rather than not understanding the context this was in, i was rather conflicted in my understanding if those words were really coming from hiiragi at all. i dont like putting words into characters' mouths because that would be fanfiction.
I understand the concern about avoiding misrepresenting characters, those are normal and well-founded worries from legit translators. I think that sense of cautiousness is a good mindset to have as a translator who cares about TL quality.
Personally though, I'd prefer an attempt to translate based on informed guesses to be made, rather than leave untranslated text behind. TL notes could just be left somewhere, even in the credits page. I don't know about others, but I like reading TL notes too. Some are pretty informative. But that's just me.
You make a fair point about it possibly being mangaka commentary, so in that case, it would be like:
"(She) wants (him) to realize (her feelings), but then (she) also doesn't want (him) to..."
I've filled in the blanks based on what we've seen this chapter, I don't think there's any doubt it's about her feelings. At this point, I think it's clear she's already falling in love with him, just feeling conflicted on how to handle it.
that is to say that i wasnt sure if this was something the author just put in arbitrarily or something that eludes to an actual budding romance (because sometimes they actually do put in some pretty random comments at the end!)
Considering that this IS a RomCom, it might be weirder for an actual budding romance to not be present in some capacity.
I skimmed through some of the older chapters and not all of them have similar looking comments at the end.
Ch. 7 has:
ずっと一緒にいられるね♪ -> "(They'll) be together for a long time♪"
Ch. 11 has:
◎大活躍の予感…!? -> "◎It feels like (she'll) be very active... !?" // TL note: I hate kanji so much
Ch. 12 has:
◎まずは基本のあいさつから♪ -> "◎First, (let's) start with basic greetings♪"
The mangaka does appear to be interjecting bits of commentary at the end for some chapters. If I had noticed this earlier, then yeah, I'd say those two lines at the end of this chapter are more likely to be mangaka comments revealing Tsukino's feelings.