Chapter 8 (Part 1) - Scattered Sunlight
Jiro scattered his laughter across our kitchen table like refracted sunlight. He seemed made of joy. It spilled from the ends of his hair, from his mouth, his fingers, his toes. Listening to him was like hearing the bright chime of a chapel bell. I wanted to catch some of it, to learn how to laugh as easily as he did, to be normal like him. He bounced in his seat as he talked to my grandmother.
While he was with us, the house did not feel so bleached. The walls did not press in. The curtains did not reach out to grab me.
There were boys like Sebastian, impossible to ignore. His light skin and handsome face drew people's eyes even before he showed his athletic skill. It is an unfair blessing, to be liked simply for existing. I remember the moment he caught me staring. He raised a brow and blew me a kiss. I felt stung, humiliated. After that, I tried not to look at him, or at most boys.
But Jiro did not mind when I looked at him. He smiled like something gentle at the edge of dawn.
"Are you trying to draw my face?" he asked. The sun lit his hair like a halo. "You think you could make me handsome on paper? Make my skin less ugly."
"Your skin isn't ugly," I said. There's nothing wrong with your face.
My brows drew together. "Being brown, being dark-skinned, that's our color," I said. Most of us Pinoys, anyway, without a trace of Spanish, Chinese, or American blood.
Rich people rub their skin with calamansi or papaya to lighten their faces, their arms, their knees. I remembered what my history teacher said: the Spaniards have left, but we are still colonized. People would pay to have skin like Sebastian's. I wish we did not feel uncomfortable in our own color.
"Your skin shows your hard work," Lola Gloria said. Her fingers tapped his thin arms, the color of sun-soaked trees. "And it shows a full childhood. Do not get burned, but be proud of that moreno shade." She nodded. "That includes your scabs. You are living your life."
Jiro smiled. Looking at him was like watching pan de sal rise in a warm oven, like hearing the first chirp of a chick as it disappears beneath its mother's feathers. He was what this house had been missing. His voice filled its emptiness better than I ever could. And I had a feeling he could fit in anywhere. He could even befriend my enemies and make them friends.
Lola Gloria and I had someone else to focus on. We listened as Jiro acted out his stories, all circling arms and stomping legs. I remember the shadow puppets in the cave. Afterward, he laid two bottles of carabao's milk on the table, freshly drawn from Manong Poleng's farm as thanks for our help. Without missing a beat, my grandmother slipped a mason jar of fruit preserves into Jiro's knapsack to bring back to him.
Kindness spreads kindness, a voice from my past said. It felt true, here, in the small ways people held a community together.
Jiro helped Lola Gloria at the stove as she cooked rice porridge with the milk. He looked like a better grandson than I could ever be. They looked up at me, the boy I liked and the grandmother I was only beginning to know, as I took my first bite of the salted-sweet porridge. They smiled when I smiled. It was a new dish to add to my favorites. Years from now, when it rains or when I wake as light as the morning, I know I will think of this meal and the people I shared it with.
Jiro blew his bangs from his face. I noticed then how uneven his cropped hair was. I reached out, catching a thick strand between two fingers.
"It looks like a toddler with scissors got to this," I said, half-joking.
Jiro laughed and choked on his food. Then he went quiet, looking away. I caught the sharp look my grandmother gave me. I had said something wrong. I let go and bent over my bowl, leaving not a single grain of rice behind.
Later, when the sun softened and the afternoon breeze slowed, Lola sat Jiro down in the middle of the living room and cut his hair. She worked gently. I watched the strands fall like leaves. From the bottom of the stairs, I made faces at him, and he tried not to laugh.
"Stop it," Lola Gloria said, one hand on her hip. But Jiro stuck out his tongue to mimic me, and a loose strand landed on it. We all burst into laughter as he ran to the sink to wash it off.
He looked cleaner after. Jiro hugged my grandmother around the waist. My heart softened at the sight. She patted his head, brushed away the small hairs clinging to his shirt, and scolded him for staying away so long.
"You know you're always welcome, especially with Mikha here," she said.
"I know." Jiro turned to me. "I like the way he sees the world."
There he went again, looking at me as if I were something bright among the many pebbles he found on the beach.
One bright day followed another. The sky stayed endlessly blue, generous with the radiance of dawn and dusk. That day, Jiro and I played in the garden. My grandmother's flowers brushed against my face and arms as we ran through them. There were sunflowers and marigolds and bougainvillea, and others whose names I did not know, shaped like hearts with red centers.
He was surprised I had not wandered through this part of the house since I returned, that I kept my windows closed. "You're so lucky to have a place like this. And that giant mango tree, and—aww, look at that."
A large butterfly drifted past, striped like a zebra. Smaller ones fluttered around it, drinking nectar, adding more colors and shapes to the garden.
"You're right," I said. Being here felt like stepping into another world. It was always with Jiro that I felt that way. My own misery had made me blind to what the world offered. It was a lesson I knew I would keep forgetting.
Jiro picked a large pink flower and tucked it behind his ear. He batted his eyes at me, and we laughed before he turned it upside down. "It looks like a dress."
I nodded. "A pretty pink dress."
"It also kind of looks like the color of a wound when it's almost healed," he said, placing it behind my ear. "It suits you, especially with your hair." I had let it grow long for the summer. He brushed the ends back and tucked them neatly in place. I stood still as he watched me. His gaze made me feel as if I had swallowed one of the butterflies. I watched his lips open and close.
He turned away and picked smaller flowers from the ground. He wove them into a bracelet that fit my wrist. His fingers there felt like the touch of a petal.
"If only it would last," I said. It did not. A sudden gust tore the fragile bracelet apart and carried off the flower from my ear. I looked at Jiro, wincing.
He shrugged. "It's okay. You're still cute without it." He tilted his head, thinking. "You know, your family makes things beautiful. Nanay Gloria. Your tatay, when he was alive. I've heard stories about your mother too. And then there's you. You see the world so differently from me."
"That isn't true," I said. "I think you make me see it differently."
I wanted to tell him that without the light in him, I only picked colors and arranged them into shapes. If people found that beautiful, I had not meant it to be. But with him, it felt like waking after a long sleep, like a veil had been lifted.
He held the yellows of mangoes, of the sun. He held the blue of the shallow part of the sea. If people saw me, maybe they'll say I was the sad grey before the storm.
He was the one who pointed out the things I never noticed. He made me feel as if I had swallowed something fizzy. I bubbled, I beamed, I burst out laughing.
Jiro smiled. "Well. Wow. Thanks." Then he pulled me toward him and spun me around. He was stronger than he looked. The wind carried our laughter as we turned, round and round, until we fell onto the soft soil.
We were still laughing when Lola Gloria's shadow fell over us, her hands planted on her hips. She tried to look stern, fighting the smile pressing at her mouth. She pointed to the water pump by the well. "Go wash."
After we had cleaned up, Jiro showed me another secret of the house. In her youth, Lola Gloria had been one of the dancing maidens in the festival for rain. The stories said the maidens pleaded with the rain god to water their crops and break the dry spell.
"Show him, Nanay," Jiro pleaded, his eyes wide.
Lola Gloria sighed and went into the locked room. She returned with a painting by a visiting artist from their town. It showed a young woman in a long, simple gown, a crown of coconuts and pineapple leaves on her head. It was still and graceful, a story held in time.
"Hard to believe I was young once," she said. She looked at us, then at me. "It won't be long before you both grow older. Use those legs and arms while you still can. Just be careful. That's all I ask."
We were in my room. I taught him how to read some of the words in my comics. His tongue worked through the unfamiliar ones, chewing them over and over until they softened enough for him to form sentences. I looked up once and saw Lola Gloria bringing in arroz caldo, the ginger and chicken bits floating on the bowl. There was a new expression on her face. Pride, I thought. I remembered then that she used to be a teacher.
He was the first boy to play pretend with me. We acted out the stories on the page. He let me be the prince, and I was his soldier. He let me be the prince, and he was the dragon. He was the talking horse. He was the enchanted mirror.
I was the prince, and he was the princess I was rescuing. We laughed as he tried to make his voice higher. He pretended to be caged in a tower, calling for help, and I answered from below. Our laughter echoed against the walls as we pushed at each other, playing. There was a sharp, bright, prickling, buoyant feeling in my scalp, my chest, my palms as I was being silly with another boy.
I would remember this. He stood at the door to my world. All he had to do was step inside, and I would let him.
I flipped the page. The prince and princess kissed.
Our laughter ebbed into soft chuckles. I looked at him. He looked at me. His lips were soft. His lashes were long. His face was close, his nose near my cheek.
Then he kissed my temple and laughed as he rolled away. I laughed too, threw a pillow at him, chased him around my room until we both fell onto the mattress. We tickled each other until we had no breath left. We lay there, catching it again.
He looked at me, then at the ceiling. He smiled at the lightbulb. "Nothing."
For so long, I watched my classmates chase each other across the playground from the corner I had carved for myself, wondering what that kind of glee felt like. Jiro gave me that.
We played tag, taya-tayaan. It was just the two of us, chasing and clapping each other's backs, but it was the most fun I could remember having. We ran until it felt like knives were in our chests, until our ears rang with our own blood.
On other days, Jiro helped me befriend Lola Gloria's animals. He placed feed in my cupped hands, and we waited as feathers and fur came close, brushing and tickling my skin. He gathered eggs from beneath the hens, still warm. Lola Gloria showed me how to milk the goat and make pastillas in the small oven she kept.
On another golden afternoon, she gave us pencils to draw with. Sunlight filtered through the leaves above us. Jiro sighed. "Why can't I make this rock as beautiful as yours?"
I laughed. "I don't know. Why can't I jump or run or talk like you? Want to trade?" It seemed to ease him, the idea that people carried different gifts. He bent back over his drawing. "You'll get the hang of it. Just practice. You'll be better than me in no time."
He murmured, "I don't want to be better than you."
At dinner, my grandmother began telling us about how things were in her time, especially when she was in school.
"Oh, here we go," Jiro said, rolling his eyes. He slipped into a creaky, old voice. "Back in my day..."
Lola Gloria chuckled. "Hush. But yes, back in my day, we crossed entire hills just to go to school. We stepped on river stones to keep our shoes dry before the tide came in. And we went home on the backs of mighty carabaos, our water ferries."
I listened. When she spoke like this, she did not feel like a stranger. She felt like a shadow of a memory, like a mother who did not keep her daughter hidden away in locked rooms. At first, it made me think life must have been harder then. But I remembered my Papa, working in those cramped buildings, and thought that in every age, people find ways to make life harder for one another.
The air conditioner hummed inside the newly built convenience store near the beach, one of the few developments between the mayor and a businessman from the west. Stores like this existed in the city, near schools, universities, and offices. Jiro had never been inside one. I told him to meet me here during his break from helping at the nearby karinderya.
The sun was strong. People kept wiping sweat from their brows. There was the familiar sound of surf, and then the familiar sound of Jiro's steps. I was beginning to memorize more of him, his gestures and smiles, his footsteps and laughter and breathing, his honesty and bravery.
He waved and whistled at the glass windows and doors of the store. He pressed his palm against it. "It's cold!" He grinned.
We were about to step inside when the manager pointed a thick finger at Jiro, then at the door.
Something sank in my chest. Jiro looked wounded. I stepped in front of him. "We're going to buy something." I showed him my money. The man looked me up and down, then shook his head again at Jiro. "You're fine, but I can't have him here."
Behind the counter stood a teenage girl in the store's bright orange cap. She glared at him.
Jiro took a step back. He looked suddenly smaller, smaller than I was. "It's fine, Mikha."
I turned and followed him to the bench outside. We sat down. Not even a moment passed before the manager came out again.
Anger rose in me. "What did we ever do to you?"
"Mikha, let's go," Jiro said, pressing down on my shoulder.
The manager stepped forward, arms crossed over his large belly, trying to look intimidating. "I don't want you here. Leave."
"You don't even own the store! You're paid to bring customers in. And we have money to buy things."
The manager lost his footing for a moment. I was aware of the sharp rise and fall of my shoulders. I remembered my mother's voice. In that moment, I was her son.
He tried to recover. "So, buy things."
"We would if you stop blocking the door!"
He did not like being talked back to. The teenage girl ran outside. She said she would handle us. The man gave us one last ugly look before storming inside. The girl fixed her cap, looked at us, then at Jiro.
"I told you to wear my little brother's clothes."
Jiro mumbled something I did not catch.
She made an irritated sound and sighed. "Stubborn little man. If no one's going to wear them, they'll just get eaten by moths in our aparador. There's no shame in accepting help, Jiro."
Finally, Jiro looked up. "No, ate Janice."
Ate Janice rolled her eyes. "Fine. But they'll be waiting if you change your mind." She looked at me. "Who's your friend?"
Something like recognition shifted in her face. "Oh. I know you. Nanay Gloria's grandson." She gave me a smile that felt rare. "You've got spunk. I like that. What do you want from the store?"
I looked at Jiro. He shrugged. He looked like a balloon slowly losing air. He stepped away to fix his slippers. I had meant to surprise him with a popsicle. I had seen him eyeing the poster outside. This was supposed to be a good day. I wanted to see ice cream on his lips, because he deserved something new and sweet.
I whispered my order to Ate Janice.
She smiled and nodded. "Coming right up."
Jiro stared at the ground. I saw our reflections in the glass window. His sando hung too big on him, his shorts too loose. He used a rope as a belt. He had tied his broken tsinelas together with thick black plastic string. I had not noticed before. I should have.
Ate Janice came out with our ice creams. She gently patted Jiro's head. "Don't let it get to you."
I handed him the popsicle. He let out a small groan. "You shouldn't have."
It was the first time I saw sadness in his eyes. A boy like Jiro should not look like that. It did not feel right.
When I was small and upset, Papa would do something to make me laugh. I did not know why I did it now. I just did not want dark clouds over Jiro's head. I held the popsicle in the air and made airplane noises at him.
The shock of my silliness made him chuckle, and I knew the clouds had already scattered. "Give me that," he said, biting into the sweetness. He sighed, relaxing. I bit into mine. I saw Ate Janice behind the counter, quietly laughing too.
We sat on the bench, making fun of the man who had belittled a boy. I thought that was the only trouble for the day. But then a loud, boisterous noise came from the beach, a different kind of laughter. Familiar. A stone dropped back into my chest.
It was the kind of noise Sebastian made.
They came, five of them. When they saw us, they pointed and laughed.
Jiro smiled at them, but his eyes were guarded. He kept glancing at me.
The biggest one spoke. "Been a while since we saw your ugly face, and you brought it all the way here?" He spotted Jiro's popsicle, melting onto the hot pavement. "Give us some of that!"
He tried to swipe it, but Jiro was quicker. The others crowded around him, pushing him, rougher than playful. I realized then that Jiro had been gentle with me. A flash of irritation crossed his face, then he forced it into something like a joke. He bit into the popsicle again and again, like chewing corn, until it was gone.
They pushed him again, not like how we pushed each other.
Then the biggest one noticed me. "Who are you?"
I did not answer. I decided I did not like him.
He walked closer. "I asked your name." He spotted my half-eaten ube popsicle. "Pahingi," he said. It did not sound like a request.
"Let it go, Mikey!" Jiro stepped in front of me. "Knock it off. All of you."
The smallest one leaned in and whispered something to Mikey. I hated how his name sounded like mine. He snickered. "Jiro, stay away from him. Look at his fingers. You ever seen fingers like that? Look at the way he stands. My sister stands straighter than him. You'll get his germs, Jiro. I'm telling you."
"Germs," they repeated. They formed a circle that pressed too close. "Germs." Louder. Sharper. "Germs."
I hugged my arms. The sound got louder, scraping at my ears, rattling my teeth. I was back at the playground, back in the corner I carved for myself, feeling like a small ant about to be stepped on, feeling the wind leave my lungs, feeling like—
Jiro placed his hand under mine. He looked Mikey right in the eyes and bit into my popsicle. He waited a few seconds, then made a show of checking his arms, his neck, his face.
The others quieted down. Mikey stared at him, then glared at me. "If you didn't come from the city, he wouldn't even look at you twice."
"Shut up, Mikey," Jiro said. His voice was sharp.
Mikey shrugged and walked off toward the plaza with the others. "He's abnormal, Jiro."
When they were gone, Jiro turned to me. "Mikha?"
I could not hear him clearly. I felt like I was sinking into the bottom of a mossy pond, going down to where there was only stone and darkness.
Two warm hands gripped my shoulders. "Don't cry, Mikha. I am so sorry for them. Don't cry, please."
I wiped my eyes. I had forgotten to close my sadness in time. Jiro's face was still there, tight with worry.
"Did they see me cry?" I asked.
His face looked sunburnt. His arms felt like bridges pulling me back into the light. He was watching me closely. He held my fingers.
"You're cold," he said, then looked up at the sky. It was warm. I was not supposed to be cold.
"It's fine," I said, shaking him off and taking a few steps back. Purple syrup from my popsicle dripped onto the ground. I stared at the bite he had taken.
"Thanks for staying," I said weakly. "It's not the first time I've met guys like him. I just forgot how to deal with them."
His eyes stayed on me, searching. "What do you mean?" He saw me pulling away. "You can tell me anything. Cave or no cave, under the trees or the sun, anywhere. It's me. I will never..."
It was easy to trust that open, honest, warm face.
So I told him. I told him about Sebastian. About the big girl who tore my art project apart. About the teachers who looked through me. About Papa. Even about Lola Gloria, and pieces of my mother.
"I feel like a ghost sometimes. Like I'm stuck, like I don't feel real." Something sank in my chest. "I guess no matter where you go, there's always going to be people like them, huh?"
Jiro just listened. He took it all in. He bit his lip.
"You have to stand up for yourself," he said.
"I can't. I don't know how," I said.
"Try, Mikha. Or they'll walk all over you."
"At least you'll hurt them."
"Hit them where people can see. Let them make the first move."
"No one will pick my side."
"I would," Jiro said. He stood straighter, chest out. He looked like a soldier from one of my comics, back straight, shoulders set. I smiled at him. I poked his chest and tickled him. He exhaled sharply and blocked my fingers, catching them in his palms.
"You're real." Our fingers were touching. I felt solid and warm. He let go. "Maybe Lola Gloria just needs time to know you again. And maybe you can get to know Lola Gloria too."
There was a thought forming in his head, something I knew would be a genius idea before he even said it. He smiled. "Come with me."
Jiro climbed the coconut tree at the beach like it was nothing, his legs and arms quick and sure. Then he brought me to the restaurant where we first ate. I had not noticed the big sign with bold paint at the front: "Gino's Resto-Bar."
Gino himself was a big-bellied man, all smiles when he saw Jiro. He ruffled his hair and called him "my boy." He let Jiro go into the kitchen to boil coconuts in a clay pot over charcoal, stirring until a thick aroma filled the air. I wanted to help, but he told me to just sit and watch.
So I did. I watched the glow of the fire on Jiro's face, the sweat on his brow. I watched the muscles tighten under his skin as he prodded the coals with a long metal stick. I watched him lick his red lips, watched him wipe his thick brows.
"Reliable, isn't he. Hardworking, more than most of my sons."
I had not seen Gino come out from behind the curtains. His smile softened as he watched Jiro bent over the fire. "I just wish he didn't work so hard at his age. That boy needs to eat well."
Jiro had told me once that this man sometimes gave him leftovers from the kitchen. I had a feeling he would have given him more, if there were any.
When Jiro was done, Gino told both of us to stay. He brought out hot dogs from the icebox and placed them over the fire. We thanked him as we made our way back to the beach.
Jiro gave me a big bottle of coconut oil, glowing like precious amber in the sunset. "Nanay told me she keeps a bottle of this when she's sad. Maybe you could help her feel better."
I took it and hugged him quickly. He tickled my ear with his breath. We finished our hot dogs and let the surf wash our worries away. Jiro stood and fixed his slippers. I rose and removed my sandals.
Jiro stared at them, then at me. "No, it's fine."
Moments flashed in my mind. Times he refused extra servings of porridge or snacks from Lola Gloria. Times he insisted I keep the money from selling Manong Poleng's wares. Was he shy, or too proud?
"I'm not giving them to you. I just want you to wear them if they look good on you."
He still looked uncertain, so I sighed and bent down to strap them on him. His toes were rough from climbing and running. There were more scabs and scars on his legs than on his arms. Jiro walked on the sand in them, like a goose with pebbles under its feet. His feet were a little bigger than mine. He wiggled his toes.
"It feels nice," he said.
"You can wear them anytime you like." I fixed him with a look so he would know I meant it. I wanted to share everything I owned with him.
It was his turn to hug me. Then he bent down and removed the straps of his sandals. I lifted my feet slightly and rested my hand on his shoulder as he fixed them for me again.
He went back to the resto-bar and returned with a banig for us to lie on. Back when I was alone in the city, the pain from cruel jokes used to hang on my shoulders like barbed wire. Their words stayed long after they left, cutting and bruising me in silence. But here, as Jiro and I talked and bumped shoulders, it felt like something gentle had been placed over it, easing the hurt.
He lay down, feet resting on his knees, circling the air. He was whistling. Then he stopped and asked, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" His eyes stayed on the coconut leaves above.
"I want to own a restaurant-bar someday. Like this. I want to live near the sea and feed everyone, Pinoy or Kano or Indiano, whoever. I want to make enough money to feed dogs and cats and birds, and people like me." His eyes were hopeful. "You think it will come true?"
"Of course it will." There was no doubt in my mind.
He smiled at me, eyes filled with the embers of the sun.
- Chapter 8 (Part 1) - Scattered Sunlight"
Read more on Wattpad: "Warm Cool Shadows"
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