The following contains spoilers for Season 2, Episode 5 of Science Fell in Love, So I Tried to Prove It," now streaming on Crunchyroll.
Yukimura Shinya and Himuro insist on using hard, real-life science to determine if their mutual attraction is genuine, and their expertise with the scientific method makes up for their critical lack of real-life experience with romance. That sets them apart from their more tradition-minded classmate and friend Kotonoha Kanade.
Kanade also seeks her own happily ever after, as do Shinya and Ayame, but Kanade sees no use for oxytocin tests or formulas to determine who should be her lover. She wants to use "regular" methods to find true love, but that might be even tougher than trying to quantify something as abstract as love. Still, at least she has friends to help.
In Episode 5, Shinya and Ayame get creative with their research and ask their manga artist friend Yamamoto to provide shojo manga examples of true love to serve as a reference. While Shinya, Ayame, Kosuke and the self-styled chunibyo Ibarada Ena pore over the examples and analyze them, Kanade has different thoughts. She values science as much as her friends, but she sees no need to mix science with true love, seeing them as incompatible. In Kanade's eyes, true romance comes from the heart, and no formula or oxytocin test can rush it. For that matter, neither can text conversations.
Kanade doesn't yet have her ideal lover in mind, and even Ena and Ayame are ahead of her where romance is concerned. That's because Kanade doesn't know how to handle her tentative relationship with a friendly young man named Naoya, who has been politely hitting on her and chatting with her via text messages. Kanade feels flattered by the attention, but she doesn't know how to respond and feels paralyzed by fear and indecision. She has more conventional romantic issues than Ena and Ayame, and that means her scientist friends can't easily relate to Kanade's position. Being the "normal" girl makes her the odd one out in this crowd.
Kanade buys herself time while texting with Naoya, and Naoya shows admirable patience by giving Kanade the time she needs. For now, Kanade simply reaches out to her kuudere friend Yukimura Shinya for help, and as expected, Shinya offers help with formulas and quantifiable data, to Kanade's amusement and exasperation alike. Despite being so clinical though, Shinya shows remarkable empathy for his friend, and he cleverly devises a simple but effective method to help Kanade decide whether or not to pursue Naoya any further. Shinya may be a bizarre love expert, but he certainly knows what he's doing, and Kanade won't let that go to waste.
Kanade brings herself to blend her scientific side with her subjective feelings and manages to crank out a tentatively promising answer with Shinya's improvised formula. For now, Kanade is insecure enough to keep relying on Shinya's awkward science rather than trust her own judgment, but she also has the resolve to take action and text Naoya back with her honest answer. Her strategy is to befriend him first and see where things go from there, and that's a big step, all things considered. It's possible that Kanade might lose her nerve and remain friends with Naoya after all, but if Kanade pushes herself, she just might get swept up in romance #3. She's certainly earned it.