Kazurei

Kazurei is the slash ship between Rei Suwa and Kazuki Kurusu from the Buddy Daddies fandom.

Canon
Rei and Kazuki are partners in crime and live together. They are introduced in the series in the middle of a mission, when suddenly Kazuki receives a call. On the phone, a woman informs him that a girl named Miri has a fever and needs him to pick her up. He hangs up the phone and starts yelling at Rei because he was supposed to make sure she was okay before they tackled this mission, resulting in Kazuki yelling at him, reprimanding him for caring more about work than their own daughter. The person they had kidnapped tries butting in, resulting in Rei shooting him. Then, he and Rei flee the scene and plan to visit Miri.

After this, Kazuki starts narrating how Miri got into their lives last Christmas when they were taking a job. He arrives home to Rei, who was in a stereotypically hikikomori state, playing video games. Kazuki notices Rei brought a cat home and tells him to get rid of it. Rei pays him no mind, so Kazuki decides to take the cat out by himself. Then, he returns home and starts doing several chores around the house, from cleaning to cooking, while Rei keeps playing. Later, when they eat lunch together, Kazuki instantly realizes that Rei’s upset about not having the cat around anymore. However, he tells him that their line of work makes it unsafe for the cat or anyone to live or be around them.

The night of Christmas' Eve, they are fully immersed in their mission to assassinate a broker for a human trafficking organization. Rei and Kazuki visit several stores and stock up on equipment for their job. And they infiltrate the hotel where their target and security will be at, in costumes to leave a surprise for him, his wife, and their guests at the Christmas party they will hold there. However, their plans get abruptly changed once a little kid appears in the hotel, looking for her "papa," who happens to be the broker. The little kid wanders around the room, amidst the bullets that are being shot between Rei and the broker's security guards, and as Kazuki tries to protect her as best as he can. The kid's name is revealed to be Miri, as the broker grabs Miri and points a gun to her head.

Kazuki and Rei hide behind a table and try strategizing. Kazuki rushes toward the men as they shoot at him. Rei shoots one of the men, allowing Kazuki to reach out to Miri, as he tells her he’s her father to get Miri to trust him. Miri jumps into Kazuki’s arms as Rei headshots the broker from point-blank range. Rei shoots an escape route for himself and climbs off the building, looking for their car. Kazuki leaves the establishment with Miri in his arms, who is happy to be with "her papa." Rei and Kazuki drive off to their home, and Rei teases him because Kazuki couldn’t allow him to keep a cat, but gets to bring a kid home. Later, as Miri sleeps soundly, the two of them go through their data on their target, and realize that Miri's father is Hayami, the broker for the human trafficking organization, and that they murdered her father.

Now that Miri was alone, they decide to take care of her and to let her live with them for the moment, until they find her mom. But Kazuki is not used to having a kid, so Miri ends up causing issues in their apartment due to her high energy and curiosity. Rei, who was somberly sleeping in the bathroom's tub, wakes up by all the noise Miri and Kazuki were making, and heads into the living room to see what’s happening. Kazuki asks Rei to take care of Miri while he’s cooking. So upon seeing him, Miri asks if Rei is her papa as well, calling him "Rei Papa." Rei replies that he isn't and when Miri asks if he's her uncle instead, he tells Miri that he's "just Rei."

Later, Kazuki and Rei leave Miri alone in their apartment to visit Kyutarou at his hideout. Kyutarou is disappointed with their performance during the Hayami assassination mission. He gives them their payment and informs them about a new job he wants them to tackle. Kazuki and Rei accept the task and leave. When they return home, they realize their place’s been ransacked. They hear a noise upstairs and instantly worry about Miri. They find Miri hiding under a table, revealing she has a gun in her hand, and was playing hide and seek. Kazuki instantly gets nervous, but Rei tells him it’s not loaded. During dinner, as they research information about their next target, Miri approaches Kazuki and says her mom makes better Hamburg steak than him, crushing his spirit. She taunts Kazuki and asks him to play hide-and-seek with him again. Although Miri annoys Kazuki, her scheme helps him develop a strategy for their mission. Kazuki and Rei gather their materials and plan to head for their mission. Kazuki tries bribing Miri with snacks to let them attend it alone. However, she starts causing a scene, forcing them to bring her along.

On their mission, Kazuki plans to infiltrate the building, as Rei annihilates the target and his minions. But their mission gets interrupted once again by Miri, who enters the mansion because she wanted to pee, and starts calling Kazuki "papa," which alerts the guards who start chasing the two of them, while Miri thinks it's all a game. Kazuki catches Miri in his arms, in front of the kingpin, the boss of the place, enticing his guards to point guns at him and Miri. Before they could shoot, Rei fires at them from afar with his sniper rifle. As he starts shooting the guards, Kazuki panics saying they should flee, so he runs to Rei, grabbing him by the waist with one arm, while holding Miri with his other arm.

Children
Miri Unasaka Miri is Rei and Kazuki's adoptive daughter. She was sent to go live with her father by her mother, but ended up in the middle of hit job that Rei and Kazuki were on. She ends up being held hostage, but Kazuki is able to save her, by convincing her to come to him by claiming to be her dad. Rei then kills their target and Kazuki bring her home with them. They try to find her parents, only to find that her father was their target and her mother doesn't want her anymore. Rei and Kazuki then decide to take her in and both be her fathers while also continuing their jobs as Hitman, which they have to keep secret from Miri. She is a very kind four year old with a lot of energy and personality. She loves both of her fathers, but still misses her mother from time to time.

Fanon
is the most popular ship in the Buddy Daddies fandom ever since the anime's trailer had aired out, due to the fact that they are the main couple of the series and the story revolves around their relationship's development, alongside Miri, their child. Fans were very expectating since the very beginning that the main characters were going to be paired-up together due to their bond and interactions during the first episode, fueling the fact they, as mentioned, raise a kid together.

At the beginning, the ship had been involved in controversy and gotten backlash when the anime was released, because of the main characters' peculiar association, and criticized about how "no male friendship could be appreciated on anime" plus the "queerbaiting" just as in other series, referring to Kazuki and Rei's relationship fathering Miri, and how the anime itself was only a "rip-off" of the anime Spy x Family (with a similar plot). But with the time as the episodes are airing, they'd become more appreciative with the similarities and also became to compare Buddy Daddies with the former mentioned classic anime, Spy x Family. There's still debating about whether they'd end up as a legitimate couple or just as platonic life partners.

In most part, Kazuki parallels Loid Forger and Rei as Yor Briar, with the addition of Miri as Anya, but both are in actual hitmen raising a female child, keeping their real jobs as a secret from her. Fans would call the anime "SxF but gay", since the main characters (both guys) raise a kid together (Miri), which'd complement with Loid and Yor's relationship with Anya as a family. In fanon, Rei is a “man who has never known love,” and Kazuki is a “man running away from love.”

On AO3, the ship has 126+ works created as romantic, and as gen, 40. They have a massive following in sites like Twitter or Tumblr, their tag being on main "Kazurei" or just Miri's fathers.

Fandom
FAN FICTION

TIK TOK

TUMBLR

TWITTER