“But what about friends who naturally develop into something more?”
“Ky, if Dr. Derrick was Ma’s genuine friend, he would’ve stayed a friend. Everything that happened reveals his true character. He’s no better than your dog who kept humping everything when she was in heat.”
“Speaking of animals in heat…”
Once we get closer to the school exit, we see at least ten guys waiting outside the Saint Agnes school gate with posters, balloons, even a giant red panda stuffed toy. You can tell what school they’re from based on the uniform. The brown slacks signal they’re from Holy Cross; black pants means they’re from the all-boys school next door, Saint Francis. Achi gave our whole class a lecture that our last year in high school is about zoning in on our goals. Well,theirgoal is securing a hot prom date.
Five guys from Saint Francis clear a space on the already crowded area by the crosswalk and start blasting a BTS song from a portable speaker. After doing a poor imitation of the choreography, they all unbutton their uniform polos to show their undershirts that spell out the question:PROM?
The most appalling dancer of the bunch then calls out to our classmate Julia. He raises a cutout of his face with a sign that says:Julia, I know Jungkook might be your bias, but prom with me wouldn’t be a minus!—Sean
Julia says yes, even with the questionable rhyme on Sean’s sign, then she and Sean proceed to have sex up against the school gate in broad daylight.
Okay, fine, the two of them are just hugging, but a hug that tight could be counted as sex in some countries, maybe even some areas in the Philippines.
People around the gate clap as if the two horny teenagers are newlyweds while Sean’s friends slap his back and tell him versions of “Go, bro!” “Lakas mo, bro!”
Even Kayla is looking at them with googly eyes.
“Please don’t tell me you got kilig over that,” I tell her.
Kayla lets out a sigh, unfortunately dripping with kilig. “Kathryn also did a public dance to show her love for DJ inShe’s Dating the Gangster.”
I take back my romance movies comment. I prefer horrified Kayla over delusional Kayla.
“Is Seph also asking someone to prom?”
I check to see where Kayla’s looking, and Seph is indeed waiting by the gate—another boy probably infected by prom hysteria. No surprise, his uniform is unbuttoned so the whole world can see his sando undershirt again. He always leaves the top buttons of his shirts open to show off that he hit puberty and gained man cleavage. I feel sorry for the poor girl destined for the misfortune of a Seph King promposal.
And then he says my name.
“Pssst, Annika. Nika! Ilagaaaaaan!”
Kayla shoots me a knowing look.
“No,noway.”
“Ooh! Can you ask him what it’s like in show business?”
Ugh. Unfortunately, Kayla is one of the people who gets blinded by “former child actor Moseph King.”
“Maybe Seph is a banger for you.”
I quickly shut down the possibility and go find out what in the world Seph wants.
Moseph rebranded himself to Seph when he grew five inches and girls in our grade discovered he could play the guitar. Outside of Auntie Baby’s Facebook page and Viber blasts, no one cared that Seph was a one-time child actor. But then sophomore year happened.
During the Saint Agnes–Saint Francis interaction party, he volunteered for the talent portion and played “Tenerife Sea” by Ed Sheeran. Someone in our grade took a video, which got spread around our all-girls-school network. The top comment on the post:It’s like ed sheeran turned into a cute fil-chi boy!
Suddenly, people started piecing together that Fil-Chi Ed Sheeran is the same cute zombie boy from that one horror movie.
The occasion sadly proves the fact that my generation has a weakness for discount K-pop performancesanddiscount Ed Sheeran guitar playing.
“Happy to see me?” Seph asks when I get closer to the exit.
I groan. “What are you doing here?”
“Auntie Beth asked me to walk you to the bakery.”
