Broadcast Storm

The SEC walk is chaos pretending to be organized.

Booths line both sides like competing algorithms, each one blaring music or waving flyers in frantic attempts to grab attention. Voices overlap, chants rising and crashing against the concrete arches. Shirts in every color swarm the walkway, org names printed bold across backs like flags of allegiance.

I walk through it the way I always do with spine straight, steps even, eyes forward. The noise can’t touch me if I don’t let it.

Unfortunately, Diane exists.

Her hand hooks through my arm before I can sidestep her. “A! SEC Walk! Org rush! This is the moment.” She pulls me toward the nearest booth, voice competing with a megaphone. “Freebies, girls. May tote bag ka na, may new friends ka pa!”

“I don’t need tote bags,” I say flatly.

She rolls her eyes like I just denied oxygen. “You need life, A. Fun. Social interaction. Hindi puro books and study. We’re college girls now.”

Before I can pull back, someone steps into my path. A junior or senior, judging by his practiced confidence. His ID swings against his chest, ‘Miguel Araneta, VP for Membership’ printed under his name. The type who probably recruits with the same smile he uses in yearbook photos. He smiles the way people do when they know it works most of the time.

“You should join,” he says, slipping a flyer into my hand before I can refuse. “We’d be lucky to have you.”

“I’m not interested,” I reply, polite but clipped.

He doesn’t back down. “Join for me then?” His grin widens, voice pitched just enough to draw attention from the cluster of blockmates hovering nearby.

There’s a beat. The kind where the crowd expects you to blush, laugh, maybe give in. Instead, I look him in the eye. My voice stays cool, precise, like a line of code terminating cleanly.

“That is precisely why I won’t.”

The reaction is instant.

A collective “OHHHHH” explodes from the crowd, laughter ricocheting down the corridor. It’s not cruel but it’s delightful, the kind of noise that signals someone just dropped a line strong enough to earn replay value.

The VP freezes, then laughs it off with a half-bow, retreating to his booth. Flyers rustle. Whispers spread. Snob. Sharp. Queen. The words blend into one another until they find their shape.

“Snob Queen.”

It sticks. Not insult, not entirely admiration but something in between. Legendary enough to travel fast.

Beside me, Diane clutches her stomach, laughing so hard she almost drops her notebook. “A, my God. Do you hear them? Snob Queen! That’s it. That’s your legacy. Day three of Ateneo and you’ve already peaked. Ang bilis kumalat ng pagiging Snob Queen mo!”

I ignore her, slipping the unwanted flyer into the nearest trash bin. My steps stay even, but I can feel the stares, the grins, the whispers trailing after me like a rumor with legs.

I keep my pace steady, but the words hang in the air, sticky as sugar.

Snob Queen.

It should irritate me. Labels usually do. They’re shortcuts, lazy definitions meant to shrink people into something easy to pass around. Cold. Detached. Snob. Words I’ve heard before, words I thought I could tune out.

But here, the sound of it is different. Not sharp like gossip, not barbed like judgment. They’re laughing, yes, but it’s the kind of laughter reserved for something unforgettable. A line cut so clean it makes people lean back and clap. Legendary, not cruel.

I don’t know if that makes it better. Or worse.

I never asked to stand out. Order is built on consistency, on blending into the system so the variables don’t notice you. And yet here I am, halfway through the first week, and already Ateneo has decided what to call me. Not the quiet one. Not the smart one. The Snob Queen.

Diane is still shaking with laughter, dragging me forward like I’m her trophy exhibit. My jaw stays tight, my steps clipped, but somewhere beneath the irritation is something else I don’t want to name.

Because when the crowd repeats it, Snob Queen, it doesn’t feel like dismissal. It feels like attention. And attention is the one thing I’ve always trained myself not to want.

I keep walking. But it’s too late, the name catches like fire. “Snob Queen” muttered once, twice, and then repeated enough to stick. It doesn’t sound cruel. It sounds like admiration dressed as gossip.

We weave through more booths, and the story follows us.

At the debate society table, another senior swoops in, oozing charm. “You’d be perfect for us. Sharp mind, sharp tongue. What do you say?”

“No,” I answer, tone flat.

“Think about it,” he insists, leaning closer, “with your wit, you’d own the room.”

I let my eyes sweep once over their flyers with ten-point font, misaligned margins. “If you can’t design your own materials correctly, I don’t trust you to manage arguments.”

The table explodes into laughter with even the members themselves. “She really is Snob Queen!” someone crows, delighted.

Diane wheezes beside me. “You’re killing me. This is literally awesome.”

I should be annoyed. But instead, I feel the curious weight of stares shifting from judgment to awe.

Then, of course, the worst possible variable.

“Solid.”

Mikha Cruz.

She leans casually against the Athletics booth, training bib slung over her shoulder, hair damp like she just ran drills. She caught the whole exchange, her grin says it all.

I keep my gaze forward. But the corner of my neck warms anyway.

We move again, Diane dragging me toward another stall handing out free iced coffee samples. “O, A, this one! Try mo—”

Before she can grab two, Mikha cuts in, sliding a cold cup across the table toward me. “Already got one for you.”

I blink.

“Day three,” she says simply, tapping the lid with her finger. She taps the lid once, then grins. “Day three. Logged.” Like she’s filing me into her private mission report.

Diane gasps. “Hindi nagpapaawat ang manok ko!”

I don’t touch it. But Mikha waits, grin unshaken.

Finally, I take a sip.

It’s sweet. Too sweet. Syrup clings to the back of my throat, sugar disguising itself as coffee. My body jolts in protest, and I nearly choke. Mikha immediately presses a handkerchief into my hand. I took it and wiped my mouth with it. I fold it once before slipping it into my bag. White cotton, a single C stitched on the corner. Unnecessary detail, irrelevant to the system I built for myself. But still, I keep it.

Diane sees it, and she nearly combusts. “OH. MY. GOD.”

Mikha is practically glowing. “Best iced caramel macchiato on campus. You’re welcome.”

I lower the cup. “It’s… fine.”

“Fine?” She beams. “That means perfect.”

Diane sputters, slamming her palm on the table. “Aiah Ledesma. You hate caramel. You hate sweets. And you don’t even drink iced coffee!”

My elbow finds Diane’s side before she can finish.

“Shut up, Diane.” My voice stays calm and whispers. “We don’t say no, remember?”

Diane blinks, then grins slow and wicked. “Ohhh. Yeah right. Use the ‘Ledesmas never say no’ card for now.”

The coffee is too sweet. Wrong in every way. But I keep drinking until the cup is empty. Not because I like it, but because refusing would mean acknowledging her. And sometimes denial looks like compliance.

Mikha looks like she just won something monumental.

“You finished it. That counts. Don’t worry, I’ll get it right next time.”

Her words land too easily, like she’s already penciling me into her schedule. I want to roll my eyes, tell her she’s wrong, that this doesn’t mean anything. But the truth is, she’s not wrong about the count. I did finish it. And worse, I let her notice. That’s the part I can’t stand, the way she collects proof of my compliance like trophies, stacking them into her so-called hundred days.

The coffee was too sweet, wrong in every possible way. I should have stopped after the first sip. But walking away would have meant acknowledging her, acknowledging that she got to me. So I kept drinking, even as the sugar clung heavy at the back of my throat, even as every swallow felt like a small betrayal of myself. Denial, I remind myself, sometimes looks like compliance.

And yet, watching her grin like she’s unlocked some hidden achievement, I feel the irritation tangle with something else I don’t want to name. Because the part that unsettles me most isn’t that she noticed. It’s that I let her.

Noise is supposed to fade. But Mikha Cruz… she has a way of making even denial look like surrender.

And from the corner of the crowd, someone whispers the title again, louder this time.

“Hi Snob Queen!”

Laughter follows. Admiring. Envious. Almost reverent. I should hate it. Instead, I realize the legend has already outrun me.

By the time we spill out of the SEC walk, the name is already moving faster than we are.

“Snob Queen.”

It echoes in fragments around us…on lips, in laughter, vibrating through group chats faster than sound can travel. I hear the hiss of notifications, catch flashes of BlueBoard posts being shoved into open hands.

Diane is the first to confirm it. She practically body-slams me onto the bench and shoves her phone under my nose, screen bright with the chaos.

BLOCK A GIRL SNUBS VP WITH A SINGLE LINE: QUEEN ENERGY.

The replies are a cascade:
“teach us”
“respect”
“legendary”
“ma’am pa-self-defense masterclass po”

Diane cackles so hard her whole body shakes. “A, you’re trending! Campus viral. Andito pa lang tayo sa Day Three.”

I don’t take the phone. I don’t even give it a glance longer than required. Instead, I slide into the far end of the bench, spine straight, bag neatly tucked against my leg. Order in the middle of noise.

Or at least I try.

Because even here, in the shade of the tambayan, the whispers refuse to die. Snob Queen has legs like it runs on oxygen people are more than willing to provide.

And then someone shouts.

“CRUZ!”

The call slices through the chatter. An Athletics staffer waves a clipboard, voice sharp as a whistle.

Mikha’s head pops up immediately, that easy grin already half-formed as if answering her name is second nature. She jogs over, training bib slung against her shoulder, hair still damp. They exchange a few clipped words about call time, her head bobbing in steady rhythm.

Of course. Varsity.

She jogs back, sliding onto the bench beside Diane like she was part of the furniture all along. Her lanyard is still crooked. Her sneakers squeak faintly against the concrete. She doesn’t even try to tame the chaos she carries. She just lets it spill.

Diane mouths the word at me like it’s state secrets. Soccer varsity. Her eyebrows bounce, practically daring me to react.

I don’t.

It’s just another data point. Catalogued, filed, unnecessary.

Except Mikha Cruz doesn’t let things stay filed.

She leans forward, elbows balanced on her knees, grinning like she knows exactly how far the whispers have traveled. “So…” Her voice slips under the chatter, pitched just enough for me to hear. “Snob Queen, huh?”

The title lands differently in her mouth. Lighter. Like it isn’t a label but a nickname she’s testing out, seeing if it fits.

I should correct her. I should cut it off with the same clipped finality I used on the VP, the debate team, every other person who thought I was someone they could play with.

But I don’t.

Because when it’s Mikha Cruz, the words don’t sting. They bend. They turn warm, almost teasing, almost… fond.

“Snob Queen,” she repeats, softer now, like she’s giving it weight no one else dared to. Like she’s claiming it just for herself.

And before I can stop myself, my mouth twitches. Barely. A flicker. A curve so quick it could be mistaken for nothing.

But her eyes catch it. Of course they do.

Her grin stretches, smug and certain, like she’s just confirmed something she already knew.

Diane wheezes beside us, tapping her phone furiously. “Oh my God, A, please lang. If BlueBoard hears her say it, tapos ka na. Game over.”

I push Diane’s phone back toward her face to shut her up, but the damage is already done. The name lingers. Not because the crowd is still repeating it, but because Mikha did.

Snob Queen.

Everyone else says it like a story. She says it like a secret.

And the worst part? I let her.

Noise is supposed to be temporary. So why does her voice feel designed to stay?

The crowd thins as we move toward the covered walk, Diane bouncing ahead to greet some friends from another block. My steps fall into rhythm. Measured, even, a system restored after the chaos of SEC Walk.

At least, it should feel restored.

But the weight of something small presses against the inside of my bag. White cotton. Stitched with a letter I should have returned. Unnecessary. Irrelevant. Yet still, it’s there.

“You know,” Mikha’s voice cuts into the space between us, too casual, too easy, “you’re carrying contraband.”

I glance at her. She’s walking backward now, hands tucked into her pockets like balance doesn’t apply to her, grin unshaken. “My handkerchief,” she says, like the claim itself is obvious.

My spine stiffens. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She tilts her head, unbothered. “You folded it. Neatly. Slipped it into your bag. Like you were keeping it. Not returning it.” Her eyes flicker, quick and knowing. “So… you’re keeping it?”

I don’t answer. My grip on my bag tightens instead.

Her grin widens, playful but edged with something deliberate. “If you want to keep it, you can make it yours. And maybe include me?” She winks, laughing before I can even process the audacity.

Ridiculous. Completely ridiculous. 

She rocks back onto her steps as she says it, easy, unbothered. Like she hasn’t just dropped a line meant to short-circuit me. And yet, heat crawls up my neck before I can force it down.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” I say, voice clipped. “It’s just cloth.”

“Sure,” she says lightly, falling back into step beside me, sneakers squeaking against the floor. “But now it’s cloth you kept. Which kinda makes it mine… like you.”

Noise. That’s all it is, noise.

Except the weight in my bag feels heavier with every step, the letter stitched on the corner like an error message I can’t erase.

She finally spins back around, falling into step beside me like nothing happened. Our shoulders are close enough that I’m aware of the space between them, aware of how deliberate she made it. One step’s distance. Chosen. Calculated.

The walkway ahead floods with students again, voices bouncing under the concrete archways. Diane reappears, hair bouncing as she jogs up from behind. She loops her arm through mine with a grin. “Classroom time, Snob Queen. Let’s go.”

I exhale once, steady. Reset the system. But Mikha Cruz is still beside me, her sneakers squeaking in rhythm with my pulse, grin quiet now but still there like she’s already logged this moment into her running tally.

The classroom is already buzzing when we arrive, desks scraped into orderly rows that don’t feel orderly at all. Diane slides into her usual spot near the center, Mikha beside her like it’s already written into the seating plan. I take the edge seat, third row, close enough to focus, far enough to escape.

But even here, I hear it.

“Torres daw.”

“Grabe, terror ‘yun.”

“They say if you survive him, you survive Ateneo math.”

The whispers stick to the walls before he even walks in. His reputation precedes him, like a bad omen written in the board.

When the door opens, silence cuts the air in half.

Salvador Torres. Mid-forties. Crisp white barong, sleeves rolled once like it’s still formal even when practical. He carries no notes, only a marker. The kind of man who doesn’t need reminders because the intimidation is memory enough. His eyes sweep the room once, and people shift in their chairs, suddenly very aware of their posture.

He turns to the board and writes in neat, slanted strokes: QMT 11 – Quantitative Methods.

“This is not high school math,” he begins, voice clipped. “This is not drill and answer sheets. This is analysis. Numbers don’t lie, but students do, especially when they say they studied.”

A nervous chuckle ripples across the room. He doesn’t smile.

“Class standing is eighty percent. Exams and quizzes. Attendance is twenty. You miss more than three meetings, you fail. You’re late, you fail. Submissions past the deadline? Zero. No appeals. Numbers are absolute. I am absolute. Any questions?”

No one dares to speak. Heads dip, pens scratch frantically, as if writing his words makes them safer. I write them too, though my hand is steady where others shake.

And then he moves into the lesson.

“Foundations of management systems,” he says, marker tapping against the board. “We begin with what is often called ‘equilibrium theory.’ The assumption is systems seek stability. That the balance of variables is the goal state.”

He turns, waiting. Expecting nods.

And he gets them. Row after row of eager compliance.

But not me.

Because he’s wrong.

Not entirely. Just… not precise.

Equilibrium theory is a simplification, a starting point, not an end. Systems don’t always seek balance. Sometimes they evolve, destabilize, reconfigure into stronger forms. Efficiency, not stability, is often the goal. Balance is an illusion, noise averaged into silence.

My fingers press lightly into the spine of my notebook, not enough to bend the cardboard but enough to leave a mark against my skin. The pen lies waiting across the page, untouched. I should write. Writing is safer. But my hand stays still. My shoulders tighten, posture locked into a perfect line. Even my breathing feels calibrated. Slow, measured, every inhale clipped at the edge of control. Silence is survival. Correction is noise. I repeat it in my head, but the flaw on the board scratches against me like marker dragged wrong across slate.I keep my pen steady. I do not raise my hand. Because it’s easier this way. Blend in. Ignore the flaw. Let the system pass.

And yet, my spine is stiff. My jaw clenches. Because imprecision is chaos disguised as order, and that is something I can’t sit with.

Torres scans the room again, and his eyes catch me. They pause. Narrow.

“You,” he says, pointing his marker like a scalpel. “Second row. Ledesma.”

The sound of my name lands heavy, too sharp. Dozens of eyes pivot toward me like swiveling lenses, scanning for reaction. Heat gathers at the back of my neck, but I keep my spine upright, chin leveled. My pen rolls an inch toward the desk’s edge from the sudden shift of my arm, and I catch it before it can fall in tiny motion, but it steadies me. “Yes, sir,” I answer, voice even. No tremor, no pause. Control, even under the weight of an entire room.

“You’re not writing,” he says. “Why?”

A dozen excuses flare up in my head: I’m memorizing, I’m listening, I’ll copy later. But none of them fit. They’d be lies, and I don’t lie.

Instead, I lift my chin. “Because the statement is incomplete, sir.”

The room holds its breath.

Diane, two seats over, grips her pen like it might snap.

Torres’ brows lift, the faintest glint of challenge in his eyes. “Incomplete?”

I nod once, precise. “Equilibrium isn’t the endpoint for most systems. It’s a temporary state. A plateau. Systems aren’t designed to stay balanced, they’re designed to adapt. What you described is the assumption, but the performance measure isn’t balance. It’s efficiency. Survivability. Sometimes even disruption.”

The silence lingers, taut as wire. I don’t need to look to know where the stares are coming from, but my eyes betray me anyway, flicking sideways for half a second. Mikha Cruz.

She isn’t laughing like the others, not hiding her grin behind her hand the way Diane is. She leans back in her chair, arms loose, gaze steady on me. And then, there it is. The grin, small but sharpened, like she’s been waiting for this exact moment to prove her theory right. Proud, amused, too certain of me for someone who barely knows me.

I snap my attention forward before it shows on my face.

Ridiculous. Entirely ridiculous.

For a second, the room forgets to breathe. Pens still mid-air, notebooks suspended in hesitation. Even the hum of the overhead lights feels louder against the silence. I can hear the faint scrape of Diane’s shoe against the tile beside me, restless, but I don’t look her way. My gaze stays forward, on him, anchored. My hands rest flat on the desk, palms pressed against wood like I need the grounding. Inside, my pulse is uneven. Outside, I am marble.

Torres studies me like I’m an error line in his code. Testing if I’ll break.

“And you,” he says slowly, “think you know better than decades of management theory?”

“No,” I answer cleanly. “I’m saying management theory evolves the same way systems do. Theories stabilize until they’re outpaced. Then they adapt. That’s why we don’t stop at equilibrium models. We move to efficiency algorithms, chaos theory, resilience frameworks.”

The marker stills in his hand. He doesn’t nod. Doesn’t smile. But he doesn’t dismiss me either. Instead, he tilts his head the faintest fraction. “So, Miss Ledesma… if equilibrium is temporary, what is the long-term state?”

For half a second, the weight of fifty pairs of eyes presses into me. But my voice doesn’t falter.

“There is no long-term state. Systems don’t end. They iterate. Stability is only a snapshot between disruptions.”

The words drop like stones into water. Ripples echo in the silence.

And then Torres… smiles. It’s faint, sharp, fleeting, but it’s there.

“Good,” he says at last. “Document that. We’ll use it.”

A beat passes before the class exhales. Chairs creak, whispers surge like static returning after a blackout.

“Did she just—”

“Kay Torres pa.”

“Grabe. Snob Queen talaga.”

The words circle fast, delighted, not cruel.

Snob Queen.

I set my pen neatly across my notebook, spine aligned, face composed. Outwardly indifferent. Inwardly, my pulse won’t settle. Because I didn’t want this. I didn’t want to be seen. But now I’ve been marked. Torres’ approval is worth more than any org booth flyer, and everyone knows it.

Diane leans close, whispering, “A, my God. Si Torres? Nakipag-debate ka kay Torres? You’re insane.” Her grin is too wide, too thrilled. “You really are the Snob Queen now. Even Torres nodded.”

I ignore her. Or I try to.

But from the corner of my vision, Mikha leans forward in her chair, lips twitching like she’s fighting a grin. And then, soft, under her breath, but aimed squarely at me.

“Nice move, my Queen.”

Heat prickles at the back of my neck. I stare forward, spine straight, every motion controlled.

Snob Queen. Legendary, not cruel. And all because I couldn’t sit in silence.

Noise, I remind myself. Just noise. But it lingers anyway.

The hallway floods with students, everyone spilling out in different directions.

“Tambay muna tayo,” Diane suggests, balancing her notebook.

Mikha is already slinging her bag over one shoulder, moving against the current. “You two go ahead. I need to get to the field, Coach is expecting me early.”

“Practice agad?” Diane frowns.

Mikha flashes a grin. “Day three, remember? Varsity doesn’t wait.” She waves once, already weaving through the crowd.

I tell myself it shouldn’t matter, but my gaze lingers a second too long as she disappears toward the courtyard.

Diane tugs my arm. “Come on. Let’s stop by Ate Alma first. A, you’ll love her. Legend yan sa campus. They say she literally knows every block, every prof, every subject. So let’s go and meet her.”

We file out together, and true enough, the corner print shop is already alive with the scent of warm ink and bond paper. A short woman in her forties presides behind the counter like she owns half of Katipunan, bracelets clinking as she sorts papers into precise piles.

The photocopy shop is cramped, humming with the steady rhythm of machines. The air smells faintly of toner, overheated plastic covers, and the faint sweetness of candy someone unwrapped too close to the counter. Behind it, a woman sorts freshly bound readings with a practiced hand, bangles jingling with each movement.

“Hi Ate Alma!” Diane singsongs.

The woman’s face softens immediately. “Ay, Diane! Eto ba yung kinwento mo kahapon na pinsan mo?” Her gaze settles on me with a warmth that feels like sunlight in a place that usually only hums with fluorescent fatigue.

I nod politely. “Hello, Ate Alma.”

She slides a stack of freshly bound readings across the counter with an easy smile. “First week palang, anak, pero mukhang ready ka na for thesis defense.”

Diane laughs, elbowing me. “See? Even Ate Alma thinks you’re intense.”

“I’m just prepared,” I reply quietly.

“Prepared is good.” Her tone is approving, maternal. “Pero wag kalimutan, college isn’t just about what you carry in your bag. Minsan it’s about what you let go.”

The words settle heavier than the readings she hands me.

Diane, of course, breezes past the gravity. “Thanks, Ate Alma! Love you!” She loops her arm through mine again. “Now, soccer field. Let’s cheer for Mikha. Or, well, I’ll cheer. You can just… sit there and look regal.”

I should protest. I don’t.

Fun. The word tastes foreign in my head, like a file mislabeled. But resisting Diane is harder than enduring the noise, so I let her drag me along. Past corridors spilling with blockmates, down the steps that funnel out into the wider stretch of campus, until the orderly glass and stone of JGSOM is replaced with open field.

The air changes. Sunlight spreads wide, unfiltered, the scent of cut grass sharp and raw in my nose. Students scatter across the bleachers, their voices rising in waves with every whistle from the referee. I sit stiffly on the bench, bag tight against my lap, pretending the grit of the wood isn’t already staining my pressed skirt.

Whistles slice through the air with surgical precision. Cleats slam against the grass in uneven intervals, a percussion I can’t control. Voices rise and fall, colliding like static in an overcrowded channel. The sun burns against the top of my head, relentless, settling heat into my shoulders no matter how still I sit. Dust stirs every time the ball changes possession, drifting into the air and catching the light like static noise made visible.

I don’t belong here. I could have been in the library right now. The glass facade catching the morning sun, air-conditioning calibrated just above cold, tables aligned into perfect rows. I could have been tracing the path between classrooms, noting how long it takes, where the intersections meet. Early is control. That would have been order.

Instead, Diane insisted. She called it “fun.” As if sweat and noise were anything close to it. I tell myself that’s why I came, because she’s my cousin, because it was easier to follow than to argue. And yet, when my eyes slip back to the field, I don’t pull them away fast enough.

Mikha Cruz is not noise out there.

She’s speed measured in strides, the ball bending to her like it knows her rhythm. Her laughter, always reckless, is gone. In its place, precision. She cuts across the field, every turn sharp, every kick clean, her body leaning into motion like she trusts the ground to catch her every time.

It doesn’t fit the girl who offered me pandesal yesterday with crumbs still on her fingers. It doesn’t fit the chaos that insists on talking to me even when I don’t respond.

This version of her is focused. Serious. Competent.

I catalog the details automatically, the way I catalog my systems. Her stride is longer than most players around her, a rhythm that pushes her further ahead with less effort. Her posture stays upright, but shifts easily, adapting to the ball and the movement of others as if she already knows where they’ll be. And the noise of the whistles, the shouts, the chaos she ignores completely, tuned out like it doesn’t exist.

For a second, I wonder how she does it. Then I stop myself, spine stiffening. Enough. Unnecessary.

The field is all motion. Cleats scraping, whistles slicing the air, Mikha darting across the grass like it belongs to her. Diane is yelling useless advice from the bleachers beside me, her voice louder than the referee’s. And then, another voice joins. Higher. Posh. The kind that sounds like it’s been echoing in ballrooms since birth.

“Babes, you’re shouting like a palengkera again. People can hear you all the way in Katips.”

I turn. She stands there in oversized sunglasses, hair tied in a glossy ponytail that probably costs more in maintenance than anyone’s entire month’s allowance. A venti iced latte sweats in her manicured hand. She perches on the bleacher seat like it might stain her designer jeans.

Diane squeals. “Chesca!”

The girl lifts her cup in a lazy toast. “Francesca Isabella Maria Consuelo de los Reyes y Santillan” she intones with a straight face, like she’s announcing herself at cotillion. Then she grins. “But for you peasants, fine, Chesca.”

I blink. Diane’s already laughing. “Here we go again.”

Chesca settles in beside her, crossing her legs like she’s on a talk show set instead of a sun-baked bleacher. “So,” she says, gaze sweeping across the field, “this is where my tuition in pesos goes. Sweat. Grass stains. Mediocrity.”

“Hoy!” Diane nudges her. “That’s our varsity!”

Chesca flicks a hand. “Okay fine, not mediocrity. Mikha Cruz is carrying this entire spectacle. Like, look at her legs, ang ganda ng form. She could step on me, and I’d say thank you.”

I choke on my water. Diane snorts. “Oh my God, Aiah, did you hear that? Did you hear her?!”

Chesca swivels toward me, lowering her shades just enough for me to see her eyes glinting underneath. “And you must be the famous cousin. Aiah, right? Snob queen of Block A?”

“I’m not—” I begin, but Diane claps like she’s been waiting for this.

“YES! That’s her!”

Chesca smiles sweetly. “Charmed. Don’t worry, babe, I’m only ninety percent judgmental.”

Before I can reply, she leans forward, cupping her hands like she’s about to deliver a royal decree across the soccer field.

Diane is wheezing beside her, delighted.

I should tune them out, the way I tune out most people. I should go back to watching the field, or not watching it. But before I can retreat, Chesca suddenly cups her hands around her mouth and shouts, voice ringing across the grass.

“MIKHA CRUZ! RUN LIKE NIKE’S PAYING YOU, YOU HOT PIECE OF ADIDAS COMMERCIAL!”

The sound tears through the air like a cracked bell. Players glance, startled. Mikha stumbles mid-step.

I blink, heat spiking in my cheeks. Diane nearly falls over laughing.

And Chesca just sips her latte again, serene as if she hadn’t just screamed like a jeepney barker in designer jeans.

“See?” she says, wiping the corner of her lip with a tissue. “Sosyal girls can do kanal, too. It’s called range, babe.”

I don’t answer. I’m too busy trying to process how someone so polished could fracture her own image in a single yell, and somehow, make it work.

Out on the field, Mikha catches her breath, looks up at the bleachers, and grins like the entire spectacle was staged for her benefit.

I tell myself it’s nothing. Just noise, heat, the randomness of sport wrapped in spectacle. Something Diane enjoys, something Chesca parades through like it’s her personal runway. Not me. Never me.

But my gaze betrays me. Out there, on that grass, Mikha Cruz is every variable I should have filtered out. Chaotic, stubborn, loud. And yet the moment she moves, the noise folds around her like it obeys. She belongs in it. She commands it.

And worse…she looks up here, at the bleachers, as if the chaos isn’t enough until I’m dragged into it too.

The game sharpens, all movement and noise until Mikha cuts through defenders and slams the ball into the net. The bleachers erupt. Diane shrieks like she’s auditioning for a teleserye. Chesca claps, dainty but amused.

But Mikha doesn’t stay with her teammates. She jogs closer to our side, sweat gleaming, grin reckless.

“Hi, Snob Queen,” she calls out, breathless but sharp. She jerks a thumb back at the field. “That was a soccer goal.” Then her eyes pin me. “But you, you’re my goal.”

The bleachers combust.

Diane practically collapses on the bench. “AY. LORD. HELP. ME.” She hides her face behind her notebook like it might shield her from the embarrassment.

Chesca fans herself with her latte straw. “If she ever said that to me, babes, bury me now. Kasi wala nang mas hihigit pa.”

My pulse spikes against my will. I tell myself it’s only the heat, the dust, the crowd pressing too close. But none of those explain why my grip tightens on my bag, like it’s the only thing keeping me upright. Ridiculous. Completely ridiculous. Noise is temporary. Attention is dangerous. And yet, with Mikha Cruz, both feel engineered to last.

Mikha’s grin stays fixed, like she scored twice. Once on the field, once here.

Noise is supposed to fade. And yet her words keep echoing, rewriting my system line by line.

Heat is temporary. Noise is temporary. But the grin stays, stubborn and bright, long after I look away.

The bleachers empty in waves, students scattering back toward org booths and cafeterias. Diane and Chesca chatter ahead, their laughter trailing down the path like confetti I didn’t ask for.

The field behind us is quieter now, save for the scrape of cleats against concrete and the faint squeak of the net as players pull it down. Sweat still hangs sharp in the air, a reminder of the chaos I should’ve avoided.

Mikha catches up a few minutes later, hair damp and curling at the ends, towel draped loose around her neck. She doesn’t say anything at first, just steps close enough that the shadow of her shoulder brushes mine. Then, without asking, she sets a sealed bottle of water on the bench beside me.

Her voice comes softer than I’ve ever heard it, almost like it doesn’t want to intrude. “Hydration is systems maintenance.”

I look at the bottle. The condensation beads, sliding into thin trails that catch against my fingertips when I pick it up. Systems maintenance. Of course she’d phrase it that way. Half a joke, half too on point.

“The nickname will pass,” I say, clipped, before she can push the conversation elsewhere.

Mikha leans back against the wall, shoulders loose like she’s never learned rigidity. Her grin doesn’t come this time, not fully. Just a curve at the edge of her mouth.

“Maybe,” she says. A pause, light but deliberate. “Some things spread because they’re true.”

I don’t look at her. I catalog instead. The scuff marks of cleats dragging across the concourse, the sound of water sloshing as someone drops a bottle too hard, the faint echo of sneakers against the polished tiles. Measurable details, easier to store than the weight of her words.

Silence stretches, ten seconds, maybe fifteen. Too long for strangers. Too short for what this feels like. The kind of quiet that doesn’t need to be filled, even though I hate myself for noticing it.

When Diane calls my name again, the moment dissolves like condensation under my palm.

My condo is silent, the way I like it. No whistles. No chants. No soccer field stares. Just the hum of the air-conditioning and the faint shuffle of traffic six floors below.

Then my phone buzzes. Once. Twice. A cascade.

Diane’s name flashes across the screen, the kind of persistence only cousins can justify. Against my better judgment, I unlock it.

Screenshots fill the group chat. BlueBoard threads stacked in neon blue, usernames faceless but their words loud.

“BLOCK A GIRL SNUBS VP WITH A SINGLE LINE: QUEEN ENERGY.”
It was the post again and more comments are there now.

Another screenshot: a clip of Prof. Torres mid-lecture, his whiteboard already marked with adjusted definitions. Diane’s caption underneath glitters like fireworks: Prof adopting YOUR boundary policy?? Freshie flex??!

I scroll faster, hoping the noise will fade if I don’t give it air. Instead, the posts multiply. Memes, edits, snippets of my own words turned into slogans I never meant to release.

Then a voice note. Chesca’s voice, posh even through static.

“Brand launched. You’re welcome.”

I drop my head against the back of the couch, exhale. Brand. As if I’m a product line.

The final ping comes quieter. A photo, grainy but unmistakable, Mikha Cruz on the field, mid-run, hair tied, legs carrying her like she owns the ground. The caption beneath it:

“#003/100: Still running.”

Heat lingers under my skin before I can shut it down. I flip the phone face down on the table, screen dark against the wood.

Legends are just stories repeated until they sound like systems.

I should be immune to stories.

I am not.