With regards to the straight vs butch crush thing, one thing I’ll say is that you don’t have to know that person isn’t a man to be attracted to them—often it’s something about the way they move, and act, and inhabit space, that’s sort of instinctually alluring. You can pick up and respond to things about someone’s gender without consciously recognize them.
For example, I have a few strictly lesbian acquaintances IRL who have been really confused and kind of distressed about being attracted to specific men, only for those “men” to later turn out to be trans women. And for my own part, if you show me a picture of a butch, 9 times out of 10 I won’t really feel anything—but if you put us in the same physical space, ho boy do I have a reaction. It’s about the energy, their voice, the way they move and talk—that’s what I respond to.
So it makes total sense to me that Aya is picking up stuff like that from Mitsuki. Consciously she might think, she’s so cool and handsome, what else can she be but a man? But the v i b e s are like “ohhhh wow this person is so attractive.” And then that leaves you with, “I guess I’m just attracted to this one specific man.”
I’m not sure if I’m expressing myself in a way that makes sense, but I hope that gets my point across. I find the premise of Aya’s attraction very plausible. I just wish they’d make some progress…