a ticket to the sun ∙ myg ✓

15 ↝ truth kills

In July, the monthly draw lands on a Friday. The final day of the semester.

It is the end of exams. The return of the summer holidays, celebrated by a barbecue down by the foreshore. A place where all students alike arrive in their respective groups to rejoin before they part for home, but everyone mixes, mingles, and congratulates.

Friendly tournaments of beach volleyball are held between the colleges. The aroma of sizzling meat and charcoal manages to overpower the scent of salt that wafts from the waves. Laughter and conversation tucks itself into every available space. Alcohol is poured graciously and in volumes considered comparable to a frat party.

Yoongi cannot help but wonder how many of the students who have flocked to the beach are going to have their name drawn from the ballot. Whose exam scores are going to become insignificant. Who might be celebrating for the final time with their peers––their friends––before they return home to a family with cheeks stricken by tears and a mint green envelope, bloodied with their own name.

When Yoongi arrives at the foreshore, there is a solid seven minutes of texting back-and-forth with a half-drunk Hoseok––who is dreadful at giving directions as it is––to figure out where the hell he is. Though it is only when Seokjin puts the latter on his shoulders that Yoongi manages to find them amongst the dense crowd. Nobody could miss that Hawaiian shirt paired with a sunshine smile, arms flailing like one of those wacky inflatable tube men.

Their area consists of a canopy housing three coolers filled to the brim with ice and beer, and a scattering of chairs to take up the remaining shade. A portable barbecue is set up to the left of the arrangement, currently left unattended. The sausages are starting to sizzle beyond cooked, but everyone is too busy enthusiastically welcoming the new arrival to care.

Yoongi greets them all with muted excitement. Though his gaze immediately drifts down to the only person who had remained reclined throughout the entire feat, spread on the grass like a starfish. With his blank features partially concealed by his large black sunglasses, Park Jimin––who is known to be the most mercurial of the whole lot––almost appears dead.

"Is Jimin okay?"

"He's sober," Seokjin laughs, kicking at the ankle of the aforementioned, who grunts something incomprehensible.

Jimin shifts up from his leisurely position to lean back on his elbows.

"Three weeks off it," Jimin squints so fiercely that it is even noticeable behind his glasses. He sounds slow, the words drawn out on his plump lips. "It's not right to do it around family. Plus, my Ma would probably send me to the fuckin' moon if she caught me shooting up on the coffee table that has been passed down through the generations for like, ever."

"The fuckin' moon, he says," Hoseok quips whilst a safe distance from Jimin and his fists, dousing an overly burnt hotdog in sauce. "You've been there every weekend since the start of first semester, Mr. Low Hallucination Tolerance. Hey Yoongi, remember when Jimin literally thought we had managed to make it into outer space and we were walking on the moon like Apollo 13?"

Jimin seems to contemplate whether he should get up and beat the shit out of Hoseok. Ultimately, he decides to slump back onto the grass. "Eat my ass."

Hoseok genuinely sighs. "You all keep offering, but you never pull through."

"You mean Apollo 11," Seokjin circles around Jimin to stand beside Hoseok, raising an eyebrow. "Apollo 13 never landed."

"Amazing, Seokjin knows facts! And here we all were, thinking that he only knew the precise anatomy of the female body." Hoseok jeers, the disparages flying out like they are a second language. "Who would have thought?"

"One, I'm not sure if I should be insulted by that," Seokjin takes his hands out of his pockets and uses an elbow to knock Hoseok in the arm, causing the sauce he is squirting to spray over his own shoes. "Two, you're honestly asking for a beating, from all of us. But I guess three-on-one is just your style, right?"

"Oh daddy, you know it," Hoseok, despite that his eyes blaze lividly over the ruined shoes, takes a disgraceful bite out of his hotdog with a lewd wink as if to prove a point. Everyone gags in perfect unison.

"Speaking of, what are you guys doing for the holidays?" Yoongi asks the feuding pair, wrinkling his nose when Hoseok offers him a sausage that resembles charcoal. He opts for a beer instead, and it fizzles pleasantly on his tongue. An old friend that his liver has known well for the past three years.

"My family lives in the town just beyond Hoseok's, so I'm going to be dropping him there on the travel home." Seokjin states while cleaning up the grill of the blackened mess, shooting the occasional accusing glare at Jimin, who appears to have initially been on barbecue duty. "God knows how I'm going to deal with that for six hours straight, but I consider it my good deed for the year." Seokjin effortlessly dodges a kick to the shin by the insulted. "How about you?"

"You're driving back with ___, right?" Hoseok questions, plonking down beside Jimin, who parts his lips in a demand for a bite. The poor guy nearly chokes when Hoseok eagerly shoves half the hotdog into his mouth.

A shiver is elicited when her name infiltrates the atmosphere, crawling up his spine in a sensation near pleasurable. But now, it is weighted with the touch of a forbidden truth. She no longer belongs to him, no matter if she still keeps her heart nestled between his palms.

Yoongi chugs back a quarter of the beer as if to wash away the feeling, cringing immediately afterwards.

"Yeah, it makes sense to go in one car. Her– Uh, the boyfriend is going to be visiting his family in the east, so he won't be coming with us," Yoongi speaks dismissively whilst running a hand back through his hair. His friends appear to not notice the fervent longing that resides beneath his skin.

Yoongi is about to take another sip of his drink. That is until he stares directly ahead and finds the devil herself, drying off her hair with a beach towel.

It is eternally mesmerising watching her. From the way she moves with the fluidity of water, to the beautiful manner in which her features transform into her signature expressions. Most of them are private inclinations to an opposite emotion. A habit that only he knows of after such an extensive period of time observing her throughout their growth.

She laughs at something her friends says. The surrounding commotion swallows it whole, but Yoongi can hear it in divine clarity; the harmonious melody that has been the repeating soundtrack to half of his life. The calling of songbirds; the gentle notes of a piano; the tinkling of wind chimes in a summer breeze.

There is a faint vibration against Yoongi's thigh. When he reaches into his pocket to retrieve the device, she makes eye contact from across the grass. A smile drifts about her lips that he cannot help but return, gazing at one another like a secret. Then, she purposefully distracts herself with the entertainment surrounding her.

Yoongi stands up and departs from the group, who are already indulging in other topics. He answers the phone without checking the identification. The line crackles with static, and then, his mother is sobbing through the speaker as though the world is about to end as they know it.

And when she finally manages to choke out the syllables, he realises that such a figure of speech may not be far from the truth after all.