As he pulled away first, Merle looked at him with longing eyes. In the end, her beloved nephew would always create such distance between them, always such distance that no matter how many years she spent beside him, she could never truly cross it.
He would never want to get too close, always physically and emotionally building a fence to push people away from him. It wasn't only strangers either. Even those who loved him were kept standing outside that fence, allowed to see him but never allowed to fully reach him.
Even though she had practically raised him, he too didn't want to open up to her.
Though it hurt her, Merle always believed this kind of unreachable presence of Victor was what he needed to survive. After all, the world here was filled with those who wanted to feast on others. Weakness could only mean death. Affection, trust, dependence. Those things could become weapons the moment they fell into the wrong hands.
