I legit can't imagine this guy to have rejected her cause of her looks. If he could actually recognize her despite the transformation, then that's him actually having real feelings for her.
@omegaxis1 yeah, I finished reading this and this guy has feelings for her, be it platonic or romantic. Not only he was the only one that recognised her within seconds, but to him she looks no different than usual, called her CUTER (which means he finds her cute without the whole transformation) and saved her from the other boys. There must have been a different reason for him to reject her
Welp, I think the root cause of this is the dude is just seriously blunt and has no filter, not necessarily malicious. Wonder what he was thinking though at that moment and why no follow up after they cut off contact though, did he just not notice or understand why she reacted that way afterwards? Curious to find out more so looking forward to the next one