#also stings cus he thinks so highly of himself and what he's meant to achieve or what he's expected to achieve

[theultimatekamehamehavoc]

Random Togami Headcanon 13

TL;DR - Byakuya's bettered himself but he still has a long road of healing. Also, heads up. This one's not happy like most of the others. Gets a bit hopeful at the end but there's still a lot of sad topics here. Viewer discretion is advised. Now that he feels more empathy for others and possesses some capability for putting himself in another's shoes, thoughts he used to have about the lower class make him feel... off. Perhaps guilt or discomfort with himself. It doesn't help though looking at his classmates every school day and being reminded of the mindset he was raised with. It especially doesn't help when he looks at Makoto who helped him. Makoto being the commoner of all commoner's also hurts. He appreciates what Makoto's done to help him but it unintentionally stabs him hard within his chest that he needed someone's help to get to this point and the someone being a commoner he once wrote off. Next, with this empathy, the heir feels better with his life and happiness but fundamentally worse. It's as if he deteriorated though, logically, he knows it's not the case. He knows that the illogical side of his brain covers itself in the hides of reason and rationale. Essentially, Byakuya ends up having a grueling struggle with dealing with these emotions that, for the majority of his life, he buried and repressed. Emotions that both make him feel more fulfilled in life but that tear him apart inside. Bouts where he feels either extremely content with how he's turned out or that dread and despair that he's slipping back into his old ways. In fact, at times, it becomes overwhelming for him to handle which he especially hates. Being overwhelmed is yet another thing he once viewed as a weakness and, to some extent, he still does. Sometimes, to cope, jokes to himself on whether existing itself is something he feels is a weakness. However, though he has a lot of emotions and thoughts that upset him now as a bettered person, one big thing that pains him is that he has the capability and the intelligence to notice all of this. It's the acknowledgment that stings. The heir notices that he has a problem, that he probably needs help, maybe even therapy, but then he spirals more because of that realization. Why should HE need HELP for these problems of his?! He's an independent person! He should logically be able to handle this himself. He's always handled his problems on his own! Why should he now need someone or just a support system of people to aid in his path of healing? He feels gross for that support system being the classmates who he once adamantly despised with such vitriol. With the added empathy, he also feels shame as he doesn't want to hurt any more people in his life now. He has the hindsight to know this now. He questions himself. Is the situation he's in even that big of a deal and should he keep searching for answers on the "why" and "how"? Is it worth it? Comparisons to the peasants he used to once adamantly demonize also do not escape him. He feels worse because, while he's breaking at the seams, countless of other commoners have similar thoughts too. He's not unique and a bit of that stings his lingering superiority. Then, there is the fact that Byakuya feels even worse about this BECAUSE commoners can handle stuff like this and yet, he keeps saying that he can't due to his mental spirals. Either that or the older thoughts of hating commoners bites back by making him feel like he's "acting like one". He knows by this point that he's actively tearing himself down and that he needs to escape this cycle of mental abuse. He feels shame in himself though. He feels humiliated. Pathetic. Overly emotional in ways he's never felt before. He still has that hope though. The hope that he can get through his. The heir's already delt with so much whether canon, non-despair, or an au of some kind. He's continued on despite it all. And, though long ago, he would have pushed some of this hope off for it being too optimistic, he's grown to care less about that sort of thought anymore. Byakuya can do this.