WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Episode 8 of Komi Can't Communicate, "It's just Obon," now streaming on Netflix.
Shoko Komi and her classmates are all off from school for the summer holidays. For Komi, this entails visiting extended family, attending summer festivals and spending all her free time with the close friends she made in her first few months at Itan Private High School. The time she spends with her friends makes her realize how much she values their company, to the point of not wanting the summer holiday to end.
During a visit to her father's extended family, Komi brings her grandmother up to speed on her life as a high school student. When asked by her grandmother if she's made any friends at her new school, Komi silently communicates that she has. When asked if there are any boys from school she likes, Komi begins to shake uncontrollably. Her grandmother then sees the name of a boy named Hitohito Tadano on her mobile phone and immediately asks who he is, following that up with "I won't allow it."
Unbeknownst to Komi's grandmother, Komi happens to be wearing the dress Tadano picked out for her at the shopping mall in Episode 6. Elsewhere, at the Tadano household, Tadano sneezes while watching TV with his sister, which in Japanese culture means that someone is speaking poorly of him. This implies that Komi's grandmother is continuing to badmouth Tadano offscreen, probably exacerbating Komi's anxiety. This scene with the grandmother foreshadows Komi's later encounter with Tadano at a summer festival.
For the summer festival, Najimi Osana invites both Komi and Tadano to attend. They also specifically ask Tadano to wear a yukata, probably anticipating that Komi will be wearing one as well. This strongly implies that Najimi is aware of Komi and Tadano's growing attraction to each other, which is seemingly confirmed by the fact Najimi tends to leave them alone a lot.
At the festival, Komi, Tadano and Najimi meet up with Ren Yamai and encounter other classmates from their school. Together, they play a target shooting game, participate in katanuki (candy-cutting game), kingyo-sukui (goldfish scooping) and rope lottery, the latter of which Komi manages to win the grand prize for without thinking about it. During these games, Komi struggles to communicate her thoughts due to having forgotten her memo pad. Eventually, however, she does manage to stammer her compliments to Tadano looking good in a yukata, which leaves Tadano feeling flattered.
Sometime after the rope lottery game, Komi loses sight of her group of friends and starts to have an anxiety attack. When Tadano comes back for her, they wait together for Najimi to rejoin them so they can resume their fun together. At this, Komi grabs a stick and manages to write in the dirt, "Tadano-kun to futari dake no toki mo tanoshi katta desu." In English, this translates to "When I’m with you, I enjoy our time alone as well." Unfortunately, Komi erases the message before Tadano has a chance to see it, but it does confirm she has feelings for him, Her feelings are further validated when she once again wears the dress he picked out for her when she visits him at his apartment toward the end of their summer holiday.
