Bro why is every MC in these type of manga such a pussy, thanks for the TL
It's not that MC is too scared to reciprocate, neither is it that he's too dense to understand what's going on.
It's because he:
1) Cares about Yuizaki's reputation and wants to distance himself for her sake, and
2) He's insecure and while he can see that Yuizaki likes him (platonically, at least), he just can't find the reason for "why me and not someone else".
And tbh from last 2 chapters we can see MC is not a coward. He just prioritises himself first over relationships
+ as others said it's really fucking weird to assume that someone's care/attention seeking nature (which is what the MC Fujiwara probably sees from his perspective) is equivalent to romantic attraction