Onodera commence à travailler à son nouveau poste chez Emerald et est durement présenté à leur "cycle" de production en étant jeté dans le désordre de leur phase d'épuisement, dans laquelle tout le monde semble brutalement surmené et épuisé. Il est choqué de les voir transformés le lendemain en personnes calmes et énergiques qui lui montrent avec fougue les bases de l'édition de mangas.

Alors qu'Onodera continue d'apprendre les ficelles de l'édition et de la publication de mangas, ses interactions avec Takano deviennent plus tendues et inconfortables. Takano réalise finalement qui est Onodera, révélant plus tard son identité à Onodera comme son premier amour du lycée, ramenant des souvenirs d'avoir été utilisé et jeté de côté, même si, comme l'explique Takano, ils ont été alimentés par un grave malentendu. Il est laissé en conflit en ce qui concerne ses vrais sentiments envers Takano.

Après que Takano et un autre membre du personnel se soient disputés dans le bureau d'Emerald au sujet d'une publication sous-imprimée, Onodera les voit plus tard avoir une conversation apparemment amicale dans le hall, suscitant un sentiment de jalousie en lui. Perturbé par le fait que cela le dérange, il commence à éviter encore plus Takano, ce qui incite Takano à le confronter à la situation avant que cela ne commence à affecter leur capacité à travailler ensemble.

L'auteur qu'Onodera a supervisé tombe soudainement malade avec tous ses assistants à l'approche de la date limite de publication. Il se précipite vers le lointain Hokkaido pour l'assister personnellement, malgré les protestations de ses supérieurs. Alors que toute l'équipe de rédaction est à bout de nerfs, Onodera respecte à peine la date limite avec le manuscrit fini. Il s'endort plus tard dans le train avec Takano et se retrouve à dormir dans le même lit que Takano le lendemain matin, troublant ses émotions et le poussant plus loin dans le refus de s'ouvrir à Takano.

Cet épisode présente un nouvel ensemble de personnages - Chiaki Yoshino, un auteur masculin qui publie des mangas shōjo sous le pseudonyme féminin Chiharu Yoshikawa ; Yoshiyuki Hatori, son manager et ami d'enfance ; et Yuu Yanase, son assistant en chef, qui est en termes difficiles mais peu clairs avec son manager. La froideur croissante d'Hatori envers Chiaki commence à faire des ravages sur leur amitié, et lorsqu'il est pressé par des questions personnelles, Hatori devient distant. Chiaki voit plus tard Hatori et Yuu dans une ruelle ayant ce qu'il interprète comme une dispute entre amants. De plus en plus désemparé par la confusion qui commence à affecter sa capacité à écrire, Chiaki réalise lentement ses sentiments pour Hatori. Cependant, Hatori avoue plus tard son amour pour Chiaki, à sa grande surprise, tout en admettant qu'il avait changé la direction de Chiaki dans le dos de Chiaki, craignant que sa confession ne mette leur relation en mauvais termes...

After an onsen trip, Chiaki is burned out and can hardly concentrate on work. The emerging love triangle between him, Hatori and Yuu compounds his inability to focus as well. Later on in Chiaki's apartment, Hatori informs him that he must attend an upcoming party because his manga will be made into an anime and he must meet the people in charge. Hatori offers to pick a suit for Chiaki, but Chiaki prefers to go shopping with Yuu instead, sparking jealousy in Hatori. After Yuu leaves, Hatori makes tries to kiss Chiaki, upon which Chiaki pushes Hatori away because he feels that Hatori is moving too fast. This upsets Hatori and he leaves. During the party, after meeting the anime staff, Chiaki sees Hatori surrounded by many women, including Ichinose Erika; a top writer who is known to have taken a liking to Hatori. Chiaki, feeling that Hatori is comfortable with the writer, becomes jealous and promptly leaves the party with Yuu. Hatori eventually arrives at Chiaki's place because he still needs to discuss some corrections with Chiaki's manga. Chiaki smells perfume on Hatori; feeling that the writer at the party may have gotten too close him, he becomes angry. Hatori reassures Chiaki otherwise and also confesses his jealousy about Chiaki and Yuu, feeling that Chiaki favors Yuu over him. Chiaki also reassures him and Hatori tells him that he loves him, and will continue to tell him until he can never forget. The morning after, Yuu admits to Chiaki that he is in love with someone, but when Chiaki asks who the person is, he simply says that Hatori knows the person well, leaving Chiaki puzzled and confused.

The episode begins with Ritsu having another flashback dream, in which he sees Saga sleeping in the library and tries to find out what book he was reading, but runs away when he thinks Saga is about to wake up. Afterwards, Ritsu wakes up and goes to work. At Marukawa, Ritsu's assignment is to make his first proposal as a manga editor to publish the manga he's supervising as a book. It is initially rejected by Takano, so he stays late at night working on it. Later that night, Takano helps Ritsu with his proposal, even though Ritsu didn't want his help. After a while, Takano suddenly kisses him to break the tension, and consequently gets hit by Ritsu. Yokozawa then arrives and sends Takano to meet someone. When he's alone with Ritsu, Yokozawa proclaims Takano as his property, and doesn't believe Ritsu's words about not having any relation with Masamune other than that of boss-subordinate. At a bookstore the next day, Ritsu meets an old female friend from his previous job, and they go for drinks. She gets drunk, stumbles, and falls into Ritsu's arms. This is seen by Takano, who had just arrived with Ichinose Erika, a female writer, to discuss work (Ritsu misunderstands this and feels jealous). When he arrives home, Takano accuses him of not working hard enough. Takano makes another pass and admits to being in love with him, but Ritsu (who is still wary of admitting his love for Takano) runs away and leaves Takano alone in his apartment. The proposal meeting day arrives and Ritsu is quite nervous, but Takano tries to cheer him up on the way to the meeting. In this episode another Junjou Romantica character appears; Isaka Ryuichiro.

Kisa sees Yukina, the Marimo Books employee he has been attracted to for a long time, selling the latest book he has edited. Tall, handsome and charming; Yukina is extremely popular among girls, who are easily convinced to buy the books he is selling. Kisa does not believe they could ever be together. Checking the sales of his book, Kisa notices that the sales are very high at Marimo Books, as they have been for his previous books too. They are finally introduced to each other by Yokozawa in the bookstore. Just as Kisa is leaving the store, he runs into a persistent ex-lover. After being rejected yet again, the man is about to hit Kisa when he is stopped by Yukina, giving Kisa an opportunity to flee. Later on, Yukina happens to find Kisa in the little-known cafe he had run away to. They talk, and Yukina correctly guesses the authors Kisa has been in charge of, saying they had a similar atmosphere despite being very different books. He is also astounded by Kisa's youthful looks after learning he is actually 30 years old. Yukina reveals he himself is a 21-year-old art student. As he plans a fair to promote Kisa's latest book, it begins to rain. Kisa, however, is lost in thought and doesn't hear Yukina asking him if he has an umbrella. Noticing this, Yukina leans in and kisses Kisa.

Kisa freaks out and cannot concentrate on his work because of his constant flashback to the scene with Yukina at the cafe. He soon receives an e-mail from Yukina inviting him to the bookstore to see the book promotion display stand that they planned earlier. This reminds Kisa of the kiss and he throws himself into a brief depression after convincing himself that Yukina cannot be serious about the kiss. He gets even more down after belittling himself career-wise by comparing his achievements to Takano's. After work, Kisa subconsciously arrives at the bookstore, where Yukina shows him the display stand and tells him that the reason he worked so hard on the display was because of Kisa. Noticng that Kisa has been trying to avoid him, Yukina invites him to talk after he finishes work. As Kisa waits for Yukina outside the store, he encounters the persistent ex-lover yet again. The ex-lover finds out about Kisa's feelings for Yukina and threatens to expose him but was defeated by Yukina, who appeared suddenly and claimed himself to be Kisa's boyfriend. Kisa and Yukina end up in Yukina's house, where Yukina finds out that Kisa was in charge of editing all his favorite manga. He then surprises Kisa by telling him how he knows about Kisa's feelings for him from the start, but when he begins to talk about the kiss Kisa immediately interrupts him by saying that he does not care, which triggers an unexpected response from Yukina, who confessed his love for Kisa. Afterwards, Kisa receives notice that his book is getting a second printing, and when Yukina tells him that he loves him after Kisa notified Yukina of the news, Kisa decides that he has fallen in love despite the fact that he claims he can only like men's faces.

After working through the night to finish work, Yoshino and Yuu stays behind together. Yuu saves Yoshino from falling over the trash can, and starts to tease him by tickling him. Hatori walks in on the scene and misunderstands. Later, Yoshino arrives at Hatori's house and attempts to apologize, but gets mad at Hatori when Hatori says he does not want Yoshino to have physical contact with Yuu. They make up temporarily in the morning after Yoshino sleeps over, but gets into a dispute again when Yoshino reveals that he is going to a hot spring with Yuu. On the night of the hot spring trip, Yoshino is surprised to find out that it is his own birthday on that day and realizes why Hatori is upset about his going away. Briefly after his realization, he receives an unexpected love confession from Yuu, but is interrupted by a phone call from Hatori. After hearing a "Happy birthday" from Hatori through the phone, Yoshino suddenly decides to terminate the vacation and go back to Hatori's house, where Hatori gave himself to Yoshino as a birthday present.

Onodera wakes up in the doorway, still holding on to a convenience store-bought dinner, and suddenly remembers a meeting that he was to sit in in the morning. On the subway, he complains about his lifestyle after joining the shōjo manga department. Onodera is surprised by the hostility shown in the proposal meeting and dreads future meetings. After the conference, Onodera meets Sumi Ryouichi (father of Sumi Keiichi from Junjo Romantica), whom he was in charge of before in the literature department at his father's company. Through Sumi sensei, Onodera also meets Hasegawa of the literature department, who later dropped in on Onodera during work and invited him out for a drink. Takano, who happened to hear the invitation, rejected it for Onodera. After commenting on Takano's strictness, Hasegawa reminds Onodera that he can always transfer to the literature department if he no longer wants to work on manga. Later, Onodera encounters Takano at the library and tries to run away. Takano saves him from falling down the stairs as Onodera trips on fallen leaves; as they embrace on the stairs, Takano tries to evoke past memories from the time when they were dating in high school, but Onodera escapes again. At the apartment, Onodera encounters Yokozawa, who apparently was coming out from Takano's room with Takano's cat, Sorata. Yokozawa confronts Onodera and claims Takano as his, and further throws Onodera into confusion by recounting how Onodera had only hurt Takano since they have known each other.