The fact that her brain's turned into a whole flower field's got me thinking: I get that her initial attraction to him was based on his drawing of her, but I'm not getting enough of a sense for why she's
always been this intensely enamored with him and is willing to embarrass herself for-- and struggle with-- him.
Even before the "confession", she was doing a fair bit to pander to what she understood of his tastes, and it's been made clear that she always intended to "make the fake relationship real"-- meaning that her demeanor prior to when he got dragged around by Ai was almost certainly a defense mechanism that had started to slip from that point on and was completely obliterated after the "confession". But Nahee indicated that she's
never been like this the whole decade she's known her, so I'm figuring she was leveraging an actual part of her personality as self-defense as opposed to merely hiding herself. I especially think that given that she cracked and cratered his self esteem back when he was getting cocky in chapter 14... on the other hand, she was autonomously doing his bidding in chapter 13, too, to the point of giving him a massage with a completely bewildered face.
The drawing he made of her was pretty accurate-- is her attraction the product of her interpreting him as "seeing" her as herself? I can kind of see the sense in her appreciating an accurate artwork of her versus the more vulgar and faceless likes of her selfies and promo pics on Instagram or whatever social network she uses.
The dynamic can make sense just fine, even without her being a closet otaku like Daim in any sense, and the drawing being the initial hook for her works fine-- but what throws me off is that, more than being initially hooked, she's indicated to be
absolutely smitten from the point she saw the drawing, which is basically "at first sight". So, I'm left thinking Iljina is surprisingly easily won over, but then, how hasn't she been won over before?
Hm. Hey, wait a second... she accidentally said he was cute in chapter 14...
and, is he really that shor...
I get it now-- she's a shotacon!
I still don't really get it, but this manhwa's at least fun. Thanks for the TL.