this scene in the anime has the craziest implications. because like. from what we know hikaru was outwardly an extroverted funny type of guy and like obviously he acts that way to hide what he really feels (the episode starts with the at his fathers grave and he still tries to do his whole silly funny bit to lighten the mood), but i think having yoshiki describe him that way to “hikaru” is like. crazy to me. because “hikaru” is the complete opposite. he says whatever hes thinking, he feels things freely and without judgement, he gets excited about things no matter how small, hes not afraid to tell yoshiki he likes him, or ask him whether he liked the real hikaru because those things don’t seem abnormal to him. he is completely unrestrained by societal expectations or conformity.
but the real hikaru? hes had pressure put on him since childhood of fulfilling his family’s duty, to marry someone quick, to take over as head of family. i think it’s also safe to assume that the Indo family had quite a lot of eyes on them given everything we know so him and his family were probably getting discussed just as much as yoshikis for example. his father died when he was still young so he was practically left to figure it out all on his own. “He could read the room better than you. Like a grown up” probably because he had no other choice!!! once again i don’t think its crazy to assume that he did in some way take over as head of the family after his dad’s death. there was so much pressure on him to keep up appearance, and that’s not even touching on his potential queerness. like imagine he starts realizing that he likes yoshiki in a way thats more than friendly and beside the typical small town internalized homophobia, now he also thinks that he is actively putting yoshiki in danger by being close to him. like hes been told from a young age that if he liked someone he had to marry them quick otherwise nonuki-sama would take them. but he can’t marry yoshiki, he shouldn’t even like a guy in the first place and its wrong for so many reasons to him; so he distances himself. this probably around the time he started being a bit girl crazy and always pushing yoshiki on who he likes and like just pushing down any possible slither of feelings he had for him. in some ways i think he was more repressed and had more pressure on him than yoshiki, except he found some form of salvation, but hikaru never will.
