I never intended the guilt to lurk for this indefinite amount of time. Had I perceived the pain to weigh upon me this heavily, I would have walked back that night years ago, towards your embrace, and told you all the things I carried in discreet silence for God knows how long.
If only the modern sciences enabled us to rewind the past, or this reality was Kawaguchi’s enigmatic café, you were the first person I would visit, even if it availed me insufficient time to contain how much I adored you. But like his novel, when the coffee got cold and I careened forward to the present, nothing would change, I would still be hemmed in this racking cage of remorse and void.
But I could tell you I was doing fine, or perhaps, better was a more appropriate term. The melancholic nights that kept their chokehold on me when we were younger had waxed and waned, and for that, I was already beyond grateful though the medication had not succeeded in palliating them completely. Just like before, you were the only one who could drown out the noises in my head.
Time withered but my longing for you remained unfaltering. And it reached its terminal intensity when I saw you today.
I knew it was you.
I had known you long enough to familiarize your slender build. God, you have not changed at all. You were still wearing those silver-framed glasses you wore since we were in high school. How you dressed was still similar to a man stuck in a 90’s fashion trend; that red shirt tucked beneath those wide-leg denim jeans that earned the laugh from your friends who never approved of your fashion sense, and squeals from the girls two years your junior. Your hair was still styled the same undercut that the barber would probably refrain from asking the moment you stepped into the salon.
Perhaps the only thing that changed in your appearance was your smile.
It was still the same smile that reached your eyes, wide enough that it wrinkled the corners. That made me hark back on the occasional times that we passed by each other in the narrow hallway just adjacent to our class’s bathroom. We would talk until the bell rang or one of our classmates would stumble upon us. Mostly, you would strike up a conversation with me about random things. Whether it was the pressure you felt from your parents, or how you were conscious when you smiled because it revealed your gums.
You had always been insecure with your gummy smile but I thought it was beautiful. Composing yourself wouldn’t help anyway, given your nature to laugh at almost everything, which was much in contrast with my gloomy disposition.
You still beamed that same smile. Although you look much happier now.
That came as no surprise at all. It had been what? 7 years? 8? Almost a decade perhaps since we last saw each other. To tell you by now, I was delighted to know you were no longer stuck in the cycle of having given your predilection a second thought. I looked up your service online and to say I was proud would be an understatement! Who wouldn’t be amazed at your editing and filming skills, anyway? I knew I was right in rooting for that once small flimsy guy clutching his tripod, volunteering at our local church for its promotion and documentation years ago.
Look at yourself now. Older and wiry with age but still that smart guy full of potential that I had the privilege of witnessing.
It had been so long, right? Long enough that that night could have been erased from your subconscious already.
Could you still remember that one night in Julia’s apartment? The floor was strewn with colorful confetti, bottles of beer, popped balloons of “Welcome, 2020”, and the bodies of our slumbering friends. On the corner, we sat, inside our little bubble again, a sigh of relief that except for the moonlight blazing through the windowpanes, no one was there to witness us talking.
“We are the only sober heads in the midst of the intoxicated crowd,” I heard you muttering under your not-so-sober breath that reeked of alcohol and mint. I found myself stifling a giggle. Three bottles of beer were enough to vanquish the easygoing guy your friends grew acquainted with, and was replaced with a new persona of someone who listened to Button Poetry religiously.
From then, we exchanged our New Year’s wishes, a silly little tradition we started in seventh grade on a whim.
Swigging the beer, I reached your hand and squeezed it, my mind intrepid under the influence of alcohol, “I hope —” Burp. “— you free yourself from your parent’s expectations.”
I’d never drink alcohol again.
“What if it’s me?” you answered wryly, your eyes looking blank at the bodies splattered along the floor, ”What if I’m the one who trapped myself into my own cage?”
Poof. “Why won’t you get out of the stupid cage then?” Stupid answer. Stupid me. I swore to never taste alcohol again.
Your stare shifted to me and smiled. It was not the usual smile that reached your eyes when your friends cracked a joke, but there was a certain truth conveyed in it.
I could not fathom the words coming out of your mouth when we were alone, from someone who didn’t seem like the type to talk about heavy matters such as this. I gazed into your eyes, hoping to solve a mystery before me. It was during moments like this that I could see myself in you. Perhaps, beneath the layers of your geniality was just a boy, still susceptible to hurt no matter how optimistic and bright you appeared to be.
The time wore on rather quickly when all I could offer to your grievances was my presence that it marked your turn to say your wish. You looked me straight in the eyes that I could feel myself staving off its magnetic influence. Perhaps driven by alcohol as well, you squeezed my hand back.
Yours was not a wish. It was something else. Something that I replayed in my head over and over again until now.
“I like you.”
It was a straightforward confession, not even a single stutter. It was as if you had been meaning to say those three words all this time.
You used to tell me how I was the only person who knew that the jolly guy you presented to your friends and family was nothing but a mere façade. That like I who had grown to love melancholy, you cried too, although between the silence of the evening when no one could hear you.
You really loved the concept of hiding, didn’t you? You needed not to deny, I was the living evidence: Whenever we met in that corridor right next to the bathroom and talked about a bunch of useless stuff until one of our classmates would happen to pass by us on chance. Whenever you confided in me the pressure of being a student leader expected to leave a good impression on your batchmates and juniors, a position you wanted to leave so badly but couldn’t.
Perhaps, to you, it was just a drunken stupor, a moment bearing no weight to the infinite good memories you had made before your bachelor’s death. To me, it was everything, a memory I added to my recollections consisting of every thought, all shared glances in secret, every word we uttered in the air hoping it would reach each other’s ears because we were once young, foolish, and too confused with the thing blossoming between us that no one dared to avow it.
Time was a traitor to a love we hankered but never happened. It foretold our fate before we dared to take a peek, and with its cruel hands obliterate any future probabilities.
When I saw you at that coffee shop today, I only had one thought in mind. I kept replaying that night, and in my head, I said I like you back. And until now, I wondered what could have happened if I was brave enough to say that.
Perhaps, everything would be the same. Your favorite color would still be red. You would still laugh at your friends’ jokes even if they’re not funny. You would still pursue your passion in visual communications. You would still beam that gummy smile of yours, but had I confessed, I could have been the reason behind it and not her.
Seeing your face tainted with contentment earlier prompted me to accept one thing. We would never happen. Or maybe we could. Maybe in another universe where we could have been more honest or braver. But in this reality, we were just cupid’s flukes, two people hit by his drunken arrow. An accidental love that sparked between moments in secret, no beginning nor end, we would always remain as an 𝐚𝐥𝐦𝐨𝐬𝐭.
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In light of Valentine’s Day, Centro Dalumat is celebrating the month of love through a series of stories.
Anticipate more as we welcome the warmth of February!