“Dream team!” Jake said, giving Kira a high five as they unloaded the sparklers from his car. Sure, they bought the fireworks last minute, dashing off to the highway right after mass to find a roadside seller, but cramming was practically their tradition. “I remember I used to love playing with watusi on the street as a kid. Now that was some hardcore shit, scraping it with your slipper to light it up.”
“I know!” Kira exclaimed, chipper and happy as ever because she was fine, and nobody needed to know about what happened with her and Santi. “Whatever happened to those?”
“Banned, mostly because kids kept trying to eat them.” Jake winced, and so did Kira. “Okay, I could really use tsokolate, it’s socold, and everything is so loud!”
“I love it,” Kira admitted, burying her hands into the pockets of her sukajan (bought in Osaka three years ago, and yes she wore it to manifest her desires into the universe, but Jake didn’t need to know that). “It feels more magical this way.”
As if on cue, a shower of red and green lit up the sky, from the house across the street. Then red, green and gold from houses farther in the distance. Lipeños took their fireworks seriously, started early and finished as late as they dared. The barrage of fireworks and bangs and pops would continue well past midnight, and sometimes even the day after. The streets would be smoggy and add an air of mystery over everything, but really. There was no other way to ward off the bad juju of last year than this.
“Yes, the smoke and karaoke in the distance really add to the entire ambience,” Jake said sarcastically. “Not to mention the motorcycles on the highway backfiring to join in on all the fun!”
“Kuya Jake, you are such a killjoy.” Kira frowned.
“Why do you think your brother and I go so well together?” Jake laughed. But he must have noticed Kira not being as quick with her response, because she’d caught sight of Santi’s house. The lights were all off. He wasn’t home. “Kira?”
“Hm?” she asked, looking at Jake as if she’d forgotten he was there, because she had, for a second, lost herself in thoughts of where Santi could possibly be, if he was lonely, if he was thinking of her. He hadn’t called, and true to his previous fashion, hadn’t talked. She was worried about his grandfather, but more for Santi’s sake than Vito Santillan’s.
“Layo ng tingin mo, girl,” Jake chided. “What’s on your mind?”
“Just,” she exhaled sharply, “wondering. By this time next month, Gemini could be gone, and I really, really don’t want it to be gone.”
“Oh, Kira,” Jake sighed thoughtfully, and Kira appreciated that he didn’t comment on how out of left field the thought seemed. Air signs stuck together, clearly. He wrapped an arm around her. “Don’t be a pessimist now! Manifest it. You’re not going to lose Gemini. You remember what your siblings said about asking for help, diba? That applies to all of us. I’m a private school teacher, though. I can tell you about moles and Avogadro’s Constant, but I know nothing about chocolate, except that yours is delicious.”
“Thanks,” Kira chuckled. “And yes. I need advice, but...”
“Someone else’s?”
“Yes. Someone else’s advice. They’re just going through a lot right now, and I don’t want them to feel like I’m pushing them.”
“Have you considered asking them if they’re okay with helping you?” Jake mused. “Like, ask them if they’ve got the energy to give you the advice you need. I know it’s hard, because it’s much easier to simply mentally project your needs onto someone else and hope to God they pick up the cues. But that never works out. You just have to be—”
“Brave.”
“Exactly.” Jake nodded. “When your Kuya and I started dating, I was right in the middle of my review for my LET certification, and my master’s. You remember?”
“I do,” Kira said. “Kuya drove back and forth to Manila and Lipa twice a week until he finally got the brilliant idea to bring you here to study.”
When it came to idols and celebrity crushes, Kira was no stranger to occasionally indulging in a daily dose of delusion (sorry, real-person fanfiction). Imagine a world where they would see you, and make you feel loved, and wanted. But more than that, Kira wanted...well, she wanted the intimacy of it all. She wanted someone to pour her love and affection into, in kisses and tight hugs, in little strokes of the arm. She wanted to have someone she could drive to and from Manila for (if she knew how to drive).
It was just that she was taught not to ask directly for it. She was taught to wait for it, and to wait to be asked if that was what she wanted.
But to have it be Santi? Someone who understood her, and made her laugh, made her think about what she really, truly wanted, speak it into existence, make heraskfor it? It would be wonderful.
“He spent alotof those visits just watching me study,” Jake explained, his face tinged with wistfulness, which Kira could see even in the darkness. “And I felt terrible, because I wanted to be able to do it on my own without anyone’s help. And the weird thing was, I was just expecting him to help me, but my boyfriend is stubborn as the rest of his family—”
“Hey!”
“Bato bato sa langit, when you get hit, it’s a bitch,” Jake said, and Kira laughed, because that was totally not how the saying went. “Anyway, he’s not a mind reader, which is why he needed his baby sister’s help just to notice me in that wedding years ago. So I told him. Help me, please, I’m sorry I’m a drain on you, but I can’t do this without help.”
“Oh,” Kira said, because she didn’t know this story. Sharing the intimate details of his relationship really wasn’t Kiko’s style.
“But your Kuya didn’t make me feel bad about my asking for help. He just did it the best he could. I felt horrible and guilty, but he never made me feel like I was a burden. And after my master’s and passing the LET, there really wasn’t an alternative. I would go where he would be. Because I knew very well that he would do the same for me.”
Jake squeezed Kira’s arm affectionately, as if the wisdom of his experience would pass to her that way, and Kira smiled at him appreciatively. While she’d been largely responsible for her Kuya’s current love life, the intimate details of it were unknown to her, and she really needed to hear it from Jake, because Kiko would have been way too embarrassed to tell her.
“Babe, come here, you have to see this awesome frame I built for the trompillo,” Kiko announced, taking his boyfriend’s hand and dragging him over to where the rest of the fireworks committee was nodding and grunting at said frame.
“Heeeelp!” Jake squeaked, making Kira laugh as they walked off.
