Aldrose (KevHwall) (DISCONTINUED)

Eight

New

    Kevin looked dead. No offense, but he looked like he hadn't slept in weeks. He was completely out of it the whole day. I think his pallor appearance was actually caused by lack of sleep because he kept experiencing bouts of drowsiness during classes. He even got called out by our Psych teacher and a simple yell of a student's name in Bluehollow was bad enough.

    Not only did he come across as the second cousin of a zombie, but he also lost weight as well. When I mean weight, I mean a good ten pounds in only five months of college. They say you lose weight in your first year and I should've known Kevin would fall into that same fate. One of my older friends who lives down in Glasshill told me how he flew through freshman year without a single ounce of stress. Then again, this is Kevin we're talking about. We found out about his weight loss when they called all new students to the medical office for a check-up. Q and I snapped our heads towards him like he'd lost his mind as well, but he merely shrugged.

    It wasn't just today that his bearing and behavior had turned eccentric, it started just last week. I thought it was one of those phases Kevin experiences every once in a while, so I let it slip. However, I began to wonder if that wasn't necessarily the case. During the weekend, we hollered at him to hang out with us and offered a sleepover. He refused and simply said he was busy. On Monday, he didn't show at lunch and while we went about the school searching for him, Q unraveled Kevin crammed in the smallest corner of the library where there was barely an inch of space between the bookshelf and the desk, studying for Level 2 Music History.

    We decided to put our foot down and went over to his apartment the same day. I was appalled to find his fridge suffering borderline emptiness and disgusted at Changmin's find of overdue laundry in his closest. Gross. We basically interrogated him and lo and behold, all of his answers had something to do with school and the old I was busy. We refilled his fridge with food, pulled his butt off of that stupid stool and had him eat until we feared he might explode, shoved him in the bathroom to shower for the Lord's sake, and hid his glasses in order to sustain whatever good eyesight he had remaining.

    Of course, our hard work only lasted the duration we were there for the next day he was your average, reeking of stress and skin hanging off bones college freshman. That drew the line for me and I barged into his apartment on the dot when he would have his dinner.

    I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs. This stubborn kid had the nerve, the audacity to sit ever so leisurely on the exact same stool and type away on his computer. He was the kind of person who kept all devices on full brightest and gave the inane argument in which a dumbed down by one percent was too dark.

    "How did you manage to find your glasses?" I asked bewildered. I set my keys on the island with the satisfying jingles and reluctantly lowered myself on those blasted leather stools.

    "Because stuffing them at the bottom of my underwear drawer was a genius idea, wasn't it?" he challenged sarcastically. He might have lost weight, but he certainly didn't lose his smart-aleck self.

    "It's not our fault you decided to throw away your out-of-school life to fully submerge yourself into the abyss of college buildings, hallways, and studies," I snapped at him. He just hummed in response, eyes glued to the screen. I huffed in exasperation and had the urge to slam my palms against the cool marble. Instead, I took a deep breath in and started sternly,

    "Kevin, listen to me." The sound of my own voice took me back. His clicking stopped and he finally paid me attention. His brows drew together slightly and his eyes traveled to mine, brown and squinted.

    "I understand that you want to make the most out of college and be even better than you were back in high school, but you gotta live a little, Kev. You can't just confine yourself while you try to find the answers to homework papers when what you're really trying to find are the answers to academic expectations." He licked his lips before pursing them, focus averting to his screen as his fingers attempted to keep busy, to distract. I had hit a nerve.