One of my love interests, Matthew is a yandere or lovesick because yan means sick to be blunt and dere dere mean lovey-dovey,
He's REALLY protective of the Mc, Sophie, especially seeing that her day job is saving the other harem guys from death by flower sadness, being possibly eaten or killed by Yan ghost mom and being forced to be married their power-hungry dad,
He mainly wants to separate Sophie from the guys because they're getting her in harm's way, the reason he's like this is because, Sophie saved him from getting hit by a car, falling off a bridge and getting attacked by ghost hands,
So I'm wondering how to balance his yandere side, where he wants the other boy to go away and see them as pests while still being childhood friends and actively trying to remove with the cat arc rolls around with them and keeping healthy well for a yandere, which I know is ironic considering the name
Make him have self control, i guess and learn that certain things you cant control
No problem! Im kinda an yandere myself
Okay, so. I'll try and give my best advice.
For yandere characters, the elimination of the rival does not always mean murder. People have less obvious means of getting rid of rivals that could help with keeping their reputation clean. Well, cleaner.
Some of these include physical torture, mind games, playing matchmaker and luring the rival to someone else and others. A yandere trying to keep the innocent "childhood friend" facade might opt for these methods seeing that they are less serious than murder and some are slightly easier to execute and have lesser or even no consequences.
Yandere characters aren't always what you see in games like Yandere Simulator and others similar. They don't all get flustered around their love interest and all poke-fingers-together nervous. They don't all have shrines of their love and creepy info about them. So try not to make them like that. Yandere ≠ creepy.
Although, some may not be as behind the scenes protective as others. Some may be forthright "get your hands away from my love" type of people. However, they may not openly admit that it's love. They could pass it off as the whole "oh, they're my best friend, of course, I'm protective". That's where the childhood friend thing could come in.
Hope this helped a little. Sorry if my jabber was useless!
