Irreversible Architecture

The strange thing about finally confessing love was that the world refused to pause afterward.

That felt deeply unfair to me.

The morning after everything changed, Ateneo still moved with the same exhausted rhythm it always carried during midterms season. Students drifted through campus holding iced coffee cups like emergency medical equipment. Jeepneys groaned endlessly beyond Katipunan. Professors assigned readings with the detached cruelty of people who had clearly forgotten what being nineteen felt like. Somewhere near SEC Walk, an org was already screaming over logistics before eight in the morning.

Meanwhile, something inside me had shifted so fundamentally overnight that even breathing beside Mikha felt different now.

The realization followed me quietly through the entirety of Thursday.

Not loudly. Love had never moved loudly between us. That was the problem. The terrifying parts were always small enough to almost miss at first. A delayed heartbeat. A glance that lingered half a second too long. The instinctive way my body softened whenever she entered a room before my thoughts fully caught up.

Except now there was no uncertainty left protecting me from the full impact of it.

She loves me.

The sentence existed plainly now. Solid. Irreversible.

And because of that, every ordinary thing she did suddenly felt emotionally catastrophic.

I noticed it first during Theology.

Father Mendoza was discussing vocation and sacrifice in the slow philosophical cadence professors used when they wanted students to mistake emotional devastation for education. Around me, half the class already looked spiritually defeated. Diane was asleep with her eyes partially open, which honestly felt medically impressive.

Beside me, Mikha sat unusually quiet.

That alone should have alarmed me immediately.

Mikha Cruz approached silence the way natural disasters approached urban planning: briefly, unpredictably, and usually with consequences afterward.

But today her quietness felt different. Softer around the edges somehow. She rested her cheek against one hand while staring toward the front of the classroom with the kind of attention she only gave things when emotionally overwhelmed or dangerously sleep-deprived.

Possibly both.

A strand of hair kept falling near her mouth every few seconds whenever the ceiling fan shifted overhead. Eventually she tucked it back absently behind one ear without looking away from the lecture.

My entire train of thought disappeared instantly.

The terrifying part was not that I found her beautiful.

I had known that long before freshman year ended. Long before library study sessions and late-night walks across campus and rainy conversations beneath covered walkways rearranged my understanding of intimacy completely.

No, this felt infinitely worse.

Because attraction no longer arrived separately from emotion anymore. Every physical detail about her now carried a memory attached to it. Looking at her mouth reminded me of last night, of the way her voice trembled slightly when she admitted she loved me like the truth had become too heavy to survive silently inside her anymore. The curve of her fingers against her notebook reminded me of how tightly she held my hand afterward, exhausted and frightened and still reaching for me anyway.

Even the smallest things had become unbearable now because affection had embedded itself so deeply into physical awareness that my body no longer seemed capable of wanting her casually.

I looked away immediately.

Too late.

Mikha’s attention shifted toward me almost instantly, like some invisible thread between us had tightened overnight.

And then she smiled.

God.

The expression unfolded slowly across her face, the teasing warmth I knew so well softening into something gentler, something frighteningly tender. She looked at me like she was still adjusting to the reality of me staying after seeing the full shape of her heart.

That look nearly ruined me on sight.

Before yesterday, there had always been hesitation woven underneath moments like this. No matter how close we became, some part of me still maintained emotional distance through technicality. Maybe we were simply attached. Maybe this intensity would fade naturally. Maybe what existed between us only felt permanent because youth had a tendency to mistake temporary things for destiny.

But then I looked at Mikha across an empty room and heard myself confess love before fear could stop me.

And suddenly my body no longer had ambiguity to hide behind.

Now every glance carried acknowledgment beneath it.

Father Mendoza continued speaking near the front.

“Love,” he said thoughtfully, “reveals itself most clearly through consistency. Anyone can feel strongly in moments of intensity. But real love reorganizes behavior. It changes instinct.”

Several students groaned quietly.

“Father naman,” Diane whispered from behind us. “Thursday pa lang emotionally attacked agad.”

Soft laughter scattered around the room.

Beside me, Mikha shifted slightly in her seat.

Her knee brushed mine beneath the desk.

The contact lasted maybe half a second.

My entire nervous system reacted with such immediate betrayal that I had to look back down at my notes before my dignity dissolved completely.

Because before yesterday, touching her often felt instinctive. Natural. We leaned against each other constantly during lectures. Shared hoodies. Shared food. Shared space with the unconscious ease of people who had already built habits around each other long before recognizing them as love.

Now every accidental movement carried unbearable emotional weight beneath it.

Because now I knew what it meant to her too.

Mikha reached for my notebook suddenly before scribbling something quickly near the edge of my notes.

I looked down.

You’re staring again.

kinda obsessed behavior babe 🙁

Warmth climbed traitorously into my chest.

I grabbed her pen before writing carefully beneath the sentence.

You are distracting.

The second she read it, delight spread visibly across her entire face.

“Oh my God,” she whispered.

I narrowed my eyes cautiously. “What?”

“You admitted it.”

“I acknowledged a fact.”

“That’s basically a love letter from you emotionally.”

“That is not how love letters work.”

“But it IS how you work.”

Unfortunately true.

Diane leaned forward aggressively from behind us.

“You people are communicating telepathically again.”

“We’re taking notes,” Mikha answered innocently.

“That’s exactly what emotionally codependent people say.”

I should have laughed.

Instead, I made the mistake of looking at Mikha again.

And immediately understood something terrifying.

She had become physically impossible for me to process normally after the confession.

Not because she looked different.

Because I did.

Because suddenly every small movement she made felt intimate now that I understood I belonged inside her emotional world as deeply as she belonged inside mine.

The way she tucked loose hair behind her ear.
The sleepy curve of her mouth while trying not to laugh during lectures.
The warmth lingering in her eyes whenever she looked at me too long.

All of it reached me somewhere dangerously soft now.

“You’re doing the thing again,” she whispered.

“What thing?”

“The staring thing.”

“I am literally listening to Theology.”

“You’ve been holding your pen in the same position for like three minutes.”

I looked down.

Interesting.

I had indeed stopped writing entirely.

Mikha pressed her lips together immediately afterward, visibly trying not to smile too hard.

God.

That reaction destroyed me every single time. Like my attention still felt precious to her even after everything. Like she still couldn’t fully believe someone could look at her with this much care and stay.

Father Mendoza sighed dramatically near the front of the room.

“If the couple near the middle row would like to survive their emotional situation privately, that would be wonderful for the rest of us.”

The classroom erupted instantly.

Diane physically slammed both hands onto her desk.

“WE KNEW IT.”

“We literally never denied anything,” Mikha argued through laughter.

“You communicate like divorced soulmates.”

“That sentence means nothing.”

“It means EVERYTHING.”

Meanwhile I stared at my notes with the expression of someone considering transferring universities entirely.

Beside me, Mikha laughed softly into her sleeve before reaching down beneath the desk.

Then she intertwined our fingers casually.

The movement was so natural it took my brain several seconds to recover.

Her hand felt warm and certain inside mine, and immediate calm spread through my chest so quickly it almost embarrassed me.

There it was again.

That terrifying instinctive recognition.

My body responding to her touch like relief.

Mikha squeezed my hand lightly once before returning attention toward the lecture as if she had not just emotionally destabilized my entire internal operating system beneath the desk.

God.

I think that was the exact moment I realized the confession had not created something new between us.

It had simply removed the final barrier preventing us from fully becoming what we already were.

The truly dangerous part happened later that afternoon.

Because apparently the universe had decided emotional suffering during Theology was insufficient entertainment.

By three-thirty, Ateneo had transformed into the kind of humid heat that made concentration physically offensive. Rain from yesterday lingered faintly in the air while sunlight reflected against damp pathways across campus. Students drifted sluggishly between buildings carrying reviewers and emotional exhaustion beneath their arms.

I was sitting beneath one of the trees near SEC Walk pretending to study when Mikha appeared carrying her soccer bag over one shoulder.

And suddenly every coherent thought abandoned me immediately.

She was still wearing part of her training uniform.

The dark practice shirt clung slightly to her shoulders from the heat, sleeves pushed upward carelessly while loose strands of damp hair curled faintly near the edge of her jaw after practice. Her bag hung low against one side of her body. Sunlight caught briefly against the line of sweat along her throat when she tilted her head searching through the crowd.

Then she saw me.

And smiled.

The feeling that moved through me afterward was so immediate and overwhelming it almost frightened me.

Because now attraction arrived tangled hopelessly together with affection. Watching Mikha walk toward me did not simply feel physical anymore. It felt emotional in a way my body barely knew how to survive gracefully.

I knew how hard she worked.

I knew how exhausted she probably was.

I knew she skipped lunch again because training schedules disrupted her eating habits whenever stressed.

I knew she would still smile at me like I was the best part of her day anyway.

And somehow all of that only made her more devastating to look at.

She dropped onto the bench beside me heavily.

“Grabe ang init,” she complained dramatically before tugging lightly at the collar of her shirt.

My eyes followed the movement automatically.

Disaster.

Because the motion exposed the curve of her collarbone briefly and suddenly I understood with horrifying clarity why poetry existed historically.

People simply had no emotionally stable way to survive wanting someone this much otherwise.

“You okay?”

I blinked sharply.

Mikha was watching me now with growing amusement.

“I’m fine.”

“That sounded fake.”

“It wasn’t.”

“Babe,” she laughed softly, “you’ve been staring at the same page since I got here.”

She leaned slightly closer afterward, eyes narrowing as realization slowly crossed her face.

Then her entire expression brightened dangerously.

“Oh my God.”

“No.”

“You’re spiraling.”

“I am not spiraling.”

“You absolutely are.”

Chesca suddenly appeared from nowhere carrying two bottles of Pocari Sweat and the emotional energy of a gossip columnist.

“GOOD AFTERNOON LESBIANS.”

I nearly died instantly.

Chesca dropped onto the opposite side of the bench dramatically.

“You guys have a weird tension today.”

“We always have a weird tension,” Mikha answered casually.

“No this one feels…” She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “More illegal.”

“Illegal?” I repeated flatly.

“You look like you’re one emotional conversation away from ruining each other’s lives.”

Mikha burst into laughter immediately.

And unfortunately, watching her laugh after confessing love felt catastrophically intimate now too.

She leaned briefly against my shoulder while laughing, warm and familiar and entirely unaware of the fact that every casual touch from her now triggered immediate emotional collapse inside my chest.

Or maybe she was aware.

That possibility felt even more dangerous.

Because ever since the confession, Mikha had become bolder in small ways. Not performative. Not dramatic. Comfortable. Like she no longer feared wanting me openly.

And God.

I was beginning to realize how badly I wanted her too.

The terrifying thing about emotional certainty was how quickly the body adapted to it afterward.

One moment I was surviving love intellectually, observing it the way people observed dangerous weather from behind glass. The next, my entire nervous system had apparently decided Mikha Cruz belonged inside every physical instinct I possessed.

And unfortunately for my peace of mind, sophomore year provided endless opportunities to notice her.

The campus looked the same. The same pathways still glowed gold after afternoon rain. The same org booths continued weaponizing student enthusiasm against unsuspecting freshmen near SEC Walk. The same professors continued assigning academically criminal workloads with expressions of complete moral innocence.

But now every ordinary space carried Mikha inside it differently.

The cafeteria reminded me of the way she stole food from my tray without asking permission first. The Rizal Library still carried faint traces of the citrus perfume she wore during particularly exhausting weeks. Even the covered walkways had become emotionally dangerous because every time rain started falling, my body remembered the exact shape of her hand reaching for mine afterward.

Love had turned Ateneo into evidence.

And my body, apparently, had stopped behaving like something remotely manageable around her.

The first truly catastrophic incident happened during soccer practice.

Technically, I was not supposed to be there.

Not because varsity training was prohibited from spectators exactly, but because Mikha had specifically narrowed her eyes at me that morning and said, “Don’t stare at me weirdly during practice today.”

Which unfortunately implied she had already noticed the problem.

“I have never stared at you weirdly in my life,” I answered immediately.

Mikha looked unconvinced.

“Hindi yan totoo. Kahapon nga grabe ka makatingin sakin.”

“I was listening to you speak.”

“You were staring at my mouth, babe.”

Diane nearly choked on her iced coffee.

Meanwhile I stared at Mikha with the dignified silence of someone realizing she had become far too observant lately.

That was another dangerous consequence of the confession.

Before, we circled each other carefully. Even during intimacy, some part of both of us still hesitated before naming things fully. We hid inside implication. Inside almosts.

Now Mikha watched me with the confidence of someone who knew exactly how much she affected me.

And God.

That should not have been attractive.

Unfortunately, it was devastating.

Which explained why I somehow found myself standing near the edge of the soccer field Wednesday afternoon pretending I had arrived there accidentally.

The field smelled faintly like rain-damp grass and heat rising from rubber tracks beneath the sun. Varsity players moved across the field in bursts of motion while coaches barked instructions with military intensity from the sidelines. Somewhere behind me, students gathered beneath shaded bleachers pretending they were casually watching practice instead of openly admiring athletes.

I understood them now.

That realization disturbed me deeply.

Because Mikha during practice looked unfairly compelling in ways my body barely knew how to process with dignity.

It was not merely physical attractiveness. If it had been only that, maybe I could have survived it more gracefully.

No, the devastating part was competence.

Intensity.

The frighteningly beautiful focus she carried whenever she moved.

Mikha’s entire body changed during soccer.

The chaos softened into precision. Her usual warmth sharpened into concentration so complete it almost looked instinctive. She moved quickly across the field with the effortless confidence of someone who trusted her body completely despite everything it had endured these past months.

And suddenly I understood something horrifying.

Oh God.

She was beautiful when she moved.

The realization arrived with such immediate force I actually looked away briefly afterward like my nervous system required recovery time.

Unfortunately, looking away did not help.

Because then I started noticing smaller things instead.

The damp strands of hair sticking faintly against her forehead after drills.

The way her jersey lifted slightly whenever she stretched her arms upward.

The sharp inhale she took before sprinting.

The visible focus in her expression whenever she anticipated movement before everyone else on the field noticed it.

Everything about her felt alive.

Before the confession, I could still compartmentalize attraction from affection occasionally. I could observe her physically without immediately feeling emotional devastation underneath it.

Now my body recognized her entirely.

Every movement carried memory attached to it.

Every glance reminded me she loved me too.

Every smile felt frighteningly personal.

A whistle cut sharply across the field.

Mikha intercepted the ball mid-run before pivoting hard enough to dodge another player effortlessly. The movement happened so quickly half the field reacted a second too late.

Then she laughed.

God.

The sound carried across the afternoon air warm and breathless while sunlight caught against the sweat along her throat.

My entire brain stopped functioning immediately afterward.

“You are staring so hard right now.”

I nearly jumped.

Diane stood beside me holding two water bottles and the expression of someone spiritually entertained by my suffering.

“I am watching practice.”

“You look like you’re having a divine intervention.”

“I am not.”

“A,” she whispered dramatically, “you literally stopped blinking when Mikha started running.”

“That is medically impossible.”

“Barely.”

I ignored her.

Unfortunately, that was when Mikha glanced toward the sidelines.

And immediately found me.

Her entire face changed instantly.

The shift was subtle enough that most people would probably miss it completely. But I had spent too long memorizing Mikha’s expressions not to recognize the difference between her public smile and the softer one reserved specifically for me.

The warmth reached her eyes first.

Then her mouth curved slowly upward.

And suddenly the field no longer felt quite real anymore.

Because the terrifying thing about being loved openly was realizing how visible you became to each other afterward.

Even from opposite ends of a soccer field, I could feel her attention settling over me instinctively.

Mikha jogged toward the sidelines during water break a few minutes later, breathing heavily while wiping sweat from the back of her neck using the edge of her jersey.

Disaster.

Absolute disaster.

Because the motion exposed a brief stretch of warm skin above the waistband of her shorts and suddenly I understood why ancient literature was full of people making catastrophically poor decisions for love.

My body reacted so violently I physically looked away.

Too late.

Mikha noticed immediately.

The smile that spread across her face afterward nearly killed me.

“Oh my God,” she whispered.

“No.”

“You’re doing it again.”

“I have no idea what you mean.”

“Wag mo na pigilan babe.”

Diane made a choking sound beside me. “WAIT. Is Snob Queen thirsting?”

“I am literally standing here peacefully.”

“You looked at her abs like they personally betrayed your emotional stability.”

“I hate both of you.”

Mikha burst into laughter immediately afterward, breathless and flushed from practice while leaning one hand against her hip.

And unfortunately, that image entered my bloodstream permanently.

Because now every version of Mikha affected me differently.

Sleepy Mikha during lectures.

Focused Mikha during exams.

Emotionally chaotic Mikha during org meetings.

Athlete Mikha beneath afternoon sunlight looking unfairly alive after practice.

All of them reached me somewhere unbearably soft now.

Mikha took the sports drink from Diane before tilting her head back to drink.

I made the mistake of watching her throat move.

Deeply medically concerning.

“You’re staring again,” Mikha said without lowering the bottle.

“I am literally existing.”

“Parang uhaw na uhaw ka na talaga.”

“That’s because she is,” Diane answered helpfully.

“Diane.”

“What? My girlfriend looks like she’s losing a war against self-control.”

Girlfriend.

The word still startled me physically every single time.

Mikha noticed immediately.

Her expression softened.

God.

That softness would eventually ruin my entire life.

Practice resumed a few minutes later, but by then my nervous system had already accepted complete defeat.

Because now every time Mikha moved across the field, my body reacted with immediate painful awareness.

Not hunger exactly.

Something fuller.

Like admiration becoming physical too.

Like loving someone emotionally for so long had finally taught my body how to want her properly afterward.

And unfortunately, things only became worse from there.

Three days later, Mikha answered a question during Political Science and nearly destroyed what remained of my composure.

The classroom smelled faintly like old paper, coffee, and collective academic despair. Rain hammered softly against the windows while fluorescent lights buzzed overhead with the particular emotional hostility unique to university buildings during midterms season.

Most students looked spiritually deceased.

Mikha looked annoyingly beautiful.

She sat two seats away from me with one leg tucked carelessly beneath her chair while tapping a pen lightly against her notebook during discussion. The sleeves of her hoodie were pushed upward again, exposing her forearms in ways that should not have been psychologically distracting and yet somehow were. Loose strands of hair framed her face after getting caught in the rain earlier between classes, still slightly damp near the edges.

And unfortunately, ever since the confession, my attention toward her had become catastrophically physical in ways I barely knew how to survive quietly.

Before, attraction still arrived with hesitation attached to it. I could intellectualize it. Redirect it. Pretend my fascination with Mikha existed purely through emotional attachment and not through the deeply human desire to pull her closer whenever she smiled at me too softly.

Now my body had apparently stopped pretending alongside me.

Professor Ramos paced slowly near the front discussing political accountability while students attempted consciousness around him.

“Ms. Cruz.”

Mikha blinked once before looking up. “Hm?”

“How would you interpret institutional dependency in this context?”

She straightened slightly afterward.

And immediately my nervous system betrayed me.

Because there was something deeply unfair about watching Mikha become intellectually confident in real time.

The warmth in her face sharpened into focus. Her posture shifted subtly, like her mind had finally found something interesting enough to fully wake up for. Even her voice changed slightly whenever she started thinking seriously, growing steadier and lower and dangerously calm in a way that made me want to stare at her forever.

“It depends,” she answered slowly, “on whether dependency is being framed as structural necessity or emotional conditioning.”

My entire train of thought disappeared instantly.

God.

That voice.

Not loud. Not dramatic. Just certain in a way that settled beneath my skin embarrassingly fast. Mikha always spoke like she was building the thought carefully while saying it aloud, adjusting pieces into place mid-sentence until suddenly the entire argument made sense before anyone else had fully caught up yet.

And apparently that had become attractive now too.

Wonderful.

I stared at her for far too long before realizing what I was doing.

This relationship was becoming medically concerning.

Mikha continued answering while gesturing lightly with her pen, completely unaware that I was currently losing a private psychological battle two seats away.

Or maybe not completely unaware.

That possibility felt significantly worse.

Because ever since the confession, Mikha had started noticing everything.

Every delayed reaction.

Every prolonged glance. 

Every moment my thoughts visibly stopped functioning around her.

And God help me, she enjoyed it.

“Because institutions normalize dependency once survival becomes emotionally tied to the system itself,” she continued.

I should have been listening academically.

Instead, I became deeply distracted by her mouth halfway through the sentence.

The realization hit me so abruptly I physically froze.

Oh my God.

I wanted to kiss her.

Right now.

Mid-discussion.

In the middle of Political Science while thirty emotionally exhausted students slowly decomposed around us.

The thought arrived with such immediate sincerity I nearly dropped my pen.

Because now attraction no longer waited politely for romantic moments. Emotional intimacy had apparently ruined my ability to experience her casually. Watching her think affected me physically now. Watching her laugh affected me physically now.

Apparently watching her explain political theory also affected me physically now.

This was deeply humiliating.

Beside me, Chesca leaned slightly closer before whispering:

“You are staring at her like she’s explaining the meaning of life.”

“I am listening.”

“No, babes,” she whispered. “You look one deep breath away from climbing into her lap.”

Heat climbed violently into my face.

“I hate everyone.”

Diane snorted from behind us. “No you don’t. You’re just finally horny now in an emotionally committed way.”

“DIANE.”

“What? That’s literally the vibe.”

“I’m going to transfer schools.”

“Too late. You already look married.”

Unfortunately, that almost made me laugh.

Almost.

Then Mikha glanced toward our side of the room.

And somehow…

Somehow…

She noticed immediately.

The exact second realization crossed her face, her answer faltered briefly.

Just slightly.

But I saw it.

Warmth spread slowly across her expression afterward, subtle enough that Professor Ramos thankfully missed it completely. Mikha looked back toward the front trying to continue speaking normally, but I caught the tiny smile threatening near the corner of her mouth.

Oh.

Oh, that was dangerous.

Because suddenly it became painfully obvious that whatever emotional collapse I was experiencing around her lately was happening to Mikha too.

Neither of us knew how to behave normally anymore after the confession.

We kept trying.

And failing catastrophically.

The failures became smaller after that.

Worse in some ways because they happened constantly.

Tiny accidental moments of intimacy that now carried unbearable emotional weight beneath them.

Mikha fixing my collar absentmindedly before class while standing much too close.

My hand brushing against her thigh beneath cafeteria tables and both of us immediately going silent afterward like the contact physically short-circuited our ability to function.

Lingering hugs that lasted several seconds too long because neither of us wanted to let go first anymore.

Forehead touches during late-night study sessions whenever exhaustion softened us enough to stop pretending composure mattered.

And the staring.

God.

The staring had become a genuine issue.

One evening inside Rizal Library, Mikha leaned across the table to grab one of my reviewers.

Her sleeve brushed lightly against my wrist.

And immediately everything inside me stopped working properly.

Because the movement brought her close enough that I could smell rainwater lingering faintly in her hair beneath citrus shampoo and laundry detergent. Her knee brushed mine beneath the table. One loose strand of hair slipped near her mouth while she searched through my notes with quiet concentration completely unaware she was currently destroying my emotional stability.

Or maybe she was aware.

That possibility became significantly more likely when she looked up and caught me staring again.

The space between us suddenly felt smaller than it actually was.

Not tense exactly.

Just unbearably full.

Like the silence itself had become crowded with recognition. With longing. With too many things both of us were still learning how to carry openly without combusting from it.

Mikha’s eyes dropped briefly toward my mouth before lifting again.

The movement lasted maybe half a second.

Long enough to completely ruin me anyway.

“You okay?” she whispered softly.

No.

Absolutely not.

Because the problem was becoming impossible to ignore now.

I did not simply love Mikha Cruz anymore.

I wanted her with frightening sincerity.

My body wanted the closeness my heart had already accepted long before.

And every passing day after the confession seemed to drag that realization deeper beneath my skin until even ordinary moments with her started feeling intimate enough to ache.

The terrifying part was that Mikha seemed to understand exactly what was happening to me.

And instead of retreating from it, she kept moving closer.

By the time sophomore year ended, the campus had become unbearable in the specific way only summer could make a place unbearable.

The heat did not simply sit over campus. It entered everything. It gathered in the hallways after lunch and stayed there like a threat. It clung to the backs of uniforms, softened the edges of notebooks, made iced coffee sweat through plastic cups before anyone even took a sip. Even the trees along the walkways looked tired, their leaves hanging too still in the thick afternoon air, as if the entire campus had decided to suffer quietly until June.

Most students had already left after finals, scattering toward vacations, internships, family obligations, or the kind of sleep no one could afford during exam week. The usual noise of Ateneo had thinned into something strange and echoing. Empty classrooms stayed dim behind glass windows. Bulletin boards still carried old announcements curling at the corners. The corridors smelled faintly of dust, sun-baked concrete, and the last exhausted traces of a school year that had taken too much from everyone.

The org room should have felt larger without all the people.

Instead, it felt smaller.

Maybe because the silence kept making me aware of Mikha’s breathing.

Maybe because every time the ceiling fan rattled overhead, it pushed warm air across the table and carried her scent with it. Citrus shampoo, detergent, summer sweat, and something familiar enough now that my body recognized it before thought could.

Maybe because love, once spoken aloud, made proximity feel like evidence.

We were supposed to be working.

That was the official reason we were still there two days after finals ended, surrounded by budget reports, event folders, leftover markers, half-finished banners, and iced coffee cups abandoned in various states of emotional collapse. The year-end exhibit had technically ended, but organizations had a way of producing paperwork long after the actual event died. Apparently, student leadership did not respect grief, exhaustion, or the human need to disappear after exams.

Mikha sat across from me, sprawled in a monoblock chair like committee work had personally ruined her life. One leg was tucked beneath her, one arm stretched across the table, and her hair was tied carelessly with strands escaping around her face because the heat had defeated whatever attempt she made at neatness earlier.

I had been trying to reconcile reimbursement receipts for twenty minutes.

Trying was the operative word.

Because Mikha Cruz had spent the last several weeks turning ordinary existence into a sustained psychological attack on my composure, and by that evening, I was operating with whatever dignity remained from the wreckage.

“Babe.”

I did not look up. “Hm.”

“You’ve been staring at that same column for ten minutes.”

“I’m computing.”

“You typed your name under printing expenses.”

I froze.

Slowly, I looked down.

AIAH LEDESMA sat in bold capital letters between bond paper and tarpaulin layout fee.

Across from me, Mikha started laughing.

Her laughter filled the room too easily. It bounced against the walls, softened the ugly fluorescent lights, made the heat feel briefly survivable. I should have been annoyed. Instead, my chest responded with that familiar helpless folding sensation, as if happiness had become something my body experienced through her first.

I deleted my name from the spreadsheet with as much dignity as possible.

“You are distracting,” I said.

Mikha grinned. “I’m literally sitting.”

“That has never stopped you from causing damage.”

“Damage?” She leaned forward, delighted. “Grabe naman. Existing lang ako, may casualties agad?”

“With you, yes.”

Her smile widened in a way that immediately made me regret speaking.

That was another consequence of the confession. Mikha had become impossible in entirely new ways. Before, she flirted like someone throwing pebbles at windows, testing whether anyone would open them. Now she flirted like someone already standing inside the house, barefoot and comfortable and fully aware she was welcome there.

The difference was devastating.

She had stopped asking permission to be loved.

And I had no idea how to survive how much I liked that.

Mikha reached across the table for one of the highlighters near my elbow. Her fingers brushed mine by accident or possibly by design. With Mikha, those distinctions had become increasingly difficult to trust.

My entire hand went still.

She noticed instantly.

Her eyes lifted to mine, warm with amusement, then softened when she saw whatever my face failed to conceal quickly enough.

“Still doing that?” she asked.

“Doing what?”

“That thing where one touch makes you look like your soul left your body.”

“My soul is intact.”

“Barely.”

“You are very confident for someone who still needs me to approve the liquidation report.”

She gasped. “Power abuse.”

“Efficiency.”

“Snob Queen behavior.”

“Accurate financial governance.”

“Hot.”

I stopped typing.

Mikha’s grin turned wicked.

There it was again. That deliberate little spark in her eyes whenever she realized she had struck somewhere sensitive. She enjoyed making me react far too much now, but there was no cruelty in it. Only delight. Only the kind of affection that made teasing feel like touch.

“You cannot just say things like that,” I said carefully.

“Why not?”

“Because we are working.”

“Babe, you typed your full government name under printing expenses. We are not working successfully.”

Unfortunately, she had a point.

I returned to the spreadsheet anyway because someone between the two of us had to pretend self-control still existed.

For exactly thirty-seven seconds, it worked.

Then Mikha groaned dramatically and threw her head back against the chair.

“Ang init talaga. I swear, this room is trying to cook us alive.”

“The fan is on.”

“The fan is fighting for its life.”

“It is doing its best.”

“So am I, pero parang hindi enough.”

I glanced up despite myself.

She had tugged at the collar of her shirt, lifting the fabric slightly away from her skin. Her hair stuck faintly to the side of her neck. Her cheeks were flushed from the heat. Beneath the table, she nudged one sandal off and stretched her foot lazily against the floor, the picture of careless discomfort.

My eyes stayed on her longer than they should have.

Mikha caught me.

Her expression changed slowly, amusement blooming like she had discovered a secret she planned to weaponize immediately.

“Ayan na naman.”

I looked back at the spreadsheet. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“You looked.”

“I have eyes.”

“You used them with feelings.”

“That sentence means nothing.”

“It means you checked me out emotionally.”

I pressed my lips together.

Mikha leaned forward, chin propped on her hand, watching me with entirely too much joy.

“You know,” she said, voice dropping into something soft and playful, “dati akala ko impossible kang ma-fluster.”

“I am not flustered.”

“You are literally the color of that red marker.”

I glanced at the marker beside my laptop.

It was aggressively red.

“That is because of the heat.”

“Sure,” she said, stretching the word until it became deeply insulting. “Mainit talaga.”

I refused to answer.

Mikha laughed under her breath and finally looked away, rummaging through the bag beside her chair. The small reprieve should have helped. Instead, it gave me several seconds to observe the dangerous truth that I had become increasingly incapable of existing around her casually.

The weeks after the confession had been full of small failures.

Mikha fixing my collar before class and leaving her fingers there half a second too long. Me forgetting the entire opening paragraph of a report because she smiled at me across the room. Her falling asleep against my shoulder in the library and waking with a softened look that made my chest ache for the rest of the day. My hand brushing her thigh under a cafeteria table and both of us going silent as if the whole world had narrowed to a single point of contact.

We were trying to adjust to loving each other openly.

We were failing with enthusiasm.

And worse, we were starting to enjoy the failure.

“Aha,” Mikha said suddenly.

I looked up.

She pulled a folded dark blue shirt from her bag and held it like a miracle.

I recognized it immediately.

The org shirt.

One of the new ones printed for the year-end exhibit. Dark navy cotton, Ateneo lettering across the back, the org insignia near the chest. Simple. Ordinary. Harmless on anyone else.

On Mikha, apparently, a weapon.

My body understood danger before my mind fully did.

“Mikha.”

“What?”

“What are you doing?”

“Changing.”

My hand tightened around my pen. “Here?”

She looked around the empty room exaggeratedly. “Who’s here? The ghost of unfinished paperwork?”

“That is not the point.”

“May undershirt naman.”

Again, not the point.

Unfortunately, explaining the actual point would require admitting that the sight of her changing shirts in front of me might permanently damage my remaining ability to form coherent thought. And because I still possessed some pride, however wounded, I chose silence.

Mikha’s smile sharpened.

“Oh,” she whispered. “So that’s the problem.”

“There is no problem.”

“Babe.”

“Mikha.”

“Wag mo na pigilan.”

“Mikha Cruz.”

“What?” She stood, laughing softly, and the sound slid under my skin before I could defend myself from it. “I’m just changing shirts. Ikaw yung may emotional crisis.”

“I am reviewing expenses.”

“You are gripping your pen like it owes you money.”

I looked down.

My knuckles had gone slightly pale.

I loosened my grip immediately.

Mikha’s laughter softened, and for one brief second, her face changed into something tender enough that I forgot what we were joking about. That was the real danger with her. She could tease me mercilessly one moment, then look at me like I was something precious the next, and my body never knew which kind of collapse to prepare for.

Then she reached for the hem of her shirt.

Every thought in my head stopped at once.

She pulled it upward in one smooth motion, casual and unthinking in the way only Mikha could be casual and unthinking while altering the trajectory of my evening completely. The white sleeveless undershirt underneath clung lightly to her skin from the summer heat. Damp strands of hair fell forward around her face when the shirt passed over her head, and she shook them away with a small laugh before tossing the old shirt over the back of the chair.

I should have looked away.

I had been raised with more discipline than this.

I understood restraint. Precision. The art of making one’s face unreadable even in rooms designed to make people reveal weakness.

But Mikha stood across from me flushed from heat, hair messy, undershirt clinging to the warm line of her shoulders, and every carefully built system inside me failed with humiliating speed.

Because this was not about seeing skin.

It was about being trusted with nearness.

It was about the ease with which she occupied space around me now, as if my gaze did not threaten her, as if being seen by me was no longer something she braced for but something she allowed. Something she chose.

That realization reached me deeper than attraction could have on its own.

Mikha lifted the org shirt over her head and pulled it down. The dark cotton settled over her shoulders, still stiff from too few washes. The collar slipped wider than it should have, falling slightly toward one side until the line of her collarbone appeared beneath the fluorescent light.

My pen rolled off the table.

It hit the floor with a small, useless clatter.

Neither of us moved.

Mikha looked at the pen.

Then at me.

Her smile grew slowly.

“Oh my God.”

I closed my eyes briefly.

“Don’t.”

“You dropped your pen.”

“I’m aware.”

“Because of my shirt?”

“Because of gravity.”

“Gravity looks like me now?”

“That sentence is absurd.”

“But you liked it.”

“I did not.”

“You did.” She sat back down across from me, now wearing the org shirt like it had been designed specifically to ruin my life. “This shirt looks good on me, no?”

“It is a standard org shirt.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“You look ridiculous.”

She leaned forward with both elbows on the table, smiling like she had already won. “Liar.”

I looked down at the reports, which had become completely meaningless. Numbers blurred. Receipts lost relevance. The entire concept of financial accountability seemed suddenly less important than the way Mikha’s collar dipped when she leaned closer.

The fan turned overhead, carrying her scent toward me again.

Citrus. Laundry detergent. Warmth. Summer.

Something alive.

The room seemed to narrow around it.

“Babe.”

I forced my gaze up. “What?”

“You’re staring again.”

“I am thinking.”

“About my collarbone?”

Heat rushed up my throat so fast it felt like injury.

“Mikha.”

She laughed, delighted, and leaned back in her chair. “Okay, sorry. I’ll behave.”

“That would be new.”

“Wow. Rude.”

“Accurate.”

“Hot.”

“Mikha.”

“What? You’re extra strict today. It’s cute.”

I tried to return to the laptop. I really did.

But the problem with pretending not to look was that every attempt made me more aware of the effort. I could feel where she sat across from me. Could hear the soft scratch of her pen against the margin of my printed report. Could sense the warmth of her attention every time she glanced up and caught me failing again.

Minutes passed like that.

Or possibly hours.

Time had become unreliable where Mikha was concerned.

Outside, the last of the sunset slipped lower, turning the windows a muted orange. The hallway beyond the door had gone almost completely still. Somewhere far away, a chair scraped against the floor. Someone laughed, then the sound faded.

Mikha’s smile dimmed slightly, not from sadness but from something more serious entering the space between us.

“You know,” she said quietly, “you look at me differently now.”

My chest tightened.

I held the pen between my fingers and stared at the cap.

“How?”

She shrugged, but her eyes stayed on me. “Like you’re still surprised.”

I did not answer immediately because the truth was too close.

Mikha rested her chin against her forearm on the table, the oversized shirt slipping again near one shoulder. Her hair fell beside her cheek. She looked too young and too tired and too beautiful in that terrible fluorescent-lit room, surrounded by receipts and coffee cups and old event folders, and I felt something inside me soften so completely it frightened me.

Because she was right.

I was still surprised.

Not by her beauty. Not by wanting her. Not even by the fact that she loved me.

I was surprised by the ease of her staying.

Every day after the confession, some quiet part of me expected the world to correct itself. For her to realize I was too controlled, too difficult, too emotionally delayed. For the softness between us to fade once the intensity settled. For love to become something we had said in a fragile moment and then struggled to carry in ordinary light.

But Mikha kept arriving.

In classrooms. In hallways. At my side during lunch. Across from me inside empty org rooms after finals.

Loud, warm, impossible.

Still choosing me like it was obvious.

“I think,” I said carefully, “I am still adjusting to the fact that you mean it.”

Mikha’s expression changed.

The teasing disappeared slowly, and in its place came a softness that made the room feel even warmer.

“That I love you?”

My fingers tightened around the pen.

Even now, hearing it so directly from her affected me physically.

“Yes.”

She looked at me for a long moment.

Then she smiled, small and almost shy despite everything.

“Babe,” she said, voice gentler now, “I meant it before I said it.”

The words entered me quietly.

Then stayed.

I could not look away from her after that.

The summer heat pressed around us. The fan rattled overhead. My laptop screen dimmed from inactivity between us, and neither of us moved to wake it.

Something shifted again.

The teasing had taken us here, but it could not carry us further.

Mikha seemed to feel it too.

Her gaze lowered briefly to my hand on the table.

Then, slowly, she reached across.

Her fingers touched mine first, light enough to ask.

I let her.

She slid her hand into mine carefully, palm warm, thumb brushing once over my knuckles. Such a small movement. Nothing dramatic enough for anyone else to understand if they walked in.

But my body understood.

My body had been understanding her long before I had language brave enough to admit it.

“There,” she whispered, smiling faintly. “See? You survived.”

“No.”

Her eyebrows lifted.

“I have not survived anything.”

She laughed softly, but it trembled at the edge.

I heard it.

Of course I heard it.

That was love too, I was learning. Recognizing when laughter carried something fragile beneath it.

Mikha’s thumb moved again across my hand.

“You’re looking at me like that again,” she said.

“How?”

“Like you want something.”

The sentence landed between us with terrifying accuracy.

My breath caught.

Mikha’s eyes widened slightly, as if she had surprised herself by saying it aloud. A flush rose in her cheeks, no longer just from heat.

For once, she looked away first.

And God.

That nearly undid me.

Because Mikha could tease me until I wanted to crawl out of my own skin, but the moment honesty caught up with her, she became soft in a way that made me want to hold her carefully.

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly, laughing under her breath. “That sounded…”

“It did.”

She looked mortified. “Babe.”

“What?”

“Can you please pretend I did not say that?”

“No.”

“Grabe ka naman.”

“You started it.”

“Hindi ko sinasadya.”

“You often don’t.”

She covered part of her face with one hand, embarrassed now, and the sight of her flustered after weeks of making me suffer felt dangerously satisfying.

I should have let her recover.

Instead, because I was apparently becoming reckless around her, I asked quietly, “What if you were right?”

Her hand lowered slowly.

The room went very still.

Mikha looked at me.

Really looked.

The warmth in her expression shifted into something startled, almost disbelieving.

“What?”

I swallowed.

My heart was beating too hard now.

The confession had taught me something dangerous. That the body sometimes knew the truth before language could arrange itself around it. That resistance could start to feel less like discipline and more like fear pretending to be virtue.

And I was tired of being afraid of wanting her.

I was tired of turning every instinct into something I had to manage.

“I said,” I repeated, softer this time, “what if you were right?”

Mikha’s lips parted slightly.

For several seconds, she did not tease me.

That was how I knew the moment had changed completely.

But wanting her had changed shape the longer I sat with it.

It was no longer the humiliating physical reaction I kept trying to hide from Diane and Chesca.

It had become almost reverent.

I wanted to touch her the way people touched things they had prayed for without realizing.

Carefully. Gratefully. Afraid to break the moment by needing too much.

Mikha stood first.

Slowly.

The chair scraped softly against the floor, and the sound seemed too loud inside the quiet room.

I looked up at her.

She came around the table.

Each step made my heart beat harder.

“Baby.”

“Hmm?”

“What are you doing?”

She stopped beside my chair, close enough that the edge of her shirt brushed my arm.

“Checking.”

“Checking what?”

“If you’re going to run.”

The question beneath the words reached me immediately.

Not physically.

Emotionally.

Because despite all her teasing, despite all her confidence, Mikha was still asking. Still leaving space. Still making sure the bridge between us could hold the weight of what came next.

My chest ached with it.

“I’m not going to run.”

Her expression softened so completely I almost had to look away.

“Okay,” she whispered.

Then she bent slightly, reaching for the pen I had dropped earlier.

The movement brought her close enough that her hair brushed my wrist.

Everything inside me stopped.

She picked up the pen, but she did not straighten immediately.

Instead, she remained there beside me, one hand resting lightly on the table, the other holding my pen between her fingers. Her face was near mine now. Close enough for me to see the faint sheen of summer heat along her temple. Close enough to notice the tiny unevenness in her breathing.

Mikha Cruz, loudest person in most rooms, had gone quiet.

Because of me.

The thought moved through me like electricity.

She held out the pen.

“You dropped this.”

I took it.

Our fingers touched.

Again, such a small thing.

Again, catastrophic.

Mikha’s gaze flickered to my mouth.

Then back to my eyes.

My entire body reacted.

She noticed.

A breathless little smile touched her lips, but it was not smug this time. It was nervous. Young. Full of wonder.

“Babe,” she whispered, “you’re doing the thing again.”

I did not ask what thing.

I already knew.

I was looking at her like I had finally stopped pretending.

The silence between us became unbearable in the gentlest possible way. It felt crowded with every almost that had come before this. Every hand held too long. Every forehead touch. Every time I watched her sleep across a library table and wanted to smooth the exhaustion from her face. Every time she smiled at me like staying was easy.

My hand moved before I fully decided to move it.

I touched the edge of her sleeve first.

Barely.

Just my fingertips against dark blue cotton.

Mikha’s breathing changed.

I heard it.

The entire room seemed to hear it.

My fingers curled lightly into the fabric, testing the reality of it. The shirt felt warm from her body. Stiff in places from being new, softening already where she had worn it. Something about that made my chest tighten strangely.

A shirt.

Just cotton.

Just a printed org shirt.

And yet some part of me knew, even then, that this object had crossed into memory the moment she put it on in front of me.

Mikha looked down at my hand.

Then back at me.

“You can,” she said softly.

My throat tightened.

“I know.”

But knowing and doing were different kinds of courage.

Her smile trembled.

“Then why do you look scared?”

Because I want too much, I thought.

Because if I touch you properly, I may never understand how to untouch you afterward.

Because loving you already feels like architecture inside me, and I am terrified by how quickly my life has started building itself around your presence.

I did not say any of that.

Instead, I said, “Because this matters.”

Mikha stopped breathing for a second.

The honesty seemed to reach her somewhere deep. I saw it in the way her face softened, in the way her grip on my pen loosened, in the way her eyes searched mine like she had found something fragile and did not want to mishandle it.

Then she smiled.

Small. Almost aching.

“Yeah,” she whispered. “It does.”

And that was what broke me.

Not her teasing. Not the shirt. Not the collarbone or the heat or the unbearable nearness.

That.

The fact that she understood.

The fact that she could stand there in front of me wearing an oversized org shirt, flushed from summer heat and still laughing at the edges, and somehow hold the emotional weight of the moment with both hands.

I stood slowly.

Mikha’s eyes followed me upward.

Now we were close enough that I could feel the warmth coming from her body. Close enough that if I inhaled too deeply, she became part of the air.

The fluorescent light hummed overhead. The ceiling fan rattled. Somewhere outside, the world continued without understanding that everything inside this room had narrowed to the small space between her mouth and mine.

Mikha’s gaze dropped again.

This time, she did not hide it.

My heart stuttered violently.

She whispered my name.

“Babe.”

It sounded different.

Not the way she said it when teasing me. Not the way she called me from across hallways or groaned it dramatically when I refused to let her copy my notes. This was quieter. Softer. Like my name had become something she did not want to disturb by speaking too loudly.

I lifted my hand to her face.

Slowly.

Carefully.

My fingertips touched her cheek first, and the warmth of her skin beneath my hand made my chest ache.

Mikha’s eyes fluttered slightly.

God.

I nearly lost every remaining part of myself right there.

“You’re shaking,” she whispered.

“So are you.”

Her breath caught.

Then she laughed softly, almost soundlessly, because we both knew I was right.

The laughter dissolved the last thin layer of fear between us.

My thumb moved once along her cheek.

Mikha leaned into it.

That small surrender undid me completely.

There are moments the body understands before memory finishes forming them. Moments so quiet from the outside that they might look ordinary to anyone passing by, but inside them, entire futures shift direction. I did not know yet what this shirt would become. I did not know how many years later I would remember the exact warmth of her cheek beneath my palm, the rattle of the fan, the smell of summer and detergent and citrus in that overheated room.

I only knew that resisting her had started to feel more impossible than surrender.

So I stopped resisting.

I leaned forward.

The first touch of our lips was impossibly soft.

So soft that for one suspended second, neither of us moved.

It did not feel like impact.

It felt like recognition.

Like my body had arrived somewhere my heart had been trying to reach for months.

Mikha inhaled sharply against me.

The sound entered my chest and stayed there.

I almost pulled back out of instinct, out of fear, out of the old reflex of retreating whenever feeling became too large.

But Mikha’s hand lifted to my wrist.

Not to hold me there.

Just to touch me.

Just enough to say she was still with me.

So I kissed her again.

Slowly this time.

Still careful.

Still trembling.

Her lips moved against mine with the same hesitation I felt in my own body, tentative at first, then warmer as the shock gave way to something both of us had been carrying too long. My hand slid from her cheek to the side of her neck, and the heat of her skin beneath my palm made the room tilt quietly around me.

Mikha made the smallest sound into the kiss.

Barely there.

Almost swallowed by the fan overhead.

But I heard it.

And something inside me came undone.

She stepped closer.

Or maybe I pulled her closer.

The distinction disappeared quickly.

The kiss deepened not because either of us planned it, but because returning to each other became easier than stopping. We parted once only to breathe, foreheads nearly touching, both of us stunned by the same realization.

This was allowed.

This was real.

She was looking at me like I had just become something visible she had been reaching for in the dark.

“Okay?” she whispered.

I should have answered.

I kissed her instead.

Mikha laughed softly against my mouth, breathless and disbelieving, and the sound turned the entire moment bright for half a second before tenderness swallowed it again.

Her hands found the front of my blouse carefully, fingers curling lightly into the fabric like she needed something to hold onto. Mine slipped lower without thinking, catching the side of her org shirt.

The cotton gathered warm and unmistakably hers beneath my fingers.

The kiss changed after that.

Still not careless.

Never careless.

But fuller now. Less afraid. As if both of us had realized at the exact same time that the threshold had already been crossed and pretending otherwise would be useless. Mikha stepped closer until there was barely any space left between us, and I felt the heat of her through the thin layers of fabric, felt her breath hitch when my hand tightened unconsciously at her waist.

It was too much.

It was not enough.

I had spent so long turning love into observation that finally touching her felt like language arriving late to a truth my body had known for ages.

My fingers curled into the fabric.

Mikha leaned into me.

I held on tighter.

And then the shirt tore.

The sound was small.

Sharp.

Unmistakable.

Cotton giving way beneath my hand.

Both of us froze instantly.

The room rushed back around us in pieces.

The ceiling fan.
The fluorescent light.
Our breathing.
The torn fabric caught between my fingers.

Mikha’s forehead rested near mine. Her lips were parted. Her eyes were wide.

I looked down slowly.

There, near the hem of the dark blue org shirt, the fabric had ripped where my hand still clutched it.

My entire body went cold despite the heat.

“Oh my God,” I whispered.

Mikha did not move.

Neither did I.

For several seconds, we simply stood there in the aftermath, breathing unevenly, staring at the evidence of what my restraint had failed to survive.

I had never lost control like that before.

Not physically.

Not visibly.

Not in a way that left proof.

My hand trembled when I released the torn edge.

“I’m sorry,” I said immediately, voice barely working. “I didn’t mean to—”

Mikha looked from the tear to me.

And the expression on her face stopped every apology in my throat.

Because she was not upset.

She was looking at me with something close to wonder.

Like she had just seen the door open.

Like she had always suspected there was more feeling beneath my restraint than I allowed into the world, and now, finally, there it was.

Visible.

Torn into cotton.

Breathing between us.

Her lips curved slowly, but it was not the teasing smile from earlier.

This one was softer.

Almost reverent.

“Babe,” she whispered.

“I ruined it.”

“You kissed me.”

“That is not the issue.”

“You kissed me,” she repeated, and this time her voice shook with quiet happiness.

My chest hurt.

Because the shirt was torn, my hand was still trembling, my mouth still remembered hers, and Mikha Cruz was standing in front of me looking like the damage mattered less than the fact that I had finally stopped running from her.

A laugh escaped her then.

Small. Breathless. Disbelieving.

It broke something open in the room.

I stared at her.

She covered her mouth with one hand for a second, laughing harder now, cheeks flushed, eyes bright.

“Oh my God,” she whispered. “You ripped my shirt.”

“I am aware.”

“You ripped my org shirt.”

“I said I’m aware.”

“Snob Queen.”

“Mikha.”

“You kissed me so hard you tore organizational merchandise.”

I closed my eyes.

“I am going to walk into traffic.”

She laughed again, and this time I could not stop the helpless smile pulling at my own mouth.

Because of course.

Of course the most emotionally significant kiss of my life would end with damaged org apparel and Mikha Cruz looking like she had just won an Olympic medal in making me lose control.

“You are enjoying this too much,” I said.

“Babe.” She pressed both hands against her cheeks like she was trying to contain joy physically. “You ripped my shirt.”

“I will pay for another one.”

“That’s not the point.”

“It is literally the point.”

“No.” She stepped closer again, still smiling, still breathless. “The point is you wanted me so much you forgot your self-control.”

My face heated violently.

“I hate you.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is becoming true.”

“You kissed me first.”

“You were standing too close.”

“You stood up.”

“You changed shirts in front of me.”

“May undershirt nga.”

“That was never the issue.”

Her smile softened again.

The laughter faded slowly, leaving something tender behind it.

For a moment, neither of us spoke.

Mikha reached down and touched the torn hem lightly, then placed her hand over mine.

The gesture quieted me immediately.

Her fingers were warm.

Still slightly trembling.

That comforted me more than it should have.

Because she had been affected too.

Because I had not crossed that threshold alone.

“Hey,” she whispered.

I looked at her.

She squeezed my hand once.

“It’s okay, babe.”

The simplicity of it nearly undid me.

Maybe because I realized then that I had been waiting for reassurance without knowing it. That some part of me feared I had become too much in the span of one kiss. Too intense. Too uncontained. Too visibly hungry for someone who had spent most of her life turning desire into discipline.

But Mikha looked at me like my want did not frighten her.

Like it moved her.

Like she had been waiting, patiently and impossibly, for me to believe I was allowed to reach for her too.

I exhaled shakily.

She noticed.

Her smile turned impossibly gentle.

Then, because she was Mikha, she ruined the tenderness by whispering, “Also, for the record, I support this version of you.”

I stared at her.

“This version?”

“Yung nananira ng damit.”

“Mikha.”

“Very passionate. Very surprising. Very sexy of you.”

“I am never kissing you again.”

“Fake news.”

“Try me.”

She leaned closer, eyes bright with challenge and affection.

“Okay.”

My breath caught before I could stop it.

Mikha saw.

The smugness returned immediately.

“See?”

“You are impossible.”

“But you like me.”

I looked at her.

At the flushed warmth in her cheeks.
At the torn shirt beneath my hand.
At her mouth, still slightly swollen from mine.
At the joy she was trying and failing to hide behind teasing.

And the truth arrived with such clarity it left no room for defense.

“I love you,” I said quietly.

Mikha’s smile faltered.

The room stilled again.

I did not say anything else.

I did not need to.

Her face changed in that slow, devastating way I was beginning to understand meant something had reached her where joking could not protect her quickly enough.

“You do?” she asked softly.

The question was ridiculous.

We had confessed love already.

We had kissed.
I had literally torn her shirt.

And still, some part of her needed to hear it in the smallest forms too.

That destroyed me.

“Yes,” I said. “I do love you, baby.”

Her eyes shone.

Then she leaned forward and kissed me.

This time, she initiated.

Softly.

Gently.

Without teasing.

The kiss was brief, barely more than a promise pressed against my mouth, but somehow it felt just as devastating as the first. Maybe because it carried gratitude. Maybe because it said she understood all the things I still could not articulate gracefully.

When she pulled back, our foreheads rested together.

For several breaths, we stayed like that.

Breathing. Smiling faintly.  Still trembling.

The torn shirt hung between us like evidence.

The org room no longer felt like a room.

It felt like a place where something irreversible had happened.

Outside, somewhere down the hallway, voices approached.

Both of us froze.

Mikha’s eyes widened.

I looked toward the door.

The voices grew louder, followed by footsteps and the unmistakable sound of Diane laughing at something Chesca said.

Panic shot through me.

“Mikha.”

“Shit.”

“We need to—”

The doorknob rattled.

Mikha moved with alarming speed.

She grabbed her old shirt from the chair, shoved it against her chest, then looked down at the torn org shirt she was still wearing.

I stared at her.

She stared back.

For half a second, neither of us had a single intelligent thought.

Then she whispered, “Act normal.”

“That has never worked for us.”

The door opened.

Diane entered first, holding a plastic bag of snacks, followed by Chesca carrying three iced coffees and the deeply suspicious expression of someone who had interrupted something interesting.

Both of them stopped.

Mikha stood beside my chair wearing a visibly torn org shirt, cheeks flushed, hair messier than before.

I stood beside her looking, I assumed, like someone recently involved in a crime.

The room went silent.

Diane’s gaze dropped to the tear.

Then to Mikha.

Then to me.

Chesca slowly lowered the drinks onto the table.

Nobody spoke.

Then Diane whispered, “Oh my God.”

“No,” I said immediately.

Chesca pointed at Mikha’s shirt. “What happened?”

“Fan,” Mikha said quickly.

I closed my eyes.

Diane looked at the ceiling fan.

The ceiling fan rattled innocently overhead.

“The fan,” Diane repeated.

“Yes,” Mikha said with conviction.

“The ceiling fan.”

“Yes.”

“Attacked your shirt.”

Mikha nodded. “Violently.”

Chesca stared at her.

Then at me.

Then back at the torn hem.

“From down there?”

Mikha looked down.

The tear was very much near her waist.

“It was a complicated fan incident.”

Diane made a sound like she was trying not to scream.

I picked up the nearest folder and pretended to review it with the solemnity of a Supreme Court justice.

Chesca slowly turned toward me.

“Aiah.”

“What?”

“Why are you holding a folder upside down?”

I looked down.

Of course.

Mikha pressed her lips together violently.

Diane’s face transformed with dawning horror and delight.

“Oh my God,” she whispered. “You kissed.”

“No,” I said instantly.

Mikha said, “Maybe.”

I turned to her.

“Mikha.”

“What? I panicked.”

Chesca covered her mouth.

Diane pointed at the torn shirt with both hands.

“YOU KISSED AND SOMEONE RIPPED THE SHIRT?”

“MAYBE THE FAN DID,” Mikha said.

“The fan is now a lesbian icon,” Chesca whispered.

I wanted the floor to open.

Immediately.

Permanently.

Diane dropped into a chair like her knees had given out from the magnitude of gossip.

“I leave for twenty minutes to buy snacks and the Snob Queen becomes a homewrecker of cotton.”

“I did not—”

Mikha gasped dramatically. “Wait. Homewrecker of cotton is actually good.”

“Do not encourage this.”

Chesca leaned across the table toward me, eyes sparkling.

“Aiah, did you rip her shirt?”

“No.”

Mikha made a face.

I glared at her.

She mouthed, Sorry.

Then grinned.

Traitor.

Diane slapped both hands over her mouth. “She did.”

“I did not confirm anything.”

“You don’t have to. Your face filed the affidavit.”

Chesca wheezed.

Mikha started laughing again, helpless and bright and beautiful, still clutching her old shirt against her chest while standing beside me like our first kiss had become campus evidence within minutes.

And despite the humiliation burning through me, something warm bloomed underneath it.

Because this was absurd.

Deeply absurd.

The kind of scene I would have once found mortifying beyond recovery.

But Mikha was laughing, and Diane was losing consciousness from gossip, and Chesca was declaring the ceiling fan a witness, and I was standing in an overheated org room with my heart still racing from the first time I kissed the girl I loved.

It was ridiculous.

It was intimate.

It was ours.

Mikha looked at me then, still laughing, but her eyes softened when they met mine.

The room noise faded slightly around that look.

She stepped closer, just enough that her shoulder brushed mine.

“Okay ka lang?” she asked quietly, beneath Diane and Chesca’s ongoing emotional trial.

I looked at her.

The torn shirt. Her flushed cheeks. The softness she kept offering me even while teasing me half to death.

“Yes,” I said.

And for once, the answer came easily.

Her smile changed.

Then, carefully, almost shyly, she reached for my hand under the table.

I took it.

Diane, unfortunately, noticed immediately.

“OH MY GOD THEY’RE HOLDING HANDS AFTER THE CRIME.”

“Diane,” I said flatly.

“What? I’m processing history.”

Chesca lifted one iced coffee like a toast. “To the ceiling fan.”

Mikha laughed so hard she had to lean against me.

And this time, I let her.

Completely.

Later, when Diane and Chesca finally stopped interrogating us long enough to argue over snacks, Mikha slipped away to change back into her old shirt behind one of the standing tarps.

She emerged holding the torn org shirt in her hands.

For a moment, the comedy softened.

She looked at it quietly.

Then at me.

The shirt no longer looked like ordinary cotton. It had become something else entirely in the span of one evening. Proof. Evidence. A relic before either of us had the wisdom to be afraid of what relics meant.

Mikha crossed the room and placed it gently in my lap.

I looked down at it, startled.

“What are you doing?”

Her cheeks were still pink, but her smile had gone tender.

“Keep it.”

My throat tightened.

“Baby.”

“Babe,” she said softly, “it’s yours now anyway.”

The words entered me more deeply than she probably intended.

Or maybe she intended all of it.

With Mikha, love often arrived disguised as jokes until suddenly it was standing in front of me with both hands open.

I touched the torn fabric carefully.

Still warm.

Still faintly smelling like her.

Across the room, Diane whispered, “Wait, that’s actually romantic.”

Chesca sniffed dramatically. “I hate them.”

Mikha rolled her eyes, but she was smiling.

I could not speak.

Because if I did, I might say something too honest for a room with witnesses.

So I folded the shirt once across my lap and looked up at her.

Mikha understood anyway.

She always did.

Her smile softened into something I would remember for years.

Then she reached over, tapped the edge of my upside-down folder, and whispered, “Review your reports, Snob Queen.”

I looked down.

Still upside down.

Mikha laughed again.

And this time, even I smiled.

The torn org shirt stayed inside my bag for the rest of the week.

At first, I told myself it was practical.

Mikha had changed back into her old shirt after Diane and Chesca finished emotionally terrorizing us inside the org room, and bringing the damaged one home immediately simply felt inconvenient. Temporary. Sensible.

That explanation survived exactly until Saturday morning when I caught myself checking whether it was still folded properly between my notebooks before leaving for campus.

The semester ended quietly after that.

Not dramatically enough for the amount of change it carried.

One day the campus was still crowded with exhausted students dragging themselves through final requirements beneath unbearable May heat. Then suddenly classrooms emptied. Bulletin boards stopped updating. Hallways echoed differently. Ateneo softened into summer almost overnight.

And somehow, somewhere between the last org meeting and the beginning of June, Mikha stopped hesitating around me entirely.

Or maybe I simply stopped giving her reasons to.

The strange thing about finally being loved properly was realizing how much fear had existed underneath our relationship before neither of us knew what the other felt with certainty. Even after the confession, parts of us still moved carefully around each other at first, like people learning how to hold something fragile without breaking it accidentally.

But summer changed the shape of things.

The first kiss changed the shape of things.

After the org room, after the torn shirt, after that impossible breathless evening that still replayed itself inside my head at inconvenient hours of the night, affection stopped feeling like something either of us needed permission for.

It simply became part of us.

Like routine. Like instinct. Like breathing.

And unfortunately for my emotional stability, Mikha treated this development as a personal victory.

“You know what your problem is?” she asked one afternoon while lying dramatically across my bed surrounded by reviewers neither of us had touched in nearly twenty minutes.

I continued highlighting notes calmly. “The fact that you’re here.”

“You love that I’m here.”

“I tolerate your existence selectively.”

“That’s fake.”

“It’s nuanced.”

Mikha rolled onto her stomach afterward until her chin rested against my thigh, looking up at me with the deeply dangerous expression she always wore right before causing emotional damage.

“Ang clingy mo na babe.”

My highlighter stopped moving immediately.

“I reject that statement entirely.”

“You looked offended when I left early yesterday.”

“I was not offended.”

“You sighed.”

“I was breathing.”

“You looked at the door dramatically.”

“The door existed dramatically.”

Mikha burst into laughter.

God.

That laugh still ruined me every single time.

Not because it was seductive intentionally.

Because it sounded happy.

Because after everything both of us had carried silently for so long, hearing joy arrive so easily in her now felt almost sacred.

Summer brought softness back into Mikha little by little.

I did not realize how much I missed it until it returned.

Before the confession, she often loved me carefully, always leaving room for rejection somewhere beneath the affection. Even during moments where she looked at me like I personally held the emotional stability of her entire universe, she still made herself smaller instinctively afterward, like too much wanting might eventually scare me away.

Now she reached for me without hesitation.

Grabbed my hand in public without overthinking it.

Kissed my cheek while waiting for jeepneys.

Curled automatically against my side during movie nights at Diane’s condo.

Called me babe with such effortless affection that my chest still reacted embarrassingly every single time.

And apparently, once Mikha realized I wanted that affection just as desperately in return, she became emotionally unstoppable.

The “good luck kiss” situation escalated first.

At some point, Mikha decided every mildly stressful event required physical affection as intervention.

Before quizzes. Before reporting presentations. Before difficult family dinners. Before org meetings.

Once, before I attended a leadership seminar my mother insisted would be “good exposure,” Mikha stopped me outside the cafe near Katipunan before I could leave.

I blinked at her. “What?”

“You look stressed.”

“I am stressed.”

“Okay.”

Then she kissed me.

Soft. Quick. Warm enough that every coherent thought disappeared instantly.

When she pulled away, she studied my face carefully.

“Better?”

I stared at her.

Mikha tried not to smile.

Failed immediately.

“You cannot keep solving emotional problems through kissing.”

“Why not?”

“It lacks scientific credibility.”

“You seem calmer.”

“That is unrelated.”

“Babe.”

“I’m serious.”

“You literally melted.”

“I did not melt.”

“You looked at me like your soul temporarily evacuated your body.”

Unfortunately, that description was not entirely inaccurate.

The truly catastrophic part was that she was usually right.

Her affection worked on me with humiliating efficiency now.

Not dramatically from the outside.

Internally, however, my entire body had apparently started organizing itself around her presence without permission.

One missed forehead kiss before class could alter my mood for several hours.

A bad day became survivable the second she touched my hand.

Even silence felt different depending on whether or not she sat beside me while it happened.

The realization should have frightened me more than it did.

Instead, it felt inevitable.

Like my life had quietly rearranged itself around Mikha Cruz while I was too distracted loving her to notice properly.

“You know what’s crazy,” Diane announced one evening while all four of us occupied a coffee shop near campus pretending unsuccessfully to study.

“I’m afraid already,” I admitted.

“You got domesticated in record time.”

“I hate that word.”

“But it’s true,” Chesca added without looking up from her laptop. “Last year Aiah looked emotionally constipated every time someone touched her shoulder.”

“I still do.”

“No,” Diane corrected immediately. “Now you just become visibly soft around Mikha specifically.”

I continued typing with great dignity. “That sentence means nothing.”

Across from me, Mikha physically brightened.

Oh no.

Not the brightening.

The brightening always led to emotional terrorism.

“You think I make her soft?” she asked immediately.

Diane looked horrified. “You didn’t know?”

“Babes,” Chesca whispered, “you could literally ask Aiah to help bury a body and she’d probably say yes after one forehead kiss.”

“That is an outrageous accusation.”

Mikha looked delighted.

“You’d help me bury a body?”

“No.”

“What if I kissed you first.”

“That is manipulation.”

“But effective?”

I closed my laptop slowly.

“Everyone here is deeply annoying.”

Unfortunately, they only laughed harder.

Mikha eventually slid closer beside me afterward until our shoulders touched lightly.

The movement happened so naturally now.

No hesitation. No uncertainty. No careful pauses before affection.

Just instinct.

Her hand slipped beneath the table until our fingers intertwined automatically.

The immediate calm spreading through my chest afterward nearly offended me personally.

Mikha noticed.

“There,” she whispered softly near my ear. “You stopped glaring.”

“I was not glaring.”

“You looked one inconvenience away from corporate homicide.”

“That’s dramatic.”

“You’re dramatic.”

“You once cried because a stray cat ignored you.”

“She hurt my feelings.”

“She was asleep.”

“She knew what she did.”

I laughed before I could stop myself.

The sound startled both of us slightly.

Not because laughter itself was rare.

Because before Mikha, most of my happiness arrived restrained automatically. Carefully managed. Controlled enough that no one could accuse me of wanting too much from life.

But Mikha loved loudly enough to make restraint feel unnecessary sometimes.

That was the dangerous thing about her.

She made joy feel safe.

Summer moved slowly after that.

Lazy afternoons inside cafés with terrible air conditioning. Movie marathons where Mikha inevitably fell asleep halfway through while stealing most of the blanket. Study sessions that dissolved into conversations about impossible futures neither of us realized yet would hurt to remember later.

And through all of it, Mikha kept inventing reasons to kiss me.

“You answered my text fast kiss.”

“That is not a thing.”

“It is today.”

“You cannot create categories arbitrarily.”

“You’re cute when you’re annoyed.”

“That is unrelated.”

“Everything about you is related to kissing me.”

“Mikha.”

“What?” she grinned before kissing my cheek anyway.

Once, while we were walking home after dinner beneath weak Katipunan streetlights, she stopped suddenly in the middle of the sidewalk and grabbed my face with both hands.

I blinked at her in alarm. “What happened?”

“You looked stressed again.”

“I’m literally walking.”

“Exactly. Stressful.”

Then she kissed me softly beneath the yellow glow of streetlights while jeepneys passed loudly nearby and somebody somewhere played overly dramatic music through distorted speakers.

When she pulled away, she smiled with visible satisfaction.

“Better?”

I stared at her for several seconds.

Then, because apparently loving Mikha had started rewiring my survival instincts completely, I answered honestly.

“Yes.”

Something in her expression softened immediately afterward.

Just warm in that devastatingly sincere way that always made my chest ache slightly afterward.

Because even after months together, Mikha still looked a little amazed every time I admitted I needed her too.

The realization settled into both of us slowly.

Not just that we loved each other.

That we had started depending on each other emotionally in ways neither of us could undo gracefully anymore.

And strangely instead of frightening me, the intimacy became somewhere to rest.

One evening, we stayed inside my room while rain hammered heavily against the windows outside. Mikha lay sprawled across my bed beside scattered reviewers while I attempted to finish readings for an advanced political theory elective.

Attempted being the important word.

Because several minutes passed before I realized Mikha had gone suspiciously quiet.

I looked up carefully.

Dangerous mistake.

She was already watching me softly

“What?”

“You’re pretty.”

My entire nervous system malfunctioned instantly.

“That was unnecessary.”

“It is true.”

“You say things irresponsibly.”

“You get flustered irresponsibly.”

“I do not get flustered.”

Mikha physically snorted.

Then, before I could recover, she crawled closer across the bed until she rested beside me properly, one arm slipping lazily around my waist while her head settled against my shoulder.

The movement happened with such natural certainty that my body relaxed before my brain fully processed it.

Deeply emotionally compromising.

“You know what I realized?” she murmured sleepily afterward.

“I fear this conversation already.”

“You like being kissed now.”

I stared ahead at the rain-covered windows.

“No.”

“Babe.”

“I tolerate it.”

“You literally looked sad yesterday because I forgot your goodbye kiss.”

“I was tired.”

“You followed me back into the hallway.”

“That was just a coincidence.”

“You stood there silently until I kissed you.”

Unfortunately, that had indeed happened.

Mikha laughed softly beneath her breath before lifting her head slightly to look at me.

The rain softened outside into steady rhythm against the glass. The room smelled faintly like coffee and detergent and the lavender fabric conditioner. Mikha’s fingers moved absentmindedly against my waist while she studied my face with unbearable fondness.

“You know you can ask me too, right?”

My heartbeat lost coordination immediately.

“I do not need to ask.”

“You do the thing.”

“What thing?”

“The staring thing.”

“That clarifies nothing.”

“You look at me like you want affection but refuse to admit it verbally.”

“That is slander.”

“You literally tilted your head toward me last week because you wanted another kiss.”

“I was repositioning.”

“Emotionally?”

I closed my eyes briefly.

Because honestly?

At some point, loving Mikha stopped feeling like falling entirely.

It became a habit. Instinct. Muscle memory.

She reached for me and my body responded automatically now. She smiled and something inside my chest softened before thought could intervene. She kissed me and the entire day rearranged itself around the warmth afterward.

And the terrifying part was realizing how completely she had done the same around me.

Somewhere between the first kiss and now, we stopped feeling like two people trying to figure each other out.

Slowly, quietly, we became us.

Months passed and the shirt had quietly become part of my room.

At least, that was the lie I kept telling myself whenever I saw it folded carefully between books on my desk chair or resting beside my laptop after nights where Mikha stayed too long studying and neither of us wanted to acknowledge how late it already was.

Enough time for the fabric to soften from repeated washing.

Enough time for the logo near the chest to fade slightly at the edges.

Enough time for the tear near the hem to stop looking accidental and start looking familiar instead.

And somehow, despite all that time, I still had not returned it.

Every attempt dissolved somewhere between her smiling at me and saying that I should keep it like the request meant nothing serious.

But it did mean something.

That was the problem.

Everything Mikha touched eventually started meaning too much to me.

That night, rain pressed steadily against the windows while the room settled into its usual midnight quiet around me. The air conditioning hummed softly against the walls. I heard a door closed. Footsteps faded gradually into silence until only the rain remained.

I sat alone at my desk pretending unsuccessfully to read.

The shirt rested folded beside my laptop beneath the warm pool of desk light.

My eyes kept returning to it automatically.

The collar sat slightly crooked from the way Mikha always tugged absentmindedly at her shirts whenever distracted. The fabric near one sleeve looked softer than the rest from constant wear. Even the tear itself had changed over time. Months ago it looked shocking. Embarrassing. Evidence of a loss of composure I still could not fully believe belonged to me.

Now it looked lived in.

Familiar enough that my chest reacted immediately just seeing it there.

God.

That realization unsettled me more than it should have.

Because the frightening thing was no longer the intensity of what I felt for her.

It was how ordinary the feeling had become.

How naturally my life had begun arranging itself around her presence.

At some point over the past few months, Mikha stopped feeling like someone I loved intensely and started feeling like part of the structure of my everyday existence. My body expected her now in ways I did not fully know how to undo.

Morning texts before class.

Her hand reaching automatically for mine crossing streets.

The sound of her voice softening whenever she said my name late at night.

The ridiculous little kisses she invented excuses for whenever she thought I looked too serious.

Tiny things.

But repetition gave tiny things terrifying power.

I reached toward the shirt before fully thinking through the movement.

The fabric felt warm from the room despite the cold air drifting softly through the vents. My fingers moved slowly along the faded stitching near the hem until they reached the tear.

Immediately, the memory returned.

Fluorescent lights. Summer heat clinging to skin. Mikha laughing breathlessly afterward while I stood there horrified by the evidence of how badly I wanted her.

My throat tightened unexpectedly.

Because even now, months later, that moment still startled me.

Not the kiss.

The loss of control.

I had spent most of my life carefully contained. Even my emotions arrived filtered and measured before reaching the outside world. I knew how to maintain composure instinctively. Knew how to keep longing hidden beneath restraint where nobody could weaponize it against me later.

Then Mikha looked at me softly enough for my entire body to forget discipline.

And somehow she loved me more because of it.

The thought moved through me quietly while rain continued against the glass.

I lifted the shirt slowly.

The scent had faded with time, but traces of her still lingered stubbornly inside the fabric. Something clean and warm and unmistakably Mikha remained beneath detergent and cotton.

My eyes closed briefly before I could stop myself.

This was becoming dangerous in ways I finally understood properly now.

Not because I loved her.

That realization no longer frightened me the way it once had.

What unsettled me was permanence.

The terrifying understanding that somewhere along the way, Mikha had stopped feeling temporary inside my life.

Before her, I understood affection intellectually. I understood relationships as things people experienced intensely until time inevitably softened them into memory.

But Mikha kept surviving every future tense I placed around us.

Every instinct to maintain emotional distance.

Every quiet attempt to keep happiness manageable in case it disappeared afterward.

She stayed.

And slowly, almost without my permission, pieces of her settled themselves into my routines so deeply that imagining their absence now felt physically wrong.

I folded the shirt carefully afterward.

Not absentmindedly.

Carefully enough that it almost resembled reverence.

Then I opened the bottom drawer of my desk.

Inside sat old reviewers, unfinished notes, receipts attached forever to moments I never admitted mattered emotionally enough to preserve. The drawer looked ordinary to anyone else.

To me, it had quietly become an archive.

I placed the shirt inside gently between the papers.

Not hidden exactly.

Protected.

The drawer slid closed softly afterward, but my hand remained there for several seconds longer.

Because somewhere beneath all the warmth and softness and happiness of the past few months, another realization had begun unfolding slowly enough that I almost missed it.

I was building my future around her already.

Not through promises. Not through dramatic declarations.

Through instinct.

Through habit.

Through the terrifying ease with which my life now made room for Mikha automatically before I even consciously thought to.

My phone vibrated softly beside the laptop.

A message from her.

You awake?

My entire body softened immediately.

The reaction happened so instinctively it frightened me a little.

No hesitation. No thought.

Just immediate warmth flooding through my chest because she existed somewhere out there thinking about me before sleeping.

God.

I was in trouble.

A small smile had barely begun pulling at my mouth when the knock came.

Soft. Controlled.

But enough to send immediate tension through my spine before my thoughts fully caught up.

Every muscle in my body straightened automatically.

Not fear exactly.

Something older than fear.

Conditioning.

I looked toward the door just as it opened slowly.

My mother stood there still dressed in one of her evening blazers, phone resting lightly in one hand. Even this late at night, she looked composed in the precise exhausting way every Ledesma eventually learned to become.

She carried herself with the same exhausting composure every Ledesma eventually learned to perfect, all sharp posture, measured calm, and restraint polished so thoroughly it almost stopped looking human.

And suddenly I became painfully aware of everything around me.

The warmth still lingering in my chest from Mikha’s message.

The closed desk drawer beside my knee.

The fact that seconds earlier I had been holding that shirt like something sacred.

“You’re still awake,” my mother said calmly.

“I was finishing some readings.”

My voice sounded steady enough to almost convince me.

Her eyes moved briefly across the room before returning to me again.

Then silence settled between us.

Not uncomfortable silence.

Measured silence.

The kind that usually meant a conversation had already been decided long before it reached me.

Something tight curled immediately through my stomach.

My mother stepped farther inside the room.

“The internship confirmations arrived this evening.”

The words landed quietly.

But my body reacted instantly anyway.

“You start with the Ledesma Group next month.”

And there it was.

Not dramatic enough to prepare for properly. Not loud enough to resist.

Just inevitable in the way family expectations often were.

Something invisible pulled tight around the room afterward, tightening quietly around my chest with every word she spoke.

My desk. The walls. The closed drawer beneath my hand.

Everything tightened invisibly.

Outside, rain continued softly against the windows while my mother spoke calmly about schedules and departments and opportunities already arranged neatly into place before I was ever asked what I wanted.

I heard her voice.

But somewhere beneath it, panic had already begun unfolding slowly inside my chest.

Because for the first time, the two halves of my life no longer felt safely separate.

One existed outside these walls, built from inheritance, expectation, and legacy long before I was old enough to decide whether I wanted it.

A future moving forward whether I felt emotionally prepared for it or not.

And the other sat hidden inside the bottom drawer of my desk.

A torn shirt. Late-night phone calls. Forehead kisses before difficult days. A girl who loved me loudly enough that I had started rearranging my life around her without realizing it.

“Aiah.”

I looked up immediately.

My mother’s expression had not changed.

“You’ll need to adjust your schedule starting August.”

A small nod was the only response my body managed.

The conversation ended several minutes later with the same terrifying composure it began with. My mother reminded me about orientation schedules before turning toward the hallway again.

Then she paused briefly near the door.

“For what it’s worth,” she said quietly, “this is important for our family’s future. Do not make a mistake.”

The words lingered long after she disappeared downstairs.

I sat motionless afterward listening to the rain against the windows while my phone screen dimmed slowly beside me.

The desk drawer remained closed beneath my hand.

And for the first time in months, my room no longer felt entirely safe.

Outside, somewhere beyond the walls of the house, the Ledesma future continued moving forward exactly as planned.

And inside, hidden carefully inside the bottom drawer of my desk, Mikha Cruz remained folded between the parts of my life I still thought I could keep.