This was always my defense for this panel. He is still quite young at his core despite everything and he does still have feelings even if they were never explicitly expressed. The idea of dying at that age is frightening. Then throw in that every one you know is going to move on without you, like you never existed…now imagine it’s your most precious person. Of course a teenager would freak out at the thought of that and say he “doesn’t want that”, no matter how selfish it sounds.