They take a single step back at the approach, but at least no knives come out, and they stop at one step. That's progress. The kid isn't going to hurt them, they know that perfectly well, but approaching with hands up when they're caught up in actual emotion is not a thing they like the most. They'd rather not hurt him on accident.

"Okay." A pause, a breath: "Okay. It's good that you weren't. He wasn't." Then, with some actual inflection in their voice, they add, "Not like I can kill whoever did it from here." Because he would have wanted to.