OH MY GOD. been waiting to talk about this publicly.... a friend once said in another life id be a hiyorei shipper but that's not this life, and i agree with him. i'm stuck with reihiyo....

honestly i love hiyorei and i definitely see the aesthetic of sad soppy wet black cat rei and hiyori who's the boss of his ass in more ways than one. honestly in my read of them theres some of that in their dynamic too!!! i feel like im inherently more of a reihiyo guy though because to me, by putting them together theyre kinda Necessarily like that... LOL i think by being w rei, hiyori wants to be babied by him a bit... even if she doesnt openly admit to it... she subconsciously? wants to hear him say good girl~ that kinda thing... (i think her family is pretty short on open love like that... thats my reading) and rei's older sibling / caretaker(?) complex probably kicks in around hiyori too bc shes a bit younger. reis an older sibling and hiyori a younger one and family's a big thematic Deal for both of them that colours their characterisation a lot so my take is it tints how they view each other n their dynamic, ie rei being more leftside and hiyori being more rightside LOL. but ofc theyre them n they can subvert even this too like i said. their places in their dynamic are always kinda in flux i think, their dynamic is pretty fluid in that they both switch around who's the more dominant/assertive and who's the more submissive/passive. but their dynamic is marked by this teasing bantery vibe which really just means theyre always pushing and pulling and shifting between the continuum of reihiyo–hiyorei dynamics and its very fun~

im just soooo fond of reihiyo though. there's something very special and heady about it... its a bit doomed bc that dynamic is the result of their subconscious urges/ knowledges of who they are as people and the socioemotional roles they occupy in their relationships w other ppl... but it's intoxicating bc reihi has such a distinctive flavour and is really fuckin tasty. sorry if this is rambly and hard to read its 2am... let me know if u have any questions regarding the lecture ☀💭