Page 52 of Signal No. Us

“Yeah.”

“I just realized I also wanted to leave whenever things got boring,” Allan admitted. “Equal opportunity escape plan.”

“And now?” Robby asked.

“Now,” Allan said, watching Oryo attempt to charm a second fishball out of Manong purely with eye contact, “this isn’t bad. Standing here. With you. Nothing dramatic happening.”

“I’m flattered,” Robby said.

“Don’t get too full of yourself,” Allan said. “You still owe me three arguments about John Lloyd.”

They strolled back slowly, Oryo trotting ahead, grease on their fingers, no audience, no big conversation, no big moment, just a small, ordinary one Allan would have sprinted past a decade ago, too busy performing a bigger life to notice how good the small one already was.

Sunlight was starting to needle through the clouds by the time they reached the gate again.

“So,” Allan said, watching Oryo make one last aggressive lunge at a stray fishball stick, “what happens next?”

“Depends,” Robby said. “Next as in tonight, or next as in⁠—”

“The far future,” Allan said, turning to him. “The scary kind.”

Robby held his gaze. “Honestly? I used to not let myself think about it. Figured if I didn’t picture it, it couldn’t disappoint me if it fell apart.”

“And now?”

“Now I think about it. Little by little.” Robby bumped his shoulder against Allan’s, easy, like it wasn’t a big confession at all, even though it was. “Wherever you end up going, whatever that ends up looking like, I’m coming with you. I’ve already said it, but I don’t mind saying it again.”

“Dahan-dahan,” Allan said, because that was their word now, less caution than promise.

“Dahan-dahan,” Robby agreed.

By that evening, the radio was already hinting at a new system forming over the Pacific. Allan didn’t flinch at the thought the way he once might have.

“Any Fujiwhara pairs out there tonight?” he’d asked Robby, mostly joking.

“Just the one I know about,” Robby said, not joking at all, and didn’t elaborate, because after everything, he didn’t have to.

Because whatever storm was coming, Allan already knew exactly who he’d be facing it with, hand in hand, eyes open, ready. Two systems, one center. That part, at least, was never going to drift.

EPILOGUE

The wedding did not happen on schedule. PAGASA walked the new system up to Signal No. 4 over the province within two days of that first radio mention, and Ver and Anna's date moved once for the storm itself and once more for the cleanup it left behind—first by a week, then by another two. Three weeks disappeared that way: a caterer rebooked twice, a church calendar reshuffled around two baptisms, and the barangay hall repurposed as a relief-goods staging point instead of a reception venue. The entourage's final fitting slipped back right along with everything else.

“It’s not my fault I gained weight,” Allan said, arms out at his sides while Manang Fely, the barangay’s one and only formal-wear seamstress, muttered around a mouthful of pins.

“I never said it was your fault,” she said. “I just said, hold still, so you don’t get stabbed.”

“That’s a threat.”

“Just a fact,” she said serenely, and kept pinning.

Robby, already fitted and clearly enjoying Allan’s suffering from the safety of the couch, sipped his coffee with maximum smugness.

“You’re so quiet,” Allan remarked. “Suspicious.”

“I’m done,” Robby said. “First timer’s privilege, first time getting fitted, no drama.”

“I hate that you’re aging like fine wine while I’m apparently aging like bread.”