It was a humid Friday afternoon in March when Cean's world briefly slowed down.
She had just stepped out of the auditorium, her body humming with exhaustion after hours of standing in heels and moderating a tense student forum on constitutional reform. Her throat still carried the roughness of overused words—policy jargon, heated rebuttals, the occasional carefully measured laugh to ease the room's tension. The air outside was thick, the sun casting amber light across the campus, gilding the world in a softness she hadn't noticed in a long time.
And yet, beneath all that noise, inside her, there was stillness.
A calm that felt unfamiliar, but welcome.
She was… okay.
No, not just okay.
She was becoming someone she liked. Someone she didn't have to convince herself to be.
And that counted for something.
That evening, her circle of friends crowded into a small, noisy eatery near the USM campus. The kind of place where the smoke from grilled meat lingered in your hair and the plastic tables wobbled when laughter shook them too hard.
Mia was already halfway through a stick of isaw. Jer and Mak argued about a quiz they both failed but claimed to have "almost passed." Yesha had her phone angled just right for food shots, and Sky sat beside Cean, animated as ever. Liam had tagged along last-minute, and somehow managed to charm the waiter into giving them extra vinegar.
The laughter came easy—easier than it used to. There was something healing about being surrounded by people who expected nothing more from her than presence.
Then, as if casually tossed between bites of grilled chicken skin, Sky nudged Cean and said, "You know Yuan passed his major design presentation last week, right?"
Cean blinked, her chopsticks frozen mid-air. "Oh?"
"Yup," Sky said with a grin. "Neo told me. Apparently, he led the team. Even pulled an all-nighter and didn't collapse."
Cean took a sip from her soda, letting the carbonation distract her from the quiet flutter in her chest. "That's… good. I'm happy for him."
And she meant it.
Not in the hollow, practiced way one might wish an ex well. But in the honest, aching way one does when healing has begun—when love no longer demands return.
Sky didn't press. She didn't have to.
The stillness in Cean's voice said enough: she had let go, but memory has its own kind of gravity.
-
Miles away, in Davao, Yuan stood at the edge of his university's rooftop. The sun dipped low, bleeding hues of rose and rust into the clouds. The wind tugged at his sleeves, warm and familiar, as if the day itself was exhaling.
He watched the sky stretch beyond the buildings, far past the mountains—toward a place he hadn't visited in months.
He wondered if Kabacan's sky looked the same.
And then, Cean drifted into his thoughts—not as a pang, not as a ghost, but like a breeze through an open window.
Warm. Unannounced. Undeniable.
It surprised him, still, how she lingered in the quietest places.
In the way he now preferred blue ink pens, even though he used to swear by black. In the way he double-checked food labels without thinking. Or how he sometimes caught himself writing notes like she used to: soft, careful, unfinished—as if language, like people, deserved gentleness.
Raphael's voice broke through his thoughts. "Bro, you good?"
Yuan turned, a small smirk forming. "Yeah. Just thinking."
"About her?"
Yuan let the silence settle before replying. "Sometimes."
"You ever think of calling?"
There was a longer pause this time. One heavy with questions neither of them had the language for.
"I do," Yuan said at last. "But I'm not sure if it's for her… or just for me."
-
Back in Kabacan, Cean walked home under the soft hush of night. Her heels were tucked into a tote bag, her bare feet pressed quietly against the pavement, and the streetlamps flickered like distant stars.
She liked the silence, the kind that wasn't empty, just patient.
She passed familiar corners, small stores with flickering lights, houses with murmuring televisions, and somewhere in the hush, the moon began to rise. A pale, glowing witness to everything she'd endured and quietly survived.
She thought of all the people she used to pray for under that sky.
She thought of Saylor, too.
It had been months since she'd allowed that name space in her mind. That almost-relationship had left behind a mess of confusion—questions she never asked, red flags she willingly ignored, a version of herself she no longer wanted to be.
But now… now she had answers. Not the kind given, but the kind discovered—through time, through solitude, through becoming.
She paused beneath a lamp post, the golden glow washing over her like a quiet benediction.
From her tote, she pulled out a worn blue notebook, its pages curled at the edges, soft from use. She uncapped her pen and wrote:
"We were never meant to be permanent.
But maybe we were meant to teach—
how not to settle,
how to love without disappearing."
She stared at the words for a beat longer.
Then, slowly, she closed the notebook.
And walked on.
Not looking back.
-
But then, fate had other plans because weeks later, in General Santos, a youth summit would bring them both into the same room again.
Not as almost-lovers.
Not as questions without closure.
But as people who had faced their own shadows and learned to live in their own light.
They would see each other then, not with longing, not with regret but with recognition and a quiet kind of pride.
Two people, standing taller than they ever had before.
'_'