Though confused as to what Sae told Junichi that night, her training goes on until the day of the job interview. She passed it, but when Junichi plans to "graduate" her, she refuses, stating that she wants to become her student forever. Junichi is happy to see Sae in her part-time job, though still confused with her. One day, Junichi accompanied Sae to the amusement park, where they rode the merry-go-round and watch a hero show. Here, Sae asks Junichi to call her by her first name, as well as asking him to be her partner for the upcoming Best Couple Contest during the school festival. Later, taking a clue from Sae's actions, Junichi holds her hand.

Junichi invites Ai and Ikuo to go to the amusement park but only the former two go after Ikuo gets sick. While entering the haunted maze, Junichi starts hallucinating bizarre things around them until he snaps out of it after biting Ai’s finger. As they head to the park where they first meet, both of them ride the swing together where Ai stops it and kisses Junichi, leaving him flabbergasted. The next day, as Junichi visits Ai at the school pool to talk about yesterday, he finds Ai distraught upon learning from Hibiki that she was not selected for the upcoming swimming meet. As Ai tries to run away from them, Junichi unexpectedly chases her and dives into the pool and hugs her where she finally cries. As he consoles her on the way home, Junichi accepts Ai’s invitation to help the Swim Club’s oden food cart during the Founder’s Festival.

With the festival over and the school cleaning up, the Tea Club invites Junichi for tea as thanks for helping them where the latter gets interested and learns how to make tea from them. While eating at the restaurant where Kaoru works at, Rihoko asks Junichi to accompany her to go the local shrine on New Year’s Eve. But when Junichi and Rihoko are about to go with Miya, the latter two falls asleep, making them go the shrine in the morning instead. As they pray and check their fortunes, Rihoko writes down on an ema Junichi gave her earlier and wishes for a successful diet, new members joining the Tea club, and, as a quick addition, tell her feelings to Junichi someday.

With the festival behind schedule and Tsukasa's health worrying her, Miss Takahashi suggests they cancel some events, but Tsukasa assures her the festival will be ready unchanged. Knowing that the festival committee is short of manpower, Junichi manages to convince Tsukasa to get their class to help. However, a trio of girls complain and accuses Junichi and Tsukasa's flirting with each other as the root of the festival’s problems. When she fails to end the argument nicely, Tsukasa switches to her real personality and cites the trio’s hypocrisy, silencing and shocking everyone. Later, Tsukasa brings Junichi to the shrine again where she burns her notebook, makes him promise to be hers and seals the deal with a kiss. The next day at PE class, Tsukasa is ganged up by the trio again in dodgeball but the rest of class sides with her, forcing the trio to give up. However at noon, only Masayoshi, Keiko, and Kaoru remains to help Junichi and Tsukasa.