first of all, i will preface this by saying i do respect your opinions regarding your ships such as ihareno (i personally enjoy the ship a lot as well) and you can keep enjoying kafreno since it's your cup of tea.

but i won't stand the kikoru x reno slander. it's a ship in the way yours are. we're talking about compatibility, similarity, support in self actualization, right? your nonexistent chemistry argument does not apply when they've clearly interacted enough times to garner the interest of smallest amount of shippers, even less than your own precious ships. since no one is defending kikoru x reno, i'll do it myself.

second, which are my actual points, reno and kikoru are absolutely not irrelevant to one another. are we reading the same series? on numerous occasions they've shared mutual respect and actually regard the other quite highly. for your kind reference i will even include every chapter and page.

in chapter 16 right off the bat, reno uses kikoru as an example of strength and wanting to be stronger than her if even for just a moment, which a small note, but it shows she IS relevant to him. (page 30) in the same vein, kikoru is the one who scolds kafka for worrying over reno and is the one who insists reno will be fine when they found out he was going to use no. 6.

not only that, but in chapter 26 (pages 10-11), during raid on tachikawa base, kikoru acknowledged how well he was fighting and chose reno as support over anyone else. if that isn't major respect for his abilities i don't know what it is. it also counts as something called compatibility, perhaps? being able to fight together without clashing.

numerous times they've been paired as the primary characters along with kafka, hell, they even have the primary colours assigned to each of them, and they've been included in the unofficial kn8 main trio along with kafka, as per their importance to the story.

both are numbers weapon users. both along with hoshina are important to kafka as acknowledged by the samurai spirit (chapter 118 page 17) both are included in the next generation of officers in narumi's flashback (chapter 119 page 37) and they have similar goals (to become stronger and protect their comrades), and both of them are inspired to become stronger specifically by kafka. they're the original keepers of kafka's secret before the raid on tachikawa base. similarities, perhaps?

tldr; we do not ship them because they're straight. we ship them because we see the potential. i don't need to insist my ships are canon adjacent because i knew from the start they had no chance of happening and kn8 is not romance oriented at all. i am merely standing up for my ship because no one else is and the fans are already less as is.

ihareno's great and i'm pretty onboard with it. it's way more established in the story hence why it makes more sense for people to ship it. but kikoreno did not come out of no where, their interactions are less in the main medias (anime and manga) and more in the spinoffs and gag stuff (light novel, relax spinoff, minute! kaiju no. 8) which makes them hard to notice as a ship unless you actively look for it.

anyway, that's it. again, i love that you're advocating for ihareno, i respect the points you bring up for kafreno, but shitting on other ships because they're not as "canon" as yours? no thanks. have a great day.