Min Yoongi stood atop the roof at his apartment, wearing nothing but his black flannel pants and a gray T-shirt as snow softly fell from the sky, small flaky tufts of ice seeping into his pale skin. But to him it didn’t matter. He could barely feel anything.

 

Thousands of lights shimmered in the lively nighttime city of Seoul. They gleamed and glowed with warmth, enough to keep Yoongi content enough for the rest of the night - just the view of lights reminded him to check his nerves for feeling. He shook his head back and forth, but he could only feel himself standing there, almost floating. He clenched and unclenched his hands, but there was only a faint folding of skin in his palm, and it was gone. Dry, frigid air passed through his lungs and left his body icier than ever.

 

60 minutes until midnight.

 

 It was December 31st, New Year’s Eve, and Yoongi stood alone atop the roof at his apartment, wearing nothing but his drained dignity and a mask to cover his corpse. He held a small book in his hands. One with his findings on sunbursts and color and fire and light, all directed to his hopes of becoming a flame of his own one day. An enticing, sizzling spark of a deep, playful, luscious red - one lighting up a girl’s dress or bedazzling streets for good luck. Or maybe a calming blue - lapping over rocks with sparkling waters, or painting the sky with wings as soft as cotton candy. He might be a sunny, mellow yellow, or a thundering, emerald green. He could be the purple flowing from a Queen’s robes, or the pink coating lollipops on a Spring evening. He could be a rainbow of colors and that was the only thing that excited him anymore; the feeling of exploding with expression.

 

45 minutes until midnight.

 

People asked him if he wanted help. People like Jimin or Hoseok, who claimed that they were his good friends, or his brother, who said he would do anything for him if it came down to it. Yoongi believed that they were lying. He grew up being lied to, cheated upon, or played with until he was left feeling like a used rag doll, its stitched smile coming loose from its ends and unraveling until only pierced holes were left behind. Broken promises from his mother, scoldings from his father. Accusations. Countless accusations and judgements stripping him of his pride for individuality.

 

Yoongi always seemed to be the type to flick the finger, smirk, and saunter away, but his chest felt too heavy to do that anymore. It was like the world was painting him gray over and over. Cutting into him deep enough to let his dreams and aspirations seep through until he was tired, so tired, and then plastered over with a mask of gray. And that mask hardened until even he seemed to be tough, and people rarely prodded with him after.

 

30 minutes until midnight.

 

His fingers were so cold. His ears were so numb and his socked feet could barely register they were on the ground. He mindlessly flipped through the pages, and stopped at one labelled Fireworks and The Works of Fire.

 

“Fireworks could only activate when lit with a fuse,” he read, “there must be a spark for the whole magic show to begin. “

 

Yoongi deeply sighed - sharp, icy air cutting through his throat. His hands fumbled with his pajama pocket and he pulled out a small, transparent blue lighter, glistening under the moonlight. He flickered it on. Snow disappeared when passing through the flame and Yoongi watched in awe, how the coldness simply dissipated when presented with fire.

 

He flipped through the pages of the worn, diary-like book again, and the patches of fireworks and color pasted on the pages lit something within him. They dripped with excitement and anxiousness all the while, and he liked it. A lot. The flame from the lighter provided enough light for him to see the pages of scrawny writing he scribbled in the book, all words describing the mechanisms of flame and color and the dreams Yoongi stored in them.

 

15 minutes until midnight.

 

 He looked up. His feet started moving slowly, and then quickened their pace to the edge of the roof, where he scanned the city with gleaming eyes. He could care less for the billboards about beauty or fizzy drinks. He could care less about the cars running hastily about the night. He could care less about the people in the homes, because Min Yoongi lost trust in humanity ever since he saw the lies in people’s eyes, all of the mischief and twisted opinions trapped within a single human soul, and the fact that flame was so simple and beautiful was the only thing he needed to find his path.

 

People labelled colors instead of letting them roam free. People chained fires and controlled them with their desires instead of letting them run about. People named stars and bought them as if they were snow globes in a gift shop, when they were so much more, so much bigger and valuable when compared to a single person. And it drove Yoongi absolutely delirious - how humans could be so selfish and just take over the world and claim everything as theirs when they were so wrong, so very wrong about how the world works. People didn’t know balance. They thought fire would destroy everything, but no, fire has a job and other factors help control it. People only make it more difficult to work with. They turned colors into tacky children’s toys and plastic trash for the world to “enjoy” until it was dumped back into the world and left to dull and rot.

 

Yoongi wanted escape. He wanted escape and satisfaction and he wanted it quick.

 

5 minutes until midnight.

 

He could feel the excitement in the air, from people waiting for the new year. He was excited too, but for a different reason. His book fell from his hands and he watched it fall from the height of the building, falling, falling, falling, until he could see a small speck of black chalked onto the sidewalk down below. Others would be terrified. He was finally feeling a prickling sensation within him.

 

The lighter felt heavy in his hand, but it was nothing compared to what he held in his left hand.

 

A makeshift bomb, one he made at home, with enough power to explode within a radius of about seven feet and was filled with colored powders of vibrant reds, pinks, blues, greens, and yellows, each in an individual section on the inside to provide a magic show people wouldn’t forget.

 

3 minutes until midnight.

 

Yoongi carefully stepped onto the ledge and prayed to the world that nobody would come to stop him. He waited for a few seconds, shifting his weight onto his right foot, simply standing on top of a building and feeling soft and tingly in his legs. A strong gust of wind nearly knocked him over, but it wasn’t enough to send him leering.

 

He waited. Nobody came.

 

1 minute until midnight.

 

His numb finger flicked over the lighter a couple of times before he got a proper flame to ignite. The flame glowed white-hot at the base, then flowed out with a dancing orange and blue tip. He softly smiled at the small beauty.

 

30 seconds until midnight.

 

Min Yoongi looked out to the stars and forgot about the people he would leave behind. He forgot about Jimin, who would sob for days before he could show his face to the world again, or Hoseok, who would be uncharacteristically silent for months to come. He forgot about his brother, who was saving up enough money to buy his brother a new recording set for his birthday, or his parents, who would be pained whenever they simply roamed around their home. He forgot about his friends and family, who would sit quietly with a heavy heart - all dimmed in memory of Min Yoongi, the boy who bursted with color on New Year’s Eve, the boy who lost hope for humanity, the boy who decided to call quits and evaporate instead.

 

Yoongi smiled to himself as his eyes glazed over and he admired the beauty radiating from the stars in the sky. “Hello,” He said.

 

The flame sparked against the tip of his bomb and it sizzled. Yoongi felt his heart swell and the cold was suddenly biting into him, but he smiled nonetheless as his vision blurred and his fingers shook. He looked down at the sparkling city. He could hear - no, he could feel the country chanting numbers, all counting down from ten, and Yoongi laughed, he actually laughed as if they were counting for him and saying their last farewell to him, and he loved every little second of it. All of the feelings he bottled up these past years spilled over his eyes and down his pale, snow-like cheeks, and the sizzling coming from the bomb made him remember why he was there.

 

5.

 

He took a deep breath.

 

4.

 

He tossed the lighter away.

 

3.

 

He hugged the bomb to his chest.

 

2.

 

His legs slightly bent and he imagined wings of colorful fire erupting behind him.

 

1.

 

He jumped.

 

And halfway through his fall, just when the land shouted “ONE” and exploded with cheer, Yoongi watched fireworks burst in vibrant shades much more beautiful than those printed in his book, his book so far below, and he felt like a firework himself reached for the sky as the frosty air around him rippled. And then he did become a firework. The fuse was lit, and the explosion occurred, and color spurted everywhere in spiked grace as sparks illuminated the air and fizzed around the atmosphere, and Min Yoongi, in his mind, was finally a star of his own - a flame, a sunburst, a colored firework, and he could finally rest with the peace of the world, where he felt he was truly loved.

But instead of a deep, playful, luscious red, or a joyful ruby red, Min Yoongi left behind a color people could never forget. A trace of a dark, dry, rustic red, one screaming with pain and locked hopes released to stain the ground, and stain people’s hearts to dim them of their own color. Min Yoongi became a star in his own galaxy. A deep, flaming, red star, too far and dangerous for anyone to touch. A lone star, a sunburst, a firework, too lost and shattered apart in the sky of hopes and dreams.