I wrote this out as a request for "JongHo but with Jonghyun as the angsty character". It ended up like this. I'm going to go and attempt to write that request again, because this completely failed. 

Also, beware. It's depressing. Much like Butterflies With Wings.

Jonghyun's apologies would never suffice.

Minho gasped, hugging the pillow to his chest, trying to catch his breath. The other boy’s scent – it was still on it. The tears burned his eyes and blurred his vision, and he was thankful for the dark room.

He was sitting on his bed, leaning against the wall, and the tears slipped down his face, wetting the pillow he held tightly.

He missed Jonghyun.

So much.

He buried his face in the pillow, and sobbed harder, body shaking.

So. Much.

Jonghyun would never have been able to apologize enough for the pain Minho was being put through.

---

“Are you mad?” Jonghyun asked, grabbing Minho’s hand. Minho pulled his hand away, and then faltering when he saw the hurt expression on the shorter boy’s face.

“I..”

“I know, all this just…it wasn’t supposed to happen, and now we can’t…do anything, but-“

“I’m not mad,” Minho mumbled, looking away from Jonghyun.

“What? Really?” Hope filled the other boy’s voice, and Minho bristled somewhat.

“That’s not to say you didn’t up, you know,” Minho shot back immediately, glaring at Jonghyun. “You ed up big time.”

Jonghyun winced at Minho’s words, looking away.

“I know.”

Minho immediately regretted his words at the other boy’s suddenly soft voice.

Of course Jonghyun knew.

“But I’m not mad, okay?” Minho softened his tone, and held out his hand again, for Jonghyun to take.

“I’m really sorry, you know,” Jonghyun whispered, before taking Minho’s hand hesitantly.

Minho grasped the older boy’s hand and pulled him into his arms, wrapping an arm around the shorter boy.

“Love’s never anything to apologize for.” Minho muttered, hugging Jonghyun tight.

It really wasn’t.

---

The days after Jonghyun and Shin Se Kyung had come out were completely insane. Minho could see Jonghyun almost withering away, and it didn’t help that whenever something went wrong, the blame immediately pointed in Jonghyun’s direction.

It was as if Jonghyun was both mentally and physically disintegrating.

Every night, around the time Jonghyun probably assumed Minho had fallen asleep, he would hear soft sniffles, accompanied by apologies.

Many nights, Minho felt his own eyes burn at the apologies that forced their way out of Jonghyun’s lips, accompanied by tears.

If only Minho could’ve consoled him then.

If only Minho could’ve gotten up and told Jonghyun that it really was nothing to apologize for.

But Minho didn’t bother. Because Jonghyun was a big boy and Jonghyun- Jonghyun wasn’t the one who had to deal with a broken heart.

The only reason Jonghyun had to apologize to Minho was for breaking his heart – and what justification was there in that?

---

“God damn it, Jonghyun. You keep messing up lines. Is your head that high up in the clouds?” Key had snarled at the end of the performance, and Onew gave Jonghyun a disapproving look as well. They were backstage at this time, and the atmosphere was chilling.

Taemin said nothing, silently leaning against the wall, and Minho vividly remembered the expression on Jonghyun’s face.

“Sorry,” Jonghyun had whispered, and it was something Minho had started to hate hearing – he heard it almost every god damn night.

“If you were sorry, you’d stop doing things you have to apologize for,” and it had taken Minho a moment to realize that those words had been his own.

Jonghyun had looked at Minho, almost in shock, and then his face had crumpled, into tears.

Onew shot Minho an alarmed look before putting a hand on Jonghyun’s shoulder, and even Key had frowned at Minho. Taemin’s eyes had widened and Minho couldn’t take it anymore.

He spun around and the door to their dressing room closed behind him.

He run right into her.

She, with her beautiful long hair and sparkling eyes and how Minho absolutely loathed her.

“Is he okay?” She asked, in that ridiculously soft, almost chiming voice, and Minho felt the anger bubble up.

“What does that ing matter to you?” He’d snapped, because if she cared they wouldn’t have gotten caught and if they hadn’t gotten caught then he wouldn’t have to put up with this.

After he’d pushed past her, Minho found himself in the washroom, and he slammed the stall shut, before sinking to the floor and hugging his knees.

The tears that he’d seen in Jonghyun’s eyes overwhelmed his own, and he cried, softly into his arms, curled up in the only position he could keep himself intact.

He was the one that had to apologize.

---

“I broke up with her.”

Minho thought he’d misheard at first, looking up at Jonghyun frowning.

“What? Why?”

Jonghyun gave a noncommittal shrug, sitting down on his bed and looking away from Minho.

“Felt like it.”

“What the hell do you mean, felt like it?” Minho stared in disbelief at the other boy, almost angry. After all that...

But the anger was nothing compared to the rush of sick relief, becauseif they had broken up, Jonghyun could be his again.

Despite that, however - months had gone by, and everything had eventually returned to the way it used to be – so why the hell had Jonghyun felt the need to –

“I don’t know.”

Minho scrunched up his face in confusion – Jonghyun sounded distant.

“Are you okay?” Minho took a step towards the other boy, feeling disconcerted.

Jonghyun had looked up at this, and there was evident exhaustion in the other boy’s eyes.

“Yeah, Minho. I’m fine.”

Everything within Minho’s system fought against those words, desiring to press on, to push, to force Jonghyun to tell him the truth because there was no way in hell-

“I see…” Minho nodded, more to himself, and went back to sit on his bed. He started to pull off his socks when he heard the boy say something he hadn’t heard being sniffled at night in a long time.

“I’m sorry for everything, Minho.”

Minho looked up at this, almost alarmed, but the other boy had already lied down in bed, rolling to his side and facing away from Minho.

“Why?”

“Good night, kiddo.”

Minho bit his lower lip.

This time, there really had been no reason for Jonghyun to apologize.

For some reason, his heart hurt.

---

Jonghyun had been sick.

Minho only found out when he woke up a couple weeks later to find Jonghyun sprawled out on the floor next to his bed, red staining his lips. 

He'd frantically shouted for Key to come, picking up the older boy and trying to rouse him awake.

Jonghyun’s eyes had fluttered open, meeting with Minho’s as the door flew open and Key started screaming for Onew.

Jonghyun mouthed something, and Minho only knew what it was the boy had said because he was so accustomed to reading those perfect lips, now traced with blood.

“I’m sorry.”

---

The ambulance wouldn’t take all of them, and Key had been the one to go with Jonghyun. Minho had run up the stairs to throw on a pair of pants and a shirt so he could grab a taxi and go to the hospital.

When he returned to the room, his mind took another route.

His feet took him to Jonghyun’s side desk, and his hands grasped the handles of the drawer, pulling it open.

Bottles upon bottles, filled with pills.

Prescribed.

Kim Jonghyun.

The name glared at him from the label on the pill bottle he grasped, staring at it.

His eyes trailed back to the drawer, and then widened as he saw a couple pictures.

The bottle of pills fell carelessly to the floor as he stared at the pictures.

He picked them up, hands trembling slightly.

Pictures of them.

Not all five of them –

Just him and Jonghyun.

The pictures slipped through his suddenly numbing fingers, joining the pill bottle on the floor.

Minho’s knees gave away, and he felt a sudden urge to throw up.

Jonghyun was dying.

No apology could make up for that.

---

Cancer.

It didn’t even matter what kind it was – it didn’t even matter because Jonghyun didn’t have much longer to live.

Minho stayed at the hospital, accompanied by a crying Key and a silent Onew. They never let Taemin come.

Jonghyun was losing his precious voice, slowly, along with those beautiful silky locks of hair from the therapy.

Sometimes, Jonghyun didn’t even have the energy to talk.

But his eyes would meet with Minho’s own, from time to time, and Jonghyun didn’t even have to say the words anymore.

'I’m sorry for doing this to you.'

Apologies were all Minho could read in the other boy’s eyes.

Did that mean Jonghyun could read his own eyes?

The love that quite obviously was in his?

Heck…is that why Jonghyun was apologizing?

Is that why he’d been apologizing from the start?

---

The last words Jonghyun had said, before the machine had let out that continuous noise signaling the stilling of the heart that held his own, wasn’t an apology.

By that point in time, Minho had lost all composure, and all he could do, as the days went by, was grab Jonghyun’s hand and sob to him, beg to him not to leave.

Minho had started to continuously profess his love to the other boy, as if it was reason for Jonghyun not to leave, not to die because he couldn’t-

The only response Jonghyun had offered were those sad eyes, because his voice was too rough to speak without hurting by that point, and Minho heard the apology in his mind, repeatedly, the beautiful voice saying it and would Minho ever hear that voice again?

That day though, Jonghyun had been struggling to breathe, and Jonghyun’s weak hold on Minho’s hand wasn’t enough to reassure –who? Minho or Jonghyun?

Jonghyun had been sickly pale for days now, almost to the point of having a greenish tint to his skin. His eyes somewhat yellow, lips cracked, and skinny to the point where Minho didn’t even want to eat.

It was obvious that Jonghyun was dying.

And that day, as Jonghyun struggled to catch his breath, and Minho, with tears streaming down his face, begged for Jonghyun to continue trying, please don’t ever stop drying.

“I w-won’t f-forgive you, J-Jonghyun, if you g-give up,” Minho had said thickly through his tears, and Key was sniffling in the background.

Jonghyun had managed to catch his breath enough to give Minho a sad smile, and his cold hand squeezed Minho’s weakly.

“I l-love you.” Jonghyun had wheezed, that smile still playing on his lips, and Minho lost it there, blubbering incoherently becauseJonghyun didn’t even feel the need to apologize anymore.

Another shuddering breath, and then the noise on the machine was enough for Minho to know that Jonghyun was gone.

Minho would’ve preferred an apology.

---

Jonghyun’s pillow still smelt like him, and Minho hugged it close, the tears endless.

Jonghyun couldn’t have apologized enough for this.

And god damn it, there was no possible way Minho would ever forgive him.

Minho couldn’t forgive Jonghyun for leaving him this way.

The older boy’s apologies would have never sufficed. 

THIS. THIS IS WHAT I CAME UP WHILE WRITING ONEW'S MOAN.

I've been feeling insanely angsty lately.