The latest episode of Don't Toy With Me, Miss Nagatoro starts with Nagatoro encountering Senpai on their walk to school and greeting him with an uncharacteristically soft pat on the head. He imagines confidently greeting Nagatoro by her first name, Hayase, but decides against it and calls her Nagatoro instead. As they walk to school, Nagatoro’s long gazes at Senpai make him nervous. She softly tugs at his sleeve and looks at him affectionately, then laughs at him for getting all flustered. Apparently, Nagatoro read an article on her phone a few days ago about cute things girls do to make guys nervous and that’s where today’s teasing playbook came from.
She keeps teasing him about being flustered, which he denies, and keeps pulling his arm away as she darts around trying to tug at his sleeve again. Their high-speed battle begins to rival that of flashy Dragonball Z fights. While it did fluster Senpai initially, it’s just annoying to him now. Then he posits that if he tugs at her sleeve, it’ll be able to slow her down. Senpai has never been one for good timing, so when he tries, he ends up clasping her hand in his and they both recoil in instant shame. Nagatoro’s friends happen to walk up at the wrong moment and see the two lovebirds holding hands. They start to tease them, but Nagatoro starts to judo flip Senpai and claims she was just catching him in a judo move. Smooth moves Nagatoro, that definitely fooled ‘em.
Home Alone: Homesick
Senpai wakes up with a cold and tells his mother, who’s about to go on a business trip, and basically looks like a grown woman version of Senpai. Honestly, it’s almost laughable how much they resemble each other. She considers canceling her business trip, but Senpai insists he’ll be fine without her. As Nagatoro goes through her school day, she notices his absence and blows his phone up with a ton of messages. She wonders where he’s at since he’s not at school, and he mentions that he stayed home after catching a cold. Instantly, she calls him and asks if he’s alright. He mentions it’s just a slight cough, and she apologizes for possibly giving him her cold. After a little talking, he mentions that he’s home alone and ends the call rather abruptly.
After falling asleep for some time, Senpai wakes up to the doorbell ringing. He struggles to get up and once the doorbell stops ringing, he gazes over at his window to find Nagatoro peering in through the window like a bona fide creep. After a little back and forth, he invites her in but decides against it when he considers that he doesn’t want her to catch his cold. She argues that she has immunity to his cold since he caught it from her and decides to come in.
Senpai starts to feel worse, so she forces him to his room. Once they’re there, Senpai starts to feel a little weird about having her in his room. She notes how tidy it is, but knows that he’s gotta be hiding his "pervy" stash somewhere. She starts to look under his bed, and he has a coughing fit as he tries to tell her to stop. Worried about him, she stops and apologizes. After getting him in bed, she sits by his side. When he mentions he doesn’t have a thermometer, she sees a prime opportunity to get him flustered. She brushes the hair away from her forehead and from his before bringing their foreheads together and locking eyes.
Dream a Dream of Nagatoro
With rosy cheeks that even Snow White would be jealous of, Senpai’s heart pounds, and he has a little trouble breathing easily. Nagatoro notes he has a pretty bad fever and his whole face goes beet-red, with imaginary puffs of steam rising into the air. As Senpai lies in bed, he starts to feel worse. Suddenly, he feels a refreshingly cool towel on his forehead. Nagatoro mentions that she does it when she gets a cold. As time passes, she continues caring for him, giving him water and replacing the towel with a fresh, cold one occasionally. Since his family won’t be home until late and Senpai has an appetite, Nagatoro offers to make him something to eat.
After Nagatoro goes to make him a meal, he daydreams about being married to Nagatoro and her staying home from work to care for him. When she gets back and starts feeding him, he’s still in a haze and unconsciously switching back and forth between his daydream and actual reality. He thanks her and casually calls her by her first name. It takes her a moment to really process it, and she yells out in bewilderment, but when she goes to tease him about it, he’s unconscious once again. As she watches him sleep, she asks him to say it again and teases him about planting a kiss if he’s not really asleep. A piano rendition of the theme from the series opening softly plays in the background. She leans in, asking if he’d be okay with it, and she’s startled by Nagatoro’s mother suddenly walking through the front door and announcing she’s home.
An Unusual Greeting
The next day, Senpai wakes up feeling much better and comes downstairs to a breakfast his mother prepared. She teases him about Nagatoro, whom she met after returning home. Viewers see a flashback of Nagatoro and Senpai’s mother briefly meeting before Nagatoro left. Senpai mentions she’s his junior. On his way to school, Senpai thinks back to his daydream about Nagatoro and starts to question how much of what happened was actually reality or part of the dream. He runs into Nagatoro, and they have another awkward morning greeting. As they walk to school, he thanks her for visiting and taking care of him. She waves it off and then unleashes a flurry of kicks for his tomfoolery.
He stops her by grabbing her ankle but ends up catching her in a compromising position and they both yell out from embarrassment. Once again, her friends happen to show up at the most inopportune time and Nagatoro tries to cover for it by unleashing a judo move on Senpai. Needless to say, her friends aren’t buying and neither are the viewers. This episode of Don't Toy With Me, Miss Nagatoro continues developing the relationship between the two leads by reversing the situation from the previous episode. Now if this was poorly done, it would be easy for it to come off as a stale repeat of what viewers have already seen in this series. In this case, it’s interesting to see how they both react to the same situation differently when it’s reversed and how the dynamics in their relationship shift ever so slightly from atypical circumstances. Through and through, an enjoyable watch and a nice buildup for what’s yet to come.