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kiyoomi scrambles for his phone in his pockets at the back of the bus, speed-dialing his mother. today was quite a monumental day--moving in day. he'd had to traverse to the dormitory campus on his own, taking public transport.
(though, if he were his brother, his father would have rather died than let him take a bus.)
when his mother finally answers his dozen of calls, he can already read the room before she speaks; it's a familiar situation, one he's all too adjusted to. he hears the voice of his elder sister in the background, and it's more than enough to make his stomach drop.
"oh, 'yoomi," she begins, tone so apologetic, and he has to stop himself from letting the frustration get to him as his own voice gets caught in his throat.
"are you coming?" he stammers, and he wishes he didn't sound so pathetic at nineteen. "you're not coming, are you?"
he should be used to it--he is used to it, and so he knows he has to suck it up like he always does, and pretend he was fine with everything.
if he tells himself everything is fine, maybe it will be.
it's easier to believe so, nonetheless.
"something came up- your sister has received a really big job opportunity! it's worth us all looking into, really, so we can't come, honey." she says, in her baby-coddling voice she always uses with him, as though he wasn't able to understand what she had said if she just spoke to him normally. "...but we'll visit later, if we can!" she adds, after a period of silence.
he can't help but laugh sourly at his naïveté, his own heartbeat erratic. "it's okay, don't bother. i'll be fine on my own." he forces out, letting his hand tighten it's grip on his knee.
the bus suddenly felt irrevocably suffocating.
his ears begin to ring, and he begins to tap his foot fervently.
"are you sure?"
no.
it suddenly feels as though there's too many people on the bus, and he wants to leave.
"yes, yes." he utters with falsehood. "tell misu i said good luck to her-" the call ends before he can even finish his last sentence, and kiyoomi is certain he's going to hell for wishing she fails the interview.
and maybe it's karma for doing so when he starts to find it hard to breathe.
it's swarming, the bus is now, infested--his hands are clammy, it's disgusting, and he can't move--there may as well be hornets all over his skin, and it feels as such--they're everywhere, stingers writhing against his vertebrae. it hurts, it's painful; there's nowhere to move.
he cannot remember what it properly feels like to be alive.
he squeezes his eyes shut and claps his hands and rocks in his seat as if it will suppress anything at all, as if it would stop the people next to him from looking at him--judging him--a nineteen-year old man, body wracking with torment over something so ridiculously minimal.
