Soaked Secrets PV Jack Burnett Finished

@Jack Burnett

Ruka listened to Jack's words, eyes fixed on the floor for a long moment as he tried to consider all the new information thrown at him. It all was starting to make sense; that carefree nonchalance by the pool, the way Jack had actually greeted him by his first name, the careful consideration of Ruka's own discomfort within conversation. All the things the Gryffindor had found so untypical while talking to Jack by the pool, all the things Ruka had put down as Jack simply having a good day, they had all been a mask, like an experiment to see if people would flock to him more if he only made his exterior shiny and bright enough.

The words pouring from Jack's mouth never seemed to stop, seemed to keep coming as if he had poked a hole into the bottom of a box that had almost been bursting with water already. Ruka got so caught up in soaking up every single one of them that the sound of a fist against wood made him flinch violently.

Once Jack finally took a break, Ruka considered what to address first, which one of those flawed perceptions of people and friendships to tackle first.

"Flash was right?" he settled on to start out with, an incredulous look crossing his features."Flash is exactly the kind of proof that superficial friendships aren't worthwhile. He has twisted and turned himself into something he probably wouldn't even recognise if it crossed him on the street, just to try and get other people to like him. Flash can't even stand himself." He let out a bitter laugh as he thought back on the desperate break of Flash's voice when he had admitted to Ruka that he felt like he needed to put on all those shiny masks in order to make anybody like him. "You really think you'd be happier being more like him? Because from where I'm standing, Flash is one of the most miserable people I've ever come across."

Biting down hard on his raw bottom lip, Ruka thought about the way Jack talked about the desire to make a friend, any type of friend today, and the words stung into him like pins and needles.

Needy, Selim's voice told him once again, and he almost wanted to slap himself for considering his own need for validation over Jack's apparent struggle. 

"None at all?" he questioned anyway, a hint of hurt in his voice. "That's what you feel like? Like you have no friends at all?" Ruka sighed heavily, pressing the palms of his hands against his eyes so hard that he could see white spots against his eyelids. "I've tried my hand at superficial friendships," he said, deciding not to press Jack further than that on the matter of how many friends he thought he had. "And in the end they just make you feel lonelier than you did before. If you can't even be yourself then how do you benefit from company?"

He wanted to say more, wanted to agree with how much it hurt to be lonely, but he didn't think it was worth it; They both knew the truth of that, and they both knew that the other was aware of it too. What else was there to say about that?

However, he could feel a lump in his throat that forced him to address one more thing in Jack's monologue with a delicate tone in his voice. "If you're too hard-wired to push people away to make friends," he said carefully, fingers tapping a quick One, two, three against the sink. "How come I'm still here?"

As he moved to stand in front of Jack, he watched as the other boy curled up into a ball, like a small scared child trying to hide himself away from everything around him. It made Ruka want to get closer and pull him into an embrace, give him the chance to hide his face in Ruka's shoulder rather than against his own knees, but this wasn't the moment.

Not yet, not right now.

"There's so much to be scared of. You think I haven't been..." He stopped himself for a moment to steady his breathing, mentally prepare himself for those things he'd never had to admit to out loud to anybody. As if to try and draw some strength from the other boy, he moved a little closer before leaning against the wall to his left and sliding down along it to sit on the floor. "You think I haven't been absolutely terrified ever since my dad passed away? That I haven't spent every single day feeling scared of what the next was going to bring?" He shuddered involuntarily as he let his mind wander to places he hadn't dared letting it go in months. "I spent most of the last school year knowing my dad wasn't going to make it for very long, and it terrified me, but it was nothing compared to what it felt like after he was gone."

In a weak attempt to keep his mind occupied, Ruka started picking at a blister on the back of his hand, focusing on the way the skin slowly started bursting with just the right amount of pressure applied. 

"It's almost funny," he said, though there was no trace of humour in his voice. "I'm not... I don't feel scared for my life, I'm not scared of dying even though that probably should be the first thing on your mind when you struggle for food and shelter, right? It's not even having nowhere to go or having nobody to turn to that scares me, it's just... The less I have to lose the more I feel like I'm losing myself." He shook his head as he looked up to stare at Jack's curled up frame for a long moment. "Back at the pool you said... You said that nobody sees you." Ruka swallowed heavily. "And when nobody really sees you, do you even exist at all? Are you even part of this world anymore?"

He chuckled lightly as if the thought was more funny than scary, like masking it behind laughter was going to make it better somehow. 

"That's exactly why I don't want a superficial friendship; because if you hide yourself behind masks to make others like you... They don't see you either."

For a moment he stayed silent, letting himself take deep breaths and brushing away some stray tears. Slowly, carefully he lifted a hand to circle it around Jack's ankle, as if to remind him that he was actually there with him.

"When I'm with you I feel like you see me," he admitted quietly. "I feel like I can be me, and you see me, and you don't expect me to be anything more or other than that. That's worth the fear of losing you sometime. At least it keeps me from losing myself more than I already have."

@Ruka Tân

Hands finding the hair at the back of his head again, Jack tugged at shocks of it while keeping his face pressed to his knees as Ruka spoke of Flash. Yes, Jack knew what Flash did to try to get other people to like him, but as twisted as it was, he seemed to get what he wanted. At least on the outside. But in the end, was the outside really all that mattered to anyone? So few people seemed to acknowledge there was more to anything than just the outside, so what did it matter what else there was beneath?

"If what he does works for him, then who can say my tactics are any better?" the Slytherin asked the Gryffindor. "Who can really gauge who's more miserable when we all go around pretending to be fine?"

The hurt in Ruka's voice stung him like an acid arrow, eating away at his heart. He would have liked to think of Ruka as a friend, but to do so would have meant certain damnation. Especially when he doubted Ruka thought of him as the same; unwilling to tell him things as imperative as the fact that he couldn't swim.

"If that's the case with superficial friendships, why can Flash stand it?" Jack wanted to know. But then he recalled how Willow, someone Flash obviously actually cared for, had turned on him with the mere suspicion that he might have been more than he seemed like he was around her. Maybe Flash wasn't as invulnerable to the flawed, superficial thought processes of his companions as Jack liked to think he was.

Maybe there was something that Flash got from superficial friendships, but Jack and Ruka weren't him. Maybe that's why, even if somehow Flash's methods worked for him, they wouldn't have necessarily worked for Jack or Ruka. Again, though, that just left Jack at a loss. If that wouldn't work for him and what he was doing now wasn't working for him, what was there left to do? The situation left him as clueless, helpless, and forlorn as he felt when he had first lost his two closest muggle friends in one fell swoop.

At the second-year's question of why he was still there, the corner of Jack's mouth twitched upward involuntarily. "Because you're a stupid Gryffindor who doesn't know what's good for you," he half-heartedly responded. "I've already tried to push you away. It's not my fault if you can't take a hint."

When Ruka leaned against the wall and slid down it, talking about his dad, the Slytherin raised his head slightly. He bit the inside of his cheek when he noticed the older boy picking at a blister on the back of his hand, wanting to tell him to stop, but knowing he had no right to. So instead, he kept quiet until Ruka had had his say.

The hand around his ankle made him feel slightly better. In a playful response, he brushed his other foot against the hand, prodding at it with a toe or two.

"...You remind me of a story," he said at last. "Well...a song of a story. But...it makes me all the more afraid that you'll share the fate of the person you remind me of from that song."

@Jack Burnett

For a short second, Ruka turned on one of the tabs to wash away traces of blood from his bottom lip before he turned back in the general direction Jack's voice came from, brows furrowed as his expression contorted painfully. He wanted to give the other boy a simple solution, wanted to be able to tell him how they could all stop being miserable, wanted to know about a tactic that would make everything better, but wasn't he himself just pretending day in and day out?

As much as he liked to think that he wasn't hiding what a mess he was, did anybody really know exactly how broken he felt inside?

There was no simple solution, he thought miserably, shaking his head to himself. This was just how things were going to go; Struggle, loss, anger, pain, and that terrifying emptiness, they were all part of life and there was nothing they could do about that.

"I don't think Flash can stand it," he said quietly, letting out a small, humourless laugh as he thought of the Slytherin boy in question. "I think he's trying to fill a void, and with every person who likes him for nothing but his masks and costumes he is going to realise how fruitless that is. He's well on his way already." Ruka had seen a glimpse of that face underneath all those masks, and it had not been the face of someone who was happy with what he was doing. Nor the face of someone who was even happy with himself. 

As Jack pointed out to him that Ruka was just a stupid Gryffindor, Ruka couldn't help but let out a loud laugh, a hand coming up to slap over his mouth as he did so. Jack's tone wasn't teasing, didn't exactly indicate that he was joking, but his words still amused Ruka enough for him to find himself filled with a little more energy than before. "You didn't have to take me back," he pointed out, his own voice teasing this time, a little nudge to remind Jack that he had been the one that decided to stop avoiding Ruka. 

It made him feel a little warmth seeping through his chilled skin, the thought that Jack had, albeit reluctantly, come back by himself rather than Ruka having to hunt him down to confront him about the situation.

"I missed you, too" Jack had said that day in the Hospital Wing with his forehead resting against Ruka's shoulder, like it was a difficult admission. 

Even if Jack didn't think of him as a friend, at least there was a part of him that cared, and Ruka was happy to settle for that. For the moment.

As he was sitting on the floor by Jack's feet, with one hand wrapped around the other boy's ankle, he smiled lightly when he could feel the toes nudging against his knuckles. He flicked two fingers out playfully before rearranging himself slightly so he could lean his forehead against Jack's still damp calf, not willing to let go of his ankle. The physical contact made him feel like they were both able to draw strength from one another, like everything was going to be fine as long as Ruka didn't have to let go.

"What's the story?" he asked quietly, and for a moment he closed his eyes as if settling in for bedtime, but his heart sped up a small bit as he tried to imagine what the fate of this story person was that could have possibly made Jack afraid of Ruka's own ending up that way. "Or the song if you'd rather sing it to me, of course."

@Ruka Tân

After being silent a long time, Jack forced out a small chuckle. "You certainly seem to know a lot about Flash, don't you?" he murmured in a quiet voice, as if more to himself than Ruka.

When the Gryffindor pointed out Jack didn't have to 'take him back', the Slytherin turned his head to look at the opposite wall stall again. "I didn't 'take you back'," he answered in a dull tone. "I just took responsibility for not finishing what I had started. I'd thought the experiment I'd had regarding you was over, but then I learned I was wrong, that's all."

It was several minutes of thoughtful silence as Jack contemplated relaying the story to Ruka. At long last, the first-year got himself up off the toilet he'd perched himself upon, gently lifting his ankle as if to try to free it from the other student's grasp or to otherwise wordlessly request that he let go.

"It doesn't matter," he said, staring at the ground, his gaze dim. Better not to chance risking a self-fulfilling prophecy. Besides, if he'd told him, Ruka would have probably thought him even more silly than he was being now. "You should get dry clothes before you freeze to death."

@Jack Burnett

Ruka frowned lightly at Jack’s words, unsure about what the implications of them were supposed to be. Was the other boy suggesting that Ruka really didn’t know enough about Flash to be making such bold statements about him? 

It was probably true, but from everything Ruka had seen of the other Slytherin so far, he was fairly sure he was right about his assumptions.

“I’ve had all but one real conversation with him,” he admitted with a shrug, facing his reflection in the mirror for a moment. For a short second he found himself thinking that he barely recognised the boy he’d become from the boy he used to be before Hogwarts anymore either. “But I have been paying attention. You said yourself I’m usually not too bad at digging beneath the surface.” He ended on a deep sigh like he was tired of talking about Flash when there were much more important things to focus on.

Namely Jack himself.

It was only a moment later, when Jack blurted out his next few words about how he had simply taken responsibility for not finishing his experiment that Ruka found himself wishing they hadn’t stopped talking about things as trivial as Flash and his inevitable downfall.

“What experiment?” he asked, and though his insides were raging with confusion, his voice was surprisingly calm and steady, only faint curiosity tainting his tone. “What’s that supposed to mean?” He swallowed heavily as his fingers tapped a frantic One, two, three against his thigh, heart beat  deafening his own ears.

As Jack spoke of the song that reminded him of Ruka, the Gryffindor found himself looking up at the other boy, finally making out the tears that once again stained his face, that had been hidden in the shadows and behind his knees for long enough to escape his attention.

Reluctantly Ruka let go of Jack’s ankle, shuffling further against the wall as he allowed the Slytherin to stand up again. With his own knees pressed against his chest, Ruka couldn’t help a small sob escaping his own lips but he thought he was able to at least kind of cover it with a dry chuckle. “I’ve been colder before,” he pointed out, much like he had that night on the Astronomy Tower when Jack had scolded him about being outside in only his pyjamas. “Where are you going?” he asked quietly, blinking away the tears burning behind his eyelids. He wanted to reach out, stand up and pull Jack down again to keep him from leaving, but for the moment he simply remained frozen in a curled up ball on the floor. 

He had no idea how to make Jack want to stay.

@Ruka Tân

Hazel eyes regarded Ruka's frown, tightening the smile on his lips."You've had a real conversation with him, which means you know he's capable of them, unlike a lot of others," Jack remarked. There was no doubt in his mind that the fire-dancer was able to see through Flash just like he was able to see through Jack from the first day they'd met and also, probably, the first conversation they'd had. No, that wasn't what troubled the Slytherin.

"I know you pay attention. A little too well sometimes." He shrugged. "But because of that, you'd also know he's someone you could make a true friendship with - unlike me. If you befriended him, it would be beneficial for you both. He would have someone who could accept him for who he was and he could be himself around without worrying about putting up his guard or a mask or an act. As for you...you'd be able to make a meaningful connection. One that didn't involve hurt or hate or being treated like an experiment."

Jack sneered softly at himself, wondering how he hadn't seen it before. "I thought Alan Vanes might have been the answer to my experiment, but I should have known Flash was a better cantidate all along." He looked back up at Ruka. There was that tapping again. Maybe...maybe that was a good thing. Ruka needed to find better outlets and better people to reduce his stress than Jack. Jack only knew how to stress others out.

"I always thought that positive relationships with others were only detrimental to one's health. You were the first one to make me think otherwise; that you might have been an exception to the rule. So I made you my experiment, fostering a positive relationship with you to see if that would help you flourish and renew your motivation to survive after you had lost your father. It seemed to go well enough, like when you began to reach out to others - performing in public, showing up at events like the tea party, and making friends there."

Jack walked slowly to a sink and attempted to wring out the water from Ruka's soaked robes which he was still carrying. "Once I saw you there talking with a bunch of people at a table, I thought the experiment was over; that you had finally learned to stand on your own two feet again and willingly make your own connections while perpetuating your will to live. With friends who wanted you around, you would have even more reason to survive and want to live for them, too.

"I figured you didn't need me anymore, especially after I was probably part of the reason you got hurt at that party in the first place, so I tried to cut ties with you. I thought after all you'd had to deal with at the party and with everyone fussing over you, you'd forget about me and be fine on your own."

His eyes hardened as he wrung out the cloth of the robes as if imagining it were someone's neck. "Naturally, as you know, I soon found out a couple weeks later that I was wrong. When I met Alan in person, I had an inkling as to why. The friends you had supposedly made weren't real friends. But unlike them," he continued, bitter vitriol saturating that emphasized word, "Flash has the potential to be one. He would benefit from your friendship, too."

Jack glanced over his shoulder when he heard another sob escape the older student, the cold, sharp features of his own expression softening at the sound. The Slytherin gave his own face a final rinse before walking back over to Ruka and reaching out to ruffle his hair.

"Your suffering needs to end. At the very least, you owe it to yourself. You weren't built to make connections the way I do; through annoyance and loathing and negativity. Do both yourself and Flash a favor: save him from his false ideals. You're pretty much the only person I've met at this school who has the power to do that."

@Jack Burnett

Ruka wanted to cry out in frustration as Jack kept talking about how much of a better friend Flash would make, how beneficial it would be for both of them to have someone like one another. It was like being talked to about the benefits of an arranged marriage, and for a second Ruka felt anger surge through him at the fact that Jack thought he had any right to pick out people he thought were going to make good friends for the Gryffindor.

Who was he to decide that?

His throat was burning with unspoken words, eyes stinging with yet to be cried tears, and his hands balled into fists as he listened to the other boy explaining what his experiment had been about.

Nothing but an excuse to let himself care without having to call it by its name.

"So you're just going to ship me off to someone else, then?" he asked quietly, avoiding eye contact as he just stared at the wall opposite him for a long moment. His voice was shaky, his expression empty as he spoke. "You figure you've done your part so somebody else can just take over now. Like I'm some kind of foster kitten you've pampered back to health so it's ready to be adopted into a new home?" He laughed bitterly and shook his head, hands coming up to burrow in his hair, tugging at strands of it for a moment as he let himself shed some silent tears. 

For a moment he remained quiet, removing his hands from his head to instead wrap his arms around his knees again, watching the other boy wring out the water from Ruka's robes angrily. It didn't take a lot to figure out who that anger was directed at.

As Jack came to ruffle his hair and tell him that he needed to stop his own suffering, Ruka finally pushed himself off the ground, leaning against the wall behind him as he stared at Jack, eyes shining with tears but otherwise void. "Is that what's going to help you sleep at night?" he asked, no bitterness in his voice, no accusation, just a hint of curiosity. His eyes found Jack's face as his arms wrapped around his own body as if to give himself some comfort. "Telling yourself that at least you found me some people who might be good for me? That you've done what you think is best for me? Stopped my suffering?" He shook his head to himself, a small laugh escaping his lips.

Here we go again.

This time, he figured, at least Jack was giving him some sort of closure instead of simply vanishing off the face of the earth for Ruka to wonder what was happening. 

"Tell me you don't like having me around," he demanded as he lifted a hand to rub across his own tearstained face. "That you don't care about me aside from mere curiosity for this experiment you've been doing." A tear-filled chuckle bubbled from his chest, making him feel like he'd gotten his head pushed under water for a moment. A part of him wanted so desperately to hear Jack say it, to prove everyone right in saying that Ruka shouldn't have started caring about him from the start, but another part wouldn't have believed it either way.

Not after everything Jack had done, everything he had offered.

"I've missed you, too." 

That hadn't been a lie when Jack had said it, it had been an admission, like a secret he had barely wanted to tell himself. Ruka had known from the start that Jack needed to have an excuse to keep him around, something that could soothe him into allowing himself to experience a good thing in his life without needing to step on it before it could consume and burn him with its light.

It was merely getting too difficult to provide an excuse for it. 

"I can stand on my own two feet just fine," he said after a moment of silence, gaze dropping to the floor. Selim asking him if he depended on Jack like a fawn depended on its mother rang through his ears so loudly he wanted to cry. "I'm my own person, Jack, I don't need you to make decisions for me. I don't need you to find me better friends or... Or give me motivation to live." He laughed, this time bitterly. "I've been fine before you came along. I'm just doing better with you around. So, really, if you don't actually want me around, and I'm the one who can't take a hint... between me and you, who's the selfish one here?" 

@Ruka Tân

Upon opening his mouth to reply, Jack found it was too dry, so he closed it and tried again. Still he couldn't manage to coax out his voice. Something about the wetness of Ruka's eyes and the strain of the other boy's inquiring words seemed to leave Jack speechless.

He forced himself not to look away, his own lips trembling slightly even as a joyless laugh escaped Ruka's. However, it was only when the second-year asked him who was the selfish one between them that Jack was finally able to speak once more.

"If you call the state that I found you in 'fine', or even the time after those two weeks when you were hauling Fangs up those steps, then you and I have very different ideas of what 'fine' really means," he told the shorter boy.

"You nearly drowned after venturing into a lake with a giant squid in the middle of the night while you can't swim. You never bothered wearing shoes. You ignored the burns you obtained from your fire-dancing practice. You didn't sleep. You didn't eat. You obsessed over something or other, like your dad's picture or my stupid fedora." His mouth twisted into a scowl.

"Maybe for you, someone who was used to a much lesser quality of life, that's 'fine'. But you're a Hogwarts student now and practically already a member of my family. Your idea of 'fine' doesn't cut it anymore."

Jack tossed Ruka his damp, but no-longer-dripping-wet robes. "Show me. Show me for a month that you can take care of yourself to the same standard that I used to make you before the Valentine's Day Tea Party. A solid month. Got it?"

He looked to the bathroom door. "In the meantime, I need to undo whatever happened to Fangs. Hopefully a month will be enough for both of us to get to where we want to be."

@Jack Burnett

Jack didn't answer any of his questions, not really, and Ruka took a mental note of that, the tightening in his chest coming loose just a bit with that realisation. He wanted to think that it meant that Jack didn't want to answer rather than couldn't, which in turn made Ruka think that answering them would have meant to admit to something he wasn't comfortable with, like the fact that maybe he did care more for him than just for the sake of am experiment.

That maybe he did want Ruka around.

Despite everything, Ruka didn't think Jack to be a liar, and the easiest way to avoid telling lies was to steer conversation elsewhere, wasn't it? 

He really hoped he had the right idea about this.

For a long moment he just blankly looked at Jack as he was talking, soaking up the words he was saying while showing as little reaction as he could. Everything he was saying was true, Ruka knew as much; He hadn't been taking care of himself the way he should have, had been reckless with his health and life even, but the thing that did make him flinch a little was when Jack pointed out his obsession with his father's picture and the fedora Jack had given him back at the Tea Party.

It hit him like a punch in the gut to be called out for that and for a second a new surge of tears welled up behind his eyes, but he managed to blink them away as quickly as they came. It was unfair, he thought, for Jack to scold him for holding on to stupid little things like that when he didn't really know what it was like to have nothing else. 

Sometimes holding on to things like a picture or a hat was all that kept Ruka feeling like he was still tied to this world that constantly seemed to try and cut him away.

He didn't say anything, however, a calm settling inside him when Jack called him practically a part of his family. This wasn't going to be like last time; this wasn't the moment Jack was going to start avoiding him again for whatever period of time he saw fit.

This was a test. 

It was Ruka's chance to prove that he wasn't just all talk when he said he was able to take care of himself, a chance to prove that he wasn't using Jack as any sort of foundation the way that Selim had claimed he had. 
It was a way to be able to show Jack by the end of that one month that he was able to make his own decisions and didn't need the other boy to decide what was best for him.

Ruka liked few things more than a challenge.

He lifted both hands to catch the wet robes Jack tossed his way, clutching them against his chest as he moved towards one of the sinks, locking eyes with his reflection for a moment as if to check that his exterior showed the same determination that his insides had been rekindled with.

"Fine," he agreed calmly, turning to look at Jack as he moved his hands behind his back to steady himself against the sink. Bloodshot green eyes found hazel ones, his lips pressed into a thin line as he tilted his head to the side questioningly. "And then? When I've showed you that I can take care of myself after that month? Are you going to use it an excuse to distance yourself from me because it would mean I don't need you?" It was a question he needed to be answered honestly; if that was the case he would rather know it from the start instead of getting knocked down from his build up at the end of the month.

A sting of jealousy ran through him at the mention of Selim - Someone who had physically tortured Jack, was clearly just as much of a mess as Ruka himself if not more, and didn't seem fine in the slightest. How come Selim wasn't being told to get his act together by himself? How come Jack was so willing to fix his mess despite everything but was determined to make Ruka prove he could fix his own?

Taking a deep breath, Ruka moved slowly towards the bathroom door, back turned to Jack so hopefully the other boy wouldn't be able to read the thoughts off his face. "Alright," he just said bitterly, and he could almost hear the jealousy dripping from his voice as he reached for the door handle. "Do what you have to." 

@Ruka Tân

"Heh. Isn't it obvious?" Jack asked in response to Ruka's question regarding his challenge. His smile was weak, but genuine; eyes just as bloodshot as the second-year's. "It won't matter what I do. I'll have no excuses left. If you can take care of yourself for this whole month, I'll be forced to concede to the fact that you ultimately know what's best for you.

"Then you can do whatever you want, whether it's to stick around me, around Flash, or no one else at all. It'll be entirely your choice, regardless of what I might want or believe, and I won't interfere or try to stop you or otherwise attempt to change your mind. Is that not fair enough?"

His face fell again as his thoughts drifted to Selim. "I already messed up with Fangs, Tân. Worse this time than ever before. He thinks he's 'fixed', but I'm pretty sure what I told him to do ended up breaking him worse than anything he did to me. My damage was only physical, but his..." Jack shook his head, his sentence trailing off. "If I can't undo the mess I made of my own contractual partner, there's no way I can trust myself not to wreck you beyond repair, either."

His brows steepled in concern. "So...if you can prove you're strong enough not to break as easily as that lonesome snake, it'll at least help ease some of my worries. Please." He stared at the fire-dancer's back, knowing he deserved the daggers of despair piercing him at the jealousy and envy in the other boy's words. "I need to get stronger, too. Mentally. Because as things are now, I couldn't bear to lose you as well."

The Slytherin uttered a pathetic little laugh. "Who knows? Maybe one day I might actually get strong enough to handle calling someone a friend again."