I’m a bit early this weekend, but I had the time today, so I sat down to read Chapter 9 and the bonus chapter! Chapter 9 was a pretty smooth read, but honestly, I feel like I’m not totally grasping the bonus chapter… It feels like we got dropped into the middle of a situation that we have no prior knowledge of. To that end, I want to make sure I’ve interpreted a few things correctly:
Questions
On Pg. 151 (the second page of the bonus chapter), there is the panel where the dark-haired girl (have we seen her before? She seems familiar, but I can’t place her. I recognize the delinquent kid and his sister from the “Test of Courage” chapter, for sure, but not sure why she seems familiar) says the following:
勇気だして告白した方の身にもなってよ。
This sentence is the one that I am really struggling with, for some reason. It’s a case of knowing all the words in the sentence, but not…really feeling like I can connect the dots.
勇気だして = I think is a form of 勇気を出す, with the を particle dropped, so means “to summon courage; to be brave”, in conjunctive て-form to connect to the next verb:
告白した = to confess (from context, specifically confessing feelings)
方の身 = ??? I know both the words, but I can’t for the life of me find a way to make this make sense in my head.
にも = essentially just a combination of the に and も particles… It’s modifying the 方の身, but since I can’t parse what that combo is trying to say, knowing it modifies that doesn’t help me much here.
なってよ = なる in て-form. Can’t really decide what the best definition is here since it has several, but I think maybe it’s the “to come to do” answer, and she wants him to come to an answer, since she was asking him in the previous panel had he done
I am picking up general vibes of, “For the [whatever that 方の身 noun is] that worked up the courage to confess, come to an answer.”
Edit: 2nd possible interpretation after looking at it some more: “Become the one who also worked up the courage to confess.”
So she is telling him to confess? But then what’s the “answer” bit about? I dunno. Just floating more possibilities…
Edit 2: I added an also to the second possibility, which utilizes the も particle properly, and allows me to sorta feel like maybe that’s the correct answer. Guessing from context, a girl (not the one speaking to him right now) confessed to the kid, and he hasn’t yet given an answer, so she is telling him to be brave enough to give an answer/confess to the third party…maybe?
I guess where I’m confused, is that I’ve only seen 身 to refer to “oneself,” and from the rest of the chapter, it seems pretty clear she is not talking about herself here; there is a third party that she thinks he needs to be speaking to, but maybe I’m misinterpreting the meaning of her:
だからさ… その好意はあの子に向けてあげてよ
I read that as being along the lines of:
“I already said, direct that affection towards that girl.”
But maybe I’m misreading that entirely, and that’s the source of my confusion.
Either way, I would appreciate some help! I feel like this chapter dropped us into some drama that we don’t have any real context for, and I’m a little lost, but intrigued, now. 
Story Comments, Standout Panels
Given the odd coloration, I suspect this is one of those panels that @ChristopherFritz mentioned early on where the digital version decided to be in black-and-white while the printed version would be in color? Or is it just a sudden shift in shading for no apparent reason?
Gotta love how excited (and oblivious) Mina is… On a side note, if somebody offered me a baked sweet potato flavored ice cream, I would call the cops for that crime against flavor and good taste… Blegh.
Comments here are two-fold: First, Sanae-chan has a much better understanding of how Takagi-san and Nishikata interact with each other than does Yukari, clearly.
Second, regarding the ice cream: Pictures taken moments before disaster.
Nothing gets past Takagi-san. Nothing.
Gotta love how easily he gets flustered. Also, something about the way the background was drawn in this panel really stood out to me. I like it a lot.
