I don’t get the hype about this manga, the story is bland and disgusting, getting a bone...

Buddy He's sleeping with tons of girls cus he couldn't come out of the closet and the day he had a boner was the day he got a closet

So, as a child there’s a lot happening, physiologically speaking. It’s pretty common for children to see sex or aspects of it and feel something. It wasn’t necessarily him finding out he’s gay, but moreso that it’s a bodily function. Up to a certain age, children will start producing sperm and feel things bc it’s natural, but they don’t have deeper meanings.
It’s likely that he had that experience bc his body was connecting sexual tension with his own pubescent sexual organs.
Later on though, the act of his father cheating with another man and seeing his mom distraught turned into a “I can’t be him” to which he didn’t give into his same-sex desires, rather he lashed out by having multiple female sex partners.
I think there’s actually a lot more background context on how children are affected sexually that play into this really well. It might not be what you want to see, valid, but it’s an experience that is unfortunately very common.
Also it is stated that he saw a psychiatrist, but that can only do so much when you’re suppressing parts of yourself.
I just wanted to share some insight!

I don't know about you but those events actually, sadly, happens. I've been there( not I'm sexually active) but it's gross to say that I've USED
to do disgusting things with my cousins, since at very young age we got introduced to those things. I actually don't know when did it start we were a clueless and curious little kids. (This is not to be proud of but this is an example that kids who got introduced to sexual activities has an impact since they're just a clueless and curious kids)

And I would say you really don't give too much empathy to the characters. If it doesn't suit to your taste and too bland, that's fine. but actually commenting something that totally shows lack of empathy is something else..lucky to you

Empathy should be showed to the ones who deserves it, it shouldn’t just be handed easily to the ones who are clearly toxic and take advantage of innocent ones, the ml needed a therapist, what happened to him as a child obviously traumatized him, doesn’t mean it should be justified to what he did to the mc

quite honestly, that’s part of the point. how odajima pushes at yano isn’t justified and he knows it and is doing it on purpose. he’s not trying to justify it. things like the scene where he kisses yano to try and scare him and begs him to think of him as gross are on purpose because he wants yano to hate him. he acts out to try and chase him away (while also acting nice at other turns because despite the fact he does this on purpose the idea of being hated by the person he loves does upset him) and is aware of how nasty his own behaviour is. he thinks of his own feelings as disgusting and is constantly emotionally and sexually self-harming himself. yano chooses to reach out to him anyway because he’s able to see past the surface of odajima’s behaviour, is personally willing to step past it, and he’s fallen in love in turn + wants to support him and help see him through to improvement

also the situation with his dad mentioned in the op post is quite literally a form of non-physical child sexual abuse, his reaction was an unwilling automatic physiological reaction from being exposed to prolonged sexual contact visually & he then spent years acting out sexually both as a direct response to it and in an attempt to conduct self-enforced conversion therapy. pittosporum is ultimately a story that is at its core about sexual trauma and how it affects the victim and the people around him as he struggles and fails to cope, and finally learning to heal from his experiences. it’s an uncomfortable topic but a real, serious experience & while you don’t have to like the story describing it as bland and disgusting does quite miss the mark of the topic it’s about.