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."
Yoongi can feel her watching him, and he prays that she does not notice the way his fingers twitch against the glass bowl, itching to tug at his skin. But just as she is about to respond, his mother is thankfully swooping in with a warm greeting and a hug that lasts a second too long, because her sad eyes are staring at Yoongi over her shoulder in a look that directly translates to: You need to tell her.
Yoongi looks away, pretending he did not see, and ignoring the soft call of coward that echoes in the back of his mind.
The strong, peppery aroma of grilled meat grows as the sun completely melts beyond the horizon, giving way to the night. Plastic wineglasses are repeatedly filled to the lip with fizzing champagne; freshly popped beer caps are followed by the sound of clinking glass necks; childlike whines are quieted by the sucking of apple juice through little straws. All together, they eat and they drink and they laugh, almost forgetting the reason they are here until someone casts their gaze towards Yoongi, and the breath is snatched right out of their lungs.
Well, that is the case for everyone but her.
She is utterly oblivious to the glances and the proceeding silence, even though she frequently partakes in the former through a gaze that is glassy with intoxication. Yoongi catches her every time, and she giggles like it is some hilarious game, and his heart swells with each one until he is sure that it is simply going to burst through his ribcage. And he laughs, too, but because he is thinking it would be much more preferable to die at the sight of her champagne-sweetened eyes rather than that of a government-made bullet through his chest.
By the time she is dropping beside him on the garden swing, his little cousins have been tucked away in their makeshift beds, and his aunt is making a pot of tea for everyone. Her bare knee knocks against his own. Yoongi hazily stares at the exposed flesh as the seat creaks uncertainly beneath them, wishing to lean down and kiss it, and then maybe her thigh, and then maybe–
"Do you still have that bike?" she asks, her smile loose and divine and demanding to be shaped into a moan by his very own lips.
Yoongi grins back, leaning close to her face, though diverting his mouth to her ear at the very last second. Still, he relishes in the way that her eyes had sparked, full of dares and promises and flickers of hopefulness that almost made him reconsider—made him pull back and aim for the curve of her lips instead.
"Yes," he whispers, stewing with a desire-like heat, then he sticks his tongue right into her ear. Her disgusted scream echoes throughout empty the backyard, and is accompanied by the maniacal tone of his cackling.
She whines about it until Yoongi has lugged the rusting bike out of the little shed. She holds it upright while he ducks his head into the kitchen and informs those who are still awake that they are headed to the diner, and they wave him off with smiles that fail to reach their alcohol-softened eyes. Then, like the old days, they wheel the bike to the front yard. He straddles the seat and she sits up on the handlebars, almost toppling off twice, but he keeps a sure hand on her hip until she is—apparently—certain she is stable.
She glances at him over her shoulder, looking like she is contemplating falling off a third time, just to have his palm linger over the denim of her shorts for a moment longer. Yoongi would never complain about such a thing. But, truthfully, his vanilla milkshake craving is overpowering his desire—to share one with her like a cliché romance movie about high school sweethearts. No, like they used to when Yoongi was not savouring his final breaths.
"Ready?" he asks her, giving her hip a soft squeeze that makes the grin on her lips slip just a tad. As if she has suddenly remembered that the only hands that belong on her body are not the ones at the ends of Yoongi's wrists.
As if she has suddenly realised that she wishes they were the ones that belonged there.
"Yup," she responds, though she sounds unconvinced.
Yoongi, in a sick kind of way, is glad he is not the only one swallowing truths.
Then, they are there, and there they are. The countdown is in full swing. 27 days until doom reaches his doorstep—until the truth will be revealed and Yoongi will be framed as a goddamn coward for never telling her from the very start. He deserves to die like that, at least, with shame stuffed in his pockets. With a knife of regret slicing through his back. Truly, such a gruesome excuse of a human being, he is.
Now, she is swaying gently, making an order at the diner counter with a blurred smile, eyes glazed like cakes that he is sure are too sweet. The bike is discarded in the parking lot, and they convinced themselves—without much convincing at all, really—that nobody would be there to steal it at two in the morning.
I could tell her right here, he blankly considers, but knows he never would. I could tell her right here and make pancakes taste like my death; make vanilla cling like my blood to the back of her throat. I could do it. I could do it. I could.
She, with wobbly grace, turns on her heel to face him. Her drooping gaze lands on the divot between his collarbones that kisses the collar of his grey shirt before it lazily trails north to meet his own eyes. A grin lights up on her lips, as if caught redhanded staring where she should not. The breathtaking culprit to the exceptional crime that they are yet to commit.
And even though he thinks he could, Yoongi could never do it. They should engrave "World's Greatest Liar and Coward" upon his headstone once he departs this world. 27 days, and they will be chipping a chisel into granite. He will be six-feet-under with a hole pierced through his traitorous heart, and she will be blaming herself, no matter what he says or does.
"What are you thinking so hard about?"
The words draw him from his daze, laced carefully with intoxication, twisting on the tip of her tongue in a severe effort to sound somewhat sober. He focuses back on her, affection curving his mouth at the way she narrows her eyes in an attempt to be serious. Still, her voice manages to betray her with the question that it curates; the syllables quaking with tremors; the ends of each word dipping into a valley of alternating, pointless tones.
"You and I," Yoongi responds with the honest ease that too many beers have lended him. She nods slowly, her gaze drifting away as if following a thought that is twirling before her very eyes. Yoongi takes the opportunity to order a large vanilla milkshake and a plate of bacon and eggs, then he nudges her shoulder towards their usual booth.
After so long, Yoongi wonders if it is okay to call it that, anymore.
"Well, the seats are still hard as fuck," she announces as she collapses onto the bench opposite his, smacking the cracked red plastic for emphasis. He swears he hears a scoff from the front counter, but he has more important matters to attend to.
Under the table, Yoongi teasingly nudges her sneaker with his own. "Didn't you say you visited home a month ago? I'm sure they wouldn't have changed them in that time."
She sighs, stretching her arms across the table so that her fingers reach towards his chest, as if seeking out his heart. Casually, like she is commenting on the humid night, she says, "Yeah, but I haven't been in here since we went before your 18th birthday."
"Oh?" Yoongi dumbly responds. A feeble placeholder for what he truly wants to ask. Why haven't you come since then? Did you really mean it when you said you loved me? How's your relationship going? Can I kiss you right now? Would Jeongguk mind? Did you know that I'm dying?
"Oh," she says just as plainly, nodding, retreating her hands from his side of the table. But Yoongi catches them in an act of pure, drunken bravery before they can completely leave him, and she does not tug away when he laces their fingers together like a joint prayer. She stares at them with something like contentedness in her gaze and explains, "I tried to come in, but it never felt right. I would just... stand at the door, looking like an idiot, I'm sure. And, I mean, why would I come in here without you? This was our place. It is our place."
Yoongi, carefully, drops his forehead to the table. "You're making this so hard, sweetheart."
He smiles when he feels her fingers instinctively tighten their grasp at the name, like electricity forcing her muscles to briefly lock up. "What do you mean?"
"You know."
"I don't. You'll have to tell me."
"I could show you."
She coughs. "That... that would be... wrong."
Yoongi lifts his head then, sees her narrowed, disturbed gaze that is focused on the jar of old cutlery at the end of the table, and raises their still-joined fingers as if he is presenting evidence to a jury. "And this isn't?"
Without looking at him, she ever so slowly peels her fingers from his own, gathers them into her lap like they are fragile little birds, and that is that.
The waiter brings their food, and while the alcohol charging through their systems demands that they eat ravenously, they remain silent as they do so. Still, once Yoongi notices there is only one straw in the vanilla milkshake, he shuffles out of the booth and retrieves another from the dispenser on the counter. When he slides back onto his side and jabs the second straw into the untouched shake, nudging it closer to the centre of the table so they can both reach it, he notes the way that her eyes dance like streaking comets—fire bright and fleeting—as she lifts a piece of maple-soaked pancake to her mouth.
It is not until they have cleared their plates, sucked the perspiring milkshake glass dry, and approached the bike—sprawled helplessly on its side in the parking lot—that the silence peels away like a particularly heavy coat. Yoongi grabs at the bike handles and she digs a hand into her cardigan pocket. An echo of tyres skidding against bitumen in the near distance cuts through the quiet, followed by her voice.
"Cigarette? I've got two left," she offers, pulling out a packet of Marlboros, and Yoongi's lungs feel suddenly crushed by the weight of dread that he never realised had momentarily alleviated.
With the bike propped against his hip and the moonlight beaming down on them, Yoongi stares at the red and white carton in her outstretched hand, opened to reveal the filters of two cigarettes. A white lighter is nestled beside them, just like the one they would use for their birthdays on the rooftop of the very diner they stand before. Words itch his throat raw, demanding to be spoken, though held at bay by a coward's resilience.
Sure, why not? I'm already dying, anyway. Oh, you think you heard me wrong? I promise you heard me right. I said I'm dying and I meant it. Do you want to see the proof? Would you like me to read the letter to you out-loud? Oh no, don't cry. You'll be okay. You have a boy made of platinum waiting for you—he's much better than the one who can be murdered by something as flimsy as a piece of paper. You'll be okay. Stop crying. You'll be okay. Stop fucking crying.
Yoongi swallows hard, like his mouth is full of red gravel, and takes a stick of death. As he picks out the lighter, too, he is almost angry that cancer will not be the thing that kills him. At least he would have a little more time.
"You shouldn't be smoking," Yoongi comments as he lights up and inhales, then passes her the lighter. She snatches it from him with a sharp bark of laughter, bringing it up to the cigarette balanced between her taut lips.
"This is the last of it, I promise," she says as she brings the flame to life and takes a drag, and then a few smaller puffs to ensure the ember will not go out. Once she has pocketed the lighter and empty packet, she shifts her eyes to Yoongi and sweeps her arm out in a go on gesture. Yoongi starts to wheel the bike in the direction of home, and she lazily wanders beside him, smoke trails lingering where they have stepped.
"Any reason?" Yoongi asks, exhaling a grey-blue cloud into the night.
She flicks ash. "For what?"
"This being the last of it."
"Oh." Yoongi looks at her after hearing the peculiar-sounding tone of her voice, and her expression is just as secretive. "I can't... I can't say exactly why. But let's just say that I've decided to take care of myself. I'm choosing to not do the things that I wouldn't have done if we weren't subjected to death the moment we became adults. Now, I think I have reasons to live."
For Jeongguk, a rotten voice hisses in the back of Yoongi's mind, and his fingers grip tighter at the handlebars. He thinks about jumping onto the seat and riding off, leaving her behind just as she has done with him so many times. Though he reconsiders the concept when he remembers that he will be doing exactly that in 27—oh, 26 now—days, but for good.
"That's nice," Yoongi says with a tinge of bitterness, already on the final dregs of his cigarette. "I'm glad Jeongguk makes you feel such a way."
She slams a fist into her chest, nearly coughing up her lungs after accidentally inhaling a too-large mouthful of smoke. "Jesus– Fuck–" She throws the butt onto the road, even though it still has two or three puffs left, and clears her throat with a disgusting hacking sound. Yoongi, having not provided an inch of assistance throughout her coughing fit, can feel her eyes burning angrily through the side of his head. "Ah– Thanks, asshole. And when did I ever say it had anything to do with him?"
A hopeful, victorious spark lights in Yoongi, much like when she had spoken the almost-confession over the phone only a matter of weeks ago. But it dies just as quick as he remembers that the stopwatch of his life has officially started the countdown.
Still, he smokes the last of his cigarette, flicks the end into the roadside gutter, and says, "Is it wrong to think such a thing when he's supposed to be your boyfriend who, I presume, you anticipate to spend your life with?"
The coat of silence returns until they have returned to the Min residence—uncomfortably hugging around them like it is made of the thickest wool and they are standing on the lip of an active volcano, sweating out an argument that keeps building in their chests.
Quiet as mice, they tiptoe through the living room—clad with sleeping relatives—and the kitchen, where a small lamp remains on as a courtesy for the two midnight adventurers. Yoongi flicks it off and immediately feels small fingers curling into the hem of his shirt, a soft weight that he pulls through the familiar shadows and up the stairs to his bedroom. Once they are inside, her hand drops away, and Yoongi is terribly tempted to whirl and catch it before it can fall limp at her side. To pull her close and kiss her in the pitch black darkness, where not even the walls can see them.
"Dibs on the bed," she mischievously announces as Yoongi pulls his jeans off. Her giggling only doubles once he throws them at her from across the room.
"It's a queen," Yoongi reminds her, though he suddenly wishes that it was a single so him pressing up against every inch of her would be deemed a necessity, not a desire. He grunts when he is hit directly in the face by her denim shorts, and proceeds to think wildly about her bare legs as he sees her shadow climb onto the bed.
"Oh, that's right. But I could've sworn a princess-sized bed was specially made for you."
"If you think that offends me, you're wrong. I'd make a fine princess."
"True. And I'd absolutely be the knight in shining armour who saves you."
If only you could save me from this fate, Yoongi thinks, letting the weight of his agony pull him down onto the mattress like a rock plummeting off the edge of a cliff. The springs squeak and bounce before settling, and Yoongi is thankful that she has kicked the sheets to the end of the bed, for the room is unusually warm. Knowing that she is laying next to him, wearing nothing but a thin singlet and her panties, merely adds to the heat that slicks his skin and has him suddenly tearing off his shirt.
"Hey, Yoongi," her voice slides carefully over the pillowcase, resonating with tenderness. "C'mere."
And without the slightest deliberation, he does, inching closer until she turns, offering the breathtaking curve of her spine to which he generously envelops with his chest. The strands of her hair curl up into his lips and nose, thick with the salt of sweat and the headiness of cigarette smoke, though the honeysuckle remains—barely there, yet still noticeable. Despite the overwhelming warmth of their bodies, he greedily presses himself closer, burying his face into the back of her neck. She sighs as if it is something that cannot be helped.
"I know I said before that I shouldn't talk about it. But... do you wanna know a secret?" she whispers, so quiet that he takes a moment to register every individual word she has said before he provides an answer.
"Go for it."
"I lied when I said it had nothing to do with Jeongguk," she says, and Yoongi knows she must feel the way his limbs shift uncomfortably against her own. A hollowness quickly opens up in his stomach, even though they only ate an hour ago, but then she continues to speak.
"Jeongguk's father works for the Government, and apparently, there's been talks about ending The Culling."
Yoongi feels every individual joint in his body lock in place like a series of bolts sliding home. He blinks into the dark, and the silence between them stretches on for so long that, for a moment, he is certain he misheard her. That he just imagined the words that escaped her lips and fell onto the bedding like the keys to his freedom being tossed towards his shackled hands.
"Yoongi?" she whispers, and his heart picks up against her shoulder blade, thrumming like the wings of a frantic bird being pursued by a hawk.
"Sorry?"
She rolls over in the cage of his limbs, her face now so close that the tip of her nose gently touches his own. He wishes he could see her eyes through the shadows, to know what they look like as she repeats, "The Culling. They've been talking about ending it. Resources long ago reached a sustainable level, and they're thinking of implementing a one-child-per-family law to keep them that way—to reduce the chances of overpopulation again."
Her breath is bittersweet on Yoongi's lips. Vanilla and maple and cigarettes. Vertigo spins through his body like a hurricane, throwing elation and terror and longing around his system until he is so dizzy that he thinks he might throw up.
"When?" he asks, even though he is frightened of the answer like it has fangs and his neck is exposed, ready to be torn. "Do they know when?"
"They didn't set a date," she says, but he can see her smile now. That darling, half-moon curve that he has loved for so long—close enough for him to feel with his own lips, if he dared. Her voice bloats with an elation that he wishes he could share. "But they said within the next few months. This year, at least."
Too late.
And there, her giddy, silken laughter rises and suffocates him, water on his skin, submerging him deeper, deeper, deeper into the abyss. She sounds so full of hope that it breaks his heart so cleanly in two that he lets out a gasp—an intake of air that is lost among the sound of her joy. The sound that filters through the doorway to their freedom.
Their chance to finally love without any fear.
I'm too late.