Small world... that was handled... oddly. Yes, this is an insulated fictional story where characters and scenarios exist to facilitate the coupling of the main two characters, but it is done so half-heartedly. The closest anime to doing this I can think of from recent memory was actually Happy Sugar Life, an(other) airy, flowery, psychological horror piece where 'horror/fiction logic' prevented characters from making rational decisions because the plot was written to require it.

I get the depiction of Japanese as being largely docile and subservient in anime media, but this was a bit hard to swallow. There may have been some room for interpretation if the escalation/extortion had left something to the imagination. Forcing himself on her in someone else's apartment? Setting him up for hatred, and giving him some token redemption later feels like status quo check boxing at this point. This story is clearly more interested in being idyllic than realistic; I'm still interested in seeing where this goes.

I think the actual draw here is the adult romance side of this story with MC and his office cohorts; not the teenager runaway's runaway drama, so this episode was a bit weaker for focusing on that, too.