The way that Ilya's leaning in, and the way their hands are touching, is probably more intimate than is really appropriate - but Ilya is just basing what's okay on Dolemeck's reaction, having had no real interactions like this with people his own age. Even other people who worked in the mine were older than him by at least ten years.

"I don't know anything about any of this. It isn't fair and if it's this frustrating for me I can't imagine what it's like being you. You really deserve better than this." He looked at Dolemeck, the person who flippantly threw aside race, education and the obvious financial gulf between them, the guy who made him cake and treated him like he was a real person, and felt a sense of protectiveness that had little to do with the fact Dolemeck was in a wheelchair. "I know nothing will happen to you. Because I'll teach you all that I know so nothing like that can ever happen to you again. If I can stop a broken mine cart full of ore, I could stop other things, and if I can teach you, then you can, too." He lightens up enough to add cheekily, "Besides, you're already teaching me a growing list of things, I need to do something so I'm not mooching off of you."