On a bright, warm Sunday morning, birds chirped proudly from the trees as a soft autumn breeze brushed through the air. Leaves danced lazily across the pavement, and the sunlight painted everything in gentle shades of gold and amber. The world looked alive — colorful, peaceful, warm.

Yet to Jimin, it all felt meaningless.

As if the world had lost all its color.

Jimin was a student at Tzinsu University, a place filled with ambition, noise, and movement. Students passed by laughing, chatting, complaining about assignments or upcoming exams. Life continued around her effortlessly.

She walked toward campus that morning, her steps slow and heavy, as though each one required more energy than she could afford. Her phone buzzed quietly in her pocket, breaking the silence she had wrapped herself in. She didn’t need to check the screen to know who it was.

Her mother.

Someone she hadn’t seen in months.

Jimin’s fingers curled slightly, but she didn’t take her phone out. She told herself she’d read the message once she arrived on campus. Just not now. Not while her chest already felt tight.

By the time she reached her dorm building, the sun had climbed higher into the sky. The distance between her and home meant different time zones — something so small, yet somehow it made everything harder. Conversations were always delayed. Emotions always arrived too late.

So she waited until the next morning.

When she finally opened the message, the screen blurred almost instantly. Tears slid down her cheeks, one after another, dropping onto the bedsheet beneath her hands.

Not because of what her mother had written.

The message was gentle. Loving. Full of concern.

But because Jimin knew she wouldn’t be able to reply.

Just like all the other messages she had avoided. The unanswered calls. The unread letters. She was afraid they would ask her to come home for the holidays — afraid they would ask questions she didn’t know how to answer.

She didn’t want them to see what she had become.

Jimin had been isolating herself on campus for months now, leaving only when absolutely necessary. Classes. A quick stop at a nearby café. A rushed visit to the supermarket. Then straight back to her room. Somewhere along the way, something inside her had begun to break — quietly, slowly — like a crack forming beneath the surface.

It affected her mind first.

Then her body.

She felt tired even after sleeping. Food tasted dull. Laughter felt foreign. Some days, even breathing felt heavy.

Jimin had not always been like this.

In a sudden flash of memory, her mind drifted back to the time before university. Before the silence. Before the loneliness. Back when she lived at home with her parents and her twin brother, Tae-ho. Their house had always been loud — doors slamming, voices overlapping, laughter echoing through the hallways.

She remembered how chaotic it became whenever her cousins, Yeo-jin and Seo-jun, came over. Arguments over the TV remote. Late-night snacks. Shared secrets whispered under blankets. A kind of noise she once found annoying — but now missed more than anything.

It was a time she wished she could return to.

Maybe that was what she was missing.

She had relied so much on her brother and cousins that she never learned how to make friends on her own. When they were gone, so was her sense of belonging.

But even then, she didn’t fully understand it.

Why had she changed so drastically?

No matter how hard she thought, no clear reason came to mind. The question replayed itself endlessly, like a broken record.

What’s wrong with me? she asked herself again and again.

The answer never came.

Maybe a doctor’s checkup was all she needed, she thought weakly. Maybe it was something simple. Something fixable.

Or maybe… it was something she was afraid to name.

She stayed lying on her bed long after the thought faded.

Her hair was messy, spread across the pillow, and her mind felt foggy — heavy, like it was filled with cotton. Minutes passed. Then more. She simply lay there, phone resting loosely in her hand, staring at the ceiling as thoughts drifted in and out without forming anything clear.

Eventually, she unlocked her phone again.

She opened the message one last time.

Her mother’s words stared back at her, warm and familiar. Jimin swallowed hard, her thumb hovering over the screen. After a few seconds of hesitation, she closed her eyes and deleted the message.

The silence afterward felt louder than before.

Back at home, kilometres away, her absence weighed heavily on the people who loved her most. Her parents sat together more often now, voices hushed with worry. They didn’t know what was wrong — only that something was. Calls went unanswered. Messages remained unread.

They began to talk about going to see her themselves.

Or at least asking her to come home.

Tae-ho, her twin brother, suggested he should be the one to call her first. If anyone could reach her, maybe it would be him. He knew her better than anyone else.

Meanwhile, Jimin finished freshening up and forced herself into a routine that felt increasingly unfamiliar. She got dressed, tied her hair back, and prepared herself to face the day. That morning, she decided to take the bus to campus instead of walking.

At the bus stop, she sat quietly on the bench, a small sandwich and a cup of boba tea in her hands. The pearls sat untouched at the bottom. She wasn’t really hungry — she just knew she had to eat.

Her attention drifted when she overheard two girls sitting a bench away from her.

“I can’t wait to go home during summer break,” one of them said brightly. “I miss my baby sister so much.”

The other girl gasped, eyes lighting up. “Really? I’d rather stay here for the summer. My family is way too loud. Yours sounds so nice. Maybe I’ll come with you someday.”

They both laughed.

The sound pierced straight through Jimin.

A familiar, bitter feeling settled in her chest — the same one that visited her every day when she thought about home. Her parents. Tae-ho. Her cousins. The noise she once took for granted.

She stared down at her drink, lost in thought, until a loud honk startled her.

The bus had arrived.

Flustered, she stood up and boarded quickly, choosing a seat near the window. As she sat down, the older woman seated beside her glanced over, her eyes soft with concern.

“Are you alright, dear?” she asked gently.

Jimin forced a small smile, the kind she had perfected over time, and nodded.

“Yes,” she lied quietly.

Minutes passed as Jimin sat beside the bus window, quietly watching the scenery slip by. Trees blurred into shades of green and gold, buildings rose and disappeared, and the sky stretched endlessly above her. It was beautiful.

She knew that.

Yet the beauty barely reached her.

By the time the bus arrived at the university, she had already finished her sandwich and drained the last pearls from her boba tea. Jimin stepped off the bus and walked across campus, arriving earlier than most students — as always.

She found her seat and pulled out a book from her bag. It was a baking book, one she’d borrowed weeks ago but never had the energy to try anything from. She flipped through the pages absentmindedly, eyes tracing photos of warm bread and delicate pastries.

Slowly, the classroom filled.

Groups of students laughed and chatted loudly, voices overlapping with excitement. Words like home, break, and family floated through the air. Jimin stiffened, her grip on the book tightening.

She kept her eyes down.

The lecture began, but for once, Jimin couldn’t focus. The professor’s voice blurred into background noise. Her thoughts drifted, heavy and restless. This wasn’t like her. She had always been attentive, always disciplined.

Something was wrong.

After class, she made a decision.

At the clinic, the sterile smell made her uneasy. The nurse asked routine questions, took samples, ran tests, and told her to return the following week for the results. Jimin nodded politely, trying to stay calm.

It’s probably just stress, she told herself.

For the next few days, she followed her usual routine. Classes. Cafés. Silence. When the day finally came for her results, she dressed carefully, hope lingering quietly in her chest as she headed back to the doctor’s office.

The diagnosis was simple — and frightening.

Stress caused by isolation.

The doctor spoke gently, explaining that if she didn’t change her habits, it could worsen and begin affecting her physical health even more. He suggested socializing, reconnecting with loved ones, and spending time with family.

Jimin listened in silence.

By the time she left, she knew what she had to do.

She was going home for the break.

Back on campus, she sat down on a bench, exhausted. She opened a bag of potato chips, barely tasting them. Her phone rang.

She almost ignored it.

But the doctor’s words echoed in her mind.

She glanced at the screen.

Tae-ho.

Her breath caught as she answered.

“Hello?”

Silence.

“Hello?” she repeated softly.

“Jimin?” Tae-ho’s voice sounded surprised — then relieved. “Are you okay?”

That was all it took.

Tears spilled over as she broke down, words tumbling out between sobs. She told him everything — the isolation, the stress, how different she felt, how her body didn’t feel like her own anymore.

Tae-ho listened, stunned. What she described didn’t sound like the sister he knew. He needed to see her.

“Are you coming home for the break?” he asked.

“Yes,” she whispered.

For the first time in months, Tae-ho heard his sister’s voice — really heard it.

And for the first time in a long while, Jimin didn’t feel completely alone