Nope, no backtracking now. Stay on course! I’m not a big fan of dating within the office, especially when there’s a power imbalance. But if you’re going to commit, then commit. This is, however, just the start of the episode, so of course, Kamegawa gets called away before he can properly explain his intentions. Afterwards, Hotta has to spell things out to Kannawa. She should’ve just done this from the start. Meanwhile, Kankaiji tries to advise Kamegawa to finish the damn job. And Kankaiji’s right: Kannawa is the sort of person who won’t believe that someone likes her. After all, she has completely abandoned the idea of making friends at work, so do you really think she would have enough of an ego to believe that Kamegawa likes her on her own? No way. Kamegawa needs to stop dancing around his feelings like some besotted schoolchild, waiting and hoping that their crush — their senpai — notices them. He needs to smash through Kannawa’s defenses like… I dunno, Nemesis from Resident Evil 3 or the Kool-Aid Man.

Kannawa worries that maybe she’s not being a good enough friend to Kamegawa. She also adds that her kouhai — the employee she’s supposed to mentor — also happens to be her first friend. She makes it sound like he’s her only friend. Uh, is Kankaiji not her friend? And Hotta as well? They can barely hold in their laughter as they listen to her, but if it were me, I’d be thinking, What am I? Chopped liver? What have we been doing this whole time? Why did I invite you to a spa resort if we weren’t friends? But hey, those two are nicer than I am. I know I’m petty.

Oh no, Kamegawa is sick? He’s gonna call out, right? Well, not exactly. Bro actually says he’ll try to make it back by the afternoon. First the typhoon, and now this. I mean, if he’s legitimately sick, then he’s just going to spread his germs everywhere. But again, I don’t know what the work culture is like in Japan. They do wear masks a lot more willingly than we do. But while I’m thinking, Man, Kamegawa better be reasonable and not come into work, the gears are already set in motion for Kannawa to crash his apartment.

The episode kicks things off with Kannawa being literally too scared to enter a store and shop for new outfits. Why? Because she doesn’t want to interact with any of its employees. Jesus, just tell them you’re just looking. In the end, Kamegawa has to fortuitously bump into his nervous wreck of a senpai (it’s a small world), and thus does the talking for her. This is some real “Um, she asked for no pickles” energy. Our hardass senpai’s getting progressively childish as the story unfolds.

We get the usual mishap to kick off the episode. It’s the day of the big collaboration event at a local cafe, but Kamegawa naively relied on the merchandise not just being delivered on time, but also on the day of the event. Yeah, that’s kinda silly of him. Why would you not hedge your bets and schedule it a couple days earlier? Naturally, Kannawa scolds him, but she then also blames herself for not double-checking his work. Apparently, she didn’t want to come across as a nag. Girl, you’re his superior, not his wife. Besides, this is hardly the end of the world. The collab hasn’t started yet, so you’re not technically late. Oh yeah, Hotta is also here for some reason. Just to be a third wheel, I guess?