There's the kids' bedroom, where Marlene and Denzel sleep, and where we see Cloud and Tifa awaken during AC/C. And then there's Cloud's office, which is clearly called "office" (so not a place where Cloud sleeps usually) with a spare bed (and a tyre) and no blanket in sight. And then in Case of Tifa, there's this discussion they have at night where he was asleep - and where it's implied that they at least sleep in the same room, if not the same bed.
People want to make "what if" situations but the big picture is very clear, Cloud and Tifa share at least a bedroom, and given Remake honestly, I don't see them not sharing a bed. The only time they didn't was when they were building the new 7th Heaven.
Tifa is very insecure. That's why Case of Tifa was written the way it was, that's why she has complicated feelings towards Aerith - that get resolved in ACC, BTW. Normally, Cloud is opened to her - that's what the Ultimania states, that she's the one to whom he opens his heart. However as his depression kicks in, he closes it to even her, which is why she becomes insecure about their relationship. It's also the fact that Tifa is the only one he opens to that makes me say that not only he does love her, but also that his feelings towards Aerith are different. The fact that she's engraved in his heart is normal, she was a dear friend - for whom he was falling for at some point and though it wasn't fully him, those feelings certainly are still part of him - however it's also quite a very Japanese thing to say about friends or family passing. My own father used it to describe his feelings after his own mother died.
Tifa is, in ACC, busting Cloud because he's depressed and abandoning his family as a result. She's totally right to do that because that's what a SO should be doing at that moment; tell the other that he should do something about it - in Cloud's case, it was going after the kids to bring them back. They were losing to a memory because Cloud couldn't shake off his guilt, the feeling that he shouldn't be happy when a dear friend was dead. There's a reason why Cloud's story stops there; it's because he manages to finally get better and work on those troubles, and allow himself to be happy (it is also to note that AC/C happens like a week or two after CoT and last at worst what, one week? So Cloud wasn't gone for even a month).
Which is why all the other works including him are parallel universe such as Dissidia. But we still see him telling Tifa to close the bar for one day so they can all have a picnic together - which is what Tifa wanted, to have some time together with the kids. As stories go, Cloud's story is finished at this point, and my guess is that if they add another game post-DoC with him at the center, it will be very different from what we have had up until now - his identity crisis and his depression being resolved, they will have to find something else. But it might be complicated if, as I think it will, the Compilation remains canon, because they already have 2 kids and a teen under their roof to take care of ^^'
What are they? Cloud answers it in The Kids are Alright; they're family. He's the father, Tifa is the mother. It's not an easy task, especially not for such young people, but for Tifa during CoT, and partly ACC, it was difficult because when you are young in such a complicated relationship, you don't know where you are and where you stand if the other is depressed. You're alone and trying to communicate - something neither of them is good at - and that quite doesn't work and suddenly you wonder if that it was only you who thought your family that way. I really think that CoT suffers from being amongst the first novellas written by Nojima because the subject it touches is very complex, but he was still a rookie at writing novellas, so the point doesn't really get across and you have to really look at the big picture to understand it.
In the end, I rambled a lot, sorry. I'm just grumpy that in order to discuss the LTD, we go into such details, forgetting what the big picture is. What has been told is very, very clear if you look at it, but if you go to details, you can discuss everything as if that point mattered - and in the perspective, it does not. I've said it in this thread, but love is quite unfair, and this LTD is very much so: the more time you spend with your lover, the more love your nurture and grow. In that sense, Cloud and Aerith are locked in time and space while Cloud and Tifa not only grew closer before FFVII/R began, but also during and after. This is why I think clerith would work way better in AUs than in universe, as a couple. Because clerith can't ignore cloti, it can't ignore that it's outweight by it, that what we're seeing ties Cloud and Tifa together even more than during OG.
Not that it would matter anyways, Cloud strikes me as the type of guy who’s too socially inept to give himself a relationship label. The poor guy didn’t even know either girl liked him (at least, until the Lifestream).
Also, I don't think the devs care a lot about the LTD, as I said already the LTD started from a misunderstanding mixed with bad translations. To them, their story was clear, when Cloud reveals himself in the Lifestream, it was also a love confession to Tifa. End of story. They have sex under the Highwind, have a family, move on. Why is it that people keep asking them who Cloud loves? Isn't it obvious enough? I think that at worst, that's what they'll do with Remake, make it more obvious so that this doesn't continue to pursue them. They must be pretty exhausted about this LTD, and I noticed every time they were asked questions about it in the scope of Remake, they always talked about the *girls*, not the LTD. Which does make me happy, because really, IMHO, Remake shines with its characterisations.
