He Isn't Him - Friends

—Robin—

I’m currently at a small diner with my friend. His name is Jay. He likes cheeseburgers but takes the pickles off before eating them. He has natural ginger hair and deep blue eyes. He comes up to talk to anyone he recognizes on the street. He’s taller than me, but just by an inch—which I will catch up to just this summer; I swear I feel a growth spurt coming soon. He has a bright and bubbly personality that makes it easy for anyone to approach him. But most importantly, he’s been my friend since kindergarten. Which is why I’m all the more concerned right now. He-

“Robin! You’ve got to try this! They put the ketchup inside the hotdog!” Jay said, his mouth full of food.

“Ew, you’re spilling food all over!” I responded, covering my face, so I wouldn’t get chewed up bits of hotdog all over me.

“Haha, you haven’t changed a bit have you?” He said, grinning wide after a swallow.

I didn’t respond. Instead, I stared down at the pasta in my bowl. It consisted of spaghetti noodles with bacon and marinara sauce with basil as garnish. The basils were put to the side on the napkin and the bowl was half finished. The chunky, red consistency of the marinara along with the fleshy texture of the noodles reminded me of–

“Excuse me, I have to go to the bathroom real quick.” I said, rushing off so fast that I didn’t even bother to bring my phone with me.

I entered the only stall in the men’s restroom and my guts regurgitated all the spaghetti I inhaled for dinner along with my lunch of questionable meat and pastry from the school cafeteria.

—Jay—

“Are you okay?” I asked as Robin came back looking both red and green at the same time. “You look like a christmas tree if it got syphilis”

“I’m fine. It’s just that this bowl reminded me of something unpleasant.” He said with a weak voice.

“Oh, is it because of our biology class today? Like when we were dissecting frog bra–”

“STOP. I’ll throw up again if you say that.”

I forced a chuckle to hide that I was genuinely worried for him.

“Hey…” He continued. “Can I hang at your place? I’m feeling really sick and I think I need some time to recover before heading home, and I don’t really like the parks here. Smells too much like weed.”

“Sure.”

Robin lived over an hour away, so he would usually hang around the city before his mother came to pick him up or he went home by bus. A lot of the time though, he would hang around my house. He used to live closer, but after his dad passed away, he moved in with his mother’s side of the family up north. At least, that’s from what I remember.

—Robin—

Jay lives in a two-storey house less than five minutes from the school. Even back when I was living closer to the city, we would almost always go to his house instead because it was a much more convenient location. And especially at times like this, when I’m feeling a bit under the weather, this house would be my refuge.

I crashed on the living room sofa before my legs gave up, and I could start to breathe again. Inhale… Exhale… Inhale… Exhale… My digestive system was easing up and starting to act less homicidal towards my body. Right then, I felt a hand on my forehead.

“Gosh, you’re burning up!” Jay exclaimed.

I tried to get up and tell him that it’s nothing, but my body wouldn’t move. Or rather, it couldn’t move. I could hear him walking towards the kitchen, probably to grab an ice pack.

“Here.” He said, gently laying the frosty bag of ice on my head.

“Thanks.”

The cold relieved some tension that was straining my eyebrows. It felt nice. But I was also starting to feel really sleepy.

—Jay—

I went upstairs to brush my teeth while Robin was sound asleep on the living room sofa. After that, I headed back downstairs in my pajamas and turned on the TV at a really low volume so as to not wake him up. While the screen flashed colors, I kept thinking back to what happened in the diner.

Robin went to the bathroom in a rush looking a bit queasy. He was in such a rush that he forgot even his phone on the table. As I was busy stuffing ketchup stuffed hotdogs in my mouth, it vibrated. Though it was probably the wrong thing to do, I still couldn’t resist myself and checked his phone. It was just his mother. As I was about to turn it off, I accidentally fat-fingered and hit the notes app. Even though I was frantically trying to go back to the homescreen, a particular note caught my attention.

‘is he him? -Monday’

Who’s he? Is he me? If so, that means he figured it out. How?

I heard footsteps closing in, so I quickly placed back the phone where it was and it seemed like Robin didn’t notice. Or rather, he couldn’t notice. He looked sick out of his mind.

“I love you.”

My mind snapped back into reality as I looked around to see who said that. Turns out, it was just the TV. Me jerking my whole body in surprise must’ve startled Robin, who was on the other side of the couch. He woke up rubbing his eyes, the icepack stuck to his forehead.

“Huh? What happened?” He asked, drowsy.

“Nothing! Uhm, it’s really late for the night, do you wanna just stay over?”

“Sure, why not. At this rate, I’ve gotta pay rent or something because of how much I’ve slept over at this house.” He joked. “I can use the bathroom upstairs, right?”

“Yup.”

—Robin—

As I headed up the stairs, I could hear Jay turn up the volume on the TV as a show he liked came on. I opened the second door on the left to enter the bathroom and wash myself up. After that, I went into the guest bedroom and gave a call to my mom.

After four rings, a voice came over the phone. “Hello? Robby? Is that you?”

“Hi Mom, I’m gonna stay over Jay’s tonight.”

“Again? Gosh I really feel bad for him every time you do this. He’s okay with it though, right? And his parents? Did they give you permission? I need to buy them lunch some time.”

“Yeah he was the one who suggested it in the first place. I don’t know about his parents, though. They’re away on a trip I think. Still, it’s pretty late in the night so I think they’ll say yes.”

“Alright, just don’t be late for school tomorrow.”

“Okay Mom. Goodnight.” I said, hanging up the call.

I looked at my shirt, which had a tiny marinara stain. I thought of ignoring it, but it felt a bit gross, so I went to the laundry room and grabbed some stain remover. I tossed the stained shirt in the washing machine, then sat awkwardly watching the singular shirt spin inside it. I decided to go on social media to scroll time away, but stopped when something foul hit my nose.

At first, I thought it was something that was coming from the bathroom. But it wasn’t. Curiosity got the better of me and I played hot and cold with the smell until I realized it was coming from Jay’s room.

I opened the door slowly, knowing that Jay is downstairs deeply absorbed in whatever was airing on TV right now. The room looked pretty clean and I couldn’t identify where the stench was coming from. I looked under the bed, behind the desk, and even the tiny slither between the wall and the bookshelf. However, none of those spots were the sources of this smell that was getting fouler by the minute. Finally, I found where the smell was coming from. It was the closet.

I opened the door to see clothes as you’d expect. As I was inspecting the clothes, something cold and slimy came into contact with my forearm. I immediately yanked back my hand in panic. Though it was obscured by the clothes at first, I could now finally see what it was. It was… a body. Like an actual human body. Dead. Cold. And rotting.

I tried to go in for a closer look despite my stomach’s protest, but pulled back when the body fell on its own. It had ginger hair, blue wide open eyes, and… it looked like Jay. No, it was Jay. Even more than panic, confusion rushed through my body followed by sudden dread as I started to question who was then the person watching TV downstairs.

“Aw man, did you find it?” A voice said from behind. It sounded like Jay but the pitch was distorted.

I turned around to see Jay smiling wide, staring into my eyes, though there wasn’t any joy contained in his expression. But it wasn’t him. I had a feeling it wasn’t him since last week, but I now knew. It wasn’t him.

“Who… who are you?”

“Don’t worry.” Jay said. “I won’t be harming you. And I certainly wasn’t the one who harmed him.”

My vision started to blur and everything tried to come out of me again. I held it in but was making gagging noises as I dropped to my knees because my legs gave out. He’s dead. And…

He isn’t him.

—Jay—

I seriously didn’t want him finding out. Why did he have to find out?

I was watching TV like he normally did. Don’t get me wrong, I like this show. It’s really fun. But it just didn’t feel right. Like it wasn’t something that I would personally find and watch unless someone else put it on to watch first. While I was busy watching the male lead telling his love interest, “I mustn’t stay. Father would be outraged if he ever found out.” I started to get curious as to what Robin was doing. I could overhear him talk with his mother, but it was all a muffle. I decided to go upstairs and see what he was up to.

“Why did you have to see it?” I asked, staring at Robin who seemed to have difficulty breathing.

“... Is he… really Robin?” He said, with short breaths.

I stared at the gray, rotting corpse that had fallen out of the closet. My own body started to shake. No, I have to control it. I can’t let him see it. But I couldn’t hold it back.

Black sludge oozed out of the left side of my face, as the facade I had put on slowly disappeared. My vocal cords were now completely broken, and my voice gathered distorted and shattered pitches to make out a sentence. “P̴l̴e̴ase̸…̸ ̸d̵o̴n’̶t̶ ̴t̵e̷ll̵ ̶a̵n̶yone̸ a̴b̷ou̴t t̴hi̵s̸. K̶ee̴p̴ t̸he̵ ̴fa̷c̶t̵ th̶a̵t I̸ a̵m ̴n̵ot ̴hi̶m ̸a ̵se̵cr̴e̸t. ̵Ev̴en̶ fr̵om̴ ̴hi̵s̴ ̷pa̴r̷e̴nts.”

Robin stayed silent, as if his soul had left his body. Mine would’ve left too if I had encountered such a horrifying, disgusting creature right in front of me. Slowly, he mustered strength and got up from his knees to stare me in the eyes.

“Sure…” He said, voice trembling.

“What?”

“I can keep your secret. You… you’ve been in this form for a while right? I remember that you started acting… off since last week. But, whatever creature you are, you don’t seem to be the kind to hurt other people. If what you said was really true and Jay really died from something else, then I can keep your secret.”

—Robin—

What am I saying?

I don’t know what my eyes are witnessing. In front of me was someone who looked like Jay, but half of their face is now nothing more than black slime that melts and stares at me with snow white eyes with pupils from the abyss that stare into me.

But it did save me.

I started to notice that something was off about Jay maybe a week ago. Though he used to be bright and bubbly, he wasn’t this clueless. He started to forget his favorite colour, or when our friend’s birthday was. But, the most telling thing was when we were rewatching an old episode of a 90s sitcom. He really loved this character named Joel and was super disappointed when he learned that the showwriters shipped him with Jessica instead of Daphne. However, when we were watching the episode where Joel proposed to Jessica, his reaction was, “Aw, how cute of them.”

That was a dead give away. I knew that something was off. But, I didn’t really want to say anything because the morning of, I almost got hit by a car.

My mind must’ve been wandering the stratosphere, because I stepped foot onto the traffic when the light was red and a car was speeding by. People were yelling but I realized a bit too late. Luckily, someone pulled me back by my backpack and I managed to dodge a fatal collision. I turned around to see Jay with his eyes wide, sweat dropping from his chin down his neck. He saved me.

Despite him shipping Jessica and Joel unlike the real Jay, I thought to myself that whoever he was, that he couldn’t be a bad person. A person…

What was in front of me was definitely not a person. I wasn’t even sure if it was from this world.

—???—

“So, can we be friends?” Jay said, returning to his human self.

“...Yes. We can be friends.” Robin replied.

Friends… I slowly got curious as to how their friendship will come into fruition.