a ticket to the sun ∙ myg ✓

13 ↝ platinum love

Jeon Jeongguk is one of the lucky ones in the form of a platinum certificate, declaring a free pass on genocide; cleaning his fingertips of scarlet. A promise to not die by an unlawful hand.

That is what happens, after all, when your life is deemed valuable to this world. When your intelligence is too good to be wasted. When the zeros tacked onto the end of your future inheritance are far too infinite to be ignored. They say this is the secret to immunity: hone pockets weighed down by gold, and bear diamond fangs that can tear through a piece of paper, splotched with the ink of your name.

In a town as small as their own, such a matter was deemed a myth. Then, she met him.

She never knew whether it was sheer fascination, or genuine attraction. Even now, she remains unsure. But Jeongguk was drawn to her; opposite poles of a magnet that met in unexpected harmony. He had knocked into her elbow at the campus cafe and spun to apologise. Instead, he had found himself struck silent by the graves that were on blatant, unadulterated exhibition in the cemeteries of her eyes.

Maybe, he was convinced that he could uproot the dead from where they slept. Thought he could dig his fingers into the soils, and grow bouquets from the minerals that the bones had scattered beneath the surface. Maybe, he wanted to know the secrets. The reasons behind the ghosts that lurked about her irises, eternally trapped betwixt the limbo of Heaven and Hell. Maybe, he was as selfish as the rest of the world. Precisely like her and the other, who was buried the deepest in the boneyard of her heart.

Too many maybes had filled her mind, yet she had found herself saying yes. Not just once. But again, and again, until the two of them were sharing coffee against the lips of the other instead of over a cafe table, and she could describe precisely how it felt when he entered her. Again, and again. Yes.

Now, the boy of platinum teaches her about things that she already knew, but from a different perspective. A preferable one, where one is not concerned with their fate. When their life is not threatened at the beginning of every new month, because their skin and bones are invincible to the bullets of a Government rifle.

Jeongguk takes her to the theatre. In the shadows of the back row, where their mischievous chuckles hide, he shows her what salt and butter tastes like on his tongue. He lets her listen to the sound of their voices blend off-tune with the song playing on the radio. The windows of his car are rolled all the way down, spring breeze curling through her hair, his hand resting on the sunlight that seeps gold onto her thigh. He shows her the bridge that connects the southern and northern ends of the city. The lights that are cast onto the glass surface of the river from street lamps resemble stars, flickering beneath their feet, shining on the gentle ripples rather than above in the hazy, dark skies.

This is where Jeongguk whispers that he loves her. This is where he accepts that she cannot find the voice just yet to say such a burden back. But he helps her take her dress off in the backseat anyway, and he kisses every inch of her skin as if he is trying to find the answer tucked somewhere between her joints. Engraved in her bones.

When he thrusts into her, he moans in such a way that she digs her nails deeper into his flesh, as though she can bury herself within him. Become a part of his platinum shield. She, too, can be untouchable.

It is not that she does not adore Jeongguk. Of course, her chest thrums with that certain warmth when he grazes his knuckles over her throat. Her gaze softens when she finds him walking into the room, lighting up with a grin that is specially reserved for her. He is a secure anchor amidst the raging ocean of this society, and she swears that such a matter is not the reason why she laces her knuckles together to connect at the palms, or swallows his laughter into her own lungs, or presses her lips against his bare spine when the moonlight turns his skin into stardust.

Somewhere, deep down, she thinks there may be a hint of love, too shy to reveal its face. Maybe, it is insecure; unsure whether its roots are woven through the carcass of a natural demise, rather than the tacky mint shade of an unwanted envelope.

No. That is not the reason why she desires him. She may be cruel, but she is not a monster. That is what she tells herself, at least, as she ignores the blood red gaze that watches on from the darkest shadows of her mind. It folds its talons in its lap, wearing the glint of a wicked grin.

The sight is too repulsive to even glance at.

Now, when she parts her lethargic eyes, it is to find Jeongguk already gazing at her through the tangle of her sleep-heavy lashes. He draws the tip of his finger down her nose, outlining the shape of her lips. A map that he marks with his touch before he presses his own mouth to them in a quiet good morning.

"What were you dreaming about?" he murmurs throatily, and it is then that she realises she is frowning. The sunlight that slides into his bedroom attempts to soften and smooth the crease between her brow, though it cannot seem to fade. "You were stirring and mumbling."

She thinks back to the realm she was briefly visiting. It held the taste of vanilla, and the eyes of blackholes that would bend her at the edges. Although she had clung fiercely to the stars and suns that surrounded him, he let her be free, just like that. There was no fight left in him. No force. No will to drag her into his desolate infinity.

She is unsure if she is grateful, or if she would rather be dead.

"Nothing that I can remember," is all that she whispers before her face finds solace in the dip of Jeongguk's throat. There, he will not be able to see the betrayal that brews in her eyes. His ignorance is all the more confirmed when he hums indifferently and slides his palm beneath her rumpled shirt, gliding up her spine.

Because Jeon Jeongguk, with platinum luck threaded through his veins, with good fortune as a shield against unnatural fate, is not, and could never be Min Yoongi.