between them whether unconsciously or not she shuts him down or backs off (remember she has repeatedly said she’s not romantically interested and even went as far to say they aren’t even friends without a hint of sarcasm), not to mention she badmouths him in front of the few people he actually has managed to talk to and teases him for interacting with them at all despite that being the entire basis of MC’s cooperation.
his first effort of making friends was a blunder in the purest sense, increasing his embarrassment and apprehension to the whole idea which she did nothing to help with, the second was a desperate kamikaze move to help a “friend” which has left his public perception in an even worse state than in the original timeline which she again, did nothing to alleviate or advise for, all this has gotten him is two girls just as nosy/unhelpful as sora in his business and a school full of rumors designed to make him look like a freak.
I say all this to say he has gone more than halfway wasting his time with this utter moron’s plan to “help him” and then she comes up with another half-baked suggestion for what he reasonably assumes is born out of pity, since she’s demonstrated time and time again she doesn’t like anything about him, he puts his foot down and says the reasonable thing, that her hanging out with him isn’t gonna do anything to help him and will only make her look worse so they shouldn’t do it, and suddenly he’s the bad guy for not doing what she says? Yeah we as the readers know her intentions but he doesn’t and frankly he should probably suspect he’s being made fun of with all the goofy shit she has him running around doing.
to put it bluntly, she’s doing a shit job of convincing him that making friends is worth the effort and his response to her blatantly dismissing his stated worldview and boundaries as a mistake that’s making him unhappy when she has provided no convincing alternatives was a lot more polite than she deserved, unfortunately she will learn nothing from this and MC will be forced to apologize for being right but man is it a shame so many readers are as bad at reading the room as she is.