I know we can brush this off because he was actually giddy about it (wtf), but... seriously, took her THIRTY-NINE chapters (and that's not counting the many, MANY extras) to apologize for her friends being rude. Forget going to his defense, she hadn't even done that either.
"Dense MC". Well excuse you. If the girl I like spends time with me, but all her friends mock me and she does nothing about it, the one thing I will NEVER think is "she's into me".