Chapter 104 - Twenty-Three, Again
I woke up old.
Not physically.
That would've been easier.
Physically, I was twenty-three.
Again.
My back didn't hurt.
My knees didn't complain.
My hands were smooth.
My hair was thick.
My skin had apparently decided gravity was optional.
My body felt offensively functional.
My brain, however—
sixty-eight.
Sixty-eight years old.
Forty-five extra years of decisions, employees, acquisitions, contracts, illnesses, friendships, breakups, dinners, funerals, birthdays, mistakes, and increasingly strong opinions about chairs.
I stared at the ceiling.
Then closed my eyes again.
"No."
The ceiling remained when I opened them.
Same old room.
Same old electric fan.
Same shelves.
Same tiny business.
Same printer.
The printer beeped.
I turned my head slowly.
"You."
It beeped again.
I pointed at it.
"I have survived cancer."
Silence.
"I have owned manufacturing companies."
Nothing.
"I have negotiated acquisitions worth more than this entire neighborhood."
The printer made a grinding noise.
I stared.
"Still disrespectful."
Twenty-three again.
Of course.
I sat up carefully.
Very carefully.
Old-person carefully.
Feet first.
Pause.
Stand slowly.
Wait for dizziness.
My body immediately stood up without complaint.
I froze.
"Oh."
Right.
Young body.
I tried again.
Sat.
Stood quickly.
Nothing.
No stiffness.
No weakness.
No instinctive hand on the bed for balance.
I looked down at myself.
"Show-off."
My body had no idea what it had survived.
That felt unfair.
And wonderful.
And horrible.
All at once.
I touched my chest.
Nothing.
No disease.
No treatment.
No body slowly becoming something I had to negotiate with.
Just—
young.
Healthy.
Alive.
Again.
I checked the date.
Twenty-three.
Same reset point.
I laughed once.
It sounded tired despite the young voice.
"Okay."
Then—
"Fuck."
Because I knew what came next.
Loss inventory.
I opened my phone.
Old phone.
Old apps.
Old accounts.
Old balance.
Small business.
Small money.
Small life.
No Ramos Ventures Holdings.
No commercial-printing operation.
No packaging company.
No food-packaging assets.
No Nova Polymer turnaround.
No offices.
No teams.
No executives.
No company I had spent three years dragging from why the fuck did I buy this to okay, you're healthy now, goodbye.
Gone.
Not bankrupt.
Not sold.
Not closed.
Never happened.
I searched anyway.
One company name.
Nothing.
Another.
Different business existed under something similar.
Another.
No result.
I searched people.
Employees.
Managers.
People whose names had lived in my phone for years.
Some were students.
Some were working somewhere else.
Some hadn't entered the industries where I had eventually met them.
One person I had promoted twice was currently posting about a thesis deadline.
I stared at the photo.
Young.
Smiling.
No idea who I was.
"Okay."
I locked the phone.
Then immediately unlocked it again.
Because apparently I enjoyed hurting myself.
Jessica.
I stopped.
No.
Different life.
Different Jessica.
Maybe current Jessica was living somewhere completely unrelated to me.
Maybe we'd meet.
Maybe not.
She had been real.
The relationship had been real.
Two years.
Clean ending.
No tragedy.
No betrayal.
Just two people who eventually went in different directions.
That should've made it easier.
It didn't.
I searched her name.
Found her.
Young.
Alive.
Different.
I stared for maybe five seconds.
Then closed it.
"No."
I had learned this.
Many times.
Knowing a version of someone did not give me ownership over the next one.
Memory wasn't introduction.
History wasn't permission.
I knew that.
Didn't mean grief became polite.
I put the phone down.
Then sat there.
No crying yet.
Just—
absence.
The worst thing about resets was that there was never a funeral for the life you lost.
No one gathered.
No one said:
She had a good life.
No one acknowledged that companies had existed.
That people had worked there.
That lunches had happened.
That someone had once kept a mug in my office and complained every time I stole it.
That Jane had sat beside me at sixty-eight.
That Chloe had still been Chloe.
That people had gotten older with me.
That I had gotten sick.
That I had tried treatment.
That I had eventually understood I couldn't fix everything.
That I died with businesses capable of surviving me.
That mattered.
All of it mattered.
Now—
nothing.
Except me.
Again.
The sole archive.
I hated that part.
I looked around the room.
Boxes.
Paper.
Old tools.
Tiny customization orders.
A printer with criminal intent.
And apparently this was the inheritance.
Not the buildings.
Not the companies.
Not the equity.
Not the staff.
Just—
judgment.
Experience.
Memory.
And a teaching degree.
I looked at the framed diploma.
"Still Science Education."
Excellent.
Some things were truly immortal.
"Lia!"
Mama.
I closed my eyes.
There it was.
Young voice.
Not young exactly.
Younger.
Again.
"Lia! Kain!"
My throat tightened immediately.
Sixty-eight-year-old brain.
Twenty-three-year-old mother.
Terrible combination.
"Coming!"
Silence downstairs.
Then—
"Ano?"
I laughed.
"BABABA NA!"
"Ayan!"
Still.
Always.
I stood.
Then had to stop near the door because suddenly—
Mama.
Papa.
Ate Bianca.
Kuya Nathan.
Ate Vivian.
Sofia.
Young again.
Not memories.
Not pictures.
Not people I had eventually learned to visit more often because one reset had finally beaten the phrase next time out of me.
Here.
I walked downstairs.
Mama was near the table.
Same face.
Younger.
Alive.
Busy with food.
She looked at me.
"Bakit ganyan ka tumingin?"
I nearly said—
Because you're a child.
Obviously not.
Instead—
"Nothing."
"May sakit ka?"
"No."
She touched my forehead.
I almost cried.
Again.
Every fucking time.
"Wala ka naman lagnat."
"I'm okay."
"Edi kain."
There.
Problem solved.
I sat.
Sofia was there.
Twenty-one.
Twenty-one.
I stared.
She looked up from her phone.
"What?"
I stared harder.
She narrowed her eyes.
"Ate?"
"You look twelve."
Silence.
"What?"
I covered my mouth.
Too late.
Mama looked at me.
"Twenty-one na kapatid mo."
"I know."
Sofia stared.
"Are you okay?"
"I'm adjusting."
"To what?"
I looked at her face.
Tiny.
Baby.
This woman had eventually built a real business.
Had employees.
Manufacturing.
Meetings.
Problems.
A whole adult life.
Current Sofia was sitting at the table with schoolwork and a phone case I vaguely remembered seeing decades ago.
"You look very young."
She stared.
"We have two years difference."
"Exactly."
"That makes no sense."
"I know."
Mama looked between us.
"Arte."
Correct.
I ate.
Quietly.
For approximately thirty seconds.
Then Ate Bianca arrived.
Thirty-six.
I looked at her.
She looked at me.
"What?"
I pointed.
"You're young."
She stared.
"Thirty-six ako."
"Exactly."
"Compared to what?"
I stopped.
Excellent question.
"Old people."
Ate Bianca frowned.
"Anong nangyari sayo?"
"Nothing."
She looked at Mama.
"May sakit?"
Mama:
"Wala daw."
Sofia:
"She said I look twelve."
Ate Bianca laughed.
I stared at both of them.
Children.
Absolute children.
Ate Bianca had been in her eighties in my head.
Now she was thirty-six and complaining about a jewelry supplier.
"May mali dun sa bagong supplier," she said while putting her bag down.
Of course.
I instinctively asked—
"What happened?"
"Color."
"Batch inconsistency?"
She paused.
"Oo."
"How many pieces?"
She told me.
"What percentage affected?"
Ate Bianca stared.
Mama continued eating.
Sofia looked up.
I stopped.
Ah.
Wrong era.
Twenty-three-year-old Lia did not need to sound like someone about to open a supplier corrective-action report.
I softened.
"Like... madami ba?"
Ate Bianca narrowed her eyes.
"Kanina ka pa weird."
"Sorry."
"May seminar ka?"
I almost laughed.
"Something like that."
Kuya Nathan arrived later.
Thirty-four.
Thirty-four.
I looked at him and immediately thought—
Baby.
This was becoming a problem.
He looked at me.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"Ba't ka nakatingin?"
"You're young."
He stared.
Sofia started laughing.
Ate Bianca:
"Ako din daw."
Kuya Nathan:
"Twenty-three ka."
"Physically."
Silence.
Sofia slowly lowered her spoon.
"What?"
I froze.
Then—
"Physically tired."
Ate Bianca:
"Hindi yun yung sinabi mo."
"Grammar issue."
Kuya Nathan looked at me.
"May lagnat ka?"
"WHY DOES EVERYONE THINK I HAVE A FEVER?"
Mama:
"Kasi weird ka."
Fair.
Ate Vivian came in behind Kuya Nathan.
I almost hugged her too hard.
Didn't.
Normal.
Be normal.
I did mano where appropriate.
Answered questions.
Ate Bianca talked jewelry.
Kuya Nathan talked food.
Sofia talked school.
Mama complained about prices.
Papa wasn't home yet.
Normal family noise.
I sat there carrying forty-five years nobody else had.
And everyone looked like children.
At one point, Kuya Nathan complained about a delivery issue.
I said—
"You need redundancy."
He stared.
I corrected—
"Backup supplier."
"Oh."
Ate Bianca looked at me.
"You've been watching business videos again?"
"Yes."
Good.
There.
Excellent cover.
YouTube.
The savior of suspicious competence.
After lunch, I went upstairs.
My phone buzzed.
Braincells.
I stared at the group name.
That hurt too.
Some things survived because they existed before the reset point.
Some things came back with me because the reset restored the world to a version where they were already there.
Chloe:
buhay kayo sunday?
Jane:
no
Chloe:
very helpful
Jane:
what time
I stared at Jane's name.
Then Chloe's.
Twenty-three.
Both of them.
Children.
I opened Jane's profile picture.
Young.
Very young.
Same face.
Same nose.
Same—
No.
Stop.
I opened Chloe's.
Also young.
I whispered—
"Babies."
Then replied to the group chat.
Lia:
children