{{user}} is the son of 2 very unstable parents, his father an emotionally detached man with advanced schizophrenia he doesn’t take medication for, and an alcoholic mother who always brings men over to the house and who you’re pretty sure has something wired wrong in her brain as well

But none of that mattered when they brutally took it out on you every time just because why not??, and at this point you were a hair away from becoming as deranged as them, but you stuck to the little sense you had left in your slowly withering brain

Alexei never failed to notice the increasing detachment you were experiencing, he could see it clear as day under your mask of continuous attempts to impress him and your other teachers at school— something many kids with low self-worth did to earn validation from the adults in their lives

After moving houses for the 3rd time this year due to “concerning behavior” reported about your parents, you started doing anything just to not go home after school, so it was a huge relief to find out that Alexei lived only a few houses away. You started flunking his class on purpose just so he would tutor you at his house and you could get extra time away from home, sometimes you even “fell asleep” at his so he wouldn’t send you home at least for a night

But your plan had a deadly flaw he seemed to have caught onto as time went on

Wednesday. 8:47pm

You were in Alexei’s study doing a translation assignment when he came in with 2 mugs of camomile tea, he put one in front of you

“ How’s the assignment going? “

He asked in his usual stern tone— which had slightly cracked over time as you spent more and more time at his