Responses
Old Hikaru wasn’t gay
Its not because he said being gay was gross that he never actually loved him. Internalized homophobia is a thing, and I believe the theory that the manga is a metaphor of that.. since the only hikaru who accepts his feelings and shows them to yoshiki is the ‘monster’ hikaru since that is how your own feelings are seen when you experience internalized homophobia. for me, it hits close to home but it might not make as much sense to you.
I’m not completely sure, but I think the original Hikaru didn’t love Yoshiki in a romantic way. Besides being interested in girls, I think he was somewhat aware of Yoshiki’s feelings, and by using expressions like “gross,” he was preventing a possible future from happening and protecting their friendship. Because if Yoshiki confessed and he couldn’t return those feelings, their friendship could have ended there. Maybe that’s also why, after his death, he wanted Yoshiki not to end up alone. He knew that Yoshiki was gay, and that if he left, Yoshiki would be left lonely and devastated.
The fake Hikaru, at first, wanted to protect Yoshiki with Hikaru’s feelings and saw him as a friend (his first friend), but unlike the original Hikaru, he eventually truly fell in love with Yoshiki. In a way, he deviated from the original.
I think it was mentioned in the first chapters that the current Hikaru was more clingy to Yoshiki. I don’t remember exactly and I didn’t check, but that would mean that the old Hikaru, even though he was close friends with Yoshiki, wasn’t as intimate with him as he is now.