Eerie
Fire and Blood
No. It was him theorising on a question that never even crossed his mind. Like "oh maybe, but not in the end". He is Japanese, he will always answer questions and never contradict. In the same breath he also said he put his views of marriage into the Cloud and Tifa relationship, and that when he started writing, he knew everyone would be where they belong, ie Cloud with Tifa. You have to understand that he pushed CT and back then gave CA a maybe, because CA wasn't even in his equation. As I said the dream date is his answer to that question, as is ACC with all the zerith added.I could see Nojima maybe feeling like Cloud would be better with Aerith and then changing his opinion later on. Because I think the wording of this quote is still very weird in any context and also over the years he has become a tiny bit more aggressive with showcasing cloti as the canon couple. So yeah he might have thought Cloud loves Aerith more and then changed his mind.
As for Nomura, he's saying that Tifa is the one who pushed Cloud to react, and that, understanding him the most, is able to conclude that he pushed his memories (aka Sephiroth & his guilt) away. That he will be alright starting now. And so they have that mini moment at the end where they are shown as on the same page again. ACC does fare better into showing what was wrong with Cloud, and him communicating, and adding more CT scenes but the idea remained. They also communicated a lot on Cloud's fear to lose his family or to hurt them and thus shutting down, as well as having Reminiscence where you see him answering a wish from Tifa in CoT (that they'd have a family day).
As far as communication goes, it was Nomura's idea that fans remembered Cloud as the broody ex-SOLDIER so he capitalised on that for AC/C, sadly enough (since I prefer his real self). As I said I personally feel that REBIRTH especially makes that movie (and especially CoT) slightly off in terms of characterisation. When you see all the conversations that Cloud and Tifa have in REBIRTH, AC/C and CoT feel disjointed.