#And Question Of The Day: which part of my tags indicated I'm jealous?

[agnesmontague]

buddy daddies theory: rei's mission

gonna drop this into the main tag before any canon can nerf me but i had the theory in the group chat earlier that rei has been on an undercover mission this entire time to keep tabs on kazuki, and miri has been an unforeseen factor in his plan

we don't know how or why kazuki came to live with rei; presumably this happened after his wife died, but who set him up to live with rei, and why? were they partners before the wife's death, or did they only come to know each other afterwards? until we get more solid answers to these questions i had the idea that someone sent kazuki to live with rei--the rich boy, the son of the boss--because rei was tasked with keeping an eye on kazuki for whatever reason.

there are small indications throughout the show that rei really doesn't know much about kazuki at all; this goes both ways, as shown in the "i won't ask." "i wouldn't tell." conversation, but rei always is shown to react whenever kazuki reveals info about himself:

[ep 4]

[ep 6]

i think it's very likely that rei is collecting some kind of intel on kazuki as he goes, possibly to report back to headquarters, which would be ironic considering getting intimate with his marks to get info is exactly what we see kazuki doing in ep 1.

this is also why i don't think these two had known each other or even met until after kazuki's wife passed away. they don't give the impression of having worked together for a long time, or at least, they have known each other just long enough to work up a rapport but not enough to actually talk about themselves. which is fascinating considering how much of a married couple they seem to be already, but that's another topic for another day...

another thing i've seen pointed out is that rei doesn't seem too happy at the end of ep6 despite witnessing miri and kazuki being all sweet and lovey-dovey together:

this could just be a humorous moment--kazuki's overreacting again, or rei also wants to be miri's favorite dad and is jealous--but it's been speculated that rei could also be going through some complex emotions here: it was never supposed to become this complicated. starting a family was never really in the cards for him, but rei is an inveterate collector of strays and got attached to miri just as quickly as kazuki did. and now here we are.

finally, this would serve to rather neatly explain why rei's father's organization seems to be "calling rei back" in the 3rd trailer:

my running theory is that kazuki and rei were both part of the same organization, but kazuki did something to "betray" or otherwise run counter to the org's principles, thus getting his wife killed. this killing was his "warning", after which he would have come to meet rei:

now, if rei isn't careful with his newfound family, the organization would target them as well. it would be rei this time who would be getting the "warning", if he got too attached to miri and/or kazuki, who was meant to be his mark all along.

truth be told i'm still not 100% on the pulse of where PA Works seems to be going with these two; we really have no idea how much they want to focus on kazuki and rei as a duo (not even necessarily as a romantic ship, but as a team) as opposed to them naturally just becoming parents to miri. but here's hoping that they've got something juicy in store.

#buddy daddies #kazuki kurusu #rei suwa