a ticket to the sun ∙ myg ✓

18 ↝ too late

Yoongi wishes– No, demands that his final month of filling his lungs with life, of feeling his heart thrum unsurely against his ribcage, is as normal as can be. He allows his parents that one miserable night to be rid of all their sorrow, to let it crash from their bodies in catastrophic tsunamis that gradually, agonisingly, drag him under, too. But that is it, and they accept his word with trembling lips and watery eyes that threaten to spill, just as his blood will in 27 days.

27 days.

It is probably morbid to count them out like the number of eggs the chickens have laid that day. But it is the only semblance of stability that Yoongi has left.

That, and her.

It takes Yoongi three of those precious days to gather the scattered pieces of himself back together and muster up the courage to message her, but not without a shove. Yoongi's mother suggests it—to invite her over for dinner—after three of his father's six siblings have arrived with their partners, and have brought along Yoongi's grandmother and his younger cousins. Yoongi only acquiesces to the idea once his parents, his three aunts, his two uncles, and his grandmother have all sworn to not speak a word about his imminent demise. He does not bother with his handful of rowdy cousins; the oldest of the four has only recently entered kindergarten.

But this is how Yoongi comes to discover her struggling with the latch on the gate, as she always used to when they were invincible to the kind of green envelope that is now locked away in his desk drawer. He would tease her for not remembering, after all these years, to lean on the gate as she slides the bolt down and across, but he keeps his tongue tight behind his grinning teeth when he notices that her other arm is barely managing to balance a glass salad bowl.

"You didn't have to bring anything," Yoongi says in lieu of a greeting, unlocking the gate for her. She looks up at him, squinting against the sunset that hovers behind his head, and smiles like the last three years never happened.

"Of course I did! What kind of guest would I be if I didn't bring a goddamn cranberry salad." She hands it over to him then, and Yoongi raises his eyebrows at the colourful contents, visible through the plastic wrap.

Yoongi wants to say: You've never been a guest; you've always been family. Instead, he closes the gate behind her and turns towards the commotion of his relatives, talking and barbecuing beneath the strings of lights that dangle about like fireflies. "Since when did you learn how to cook, Miss Instant-Ramen-is-a-Gourmet-Cuisine?"

"Oh, this isn't cooking. But hey, if you classify me emptying a packet of salad greens and sprinkling some feta and cranberries over the top as cooking, I'll take it," she says, mouth brimming with mirth. Yoongi fondly shakes his head as they stroll towards his family, and her laughter dissolves once she notices the sheer number of people milling around on the grass. "Woah. Is it someone's birthday? I thought it was just going to be your parents and the neighbours."

Yoongi feels cold, like his bones have suddenly become ice and they are chilling him from the inside out. He knows she deserves the truth. That he should tell her they are here to celebrate his life. That today marks the 27th day before his heart stops beating—before he no longer has the opportunity to hold her cheeks between his palms and whisper his love against her lips, because he will no longer exist.

But he knows how she would react. She would blame it on her curse. She would blame it all on herself, and Yoongi—who cannot tell who would be more selfish in such a situation—does not wish to spend his final month of living trying to convince her that the curse is not real, and that this was all a matter of luck.

Luck that Yoongi has never, and will never, have.

He stares at the dipping orange sunlight until white spots are dancing in his vision to distract himself from pulling at his earlobe. She would instantly know he was lying, if he did. "Nah. They just decided to do a trip here for the weekend because it's been a while since we've all seen each other."