Capture the moment. Capture the moment.

Alex Montecristo (not his real name) has never appreciated Eminem's lyrics in 8 Mile more than he does now.

He's sitting on the leather-upholstered sofa of his customized van. Across him is a vanity mirror with light bulbs instead of a frame; Hollywood-style for professional lighting and zero makeup fails. The whole setup would make one think he might be gay, but only if they're not well-acquainted with the Carmageddon traffic jams of Metro Manila.

The traffic changes people. They realize life is measured neither in moments nor in minutes. It's made up of all the precious time that flits by while they're stuck in a gridlock. But Alex has to admit that, yes, the van's also a product of his hyper-OC personality.

In his hand is a glass of Dutch courage from the mini-bar. Next to him on the sofa, there's an ash tray starting to fill with cigarette stubs, the open file of his latest client and some cue cards.

The file heading reads "Maria Carmencita Robles AKA Karma" and the attached pic is that of the hip hop socialite in a jersey, complete with dreadlocks and hoop earrings. Rounded eyebrows, almond-shaped feline eyes, haughty Cleopatra nose, and full aka bee-stung lips.

Her fave food is Caribbean...

Fave dessert: Cheesecake

Fave drink: Screwdriver

Fave color: Black and orange

Fave place: Adriatico St.

Fave perfume: Bvlgari Black

Pet peeve: Weirdos grinding against me on the dance floor

Hobbies: Cosplay, Nail art

Most of the time, breakup gigs are pretty straightforward, but then there are cases like this when Alex needs to step out of his comfort zone. As Deadpool likes to say: #MaximumEffort.

Maximum effort indeed. His reflection in the mirror is no one he recognizes. When the haze of cigarette smoke breaks, he sees a fitted cap, stunner shades, camouflage hoodie, black shirt and gold chain. His jeans aren't customary baggy but his shoes are suede mid-rise work boots with their tongues showing. He tips the bottom of his glass to down the last shot.

All right, let's do this, he thinks to himself. Time to break up Couple No. 7.

He slides the van's door open and releases a cloud of tar and nicotine. He wobbles a bit as he alights on the concrete of the parking lot.

Whoa! So that's where all the vodka martini went.

He steadies his stance, twists his cap backwards and starts walking into the club. The bouncers and receptionists all know him so he passes smoothly even though there's a long queue of patrons readying both real and fake IDs. Maybe too smoothly because Alex passes from the 70 decibels of the streets of Malate into the 100 decibels of hip hop beats battering the thick walls. Sustained exposure to 95 decibels results to hearing loss and tinnitus later in life. Of course none of the teen party animals who frequent this spot care about any of that. YOLO.

Inside, Alex catches the eye of a server, Lou Anne, and winks at her. She giggles. She's exhausted bussing and jockeying around tables so a simple greeting from a familiar face goes a long way. He makes a beeline for the bar where the bartender, Jason, has two glasses of screwdriver waiting for him to pick up. He has texted him the order in advance.

"They already here?"

Jason cocks his head and says: "Two o' clock."

"A'ight. Thanks, Jace."

Time to get into character, Alex thinks to himself.

At two o' clock is a table laden with empty sizzle platters of what must've been sisig, glasses with ice cubes in them, lukewarm bottles of Cerveza Negra and a bucket of ice chunks interspersed with bottles of Pale Pilsen. There are also facial tissues pressed in holders, an ash tray under a hill of stubs, lighters and packs of cigarettes (Karma's favorite brand included). The handful of seats around the table are presently empty. No sign of Karma or her BF, Christopher Robin de Guzman aka Rumpelstiltskin.

Though he'd die before he'd admit it, Robin de Guzman was named after the boy in Winnie the Pooh. He tries very hard to bury that factoid by preferring his middle name and donning his constant getup: earrings, do-rags under a snapback, a gold No. 24 Lakers jersey over a white shirt, baggy jeans that he wears saggy, and a whole lot of bling. He's got a rap name because he was actually a tryout card at FlipTop, the local battle rap conference.

Robin's stocky, covered in tattoos and belongs to the starting lineup of the Black Wolves basketball team. He was awarded MVP in last year's UAAP (University Athletic Association of the Philippines) and ranks as third prospect overall in the national league's upcoming Rookie Draft. Eight thousand miles from the States, it's still the same affinity between hoopers and hip hop. How he and Karma met is through Enderun U, the same school they go to.

Robin's a playa in and out of court so Karma has been meaning to break up with him for a while now. The thing is, he's a master of Inception or, to put it more bluntly, gas-lighting. He's good at twisting the story so he's always the victim and Karma's always the one to blame. He has no qualms humiliating her on their dates and in his rap battles. He's dictating to her about everything, from Karma's taste in music to her clothes, from joining the cheerleading squad to living together. He constantly makes her feel small, inadequate, and worthless and cuts her off from her family and friends behind their Insta image of the #PerfectCouple.

Alex places a glass of screwdriver at what should be Karma's spot based on the black Fendi bag on the leather bar chair. He keeps the other glass for himself and sits next to the Fendi, on what would be the extra seats for only a couple of Robin's gang, the Cage Dawgz. In the club, you either dance all night or pay an outrageous amount of money to sit at or even lean against a LED table that advertises vodka.

Right now, the couple and the Cage Dawgz are on the dance floor, Robin dancing much more enthusiastically than Karma. Karma looks exactly the same as the pic in her file, except tonight she's wearing a crop top and a white leather jacket, with matching harem pants. She's got a half-disgusted, half-scared look on her face. It looks like she's post-twerking based on the other female dancers around her. Only in her case, Robin has come up from behind and felt her up.

One of the Cage Dawgz draws close to have a word in Robin's ear and they both glance up at Alex sitting at their table. Karma also turns in his direction and her eyes pop out of their sockets, her face going as white as a sheet. The whole gang stops dancing, makes their way through the other oblivious dancers and looms over the table.

"Who tha fuck are you?" Robin barks and Karma nearly jumps out of her skin.

"Aww damn," Alex says apologetically and rises. "I'm sorry, bruh. Ma bad."

Leaning across the table, he extends his hand to Robin for daps or at least a fist-bump. Robin slaps his hand away.

"Fuck you! Who you callin bruh. We ain't friends!"

"A'ight," Alex replies, raising both hands and sitting back down. "Easy, big fella."

"Tha fuck I'm gonna take it easy," Robin roars. "Who tha fuck you think you are 'n what are you doin at ma table?"

The vigilant bouncers and a few of the dancers in the immediate radius get wind of the tension. Alex knows Robin and his crew aren't going to start an altercation because they almost got barred from this club the last time they pulled a similar stunt, and this is one of their fave haunts. A crowd of curious onlookers start to cordon off their little corner of the club.

"You don't know me," Alex tells Robin calmly. "But ya girl does. Why haven't you tole 'im bout us, bae?"

Karma looks like she's about to faint while Robin and the Cage Dawgz look like they're about to pop a vein.

"Bae? Bae?" Robin screams. "You clearly don't have a interest in breathin."

"Sit ya ass down, Rumpelstiltskin," Alex says, trying to make his voice as calm and carefree as he can and taking a sip of his screwdriver. "'Fore you give yaself a heart attack. We're just conversatin here."

Remaining seated, Alex drags out a chair from under the table and gestures for Karma to sit. He has just said Robin's at risk of having a heart attack but he guesses Karma's knees must be feeling like Jell-O right now.

With a great deal of reluctance and a scowl that says he wants to snap a neck, Robin sits across from Karma and Alex. The rest of the Cage Dawgz don't sit down but hover over Alex's shoulders like vultures. When Alex slings an arm around Karma (who's as stiff and cold as a corpse), Robin grinds his teeth so hard a muscle in his jaw jumps and all his goons tense up.

This is the nature of all men, Alex thinks. They neglect their partner for the longest time but when another guy touches her, they snarl like a dog robbed of a bone.

"I hate to break it tuh you like dis, homie," Alex continues speaking cockily, "but Karma 'n I are datin. 'Matter o' fact, we been together fo two months now."

Under the table, he grasps Karma's ice-cold hand to do two things: first, to steady her resolve and, second, to slip a SIM card onto her palm.

Robin laughs loudly and the other Cage Dawgz echo. But it's a fake laugh from the original source.

"Whachoo talkin bout, 'homes'," he says in a voice oozing with menace. "Quit yankin ma chain if you don wanna get bit."

The words are cheesy but the sight of his bulging and tatted pipes a few feet across, not to mention those of his minions around them, is making Alex start to think he might have dug his own grave after all.

"You 'spect me tuh believe Karma's been goin 'hind ma back fo two months without me noticin? Karma? Goes tuh show you don't know nothin bout dis bitch. She ain't got it in 'er." Then, looking daggers at his GF: "Dis bitch o' mine know how tuh behave. If she knows whutz good fo 'er."

That proves to be a mistake on Robin's part. Like a turtle coming out of her cracked shell, Karma rediscovers her fiery personality. It's been buried under years of her boyfriend's intimidation.

"Shut the fuck up, Christopher! If you'd been paying more attention to me instead of your side chicks, you would've noticed."

"Yeah, dawg," Alex says. "You were too dumb tuh notice. We did everythin rite under ya nose. 'N, well, you know, wit a lil help from a dispos'ble SIM card. Why don't you show 'im, bae? It's tha only way he's gonna believe any o' dis anyways."

Feigning hesitation, Karma takes off an earring and uses it to eject the SIM card tray of her gold iPhone XS. Next, she replaces the card with the one Alex passed her and then slides the iPhone across the table to Robin.

"Check tha text messages, bruh," Alex tells him, unable to help a faint smirk of one-uppance.

The fake text messages are a staple of his Boys Are Wolves gig. Using a special tool, Alex is able to customize realistic text messages or iMessage conversations, including details such as contact name, date, time and so on. For instance, the name of one contact in this particular SIM card has been changed to Daddy. And Daddy is on the top of Messages. His and the SIM card's conversations are all about motel trysts, sexting, dick pics (boob pics if they had been made available in advance) and some sweet nothings.

The text conversations will not stand up in court but, at a jealousy-fueled glance, they're very convincing. And to the supposedly cuckolded Robin, the dick pics are especially annoying because of Alex's size.

"Look," Robin says, more coolly this time; his best impression of slow-burning thug menace. "I don't know who you are 'n, frankly, I don't give a fuck. But if you thought you could come to ma turf, steal ma girl 'n I just let you, you thought wrong. Dead wrong."

"I'm not your girl, Christopher," Karma says. "I haven't been in a long time. I'm breaking up with you. It's over."

"Shut yo trap!" Robin snarls.

"You heard Ma Queen," Alex says. "Just take it like a man, why doncha?"

Robin looks like someone whose balls are caught in a vice.

"It's like dat, huh?" he growls.

"It's like dat," Alex hisses back.

Another spell of extra-thick, speechless tension hangs over the table as Robin mulls his options. Then, all at once, he screams:

"WILL SUMBODY TURN THAT SHIT DOWN? I CAN'T HEAR MASELF THINK!"

As though the entire club was his house, one of the Cage Dawgz signals the DJ and the music comes to a screeching halt – the literal screech of a vinyl record. All the rest of the clubbers are interrupted mid-dance and look around cluelessly. They crane their necks and spy the gathering crowd around the Cage Dawgz's table. Inquisitive murmurs ripple around but, with the sudden plunge from 100 decibels, it's so quiet you could hear the proverbial pin drop.

This gives Robin an idea.

"Yeah," he says with a malicious grin. "I'm a big boy. I can handle it. Tha question is, can you?"

He stands up and walks to the stage. The DJ, who's buddies with him, has the left side of his headphones askew and his ear pricked up. Robin nimbly climbs the stage and says something to the DJ, who flashes him a thumbs-up. Then Robin picks up a wireless mic from the DJ's table and starts testing it.

"Test: one two one two. Yo, listen up now. It's ya boy Rumpelstiltskin in tha muthafukken house!" Enthusiastic cheers from the crowd. "Manila, represent! 'N shout out tuh ma boyz tha Cage Dawgz!"

The Cage Dawgz whoop and howl. Some of them right next to Alex's and Karma's ears.

"Tonite, I got a bit o' sad newz from ma girl o' two or so years, Karma. She says she wanna break up wit me."

"Aww," comes the sympathetic noise from the crowd.

"Forget 'er, A-Dawg!" shouts a girl from the back. "I'll take care o' you."

The crowd goes wild at this.

"Whoa. Hey, shawty! Holla at me later, a'ight?"

More exclamations of giddiness from the crowd.

"Oh, you guys are in fo a treat tonite! I'm bout tuh give you a impromptu, free-as-free-hugs show. But nah, dat ain't tha main reason I'm here on stage. Tha real reason I'm here is coz tha guy who stole ma girl is rite there sittin all smug 'n cocky as fuck."

A clubful of hostile eyes turn to Karma and Alex, adding to the Cage Dawgz' non-stop heat-vision glares.

"I ain't even mad," Robin the grandstander shrugs. "Honest! I'ma take tha high road here 'n be tha bigger man."

"Respect! Respect!" shout the men in the crowd while the women go aww again at the sight of Robin's practiced pout face.

"So," Robin continues glibly, "dis goes out tuh you, Mystery Boi, Stranger in Danger, dat Muthafukka ov'er there who ain't got no clue what he's getting hisself into."

Laughter from the audience.

"Tuh show you dat I'm a 24K genuine brotha. I'ma be lookin out fo you. I'ma give you sum advice on how tuh love a special girl like Karma."

Alex grits his teeth and squeezes Karma's hand under the table. They half-expected this was going to happen. Robin isn't going to give up that easily. From this point on, it's going to be a duel between two men; a duel of rap. 

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