Chapter 6
The barangay held a pre-bachelor’s night dinner for Ver that Saturday, which is really just a small, loud, utterly unnecessary excuse to eat, reason enough for everyone involved.
They set up plastic tables in the Reyes yard, stringing up the same fairy lights that came out for every fiesta, birthday, and unexplained Tuesday. The BEBES had appointed themselves in charge of the lechon, which mostly meant standing near it and supervising loudly.
“This isn’t the real send-off,” Tita Yolanda clarified to anyone who’d listen, “since Ver hasn’t even said goodbye to bachelor life yet. Just a practice run, so we know if the lechon’s enough.”
“We have two lechons,” Tita Gemma pointed out.
“Right, practice for two.”
Jake had appointed himself unofficial emcee for the evening, weaving between tables with a borrowed karaoke mic he wasn’t yet using, narrating the party like a sports commentator.
“And here, ladies and gentlemen, we have the guest of honor for tonight, Allan, who just asked, minutes ago, if he could possibly skip the games.” He paused for effect.
“I’ll go ahead and answer that one: yes, you’re playing. ”
“I never agreed to any games.”
“Nobody agreed to anything here,” Jake said cheerfully. “Same as joining barangay life. Voluntary in name only, mandatory in practice.”
Ver, presiding over his own pre-goodbye-bachelor-life party with the relaxed confidence of a man who knew he was thoroughly beloved, raised a plastic cup in Allan’s direction.
“Thanks for coming home, kuya—wait, he’s my younger brother, not my kuya.
” He laughed at his own joke, already two San Miguels deep.
“Point is, I’m happy you’re here. We’re complete again. ”
“To being complete,” Allan said, raising his own cup, meaning it more than the toast’s casualness let on.
Allan found himself wedged at a table between Jake and a plate of isaw, half-listening to Ver tell an old story to a cluster of cousins, one of those stories that got better and less accurate every time it was told.
“—and then Allan, he was in third year then, joined the science fair, built this whole volcano with actual smoke, and it filled the entire gym—”
“It set off the fire alarm,” Allan supplied. “I was very proud.”
“They evacuated the entire school,” Ver said happily. “Legend. But that was his first project before he got obsessed with the periodic table like it was a cult.”
Laughter went around the table, easy and warm, and for a second Allan let himself sink into it: a certain comfort of being known by people who’d watched you fail at things loudly and loved you anyway.
Then one of the older cousins, clearly drunk and grinning, leaned across the table.
“Hey, Robby,” he said. “Weren’t you the one who got jealous over Allan back then? The locker room incident, I remember that; the whole school knew about it—”
The table didn’t go silent exactly; the lechon kept getting carved, and the fairy lights kept doing their small electrical business, but the floor seemed to drop out from under Allan anyway, fast and total, his jaw locking before he’d even decided to react, just like it always did whenever that particular memory got summoned without warning.
“That’s not what happened,” Robby said quickly, his voice tight in a way Allan hadn’t heard from him yet, not defensive exactly, more like someone trying to stop a wound from being reopened in public.
“What actually happened, then?” the cousin pressed, oblivious, digging into a story he clearly didn’t know he was ruining. “All I remember is Allan running out of the gym, crying—”
“Excuse me,” Allan said, standing so fast his chair scraped loud against the concrete. “I need, I think Oryo needs to pee. Somewhere. Urgently.”
He was aware, distantly, of Jake covering for him, “Ah, I told you, that’s Oryo for you, he really can’t hold it in,” smooth and quick, the way only a lifelong professional bullshitter could manage, buying him the exit he needed.
He didn’t stop walking until he was three streets away, past the chapel, past the old waiting shed with its carved initials, until he was standing in front of the dark, shuttered shape of Cine sa Isla with no memory of deciding to come here.
He heard footsteps behind him a few minutes later. He didn’t have to turn around to know whose.
“Allan.”
“I’m fine,” he said to the boarded ticket booth, not to Robby. “I just needed air. Isaw overload.”
“You’re not fine,” Robby said, coming to stand a cautious few feet away. “You know you’re not.”
Allan let out a long breath, watching it fog faintly in the cooling night air.
“You said once you wanted to talk about it,” he said, still not turning. “The…before. You said that in the library, back then, and then you deflected, and we never talked about it again.”
“I know,” Robby said quietly.
“I left for ten years because of one night,” Allan said, and his voice cracked on the last word before he could stop it. “And I still don’t...I still don’t understand why you couldn’t give me that. Just a ‘sorry.’ It’s that simple.”
The night was very quiet. Behind them, the party carried on, laughter and karaoke drifting faintly toward them, entirely unaware it had just detonated something.
Robby didn’t answer right away. When he did, his voice had lost its usual ease completely.
“I know,” he said. “And you’re right. I’ve owed you that for a long time now. It’s just, now.” He exhaled, shaky. “But not here. Not with lechon and whistling and the whole barangay two streets away.”
Allan finally turned to look at him.
“Then when, Robby? Because it’s always like this. There’s always a reason to put it off.”
“Tomorrow,” Robby said, and there was something raw and certain in it that Allan hadn’t heard from him before, not the easy charm, not the deflecting jokes, just plain, exposed intent. “Tomorrow, at the library. The actual library, not a metaphor. I promise.”
Allan studied his face for a long moment: searching, he realized, for the old flinch, the old deflection, some sign that this was just another version of the joke Robby always made instead of the apology he owed. He didn’t find one.
“Okay,” Allan said finally, quieter now. “Tomorrow.”
“Okay,” Robby echoed.
Neither of them moved for a second, the space between them charged with everything that had gone unsaid for a decade and everything that was, apparently, about to finally get said.
“We should go back,” Allan said eventually. “Before the titas start thinking I kidnapped you.”
“They’ll probably think it’s the other way around,” Robby said, a ghost of his usual dry humor returning, careful and testing.
“Same difference, to the BEBES,” Allan said, and let himself smile, just a little, just enough to survive the walk back.
They returned to find the party in full swing, the fire alarm story now three exaggerations deeper, and nobody but Jake sparing them a knowing, measured glance, the kind that said he understood exactly what had almost happened and exactly how much it mattered that it hadn’t happened here.
Allan sat back down. Ate his isaw. Laughed at the right moments.
But under the table, his hands didn’t quite stop shaking until well after the fairy lights switched off for the night.