Played it to the end on the live build. The core read lands: I settled it with stay-still first, gave up one berry, and once it was right beside me the reach stuck and it pressed in. "It's pressed against your knee, warm. It's close to deciding. Stay with it." is the line that got me, and "It chose you." felt earned, not handed over.
One thing to poke at: the calm path solves it. Fear bleeds off on its own and the gap closes once trust is up, so "stay still, then reach" wins without ever reading the ears or the pause. The description promises you read the creature instead of a bar, but a patient player never has to. If a low-fear reach could still miss when trust isn't there yet, the reading would become the actual skill.
Small thing: the ending clock runs from page load, not your first move, so mine read 7m 28s of mostly idle time. Nice that the berry count in the ending is the one I actually gave up.