The hearts don't mean he is in love with no one. The problem with English is how vague of the word love is in his meaning. It envolves different kinds of caring in one single word. But I'll try to express here what I mean.
He cares, as a person, about everyone. This is a basic level of love that he haves towards everybody. He doesn't want anyone to actually die, that's what I mean. He doesn't necesarily cares about someone, but he loves them enough to not want them to die.
He starts befriending someone and gets to know it. He starts liking things about them and disliking others. He starts loving this people in another way, we'll call it liking. This is more a get-to-know phase he doesn't always like. The less he knows, the less reasons to get attached get attached he has. I think this are the kind of love the hearts show in the image. He has to make sure to keep a balance between how much he loves and how much he let's himself be loved. He doesn't want to have misunderstandings. He is in constant fear of "what if I made them love me more and they care more?"
And then it comes the deeply care that love is in the non-romantic way. This care a (good) parent has for his babies. The love that makes people suffer emotionally in an absolute different way from what it could be a heartbreak or a misunderstanding between friends. If something happens to the loved one, the pain is unbearable. It's one of the worst things rhat can happen. And Chilchuck knows this, he is father of three daughters, and his wife left him. She left, he knows the pain it is to come home and find it empty when there should be someone. He knows the guilt it comes with failing those loved ones. The shame. He doesn't like being this vulnerable. This love makes him suffer like no other does. So he is very very carefull of how much he allows himself to care about someone so he won't get to love like this.
He draws a line between work and private life because his private life envolves love and deep care, and he doesn't want to love nor care like this for people who's job is to constantly risk their lifes. He doesn't want to feel the anguish, he doesn't want to feel the loneliness it will come after the unenviable separation of the party.
He tries his best to not get attached to people. To not let people get attached to him. But he fails. He fails and falls downstairs with a whole drum set.
He can't help but to care about this people. He can't help but to love this people he's been living with the past few weeks in the risking of their lifes. He tells himself he's doing this for money and that he doesn't care, but he does.
Those hearts don't mean anything other than him caring about them. He cares about Senshi. He cares about Marcille. He cares about Laios. About Itsuzumi. About Namari. He cares in a way that hurts. He loves this people. He doesn't want to even imagine a world in where they are gone, or suffering, or in problems. They're his friends, they're something he, unwillingly, accepts as family.
He cares about Falin and Mickbell because he doesn't want them dead. He doesn't feel any anguish toward if they do or not get hurt after they're out of his sight. Sure, he cares, but he can live without thinking about them the rest of his days. It doesn't happen like that with Laios. He can't just simply let Laios go and follow Fallin just after he recover consciousness from a punch in the gut. Was it Mickbell, he would let him if he really didn't wanted. But Laios didn't wanted to sit and wait, and he had to care. He had to verbalize to himself that he cared. He had to let them know, so they would act accordingly. So they won't get themselves killed like idiots.
He doesn't want others to fall in romantic love with him. He doesn't feel romantic love towards anyone either. He isn't the man for this kind of love. He is, in fact, afraid of it. He doesn't want to fall in love, because he's still in love with his wife. She left him because he was negligent. But since when has this become the definitive stop for love? Chilchuck knows his wife is angry at him, and she has all the reason to be so! His husband, the one she loved and cared for, gets himself in dangerous situations, treats his body poorly and almost never is home. She loves him, and it hurts her to love like this, so she leaves. Like this she won't have to look at him get himself mistreated like he does. She would have the pull in her's stomach that tells her that he could be in great danger, that she could become a widow, but she tries to calm it with his daughter's mail to him. He could never. He can't imagine a world in wich they cease to exist. A world without his wife, even if she distanced herself, without his daughters, would be a world worthless of living. He knows this. Because he cares and he loves in such a deep level that he is scared of loving anyone else like this. To become so vulnerable to emotion. This vulnerable to something bad happening.
The fact that he is so afraid of loosing his wife, even after she left him, says a lot. He still cares about her. He is still in love with her. He wants to go back to what it was before, but he can't and he know its his fault. And he respects his wife's distance because he loves her. Now, he doesn't love her in the movie way, he isnt in love like a teenager would to his first girlfriend, he doesn't want to kiss her, or hug her, or be by her side at all moments of the day. He loves her. He cares about her deeply, deeply enough that he doesn't need to be by her side to care, to love. He also respects her. He can survive without her because he knows she's better with his daughter. For sure he wants to hug, kiss and be by the side of this person he loves, it would be ideal, but he can survive without thinking about it too much. It's just like with his daughters. They're all adults that now live far from him. And he is ok with it now. He sends mail and recieves mail, and even if he misses greatly, he can manage not to think about it. Because he knows she is allright. Because he knows he fucked up. He doesn't know where he fuked up, but for his wife to leave him, at least he knows he did. They never talked about it, because they both seem to have a problem in expressing themselves. She fell into a bad mood and then she disappeared. The amount of pain he must have felt it's... let's say it's quite big.
He keeps his guard up. He doesn't want to love deeply anyone. He doesn't want to feel the emptiness, the hurt, that comes after someone so dear leaves. He knows for a fact he'll be leaving this people. He knows that they could die. If he loves, it will hurt in a way nothing else hurts. He will miss. He doesn't like missing people he cares like this. This is why he doesn't want to love. This is why he doesn't want to be loved. This is why those hearts that are almost full are his main source of concern. This is why he makes the effort to keep this feelings at bay, to love only in the friendly way and with extreme caution.
But he can't controll his own love. And he ends up caring more and more about these people. He slowly makes him a part of the dangerous love zone that family means. He is afraid to confuse someone about his feelings towards them, so he still tries to maintain distance with his abusive remarks, but this only works so far. He loves and is loved. And because of this he will suffer.
I... I extended myself a bit I see...
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Do you have headcanons about macaque's recovering process from bpd and his copying skills (like about holding back extreme emotions or apathy, how does he regularly motivates himself to keep healing and so on)?
thats honestly a really good question...strap in, its a long one
macaque is definitely prone to bad spirals and bad episodes, as evident in the show, and he tends to internalize a lot of it and lash out in aggression. because of that i feel like starting the healing process was really hard for him. with lbd off his back and a lot more free time, im sure he thought alot about the things he did in the last few centuries. he probably stayed holed up in his dojo for a good while after the lbd stuff and just...thought. all that thinking led to spirals and breakdowns and he spent that time crying more than hes ever cried in his life. but afterwards i think he felt fine, stagnant even, and thats when he finally decided he could move on.
its hard giving up your fp and if hes anything like me im sure he didnt want to let go. he didnt want to break off those ties he had with wukong because those were familiar, safe. he fell back onto bad habits a lot, (i headcanon that he has s/h stims and he pulls on his fur when hes really stressed which adds to his bald spots), and found himself in spots where he felt the urge to go and fight wukong again, like before. during times like these his shadows are actually really helpful ! they help ground him and im sure rumble and savage help talk him through his breakdowns when theyre alone together. they help drive him to keep going, i think, because they know as well as he does that he needs this.
i think mk is another big motivator for macaque too, if not the biggest. he cares about mk so much, way more than he was ever expecting to, and i think he does hold some guilt and remorse about the way he treated mk. he wants to repair their relationship and actually become friends in the genuine way that mks friends with everyone else. and mac knows he cant get that if hes still holding onto the past, ya know. he wants to be someone mk could go to when wukong isn't available (he makes that...very very clear its honestly a little endearing) so i think he always thinks about mk while hes going through the process of healing.
and honestly, repairing his friendship with wukong could be something of a motivator too. he wants them to have something thats normal, im assuming, and maybe thats why he hangs around ffm still. but its also a little bit of a bittersweet memory of sorts, to see everything still as it was. to see bits of him still there.
with the holding back extreme emotions, macaque is the type to bottle everything up util he explodes. which isnt...healthy AJVKSKCJ i think overtime and mk exposure showed him its okay to feel those things...its okay to cry and to be upset and to just. be a person...obviously he only ever lets himself feel those things in the privacy of his dojo but hey, at least its something !
he does have set backs, as everyone does because healing isnt linear, and he still has days where its almost like hes back to being that hard-headed smartass trying to kill everyone...but i think now its a bit easier to deal with those days because he has a support system. he has people to rely on that wont shun him away, even if things are rocky between them all. but hes trying and he'll keep trying because as much as he lets it on, i dont think he actually enjoys being alone as much.
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