気兼ね
きがね · kigane · JLPT N1 · noun
hesitance
兼 — hand 又 holding two grain stalks 秝
兼 is an ideograph showing a hand (又) grasping two stalks of grain (秝) at once. The original meaning was 'to hold two things together,' which extended to 'combine,' 'simultaneously,' and 'both.' This sense of doubling up survives in modern compounds like 兼职 (hold a concurrent job).