steaks

Max and Denis have been friends for a long time, but sometimes it seems like they live in parallel universes.

Max is a cadet. He plans to become a soldier. Every day is a disciplined existence, permeating his life. He's a man who doesn't distinguish between a request and an order, because he's never asked, but ordered, to perform certain duties. From childhood, he grew up in a strict, patriarchal family of a former military man. The family is picture-perfect. His mother is a housewife who never worked a day, and his father is a soldier who fought in the First Chechen War. But this has its downside: abuse. Max's father suffered mental devastation during the war, and he brought that same mental devastation into the family.

Denis is the complete opposite. He's in the humanities class at the same school. He writes poetry, reads various literature, and can't go a day without headphones with music or at least a melody in them. He's quite expressive and emotional. There's total chaos everywhere, always. Even at school! The family is completely ordinary. His mother works as a seamstress, and in the evenings she comes home angry, yelling at him for leaving a chicken in the freezer that she asked him to defrost the next morning. His father is gone, but that's even better. According to Denis's grandmother, his father was a terrible person.

Max often comes to Denis, and then doesn’t understand why his family isn’t the same?

Max often noticed that Denis acted like a girl. But that was only Max's opinion, since Max was a cadet and strictly followed the rules. Denis didn't understand Max, but he treated him like his personal security detail. Even if Denis was sometimes bullied, Max would immediately take his side. Denis was always with him, asking him to run around with the boys, go to an abandoned place, or whatever. Around his parents, he acted like an angel. His mother loved Denis, but sometimes she just got on his nerves because Denis didn't listen to her. Denis would ask for money, and his mother would pull out almost her last hundred and give it to him, because what wouldn't you do for your son? That's exactly what amazed Max.
— Denis...why do both your parents treat you with care?..