The Boy next door

Chap 4: be my teacher

Jimin's phone blasted beside his bed, the song Gangsta's paradise filling the air. With a heavy arm he reaches for it, his hand feeling around until he found it. He knew who was probably calling and it was to early to deal with them. But he knew if he didn't answer they'd only keep calling.

"Hello?" His voice comes out cracked, broken as he spoke into the phone.

"Hello Jimin, you sound tired." Their voice cut through the phone, it was soft yet firm.

"Yeah I just woke up, it's earlier here remember dad. We're behind." Jimin kept laying in the bed, moving his head to the side to check the time. It was seven thirty, he wasn't quite ready to start the day.

"Oh right? Sorry son, forgot the whole different time zone thing. But how are you doing? How was the move? Do you like you're new home?" His father bombards him with questions, Jimin knew he felt guilty for not being there but in all honesty he didn't really want him here.

"I'm good, the move was fine. My bedrooms bigger than my old one so that's cool. It seems like a really nice neighbourhood. The neighbours are nice, friendly so that's good." Jimin bites his lip at the last part, the neighbours were more than nice he thought.

"That's good, I'm glad everything's going well. How's Caleb? You're...mother? How's she doing." His father fluttered slightly at the mention of his soon to be ex wife.

"Caleb's still being annoying but is fine. Mums doing great actually! I really think this move was great for her, she needs it. Fresh start you know?" Jimin wanted to emphasis how happy his mum was, to prove to his father they didn't need him to be happy.

"R-right? Well, I'm happy for her. I'm glad she's doing good." There was a moment of awkward silence, eating at the drift that grew between them:

"Yeah...I guess I should be-." Jimin tries ending their conversation, he was still pissed at him, angry for what he did but his father speaks again.

"You know I didn't want it to end this way, I never meant for it too. I know I'm to blame, I should've dealt with the whole situation better." His father sighs defeated into the phone, causing Jimin to roll his eyes.

"Yeah you should have, maybe instead of spending the day with me and Caleb at the beach you should've been talking to Mum. Sitting down like adults and talking it out. But instead you chose to be a coward and leave it till the end of the day. Tell mum you're leaving then just walk out without another word. You didn't even have a conversation with her dad, you just walked out." Jimin spills out all his frustrations, his father was a coward.

His father worked aboard a lot, usually away Monday to Friday then back for weekends. He was what Jimin called a weekend dad. He hadn't really been a parent to him since he was eight. Always away most of the week, his mum was the one who did most of the raising. She would drop him to school, pick him up, take him to surf club, sports training. She did everything both parents should, not single thing did his father help with. So when he found out the reason he left his mum was because on one of his trips he meet a women ten years younger in some bar. He claims he never cheated, but Jimin doesn't believe that. He had to of done, especially when he rented out a two bedroom flat where he worked. It had to have been for her, for the psycho bitch he hated so much.

"I know Jimin, I know I should've dealt with this a lot better than I did. I'm sorry for that but you have to understand your mother and I weren't in a good place. It was bound to happen some time or another, we just were no longer happy with each other." Jimin tries not to scoff at him, his mother deserved a lot better.

"You still shouldn't have done that to her, dumped her for some psycho women half your age. She deserved better than that dad, a lot better." He's always been protective of his mother, she practically raised him with no help from him.