His dramatics were just a neatly set trap—to slow him down, to play him for a fool, maybe even bully him a little. Just like the chubby neighborhood boys he used to run around with, the ones who'd boast about a new console flown in from Japan, courtesy of daddy's last business trip.
Mat and Felix knew to take the right turn on the way home, the shortcut into the part of the barangay that felt like it held its breath just for them.
That part of the street—Felix called it tahanan-tahanan, like a second skin—loved him in the way only old ladies and tired teachers knew how to love. Softly. Gently. Mostly through food and unsolicited advice. Two of his mom's co-workers lived there, and by this hour, if you timed it just right, you'd find Aunty Dahlia doing her slow sweep in front of her house, walis tingting in one hand, the other bobbing along to some 70's harana crooning from her Bluetooth speaker.
And true enough, when Felix turned the corner, there she was. Right on cue.
"Oi, Felix!" Aunty Dahlia called, straightening her back with a soft aray and giving him a once-over. Her hand gripped the walis ting ting like it had been an extension of her body for decades.
"Good morning, Aunty," Felix said, pausing when he shouldn't have. He knew she was a good chat, but if he didn't keep moving, he might witness two wraiths from his father's beating, unless his phone managed to keep his thoughts away from food.
"It's so early, Felix, ha! You're not—"she squinted, moving closer, adjusting those bent-up reading glasses that had clearly survived multiple school years and probably one or two typhoons. Then came the habit. That slow, quiet scan. Her eyes looked not at him, but through him, searching like she always did. Looking for the bruises that didn't need explanation.
"Hala. What has your father done this time?!"
There it was. The shift. The moment when a normal morning conversation twisted into something that should've been reserved for evening accompanied by beer.
Felix smiled—the kind of which seemed perfected by practice. "You know, Aunty. It's nothing new."
"Ay na—" she gasped, tugging gently at his sleeve. "Look at your neck," she whispered like the neighborhood couldn't hear, but they always could. "Your hands too?! Aysus!"
Felix didn't pull away. He let her fuss over him, let the sting of her worry settle into his skin like balm. Because here, in this crooked little part of the world—where kundiman songs played in the background and old lads and ladies could see through your lies—he believed it was the safest place in their little community.
"Come inside, come, come," Aunty Dahlia said, waving him toward the gate with one hand still clutching her walis tingting. "I'll put ice on it—ay jusko, that man..." she muttered, already halfway to her front steps.
Felix didn't move.
He knew this part by heart. The last time she called him in like that, it wasn't just ice. There was malt chilled in a glass with too much milk, the. biscuits from some balikbayan box in the corner, and finally chocolates softening in the heat from a cousin in Dubai. Her house smelled like old wood and prayer candles and that faint warmth that came from a woman who had lost too much but still gave more than anyone asked.
Maybe she was lonely. Her kids had moved out years ago, only their framed graduation photos still watching over her sala. Her husband—gone, taken early, long before Felix was born. She never remarried, never needed to. She became everyone's Lola. Even if she was only "Aunty" by name.
She had a way of making him feel small in a good way—safe, like he could sit at her feet and listen to stories of what her husband used to do. A man who always opened the door for her, who never raised his voice, who laughed from the belly and made sunday breakfasts that lasted until noon. She told those stories not for herself, but for Felix. To remind him that men didn't have to be monsters. That maybe one day, he could be like that, too.
"It's okay, Aunty," he said, eyes flicking to the small plastic bag of eggs swinging in his hand. "I'm kind of in a hurry... Papa won't be happy if he eats late."
Dahlia paused at the door, dropping the ting ting beside the rack of tsinelas that seemed too sentimental to clean—it still had the cartoon character crocs her youngest daughter used wore to church. Felix looked down, as if he was a student waiting to be dismissed. Dahlia noticed that much. She was a teacher before she became a nurse then a doctor. She wanted to help him, but she knew she could only do so much—barely less. It was the best Felix had hoped for, and even more.
"Hay," Dahlia sighed. The later she untied him, the closer he was to a bamboo stick. "La, go—just come here when he tries anything."
Felix coaxed his mouth to a grin before sprinting. And Matthew—Well, he eavesdropped or at least he tried to. The moment he turned the corner, he slipped into one of the alleys that veered toward a family compound—the kind where everyone carried the same last name and tsismis traveled faster than tricycles which ferried pupils on a monday morning. Matthew was close enough to notice Felix's expressions, yet far enough to cock anything from their exchange.
He bent a scowl on him the first minute, but it faltered the moment he noticed the red of his nape, and the marks around his forearm. His eyes widened slightly before his mind threw a plethora of questions he didn't knew why he wanted to answer—just out of curiosity, something he was ashamed he got from his mother's side of the family.
"Who the hell did that to him?" He muttered, slowly walking out into the open. He bewilderedly gazed at the direction where Felix's foot had taken him, then he stole a glance at Aunty Dahlia walking languidly inside her home, probably to turn off the music. "Is he—"
He groaned. He didn't like this feeling—whatever it was. It was the kind that made you notice someone you had no business with. The kind that made fools out of people who should've known better. But that wasnt his case—he was just trapped.
"Fuck this, l need to get home."