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I respect him for everything he stands for; his morals, his love for his students, especially Megumi, and how he tries to be friendly with everyone so they don't see him as someone unapproachable just because he's strong. The Strongest. People assume he's arrogant, egoistic, full of himself, or just a jerk, when he's really not.
I think about how rarely anyone asks him how he's doing, or even simply thanks him, yet he keeps going anyway. Underneath it all, he's still that teenager whose best friend walked down the wrong path, leaving him to carry the title of the Strongest alone. Treated like a weapon more than a person.
He's the same man,the same kid,who had to kill his best friend because it was the right thing to do, regardless of how much he loved him. For a world that barely valued him as a person in return.
He's the same man who saved troubled kids from cruel fates that had been forced upon them because he knew what it was like to have his own childhood, youth, and life sacrificed to the jujutsu system.
Always treated as a weapon first and a person later. (Almost never as a person, if we're being honest.) A soldier to win the war. The saviour, never the saved. The giver, never given to. The lover, never loved. The carer, never cared for. Always smiling, yet so rarely smiled for.
Yes, he is the Strongest. He was gifted with that. But that doesn't make him any less human, and it certainly doesn't make him immune to human emotions or human experiences. However strong he is, he's still just a boy who suffered more than he ever should have, and still chose kindness.
Being the Strongest doesn't make it any easier to be lonely.
I don't think many people truly reach him. He carries so much by himself because everyone expects him to be the strongest, and when everyone expects that of you, vulnerability starts to feel like something you can't afford.
He's not just a pretty face. He is beautiful, but not because of how he looks.
He has a beautiful soul. Scattered. Battered. Stabbed. Burned. But still beautiful. Still pure.
And in the end, he gave up his life for the people he loved. Whether they loved him back in the same way or not didn't matter to him.
He did it because he loved them.