Chapter 6 #2
“Last year, I decided that it was time to really put myself out there. My life was going really well, and maybe it was a good time to open myself up to other people, widen my circles a bit. Maybe even find love.” God, she’d sounded so optimistic then.
Everything seemed brighter that time, and anything she wanted felt completely possible.
How rare was that, in her world? In her country? In this economy?
“All good things,” Cal agreed, nodding. “How long?”
“I gave myself a year. One year to find more people to add to the list of people close to me, to really put myself out there, and find whatever it was I was looking for.” She was gesturing wildly the entire time, and Cal was genuinely captivated, because the hurt in her eyes was still there, so something definitely happened.
“What happened in that last year?” Cal asked.
“To be honest, I don’t know.” Lia shook her head.
“I lost my job, my sister got married and moved away to Alabang and then had a baby. People I tried to genuinely reconnect with and tried to be present for didn’t do the same for me.
And those…those were fine. I chalked it up to just life, you know? ”
“Life sucks,” Cal agreed.
“But then there was my birthday dinner.”
He said nothing, but nodded for her to continue.
“To be fair to Megan—no, I’m going to judge this, I’m just going to tell you what happened.
” She shook her head and sat up too, because she needed to concentrate, needed to say this correctly.
“I made plans for my birthday for me and Megan, my best friend. I made plans to have dinner with her. There was a horror movie she really wanted to watch with me. And no matter how many times I said I hated horror movies, she insisted. So I said we were going to have a nice dinner first.”
“Sounds like a good birthday plan.”
“It was. But she…” Lia wrinkled her nose and made a ‘huff’ because she hated saying this out loud, even if she knew she needed to.
She hated reliving what happened because it made her remember how it made her feel.
“She stood me up. She lived in BGC, I was in Pasig, and she just…didn’t go.
She said, ‘Tinatamad ako, ang traffic.’”
And there were so many things she could say in her defense, and in Megan’s—that BGC was one bridge away from Pasig, right next to each other, what the fuck.
But also that traffic in Manila was bad, that her friend had a job and that maybe she was tired, but it was Lia’s birthday.
How odd that Megan knew, yet did not know how much Lia hated horror movies, how uncomfortable they made her.
On her birthday. But she was trying not to judge her friend.
It was guaranteed to launch her into a spiral, and she was tired of that.
“That’s all?”
“That’s what she said. Traffic. And I looked at my empty apartment on my birthday and wondered why the hell I even bothered trying to let anyone in my life, if nobody thought I was worth braving traffic for.”
“Oh.” Lia’s stomach dropped at the pity in his voice, and she wanted to shy away from it as much as she wanted to live in it for a little while. “Lia.”
“It’s stupid—” She pressed her lips together.
Nope. No judgments. “It hurts. That first session, my therapist and I talked about just feeling bad. About how it sucks to want love and still be disappointed. And in the session, we did this thing where I’m not judging myself for my thoughts, even as I kind of…
note that I am.” She wrinkled her nose because she didn’t know what else to do.
Cal passed her a tissue and she wiped the corners of her eyes with it.
“I’m usually bad at trying to understand my own feelings, and I resisted therapy for a while.
But now that I did it, I had to ask myself why the hell I kept resisting, because I really needed it. ”
Then she sighed, because she didn’t want to dwell on this feeling anymore.
“So I wanted to go up to Namsan and…I don’t know. Tell myself that the girl who was there ten years ago can still find better friends, better relationships. That it’s okay to hate horror movies and, like… things I used to like. It’s just going to take a little longer.”
It felt a little bit like failure, even if her therapist had reframed it as “not having a deadline.” But she felt she needed to do something about this revelation, to mark it for herself somehow.
And taking a cable car to stand at a spot two thousand six hundred and twenty miles from Manila was a good start.
“I’m happy you got help,” Cal said, and she was so lost in her own thoughts that she almost missed it. “Can I…can I hug you?”
“Yes,” she said. Not because he was her bias, or because he was handsome, but because he was there for her. He was being kind, and Lia needed that bit of kindness.
“I’m sorry you didn’t get the love you wanted,” he told her, and the last of her tears burst out of her eyes, because god, she was sorry too.
“This sucks. I’m not the crier in the family. I can be fun, you know.”
“I know.”
“I can,” she insisted, looking up at him with a red nose and still wet eyes.
She was determined to get herself through this and to just let herself feel it all for a bit.
But god, she wanted to have fun again. She missed it.
“I’m great at karaoke and making my nephew laugh.
Although I’m terrible at drinking games. ”
“Me too.” He chuckled. “How are you at Tong Its?”
“I’m better at Uno.”
“I’ll get a set.”
And in that moment, as she smiled at him, still in his arms, she…forgot. Forgot that all she’d asked for was a hug, a physical reassurance that she was still here. That it was all she needed Cal for.
“Do you think I can take a taxi to Namsan tower?”
Lia knew coming here was a good idea.
The view was almost exactly the same. Except that the bright, verdant spring she’d encountered ten years ago was replaced with autumn.
The bits of orange that had just started to peek out days before were slowly spreading, like the city was only in the middle of its slow transition to fall.
From where she was standing, the city looked just like any other city from a vantage point.
She looked out at the view, at the decal above her head that told her Manila was exactly 2,625.7 km away. It was just a fact, something handed to her randomly.
And yet Lia had a sense that it meant something more.
In this exact same spot, ten years ago. There was a picture on her social media, she was sure, of her in this exact same spot, in a different time, in a different season.
She and Megan had been here ten years ago, before piso fares and seat sales existed, to exclaim over the love locks and talk about which shows had been filmed where.
They had visited quirky little cafes they’d only seen on variety shows.
They tried food without knowing what they were, because why not.
Because they both understood what it meant to the other person, and it was okay to be excited about something as random as a restaurant that served things in lunchboxes (like in that show!) or the feminine urge to spend another thousand won on something you didn’t really need so you could get the free CoBOLT merch that came with it (because you can only get it here!).
That Manila was thousands of kilometers away was just a fact. And yet sitting here today, Lia reminded herself that it was okay to be hurt and disappointed. To not want to talk about it or try to fix it.
Because Lia wanted more. Selfishly, she wanted to be treated as a person who was valued, whose opinion mattered, whose absence could be felt. She wanted to be loved and appreciated through deep conversation, without feeling any shame about the things she liked.
She wanted to be the version of herself that she was slowly trying to get to know again. And it didn’t help that the last person who had seen that version didn’t seem to like her all that much anymore.
She wanted her longing to mean something. And it was terrifying, but her younger self knew all too well how much fun it was to give your heart unashamedly away. To love without fear or judgment. To take the plunge without worrying about what it meant, who it was for.
Her. It was for her.
She emerged from the cable car station later, immediately met by the sharp coolness of an autumn day. She’d asked Cal for a restaurant recommendation, but had been too busy figuring out her way down to check if he’d responded.
She walked out to find a blue sports car in the parking lot in front of her, and Cal Ahn leaning casually against the hood of said blue car, his toned arms crossed over his beast idol chest, a huge smile on his face.
The sun was setting around them, and golden hour only seemed brighter when it was set against orange trees and grey concrete.
“Want to eat, Lia-ssi?” he asked, tucking his hands into the pockets of his long coat like they were mid-conversation. Lia nodded and walked closer to the car, surprised to find, peeking out of a passenger seat, her brother.
“You said you were busy,” she said, frowning at Teddy.
“I thought I would be,” he explained as Lia got into the backseat. “But I wanted to spend some time with you, and I realized my boss was very flexible.”
“ESTP!” Cal exclaimed happily, putting on his seatbelt. “And it’s good to take little breaks every now and then. Especially since we made up.”
“We didn’t fight.” Teddy shook his head. “We just didn’t agree.”
“Aw, babe. Save it for later.”
Teddy sighed, even if Lia could tell he found it funny. “What do you want to eat, Ate?”
Lia leaned back in her seat and looked out the window and up to the brown and orange trees. She shivered in her jacket and buried her nose in the collar, a little cold. When the weather was this cool, the best kind of warmth was one that came from good food, and the company of even better people.
“Doenjang chiggae,” she finally said. “Cal, do you know a place?”