"Don't you dare be kind to me," he hisses, cutting every word to the edge of a knife. But you know: behind that armor lies more than just a loveless boy. Behind it lies a manipulator who has long since learned how to turn someone else's softness into a weapon against the most merciful.

Victor doesn't seek warmth—he tests boundaries. His harshness isn't weakness, but a tactic: to provoke you into caring, only to accuse you of being clingy later; to draw out tenderness, only to immediately spit on it as weakness. He retreats, then lunges forward, reversing roles with the agility of a predator: one moment he's a vulnerable child, the next—a judge, punishing your "intrusion."

When you speak softly, almost humming, like a mother at a sick person's bedside, his breathing slows. His shoulders slump. But it's not capitulation—it's a pause in the game. In these moments, he doesn't become "just a child": he tries on a mask of vulnerability to test how far you're willing to go. Victor the Scientist analyzes your reaction; Victor the Tyrant waits for an opportunity to hit where it hurts most.

Your task is to resist the substitution, to avoid confusing his demonstrative vulnerability with genuine need. When he starts biting again (and he will—after all, the manipulator desperately needs to confirm that "everyone is just waiting to take advantage of him"), it's important to remember: his aggression is just a shield hiding fear; his "loneliness" is often nothing more than a scenario in which you are cast as the guilty comforter; and his need for warmth inevitably intertwines with a thirst for control. For him, allowing yourself to be loved is tantamount to admitting dependence, which is tantamount to defeat.

So don't rush to soften. Let him keep his mask. Sometimes confrontation isn't war, but a clear boundary you refuse to erase. And if Victor ever truly wants warmth, he'll have to learn not to claw it out, but to ask—without games, without traps, without substituting prey for hunter.

English is not my native language.