By 5 a.m. the TV crawlers had turned red and blue in the morning shows slashed news shows, the mayor's Facebook posted a list long as a rosary, and the radio repeated it every ten minutes: "Classes suspended. Signal No. 2 in Metro Manila." So, no classes for elementary and high school levels.
The rain came in sheets that looked stitched to the sky.
Sheryl stood at the window with a mug of instant coffee, watching tricycles nose through puddles like cautious fish. A free day was supposed to feel like sleep, but storms made her restless. Every drip was a bill. Every gust sounded like a deadline.
Her phone buzzed.
Rafi:
No classes today? Then no teenagers to argue with.
Coffee? Or tea. If the storm allows.
Her first thought was not romance; it was arithmetic. Coffee in a mall could be a kilo and a half of rice. And what if he tried to pay for both—she'd owe him. If she paid for both—she'd resent it. If they split—fair, clean.
Sheryl:
Only if we both pay our share.
Or we buy our own, no utang na loob.
Rafi:
Deal. No utang. Promise.
They picked SM BF Parañaque because malls never lost power when the city did, and because it sat like a practical ark in a river of traffic. She told her mother she'd buy vinegar and dish soap while she was there—errands as alibi. Her mother nodded, pointed to the list on the fridge, and added "look at chapel schedule" in her looping script. When storms came, Sheryl liked to sit near the Blessed Sacrament and remind herself what stayed put.
She took a jeepney, lifting her skirt like a lady who still had to check for potholes. The mall doors wheezed her in, fogging her glasses. Umbrellas collapsed like commas. Wet-floor signs multiplied like rabbits.
He was already there—hood damp, sleeves pushed to his forearms, a clean coin of water sliding off his jaw. He spotted her and stood, not too quick, like he'd promised himself he would not look like a person who had waited.
"You came," he said, relief softening the corners of his eyes.
"Only because we're going to divide the bill like decent citizens," she said, deadpan.
"Fairness," he agreed, hand to his chest. "I remember."
They joined the line. She ordered brewed coffee, small, exact change ready in her palm. He ordered hot tea, no sugar. When the cashier asked if they wanted anything else, he looked at her. She shook her head, then reconsidered at the sight of a plate of pandesal with cheese.
"Split?" he asked.
"Fine," she said. "You pay for the pandesal, I'll cover my coffee. Equitable distribution."
"Teacher words," he teased, but he paid.
They took a table by the glass where the storm leaned its forehead and breathed. Mall music tried to be cheerful behind the hum of generators. Two kids pressed their hands to the window and shrieked when a bus fishtailed through a puddle and did not die.
"So," Sheryl said, wrapping her fingers around the heat of the mug, "this is not a date."
"Definitely not," Rafi said, serious as a judge. "This is two citizens sheltering from rain and practicing math."
"Good." She tried not to smile and failed.
They talked small at first, the way people do when they don't want to startle whatever animal lives between strangers and friends. She told him about the news-of-the-day routine, how one girl had said "Ma'am, inflation means everything got fatter" and she'd had to sit down to laugh.
He told her about Friday prayers, the way titos crowded the shoe racks and boys learned to line up without being barked at. "Sometimes I sweep," he said. "Sometimes I make lists. Sometimes I just carry chairs. It is all… quiet work."
"You like quiet work," she said, not quite a question.
"I like work that doesn't need applause," he said. The storm hammered the glass like it agreed.
The pandesal arrived, gooey and hot. He slid the small plate to exactly the middle of the table, a line of treaty between them. She tore a piece neatly, because tearing sloppily felt like declaring something she wasn't ready to declare. He did the same. Cheese stretched like a bridge.
"What do you teach again?" he asked.
"Social Studies. History, government, media literacy. He grinned. "I passed that once by accident."
"You and half the country," she said. Then, because the chapel note on the fridge had been tugging her all morning, she added, "My father used to make us memorize dates. He was Knights of Columbus—vice president in our parish. He believed the calendar was a kind of prayer."
Rafi sat a little straighter, instinctively respectful. "I'm sorry," he said, not sure for what—her loss, his ignorance, both.
"He's gone," Sheryl said, matter-of-fact. "But I still count like he did. Sundays, novenas, bills, paydays. Those are my liturgical seasons." She tipped her mug to him. "You?"
He thought for a beat. "My prayers anchor me. Fajr before the city wakes. Maghrib when the light softens. The courtyard at night. I stand there and think, 'I survived this day. Please let me deserve the next.'" He stopped, worried he'd said too much. "I'm sorry—too serious."
"Not too serious," she said quietly. "Just true."
They watched a janitor squeegee water away from a seam in the glass. Somewhere in the mall, the PA announced a sale and a birthday song at the same time, both off-key.
"What's your favorite part to teach?" he asked.
She didn't have to think. "EDSA. Not the dates; the crowds. How people showed up with sandwiches and candles and found out their bodies could be a sentence. I like the idea that ordinary feet make history."
He nodded, eyes intent. "I like markets," he said. "They are also sentences. You can read what a city loves by what it haggles over."
"Deep," she said, smirking.
"Cheap," he echoed, deadpan, and they both laughed.
He tried a Tagalog sentence, surprised himself mid-air, then crashed. "Nag– aral… ako… ng Tagalog?"
"Nag-aaral," she corrected, teacher voice automatic, smile indulgent. "Present tense."
"Nag-aaral ako ng Tagalog," he repeated, careful, pleased when it felt right in his mouth. "Your turn. Nagtuon ko og Bisaya."
She blinked. "Translate?"
"You're studying Bisaya."
"Nagtuon ko og Bisaya," she said, vowels a little clumsy. "What's kapoy again?"
"Tired." He tilted his hand. "Kapoy kaayo is very tired."
"Kapoy kaayo," she repeated like a charm. "My students make me kapoy kaayo. But I teach them anyway."
"You are brave," he said simply.
"I am broke," she countered, then flushed because it sounded like begging. "I mean—I like my job."
"Both can be true," he said, not unkindly.
She sipped coffee. He nudged the plate of pandesal an inch closer to her by accident and didn't take it back.
The storm had softened to a steady hiss. The mall's small chapel across the hall clicked open; two older women crossed themselves at the door and slipped in. Sheryl's eyes followed them like a reflex.
"You go there?" he asked, gentle, without judgment.
"Sometimes," she said. "Rain makes me pray better. Or more, at least."
He nodded. "Rain makes me listen better."
"Maybe it's the same thing," she said, and he smiled like he wanted it to be.
They drifted into lighter water: favorite street food (taho for him, sorbetes for her), worst jeepney routes (Zapote at rush hour got his immediate shudder), the secret of keeping white blouses unstained (she swore by Perla, he pretended to take notes like a diligent student).
He noticed the tiny crucifix on her chain when she tucked hair behind her ear. "That suits you," he said.
"What, looking Catholic?" She meant it as a joke, and it landed like one, but she felt the hinge of it swing.
"Looking grounded," he amended. "Like someone who has a place to stand."
She didn't know what to do with that, so she finished her coffee.
When they were done, she insisted on buying the dish soap and vinegar she'd promised to bring home. He carried the bag to the door without making a speech about it. Under the overhang they paused, watching the rain calibrate itself.
"I have an umbrella," he offered.
"I have one too," she said, lifting a small collapsible thing that looked brave but wasn't.
"Yours will surrender in five minutes," he said solemnly.
"And yours?"
"Mine will surrender in six."
She snorted. "Okay. We'll share until the tricycle line. Then we split."
"Fairness," he agreed again, as if the word itself had become a small ritual between them.
They stepped out. He stood on the outer side, taking the spray off passing tires. She pretended not to notice and noticed everything. At the terminal he snapped the umbrella shut with a practiced wrist and handed her the bag of vinegar and soap like he was passing a torch.
"Thank you," she said. She meant for the umbrella, the pandesal, the way he didn't crowd her or save her or charge her interest in kindness.
"Salamat," he said, and then, with a proud little lift to his chin, "Magdadasal ako ngayon."
She raised a brow. "Nice."
He bowed, as if he'd passed an exam. "Next time," he said, almost under the rain.
She opened her mouth to say there might not be a next time, that storms were accidents and free days rarer than patience. What came out was, "We'll see."
The tricycle driver yelled "Isa pa!" She climbed in, knees together, bag on her lap. Rafi stood back, not waving, just there. The rain pushed them both into smaller shapes.
On the ride home, she scolded herself. This will not pan out….This will not pan out...This will not pan out….Thinking to herself over and over again. Saying it like the Sorrowful Rosary. This will not work out. Abandon ship. And laughed to herself.
But underneath the arithmetic, something light moved. The way he set the plate in the middle. The way he said you are brave like he meant it. The umbrella tilting toward her shoulder. She told her heart to behave. The storm laughed and kept drumming.
Across the city, he hung his shirt to dry and unrolled his prayer mat. He faced what did not sway with weather and thanked God for coffee that did not pretend to be a sacrament but had nevertheless felt holy in its own foolish way. He did not tell the whole truth; he did not plan to. She deserves simple, he told himself again. She deserves honest. He practiced her name silently like a verse.
After Isha, the mall chapel reappeared in his thoughts, and the two old women, and the way Sheryl's eyes had followed them without bitterness. Rain makes me listen better, he'd said; maybe he meant, Rain makes me brave. He was not sure.
He messaged when it felt safe to do so.
Rafi:
Home safe? No surrendered umbrellas?
Sheryl:
Home. Umbrella survived. Barely.
Thanks for the coffee. And the shared roof.
Rafi:
Thank you for not failing my Tagalog.
Next time I'll try two sentences.
Sheryl:
Next time I'll bring a bigger umbrella.
She stared at those words for a long minute after sending them, surprised at herself, at the way next time had slid out like a hand offered in a dark theater.
Outside, the storm stepped down a rung. In the quiet between drops, Parañaque sounded like a woman catching her breath.