Well, goddam.
In all honesty, that weird talk with Marin's dad during winter break had me convinced Wakana's years of social isolation and childhood trauma had left him unable to process his feelings normally (and maybe even put him in the spectrum somewhere). "I'm concerned for her health as a classmate" or something was the extent of what he understood. My expectation was that someone would have to sit him down and talk him through things until he got that A-HA moment.
Good to see it was just that he thought his feelings would disgust her instead. In the sense of that not being good at all, but it got us where we needed to go.