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Crushes were for kids.
You only had crushes in school, a silly 'I wanna be your PE partner' when you were little and then turning into a 'I wanna hold your hand after a football game and kiss you in your driveway' sort of situation, and then becoming nonexistent. You never had crushes after that because you were supposed to be mature, past the whole lovey-dovey feeling and the hand-holding. It was all kids stuff, meant for the playground of the back of someone's dad's car; it wasn't for a technical adult, or man like him, and certainly not someone who was currently in an intergalactic war. There was no place for it out in space, no place for acting like a child and no place for having any sort of distraction in times like the one Takashi Shirogane lived in.
Adults liked each other. Adults went out on fancy dinner dates and took it slow, adults bought each other flowers and chocolates and clothes and diamond rings. They knew what real love felt like from all of their past screw-ups and they were careful with their steps and hearts, and they acted mature whenever they found someone they liked. Liking someone meant 'Let me take you out to a coffee shop' or 'I think you're really attractive' or 'I want to sleep with you', being a detailed description of a feeling with having a crush was an incomprehensible blob of warm feelings.
He was crushing, and he was crushing bad.
It wouldn't have been as bad on Earth, where they wouldn't be down a hallway from each other or sharing a bathroom. It wouldn't' have been as bad if she was anyone else instead of his best friend's little sister, the sister of two people he failed the most.
But it was what it was.
It was a sharp tugging in his chest, forcing air out of his lungs and blood pooling under his skin when she flashed him a toothy, sly grin. It was warmth spreading over him when their knuckles collided against each other's, a desperate, stuttering and stammering answer for what that look was for when her golden-bronze eyes melted him into a puddle under her gaze. It was the urge to intertwine their hands, to press his lips against her freckles and to wonder about what she was daydreaming about. Crushing hard was what made him protect her so fiercely, what fueled the fire to make himself a better, kinder version of himself, a version that might, in one reality or another, return his affections.
Crushing was turning into an absolute mess when she confessed she actually did.
Crushes were for kids, and she sure made him act like one.