(Jimin POV)
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He wouldn't pick up.
Not when the bus shelter became claustrophobic, feeding off my frustrated tears and tired exhales. Not when the the school day ended, the bell ringing a reminder for how alone I felt.
I wasn't sure what exactly I felt, or if I was being too audacious for calling it love, but when the word was spoken from my lips and your voice rang through my head, a mellifluous tone of warmth enveloping me;
love became a synonym for you.
And what better form of love, a truer form of it, there was when it was their mind that made you fall.
My mum barged in through my door, rolling her eyes at the mess in my room.
"Clean up, for once!" She wailed, stepping over a flock of dirty jeans by the foot of my bed. She wrinkled her nose at the overflowing stack of papers upon my desk, reaching down to pluck one.
She held it up, pointing at it to me, "why is this application not filled out?"
I sighed, turning my attention to my pending math homework. The rows of quadratic equations and functions seemed to swirl together, cackling at my inability to concentrate.
"The actual application is going to be submitted online," I mumbled, "that's just an extra copy I picked up."
"Then why haven't you filled out the actual application then?"
"I barely have any energy, Mum."
She sighed. I hated that sigh, that slow and tired exhale of breath you wish that never came -- but it did and it did so painfully.
"Dirty room, can't concentrate on homework, n--"
"No motivation, always tired, procrastinating," I interjected, counting off on my fingers.
"Not to mention I haven't even showered in three days," I remarked.
"Don't worry, Mum, I know all about my faults."
She brushed a strand of hair away from my forehead, a finger wiping away an eyelash from my cheek.
"Then why don't you fix them?"
My bed groaned softly as my mother sat by the foot of it, blinking her lashes at my homework.
I knew what she was doing; assessing and solving the questions in her head mentally, asking why it was that her son couldn't just as easily.
"Do you not want to go to university?"
I blinked at her, eyebrows raising. "Of course I do."
She played with the wool sticking out from her decade old sweater. "You don't seem as passionate about it as before."
"Well I'm not going to jump up and dance every time I think of applying, Mum." I struggled to keep the edge hidden from my voice, but the math questions I'd done perfectly in class earlier today were not agreeing with me this current afternoon.
I leveled my gaze with her, dropping my pencil and letting it role along the curve of my notebook. "If I don't go to university, I'm going to die."
I smiled, for an added effect.
"Don't say such horrible things!" She glowered, but a tug of smile was elicited from her mouth at my humor.
But it was true -- if I didn't go off to university, attending lectures for the next four years on the human body and its ebbing wonders, on the pathogens and its unknown springing, then I truly would be buried in the same town I cried in until my gravestone too crumbled away like my bones.
