I'm s- [He'd been about to apologize when she speaks and it cuts him off short. Lowering the boxes again and tucking them in front of him, he listens to her.]

I understand. I apologize for being disrespectful.

[And still he can't help but feel sad and lonely, probably causing more plants to droops and wilt subtly. It was hard enough adjusting to a new place but being somewhere without Ai and somewhere his parents had no idea who he was was harder. They had always been a family and to have to learn another way to interact with them was hard. After a thousand years habits like that were hard to break. He wanted to reach out and hug his mother, maybe ruffle her hair as she did with him as a child so often. He couldn't be reassuring or think of a better way to apologize than to stutter out words with awkward formality to distance himself from her.]

I only have Yuuki-san's interests at heart, even if it may not seem so.