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When the day was over, Hunter felt a twinge of longing to be in the presence of someone again. He knew it was childish to want connection when he literally spent his whole day around other people, but the urge to run away from being alone with his thoughts never really went away, even after starting therapy.
The never ending cycles of guilt and pain that gnawed at him in the background always came to the surface when Hunter was alone. He felt guilty about so many things; his past, his relationships, the thought that he was still a bad person, and the existential dread that somehow, no matter what he does, it'll never be enough. Hunter's performance was frequently quantified back in the Emperor's Coven and he still struggled to enjoy the present moment without constantly judging himself for "being lazy" or "not doing enough" or "wasting his precious life".
Thinking about his life made Hunter want to go back in time and shake his younger self until he understood that there are people who actually care about him and want to help him. He knows such a thing wasn't possible, but what hurt even more was knowing that back then, he was so deeply entrenched in the belief that his "uncle" was a good person that nothing would've changed his mind besides literally entering his uncle's mind.
It still hurt for Hunter to look in the mirror. To see the scars Belos left on him, to see his brown eyes Flapjack gave him. His entire body is a tragedy. He missed Flapjack so, so much and he resented Belos for doing such a horrendous thing to his palisman.
He'd often fight back tears when looking at himself in the mirror when alone.
Hunter was happy to be able to explore his own personal style and expression. These things brought him a bit of comfort when he did have to face his own reflection, knowing that he was still his own person despite all the things that happened to him. Still, it didn't take away all the pain in his heart.
When Hunter would lay in bed at night trying to fall asleep, he felt the lingering sense of numbness that just never seemed to go away. Peace never really came to him, no matter how hard he tried. Sleep would only come when he distracted himself from reality by thinking about Cosmic Frontier or another one of his interests.
Hunter hated being alone, and putting how much it pained his heart into words would never truly be sufficient. He felt permanently broken, like a sad portrait one would look at to wallow in their own misery. No wonder he still struggled with dissociation whenever he spent too much time alone. He just wanted to block all these awful feelings out.