[Yuan shudders for that simple contact, something he still has so little idea how to fathom. Affection given openly and intentionally, for no reason but to give it. In turn his head falls forward, and he closes his eyes against the sting he feels there, the prickly welling-up of emotion attempting to escape.]

Why not?

[There is no bitterness there, really, though he has cause enough to have some stored up about the way his life has gone, and his understanding that he is no one's priority but his own.]

You could have--

[Family. Yuan's voice catches over it. To have family in the first place; and then to think it lost, and find it again only to pass it by, and for what?]