I was just waiting for Sophia to come back when suddenly my phone rang. The number that popped up was one I know and dread far too well. A part of me considered not answering, maybe she’d be satisfied just being left on voicemail? No… She’d either just get madder or more concerned and I don’t know which would be worse

  Okay Jamie, time to buck up and be a man for once.

  “Hey, Ma!” I answered the phone as cheerily as I can manage.

  Soon enough, the shrill voice of my mother came ringing through my ears. “Jomar! Finally sumagot ka!”

  That was mom all right. Thankfully she seems to be more worried than she was upset.

  “Nasan ka ba? Hindi ka sumasagot nang text, nang tawag, nang kahit ano?”

  Never mind.

  “Ma, you know how hard it is for me to understand you when you’re speaking that fast.” This was especially true when her and dad spoke Filipino. They actually never properly taught it to me. What I do know of it I learned using context clues, asking them directly what they meant when they said something, and doing some reading here and there. Sometimes, I wonder if they forget that I don't actually speak Filipino. “Can you slow down a bit? Please? And in English too, if it's alright?”

  “Sorry, Anak. I’ll speak in English now, okay? For you,” she replied in a more manageable tone this time. “Why haven’t you replied to me, ha? I’ve been texting you and calling you and everything. But you did not reply to me. I thought that something happened to you. I even messaged your roommate.”

  Oh yeah, she’s been messaging Karl too. I need to put a stop to that right away. Constantly contacting me is one thing, but I can’t let her pester Karl too. I mean, being overprotective is one thing, but honestly that’s veering into stalker territory if you asked me.

  “About that, Ma? Can you stop messaging Karl? Please? Like, I know he’s my roommate, you know, but it’s not like he’s my nanny or something. It’s kinda creepy when you ask him about me. Besides, how did you even get his number?”

  Mom gasped from the other end of the line. “Creepy?” She said in her thick Filipino accent. “Creepy creepy ka diyan! I’m just worried for you, okay? What else am I going to do when you don’t answer me?”

  “I was busy, okay?” I replied, letting out a bit more frustration than I wanted to show. “I didn’t reply for a day and already you’re what, putting up missing person’s posters and filing a police report?”

  She was silent for a while. I thought the conversation was over. And then she erupted.

  “Hoy!” Her voice rang loudly from my phone, enough so that I had to pull my head away if I wanted to retain the ability to hear. “I don’t appreciate that tone you’re giving me, Jomar. We didn’t raise you to speak up to us like that. Tinuruan ka namin nang tama, diba? We taught you to be better than that.”

  That’s what she always likes to say. Even when I was younger. ‘Tinuturuan ka nang tama’. Every time she transted it for me, the way she did it was different. Sometimes it meant ‘teaching you how to be good’, sometimes she said it meant ‘teaching you to be better’. But most often, she told me that what it really meant was ‘teaching you what’s right’. What’s right. That’s something they tried to drill into me constantly, her and dad. That I had to know the difference between what was right and what was wrong. That there are correct ways to do things. That there are things that you should never—

  “Anak? Are you still there?” Mom’s voice jolted me out of the funk I got myself in.

  “Yes, Ma, I’m still here.”

  I heard her sigh, “Ganyan ka na naman, anak, ging tu. You know, you really need to fix that habit of yours.”

  In the distance, I could see Sophia making her way back.

  “Ma, can we do this again another time? Like ter tonight? Or tomorrow? I’m kind of busy right now?”

  “Ha? Tomorrow pa?” I could hear her practically sulking, “Fine. Basta, you call me, okay?”

  “Yes, yes, of course. Bye Ma!”

  “Bye anak. Mag-ingat ka, okay?” She replied, punctuated with a loud kiss through the phone.

  I managed to pocket the phone just as Sophia arrived at the table.

  “Who was that?” She asked as she sat down.

  “Just my mom. Sorry about that. She tends to worry a lot. Too much if you ask me.”

  Sophia made a face at me. She had a sort of pained expression. She was smiling still, her perpetual smile, but it felt more forced than usual. Did something I say bother her?

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Sorry, it’s nothing. It’s cool how your mom checks up on you. You should cherish that, you know. You never know what you have until…” She looked away, seemingly lost in thought. Her smile disappeared, and her face looked so empty without it.

  And then she smiled again and looked at me. “Okay, so, are you ready to go?”

  I was curious why she made that face. But, if she wouldn’t tell me, it probably wasn’t right to ask. Besides, she seemed excited to continue our date.

  “Where are we going, by the way?” I asked her as we finally started walking to wherever it was she was taking me.

  She turned her head back at me with a grin, “You like pying games?”

  “I didn’t know this pce had an arcade.”

  Sophia led me through a byrinthine cluster of game cabinets, weaving through the surprising number of people crowding around the arcade. People were lined up around arcade cabinets and other attractions, enough so that it made it difficult to properly follow Sophia around them.

  “Okay, Jamie, we’re almost to the counter. Just follow me,” Sophia called out to me from behind her.

  I was finally making headway when suddenly a guy bumped into me, and I was sent falling to the floor.

  “Sorry, dude, my bad. You, okay?” The guy asked me as he pulled me up.

  Honestly, the way he called me dude sent the usual shivers through me, but I know he was just being nice. I mean, he was apologizing and all, so I just replied with a quick, “Yeah,” as he made his way to wherever game he was going.

  I was worried I lost Sophia, but I saw here squeezing her way back to me again, grabbing my hand in the process. Admittedly, I couldn’t help but blush, especially because she held me tightly.

  “Hey, Jamie, sorry about that. You good? I saw you took a bit of a tumble.”

  “No, no, yeah, I’m good.”

  “You sure?” She was concerned for sure. “Just tell me if you’re overwhelmed or anything, okay? Honestly, I should’ve asked you before we came in if you were good with crowds or not. Some of my friends are like that. And I knew that this pce was usually packed during the weekends. I feel so stupid now.”

  Her face let go of her usual smile in exchange for being scrunched up in concern. I couldn’t let her keep worrying about me like this, especially as the guy out on a date. “Trust me, Sophia. I’m good,” I said in the most reassuring tone I can manage.

  She didn’t seem convinced. “If you say so…”

  “So, should we go to the counter now?” I said, trying my best to change her focus on anything but me.

  “Oh yeah. Actually, you know what—” She brought up our hands (which were still held tight) up. “Don’t let go, okay? Wouldn’t want to lose you again.”

  She was staring at me and all I could do was say, “Okay.” It was only when she turned around and we started walking again that I touched my face with my other hand and realized how much I was blushing. Was I blushing in front of her earlier? Did she see it? God, that would be so embarrassing. And now she was holding my hand too? I really hope it’s not sweaty. My hands get cmmy when I’m nervous. If she already saw me blushing, and she feels my hand getting sweaty too, that would be so much worse. What am I doing all blushy anyway? What am I some kind of teenage gi—

  “Okay, we’re here.”

  “What?”

  “So, we’re back to the ‘whats’ again?” She joked. “We’re at the counter, silly.”

  In front of us was a counter with a ticket booth and prizes at the back. And what looked like the biggest prize of them all was sat at the furthest back of the booth, a gigantic plush ptypus.

  Suddenly, Sophia’s head poked in from beside me, “Ooh, whatcha looking at there?”

  I pointed at the ptypus, and she suddenly cooed, “Oh my— that one looks so cute!” She turned to me, and I could practically see stars in her eyes. “We’re totally going to win that one, right?”

  “R-right.”

  She lifted our hands up (we were still holding hands this entire time?!) and did a fist pump with them. She fshed a smile at me, “Don’t worry, babe, I’m paying.”

  “And that comes to… 678 tickets.” The guy at the booth announced after putting our tickets through the ticket counter.

  “678 tickets, huh.”

  “678 tickets.”

  “And how long have we been pying?”

  “Give or take two, actually make that three hours.”

  “And how much money did I spend on this?”

  “Sophia, you could have probably bought a giant ptypus plush with the money you spent trying to win one.”

  “Riiiiight…”

  We both looked at each other, both of us more tired and sweatier than when we got here. It’s the first time I’ve seen her disheveled. She was turning a bit red too, apparently from all the effort we made pying. And suddenly she burst out ughing, causing me to ugh too.

  “I feel so dumb right now,” she managed to say in between her ughs. “I mean, it’s the top prize, why did I even think we could win enough tickets to get it in one afternoon.”

  We were interrupted from our ughter by the ticket booth attendant.

  “Excuse me, ma’ams? Are you going to pick a prize or what?”

  Sophia wiped a tear from her eye as she finished ughing, “I guess that’s our cue, Jamie. Anything you see that we can get with the tickets?”

  I scanned the prize counter and nothing seemed interesting enough. Eraser, pencils, even some junk food. But nothing really caught my eye. Then I heard Sophia coo again.

  “Ooh, Jamie, I found the perfect thing. We’ll have that one,” she pointed to the prize she wanted which the attendant gave her.

  “It’s perfect for us, don’t you think?”

  “Promise me you’re going to bring it with you, okay? It even came with a strap so you can just put it on, no trouble,” Sophia implored as we made our way back to her car.

  I looked at the spoils of our hard work: one half of a pair of phone charms, designed to be two otters that were supposed to be holding each other’s hands. I had one of them while Sophia had the other.

  “I don’t know, Sophia. These kinds of things are just…”

  “Just what?” She looked at me so innocently.

  I actually felt embarrassed and what I was thinking, but I said it anyway. “Don’t you think having a phone charm on your phone is a little… girly?”

  She stopped dead in her tracks as she looked at me. “What’s so girly about a phone charm?”

  “I mean, most people I’ve seen with charms on their phone are girls. I hardly ever see guys with phone charms. Unless they were… ‘you know’, if you know what I mean?”

  Sophia tilted her head at me, “You know…? What did you mean by ‘you know’? I don’t know what you mean by ‘you know’. Is there anything I should know about.

  She put me on the spot, and I couldn’t say anything. She was staring at me so intently too. Then she started walking again, a bit faster this time, as if daring me to keep pace with her.

  “Oh, I get it. By ‘you know’, you meant gay,” she kept walking, faster and faster, forcing me to walk faster myself to keep pace. “If you meant gay, why didn’t you just say that? What, that word too hard for you to say?”

  I think I really made her upset. The way she stomped hard, I could practically feel the tension coming from her every step. But all the while, her face was still smiling, but a more vacant, empty smile than her usual. As if she was daring me to say the wrong thing, just so she can get even more upset at me.

  “Why are you so quiet, Jamie? What’s up? I thought we were talking about the charm we won. You were just saying it would be girly to have it. Do you think it’s girly to have the charm, Jamie?” She asked with such venom that I had to answer instantly in fear of making her even angrier.

  I stammered out., “Y—yeah, I think it’s girly.”

  “What’s wrong with girly, then?” Sophia asked in the same oh-so-innocent voice she used earlier. As if her question was something so natural to ask, so much so that she didn’t even think twice about asking. “What, little ol’ Jamie can’t have something they considered girly? Does having a charm feel like that much of an attack on your masculinity?”

  I found myself unable to really speak. It felt like any answer I’d say would be the wrong one. I knew this would happen. Just another cssic Jamie blunder. I knew this date was going too well. I knew I’d find some way to ruin things like I always did. Things were going so well, that I let my guard down. Stupid Jamie, stupid! I knew I should have never just—

  “Jamie!” Sophia called out to me. I didn’t realize it but we were at her car again. Sophia was looking at me. I thought she was upset earlier, and maybe she was. But right now, on her face, was a face that seemed to be a mixture of confusion and concern. “You still with me? Why did you go all silent again? You’ve been doing it all day, you know? Do you always just do that?”

  “I… Yeah… Sorry…”

  She seemed upset about my response, “Don’t say sorry. If anything, I should say sorry. I think I went too far earlier. When you said the charm was girly, it reminded me of something, and I took it out on you. It’s my fault.”

  She took my hand and squeezed it reassuringly, as if she was trying to pass good vibes from her directly to me.

  I squeezed her hand, “No, I was in the wrong too.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I was the one who made a big deal of things in the first pce.” I took my charm and stuck it to hers which was already hanging to the phone she was holding in her other hand. The two otters held each other happily. “You just wanted both of us to get something we can have as a souvenir for this day, right? That’s why you chose the otters. And here I am overreacting, making such a big deal out of practically nothing. Because I thought it was girly and I— I don’t know, have such fragile masculinity that I can’t even get anything girly on my person at all without making a scene.”

  “No, Jamie, it’s alright if you don’t want it. I was the one who chose it without even asking you if you wanted it.”

  “Actually… I kind of like them.”

  “What?”

  I couldn’t help but ugh at that. And suddenly, it was like all the tension left the air. In between my ughter, I could see Sophia growing a bit confusingly frustrated.

  “What’s up? Why are you suddenly ughing?”

  Trying to compose myself, I finally managed to reply, “It’s just that you keep telling me that all I say is what. And well, the shoe’s on the other foot now.”

  She burst out ughing too. We spend those moments just ughing. Honestly, it wasn’t even that funny, but that ughter was far better than the tense atmosphere we had just moments before.

  Soon enough, we finished our fits, as we scrambled into her car. She asked me where I wanted her to take me, and I just said home. I was feeling tired after pying all day, after all.

  It was more or less a quiet ride home, other than the odd question and answer, ‘did you have fun today?’ ‘yes, I did’, ‘you sure you’re good with the charm?’, ‘yeah, of course.

  Soon enough, we were parked in front of my apartment. And just as I was getting out of her car, she leaned over to me and gave me a peck on the cheek. My hand instinctively went to where she kissed me as I started blushing. She smiled at me. I’m really starting to like her smiles. They weren’t as mysterious as before. I know that most of the smiles she gave me were so genuine. At least, I hoped they were. And every time I see her smile at me, butterflies start fluttering in my tummy.

  “I have to go now, okay, Jamie?” She said, sounding a bit glum. “But I’m excited for our next date. I’ll keep you posted, okay?”

  “Oh, yeah, okay.”

  “Today went well, right, Jamie?”

  “Yeah, I think it did.”

  “Good.” She said with an even wider smile than usual.

  She waved goodbye to me, and drove off, leaving me alone on the street.

  Wait… did she say there’d be another date?

  When I got inside, Karl was still sitting on the couch, in practically the same position that he was in when I left. It was like he was just waiting for me this entire time.

  “Oh, hey Jamie, you’re back,” he said cheerily when he caught sight of me.

  I sat down beside him on the couch, and he scooted over to make some more room for me.

  “So, how was the date?” Karl asked with a cheeky nudge.

  I looked at the otter charm on my phone, just hanging there, waiting for its other half. Looking at the charm again, I couldn’t actually say I didn’t like them. Honestly, I’ve always liked things like that. The otters holding each other looked so cute, and I could tell Sophia had good taste. But at the same time, it felt wrong to enjoy something so cute like that. I know, I know what I was told. I know what was right and what was wrong, and a guy enjoying cute things like this was wrong. Right? I shouldn’t actually enjoy having this. I should just throw it away. No, that’s too harsh, Sophia gave this to me and all. But at the very least, I shouldn’t just have it hanging on my phone. That’s too weird, that’s too girl—

  “Ooh, that’s a cute otter you have there, Jamie,” Karl suddenly excimed. “Did Sophia give it to you?”

  “Oh, uh, yeah.”

  He smiled at me, “I take back what I said about her. If she gives you otters, then that makes her alright in my book.”

  I nudged his arm pyfully, “You’re so weird, Karl.”

  He smiled even wider, “And that’s why you love me, right? So do you two have a next date?”

  “I think we do.”

  “Good for you, Jamie.”

  SophAmore: So, I think the date went well. I’m on my way back to the apartment right now.

  P: wait, you are? can you pick up some grub on the way back? me hungry.

  SophAmore: Sure, whaddya want?

  P: the ushe

  P: oh yeah, the date?

  SophAmore: It went well. I think. I mean we had fun at the arcade. There was this cute af ptypus there and we tried getting enough tickets to win it, but obviously we came in short. So instead, I got us a pair of otter charms.

  P: otter charms?

  SophAmore: Phone charms, shaped like otters. They hold hands. It’s so cute, I’ll show you mine ter, Jamie has the other one.

  P: wow, just one date and you already have matching charms? you’re moving fast, miss

  SophAmore: Hey! I just thought they were cute okay? Honestly I was scared I made the wrong choice because I think I accidentally sent Jamie into a crisis earlier.

  P: ?

  SophAmore: Yeah, he called it girly, and I kinda got triggered :P You know how bad I tend to react when something I like gets called girly and…

  P: yeah, yeah, I got it, dw dw

  SophAmore: Yeah…

  SophAmore: I felt really guilty about that. Poor thing went white as a sheet. But then, they were the one who said sorry to me, so I said sorry back and it became just a big sorry circle of us both apologizing to each other and trying to make each other feel better.

  P: okay, so I guess that’s another point on the board for Jamie

  SophAmore: Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?!

  P: just sayin, all you girlies seem to like apologizing for all the littlest things. And if Jamie’s doing it too well…

  SophAmore: Don’t be like that. Honestly, I thought I went too far for a second there. Thankfully things got diffused. I mean we both ughed it out in the end, and they even took the charm in the end. I even caught em looking at the charm and smiling on the way back home to their apartment. That’s a win, right?

  P: i think so.

  SophAmore: Okay, BRB, I’m just pulling into the drive-thru now. The usual, right?

  P: yup, the ushe.

  SophAmore: Have you seen Cece by the way?

  P: oh yeah, she said she’d be busy tonight earlier, so she might not be able to talk till tomorrow.

  SophAmore: Fair fair. Can’t believe my babe’s so busy like that.

  P: honestly I still can’t understand how y’all handle poly retionships like that. it looks so exhausting.

  SophAmore: We’re just built different UwU

  P: you can say that again :P