𝗟𝗜𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗔𝗥𝗬: "Under an Umbrella" by Ace G. Balangitan

 

Published by Izy Demonteverde

Date Published: October 13, 2023

Time Published: 9:11 A.M

Category: Prose

Subject: Feebled love

Coins clank against each other as I rummage through my brown leather wallet for the jeepney fare. The coins glisten from the pale light overhead, and the corridor sizzles with students narrating their first day. As I settle on two five-peso coins, a dense presence engulfs me before I know it.

“Hi,” I hear a distinguishable voice beside me as I saunter amidst the rustle of the crowded hallway. That voice disrupts the stillness, the breeze subtly swerves to my spine, precise steps become uneasy, my heartbeat rumbles with the magnitude of my uncomfortable footsteps, my monolid eyes widen, and my ears turn red. Hell, it was a voice yearned for yet unwelcomed.

Confirming my speculation of whose voice it was, I turn my bowed head cautiously, ticking like the clock's minute hand. My eyes slide before my head turns to 9 o'clock, impatient as a kid waiting for tomorrow's swimming outing.

I saw a jacket with the very same shade of white the person I try not to meet wears. It was the jacket of the “Humanistang Short-Haired Chinita With Glasses” I half-jokingly talked about. Questions filled my thoughts, becoming congested as the hallway: 𝘐𝘴 𝘪𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘩𝘦𝘳? 𝘕𝘰, 𝘸𝘩𝘺 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘴𝘢𝘺 𝘩𝘪? 𝘐𝘴 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢 𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘴𝘵 𝘮𝘰𝘷𝘦? 𝘚𝘩𝘦'𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘴𝘰𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭 𝘴𝘰 𝘸𝘩𝘺 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵?

I murmured “Hi” back as an excuse to gaze at her a little longer, still skeptical of who it was. My vision focused on an image: Short-haired. Chinita. And with horn-rimmed eyeglasses. The voice really belongs to her, to my joy and horror.

We exchanged addresses after a 30-second interval, and went downstairs with our footsteps falling in unison, an implied invitation to go home together. Constantly searching her elongated shadow from my peripheral vision, we arrived at the lobby filled with the chatter of students, and later, at least 95 steps after, at the jeepney stop.

There, we saw homes as silent as the dead of night; lampposts shading the asphalt with warm lights; a choir of birds, crickets, and wisps of wind singing along in an unreached harmony to the symphony of the jeepney with no seat for two and its angry engine disrupting the motif; large droplets from the foliage above us—that she pointed out—falling. I immediately clicked open my Barbie-pink automatic umbrella which I mindlessly shared with her. Under the umbrella, I felt the warmth of home and hope.

While my arm lingers, I can't help but steal little glimpses at her physique perfectly contrasted against the darkness of the night sky accompanied by stars mandated to twinkle. And while I'm mesmerized like an art historian looking at Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring and Van Gogh's Starry Night on one canvas, she again makes another implied invitation—to walk home together, to which I likewise impliedly agree with a torpid face, not caring a bit for the friction blister forming on my right foot, completely submerged in the moment. I only see scenes like this in slice-of-life anime. But I know this is not a fragment of my delusions because I can feel my heart feverishly throbbing.

We are here. Together. Under an umbrella. It’s Rosie real.