BroTP to the moon and back. I think they’d actually have a prickly go of it sometimes, and that makes me really interested in their dynamic. I think post-series, they’d want to explore their connection more, because they have a profound respect and admiration for each other already, but they’d have a hard time getting in past the exteriors they both cultivate. Rei already feels like she’s lost her cool so much in front of Michiru, and I think Michiru has a fear she’d never acknowledge that if she lets her guard down around Rei, Rei will realize there’s nothing worth admiring in her. Rei would have to be the one to really pursue things, and to her credit, I think she would. She loves the Inners dearly, but she recognizes there are parts of her that Michiru might be able to understand that the others can’t. I see their class backgrounds as being similar, and while I think Rei’s relationship with her father and Michiru’s with her parents went wrong for different reasons, I think also that their feelings would be similar enough that they’d find solace in one another, even if they never directly talk about it.

Deep friendship would take a while for them, and it comes down to Rei having the courage to be vulnerable first. Rei has to show Michiru that she’s good enough to not play the same games as everyone else. And once that happens, I think she’s one of the few people in the world besides Haruka that Michiru’s ever truly open with.