Also love this cause of the pining!! I have such a soft spot for insecure characters and I’ve read way so many where the one who falls first has liked the other for AGES without expecting anything back so it’s super cute to see their affection be reciprocated, and usually so obviously! The emotional payoff is *insane*, both for the pining character to “unexpectedly” get what they’ve longed for, and on the readers part because someone wholesomely going up in flames because of their affection is incredibly fun to watch
(add in the Y always flirts but gets super flustered when X does something cute and I am figuratively dying. These roles are interchangeable tbh)
I think people misunderstand "x fell first, y fell harder " trope because it's not about like the one who fell harder loves the other person harder. It's just that the one who fell first falls in a graceful way, one step at the time, maybe gradually over a span of time. The one who fell harder smashes trough the air, there's blood everywhere, everything is fine-