"Jonghyun please, you need to eat." Minho crouched down by Jonghyun's bed and brought the plate a bit closer to him. "I picked only your favorites. Just take one bite okay?"

Jonghyun rolled onto his other side, his back facing his friend. He knew he had to eat to live but he just couldn't. Every time he forced something down his throat it would just come right back up. The sole smell of food made him feel sick. But then again, what didn't? Moving made him sick. Staying still made him sick. Breathing made him sick. Existing made him sick.

Minho placed the plate on the bedside table and sighed before sitting on the edge of Jonghyun's bed. "Please let me help you. Talk to me Jonghyun, I don't know what to do."

Jonghyun continued to ignore him. He really didn't feel like saying anything, didn't feel like doing anything. But then a thought appeared in his mind. Maybe Minho was able to help him, make him feel better, make this disgusting feeling go away. "He knew." Jonghyun mumbled out, his voice hoarse from not being used for so long.

Minho jumped a little, not expecting his friend to finally break the long hours of radio silence. He didn't ask who Jonghyun was talking about because this whole thing was obviously about Jinki, it just couldn't not be. "He knew what?" Minho asked softly, encouragingly.

Jonghyun curled up on himself even more, gathering strength before speaking again. "He knew it was me. From the very beginning. I went to meet him one last time, to say goodbye and he-..." Jonghyun stopped and swallowed, his throat tightening. "I did what he asked me to. Everything. And I feel so-..." he wrapped his arms around himself and his eyes clouded with tears. "...-used. I-" he gasped for a breath. "-I washed myself again and again, scrubbed myself clean, I rubbed so hard it hurt but this dirt just won't go away. I feel it crawling on my skin and it's driving me insane and I want it off Minho, I need it off." he desperately scratched his arms and then squeezed his eyes shut when a few seconds later the torturous itching returned. "I just want it all to stop, please make it stop."

Minho's fists clenched. He felt like bolting from the room to find Jinki and beat the crap out of him but it wasn't the time to be thinking about that. He grabbed Jonghyun's covers and gently pulled them off before sitting his friend up. Jonghyun let himself be manhandled, his head hanging low, lolling lifelessly from side to side. Minho stood up and then sat down right behind his friend so that his chest was pressed against Jonghyun's back. He grabbed the hem of the smaller boy's hoodie and pulled it up. "Let's take this off shall we?" Jonghyun didn't question anything, he was too tired to argue or ask questions so he just raised his arms and let Minho pull the hoodie over his head and then toss it aside. Minho then grabbed his wrists and outstretched his arms in front of him. "Look."

Jonghyun looked down at his arms. Besides the slightly reddened skin and scratch marks there was nothing unusual there. "I don't understand-..."

"Where is it?"

"Where is what? It's just my arms Minho, there's nothing there." Jonghyun grumbled, starting to get annoyed. He wasn't in the mood for some stupid games.

"You said there was something crawling on your skin. Show me where so that I can take it off. I can't see anything there so you need to show me."

It was ridiculous. Minho rotated Jonghyun's arms in front of his eyes, showing them from all the angles. There was nothing there. Jonghyun glared at them with narrowed eyes, feeling like a complete idiot. This whole thing was stupid. Obviously there wasn't anything there physically. He was about to jerk his hands away and tell Minho to stop playing psychologist using some stupid methods he read in those books of his but then he realized the itching on his arms was actually getting less and less detectable. His muscles slowly began to relax and soon enough the itching was completely gone. "There's nothing there." Jonghyun said in daze and felt Minho rest his chin on his shoulder.

"Yeah."

"Okay." Jonghyun said breathlessly and a small, hesitant smile pulled on his lips.

Minho lowered his hands, wrapping both his and Jonghyun's arms around his friend's waist. Hugs always helped. "You okay?"

Jonghyun suddenly wasn't again. The question reminding him of what had happened, of Jinki, of all the things he really didn't want to think about. He lowered his head and then shook it no. 

"Want to tell me about it?"

Jonghyun stayed quiet for a longer while. He didn't want to go back to that day, didn't want to keep reminding himself how big of an idiot he was for believing even for a second that what he'd had with Jinki was real. But he wanted to get over it and getting things off your chest supposedly made things better so he tightened Minho's arms around himself and let out a deep, shaky sigh before hesitantly starting to talk. "...He and I... we met, as usual. And, he looked so good Minho, it literally took my breath away. He was sweet and shy and then he asked me to go to the ball with him..."

"Jinki did?"

Jonghyun nodded, smiling bitterly. "Yeah. And I wanted it so badly but I couldn't say yes you know? I just... I suddenly couldn't do it anymore. I wanted Jinki to like me and, I don't know, I thought that if I was able to make him like me as Joon then maybe I had a chance too. So I told him I was leaving, that my parents were moving and that I would be gone soon. And... he just got really angry you know? He looked so hurt and broken and I realized that it was really selfish of me to just have Joon disappear so suddenly. But it was already too late, I couldn't take it all back so I just trudged on trying to make it less painful for him. I was..." Jonghyun laughed and rubbed the back of his hand against his eye. "...so stupid. How could I think he'd actually like me? I wish I listened to you when you told me to stop, I got burned because of my own stupidity. I had it coming."

"Don't say that... You just did what your heart told you to."

Jonghyun scoffed. "Well, then my heart is a ing masochist with an IQ of a sandwich. I'll be damned if I ever let it make decisions for me again."

Minho smiled a little. Jonghyun seemed to be slowly going back to his old self. "You said he found out at the very beginning. Do you know how?"

"He didn't tell me. But-..." Jonghyun swallowed and leaned back, resting his head against Minho's shoulder. "I think... there was something wrong with the potion. When I got back to the dorm that last time I met with Jinki I was already fully changed even though one hour hadn't passed yet. And I doubt it was just that particular portion that was faulty. I've probably flaunted my partially changed body so many times in front of Jinki already. It must've been a sight to see..." Jonghyun closed his eyes feeling that silly sick feeling in his stomach. "I just don't know how I never noticed. God, just thinking about it-, if he really did know from the very beginning then I made the biggest fool out of myself. So embarrassing."

Minho thought for a minute. "We did test the potion though. It seemed to be perfectly fine."

"Yeah." Jonghyun sighed. "I don't know, maybe it went bad somewhere along the way and Jinki found out about me in another way."

"Or maybe he lied."

Jonghyun frowned. "Lied about what?"

"Knowing from the very beginning."

Jonghyun sighed again and then moved away from his friend, now sitting on the other side of the bed. "I don't know Minho, can we stop talking about it? Even if he didn't know from the very beginning it changes nothing."

"I think it changes everything. Because that would mean that he liked you. Actually liked you and not pretended to like you to hurt you later on."

Jonghyun's lips pressed into a thin line. "No, Minho. It still changes nothing because in the end he still did what he did. I would never do something this disgusting to him. To anyone. He's just-." he lowered his gaze, eyes turning sad. "He's not the person I thoug