His mind was spinning, trying to process what she had said.

Schizophrenia

He had asked her what that meant.

"It means I hurt the people I love," she whispered, though he heard her perfectly.

She was being dramatic, he thought.

One of his free days, Jinhwan sat in front of his laptop. He typed in the word on the search box and hit enter. A number of links appeared and he clicked on what he thought to be the most reliable page.

( a/n: from http://psychcentral . com/disorders/schizophrenia/ )

"One of the most obvious kinds of impairment caused by schizophrenia involves how a person thinks. The individual can lose much of the ability to rationally evaluate his or her surroundings and interactions with others. They often believe things that are untrue, and may have difficulty accepting what they see as "true" reality.

Schizophrenia most often includes hallucinations and/or delusions, which reflect distortions in the perception and interpretation of reality. The resulting behaviors may seem bizarre to the casual observer, even though they may be consistent with the schizophrenic's abnormal perceptions and beliefs."

Schizophrenia. That's what she said she had. She saw things that weren't real, maybe even heard things that didn't exist.

It took some time to process, but it made sense. It would explain her odd behavior, why she always was so guarded and careful. Did she think that he was just a figment of her imagination?

He couldn't really understand what was going on in her mind, but he knew she was struggling. Jinhwan had never had any experience with these situations but he wanted to help.

She was his friend, after all.