The thing that was folded away behind the hard face

What you were looking at

What moved you about Mustang was not strength. Strong characters are not scarce, and you did not cry over all of them. So strength is not the thing that separates this one out. Something else did.

What you reacted to is the gap between what Mustang held up on the outside and what turned out to be underneath it. Careless. Blunt. Rude. Unbothered. The reliable older one. The shape does not matter. It was one layer, worn facing outward, and something else had been folded up and put away behind it. The moment you still carry is almost certainly the moment that layer stopped holding.

But the breaking is not the point. The point is what came out of the break: not something ugly, not something violent, but something that had been kept carefully, for a long time, out of everyone's sight. That is where it lands. You were not moved because the scene was sad. You were moved because for one second you could see what this person had been carrying the whole time.

Which means you are not someone who likes big emotional scenes. You need the long stretch of no emotion first. Without it, your one second does not exist.

And where that leaves you now

One remembered picture gets added here. What you picked was the close shot, from inside the person as they give way. That is not how it stays in the memory of someone who was watching from across the room.

So you have a layer of your own, worn facing outward. It is not a lie; it was probably put there because it was needed. But the person wearing it is the only one who knows what got folded up behind it. That may be why you cannot look away from Mustang in that second. It is happening on your side of the screen.

One thing worth checking. When was the last time you came apart in front of another person? If nothing comes back quickly, try the next question. Is it that you do not come apart, or that you moved the place where you do it somewhere nobody goes?