The Christmas Eve episode ofUzaki-Chan Wants to Hang Out!is finally here, and it starts with Asai and Sakaki berating Uzaki for leading them on with the nonsense of her and Sakurai’s stagnant relationship. Little did they know they were speaking for all the impatient viewers out here. After teasing her at home since Uzaki seems to have given up on pushing forward with Sakurai, Yanagi visits Uzaki at work.The younger Uzaki sistergets the lowdown from the café workers and walks over to Sakurai to get started matchmaking.
She doesn’t waste any time cutting directly to the chase and asking him about him forbidding Uzaki from coming over. Yanagi suggests thathe spend Christmas with her, and they play video games at his place, which finally gets something of a reaction from Uzaki. Uzaki suggests them having Christmas Eve at her place, and it catches Yanagi off guard. Sakurai was actually going to let Uzaki off the hook about the banishment, but this works too, so he agrees to go over to her place for Christmas Eve, but Uzaki is forgetting something, as the viewers certainly were too. Yanagi points out: what about their father? Could it be? Will viewers finally be able to witness the fated Fuji and Sakurai encounter wherethe truth all comes out? For a moment, it seems like it’ll just be another tease like the earlier moments of the season where it seemed just as possible.Then, something magical happens. It really is a Christmas miracle! Yanagi suggests they just do the Christmas Eve celebration at Sakurai’s place, but Uzaki holds steady and decides to just talk to her father about it.
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Christmas Eve at the Uzakis
On Christmas Eve, as Uzaki and Sakurai walk to her place, she feels pretty positive about the potential evening. Now viewerssee the moment continuingfrom the first episode of the season, which started with a flash forward to this very scene. They arrive at her place and Fuji comes out to greet them. At first, he doesn’t recognize Sakurai, and he gives a pretty warm greeting, but then his eyes open wide, andhis pleasant smile shiftsinto a tense face riddled with veins.
Once they’re eating dinner, Fuji glares at Sakurai from across the dinner table. There’s a little bit of humorous back and forth between Sakurai, with Sakuraifeeling nervous and unsureof how to proceed and Fuji jumping on his every sentence. Fujifeels bad about being seen as the villain, and then he thinks back to Sakurai at the gym. He decides to take a different approach, but he can’t hide that he has ulterior motives, and he has the most suspicious look on his face as he offers Sakurai a drink.
He realizes that he must’ve told Sakurai so much at the gym before he realized who he was to Uzaki. He doesn’t want the other Uzakifamily members to know he wasjust blabbing about family matters at the gym. He takes Sakurai away from the table to have a one-on-one talk. Away from the others, Fuji asks Sakurai if he remembers the conversation they had at the gym. Sakurai remembers the conversation and slowly, but surely, tries to get his coat on and dart out of the home. With the conversation they had at the gym being about Uzaki’sromantic feelings for her senpai, Sakurai doesn’t know how to handle that information. Fuji stops him and asks him to forget all about it, at least for the day.
A Plan is Afoot
Fuji promises to be nice as long as Sakurai chooses not to mention anything. Uzaki asks about their conversation when they get back and Sakurai mentions they were just talking about knowing each other already. All Uzaki does is say “okay, good!” and it leaves Sakurai with rosy cheeks just thinking about what Fuji said about her liking him.
Uzaki tries to feed Sakurai, even going so far as to blow it off before feeding it to him, but all viewers can see is Fuji’s face getting more and more frustrated. Fuji’s limit caps off at Uzaki telling Sakurai to open his mouth and say “ahh.” Fuji blows up, yelling that he never permitted them to flirt.
Later in the evening, Fuji enlists Sakurai’s help to help Uzaki have a good Christmas Eve. Sakurai is pretty mirthful for a little while before he asks Fuji for a time-out, and they talk away from the others about it being hard for them to forget about the conversation at the gym. Fuji offers to knock the memory out of his head with a bottle to the head. Sakurai doesn’t take him up on it, but he recalls that he’s lost memories before when getting heavily drunk. Fuji supports the plan and tells him to go ham on all the alcohol in the house.
Then he considers if they should be trying so hard to get rid of the memory and wonders if Sakurai does view Uzakias just a friend. At that moment, viewers must surely be thinking the same thing. If Sakurai has any sort of romantic feelings for Uzaki, should he try so hard to forget that she has feelings too? Maybe he feels guilty knowing her true feelings without her confessing them, but only time will tell.
The Plan Backfires
An hour later, Sakurai is so drunk he can barely sit up. As Fuji boils in anger with his plan backfiring, Uzaki plays with Sakurai’s face and Ms. Tsuki adores how cute their relationship is. Uzaki mentions that Sakurai has gone into auto-reply mode and invites Ms. Tsuki to say something to Sakurai in his drunken stupor. She obliges, and thanks him for always hanging out with Uzaki.
Sakurai replies that the way she bothers him is annoying, but she’s “good people” and makes tasty food. Then, he thanks her for everything. Uzaki can’t hide her smug look, and Fuji watches from the side, hoping that Sakurai will forget all of this. Sakurai starts to mention that he hated his parents being so touchy and affectionate with each other around him, and it made him kinda bad with women. Sounds like a cop-out, but we’ll take any character development we can get at this point. He mentions that he’s appreciated Uzaki bothering him and admits that his father said that if he doesn’t do things right, then it could cause trouble for her. In light of that, he’s been thinking that he should give her some serious consideration. Sakurai’s unintentional romantic confession penetrates even Fuji’s iron heart, and he has to grit his teeth to keep himself from shouting out that Sakurai loves her.
This episode ofUzaki-Chan Wants to Hang Out!ends there, on somewhat of a cliffhanger. Who doesn’t want to know what other goodies Sakurai is going to spill or how Sakurai and Uzaki will get to that promising Christmas scene shown only a few moments after the initial flash-forward in this season’s first episode? Hopefully, the next episode will end the season on a powerful note.
