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walked towards Makkachin slowly and grabbed his collar.

"Come on, boy, stand up!".

"Victor, don't touch him."

Victor froze when he heard the soft voice behind him. He turned around slowly to see his mother walking towards him, frowning disapprovingly, with a concerned look in her blue eyes.

"Don't worry, Mommy, I wasn't touching him", Victor reassured her, but she remained suspicious.

She raised her eyebrows at Victor in a silent question, asking him to explain the situation. Victor didn't hesitate and explained everything that had happened to him since Friday evening: the fight, what he had done while drunk, and what had happened since then, including the argument and Victor's inability to speak. At the end, Victor looked down at his feet.

"So, what are you going to do?" His mother asked, "Is he still going to be our guest?"

Victor swallowed hard and nodded.

"Yeah", he replied, "... But, maybe he's just angry right now, and... maybe he'll forget this whole thing eventually....".

He looked back up at his mother. She was clearly worried, but she seemed calm.

"If you really believe he might be angry, why haven't you talked to him yet?", she asked him.

"Because it hurts too much if we talk about things that upset us", he replied, "It doesn't hurt me, but I can only take so much pain before I break down again. We don't want to keep on hurting each other."

"Okay, I understand that you want to protect him", she replied, "but you could also start taking responsibility. The first step is understanding how he feels and apologizing. After that it should be easy to communicate."

Victor lowered his gaze and fiddled with the sleeve of his jacket. He knew that his mother was right and that he needed to apologize for the past few weeks. But at the same time, he was afraid that saying sorry would make things worse between the two of them.

He felt his mother's hand resting on his shoulder.

"It's gonna be okay", she told him, "I won't let anything bad happen between the two of you. Don't you worry."

Victor finally lifted his head to meet his mother's gaze.

"Thank you", he said. He paused for a second before adding in a low voice, "And Mom...".

The sound of someone clearing their throat brought Victor's attention away from his mother. He turned around and noticed his brother and sister standing in the doorway. Chris was smiling at him kindly and holding out something towards him. He smiled in relief and hurried over to Chris, who was still smiling happily. Victor took the object offered to him and saw that it was another shirt that he already owned. As he put it on, he caught sight of his reflection in the mirror near the entrance and immediately realized he had grown several centimeters taller since the last time he wore his new clothes. Victor laughed slightly when his face was reflected in the mirror.

"You've grown", Chris pointed out.

"A bit", Victor answered, "But, um.. I think it's good for me to grow, yknow?"

Chris chuckled.

"Yeah, yeah, I completely agree. Growing up has been awesome since the start of junior year!", Chris exclaimed before turning serious and looking at Victor seriously, "And don't worry about your dad either. He knows that you have every right to be angry with him. I'm sure that he's been feeling really frustrated as well."

"What do you mean?" Victor questioned, "Didn't mom tell you what happened?"

"Of course I know what happened. Your father had to tell me about it all."

"Then, why aren't you mad at him?"

"That's different", Chris answered simply, "Dad was drunk, Victor. And you know he tends to act recklessly sometimes because of his drunkenness."