"What have you done, son?"

That was the reaction Uno received from his parents last night when he told them what occurred between him and Dos. He sort of expected it, some kind of assumed they'd get mad, a little expected they'd take Dos' side over his, and shortly perceived they'd meddle on the matter. Still, he didn't predict what they'd be doing.

"Wait!" he yelled as he uncovered himself with the comforter and stood from the bed to open the door for whoever it was who kept on ringing the doorbell.

When he stepped out of his room, his eyes automatically searched for Dos, whom he didn't see anywhere, even on the couch where he usually sees her every morning.

"Yaya Paning?" he said, surprised, laying his widened vision on the old woman who was smiling sheepishly at him.

"Uno?" the woman replied before letting out a chuckle. She was also throwing a knowing look at him. "Parang hindi naman tayo magkakilala mula bata ka at para rin namang hindi tayo nagkita no'ng nakaraan lang para hindi mo agad ako makilala, anak."

And there he was, doomed, after hearing something that brought back a memory he shouldn't be reminiscing anymore, for it was an occurrence having a face value of lament.

"Oh gods, Yaya, just tell me why you're he--"

"Dos!" Yaya Paning happily waved her hands in the air, with her smiling eyes looking past Uno. "Kamusta ka, hija?" She hurriedly removed her slippers off her soles and went straight to Dos, then hugged her.

Uno was left by the door, staring at the two who appeared to him as a mother and a daughter who hadn't long seen each other.

"I'm okay po, just hungry 'cause I wasn't able to eat dinner last night," saad nito habang hinihimas ang tiyan, na siyang naging dahilan naman ng pagkunot ng noon ng matanda.

Holy cow! Uno lamentably thought to himself. She doesn't know how to cook!
Only then, he becomes conscious of how he bastardized Dos last night without having to fathom the fact that he had left her for a day with no bite to fill her tummy.

"Ano?! Bakit hindi ka naghapunan?! Jusko po kang bata ka!" Yaya Paning turned to face Uno with an angered look. "Uno! Ano ka ba naman, anak? Alam mo namang hindi siya marunong magluto--"

"I had taken no harm, Yaya Paning. Besides, I'm nineteen, I shouldn't be staging a preschooler's life phase who is yet to be capable of pulling tricks to munch on something," Dos cut her off, showing no emotions on her favored face.

Uno took a long indrawn breath. He had realized much to his mortification that Dos caught her off his high horse with that.

"O, siya. Magluluto ako ng agahan niyo nang makakain ka na. Paano ka tatandang kamukha ko, kung magpapalipas ka ng gutom?" Yaya Paning tried to outweigh the heaviness that had been trying to occupy the scale. "Mapirme ka muna rito, magluluto lang ako, ha?"

Dos sodded her head as she pasted a thin smile on the lips.

When Yaya Paning left, silence came, swallowing the existence of Dos, much more the shamefaced Uno.

"Morning," she shattered the stillness ensuing between them before she slumped carelessly on the couch.

Uno was skeptical to move either to talk, but the conscience creeping inside his chest along with the drumming of his heart pushed him to reside at the cushion fronting Dos.

He was about to go hat in hand to her when Yaya Paning took another great pose into the picture. "Uno, Dos! Pumarine nga kayong dalawa sa kusina at baka mamaya'y matuloy na ang naunsiyame niyong paggawa ng Tres!"

Tanginang Tres 'yan! Yaya naman! Nakakaloka! he inwardly groaned, feeling all the tinge of color in him leaving.

"Opo, Yaya!" Dos yelled back after darting a sideward glance at him before making tracks to the kitchen.

He followed a few moments after taking back his to-a-limited-extent unashamed self.

"Oh!" Yaya Paning said in surprise when she opened the two-doored fridge. A box of cake, a bucket of chicken, canned sodas, and boxes of meals from different fast-food chains were there. "Ang dami niyo pa lang pagkain, eh. Bakit hindi ka nakakain kagabi, Dos? Jusko kang bata ka. Hala, ipapainit ko na lang ang mga are nang hindi masayang."

Fuck, Uno cussed in mind, staring at Dos' side profile, wondering why she skipped a meal when she ordered a variety from different food chains.

"Nakatulog na po ako," Dos blew off the sudden quietness that occurred again. "By the way, Yaya, not that I don't want you here, ha? 'Cause I do like you, and I tell no lies, but may I ask what you're doing here?"

"Warning ba," Yaya Paning replied without turning back from the stove to face Dos. She held herself facing and reheating the pan of fried chickens on the stove.

"Warning?" Uno and Dos asked in chorus, both sounding hanging for an explanation.

"Warning." The older woman faced them, smiling and holding a tong on her right. "Ang sabi nina Marco at Nicole, 'pag hindi kayo nagkaayos at matutuloy ang pagbukod ni Dos, walang magaganap na lipatan dahil lilipat ako rito kasama niyo."

"Ano?!" Uno angrily shouted. "They both know how much I hate having someone to watch over me!"

"Aba, hijo, syempre alam nila 'yon. Kaya nga ito ang naisip nilang paraan, hindi ba? At pwede ba, mga anak," iritadong sambit nito habang salitang ibinaling ang paningin sa dalawa. "Matagal na akong menopause, pero pakiramdam ko nagdadalaga ulit ako dahil dinudugo ako kaka-ingles niyong dalawa. Kaya kung pwede lang, ano, magtagalog kayo, ha?"

"But my decision is final po, gusto kong ibang condo," she told the old woman before she fixed her gaze at Uno. "I'll just talk to Tito Marco and Tita Nicole regarding this. You don't have to take this matter to your plate."

With that remark of hers, Uno felt more than at fault.

"Naku, hija, hindi ka pwedeng mag-isa lalo na't babae ka at Maynila pa ito. Baka kung mapaano ka." Yaya Paning looked more than bothered than Dos, whom anyone could compare to as a daredevil for taking no precautions to her decisions.

"Sanay po akong mag-isa, there's no need for you to worry," Dos replied with a subdued laugh. "If this is Manila, then I guess I'm the 'Dos. What's in Manila for me to chicken out?"

"Marami," Uno finally broke his deafening silence. "So, no. You're not leaving." He rushed to Dos' side and dragged her to his room, consumed with the desire to bury the hatchet.

"Walang gagawa ng Tres, ha?!" was the last line Uno from the old woman before he shut his bedroom door closed.

"No one's leavi--"

"If your words can't be vetoed, same as mine, Uno. I'm leaving."

"O, sige," he said, sounding like a challenge. "Leave, then I'd move in with you. What's going to be the difference, huh, tell me?"

"Why would you do that?" She laughed bitterly. "Didn't you want me off your lodge?"

"I was fuming mad last night, Dos! Kung ano man 'yong mga nasabi ko, hindi ko 'yon sinasad--"

"And I wasn't on the edge of my sobriety last night. Whatever I said weren't shams that I'd be taking back the next day for no serious reason at all other than an overused line of, I was fuckingly fuming mad," she hissed. "Is that how gay people reason out if they're getting on someone's wick? And you guys have this effin' spunk to wonder why some prejudice you? You're funny. Very funny."

"Wow," he scoffed. "So much for effrontery, Dos. I'm so overwhelmed right now, and I'd like to give a vent had I not been a homosexual man who'd rather choose to hold his tongue than to argue with homophobics whose execration toward individuals of different sexual grounding stands as one of their defaults as human," he said, his voice cracking, as he held her gaze in pain, feeling the same hurt as that of the process he went through during his identity crisis at thirteen.

Dos remained silent for seconds, lifting her mouth into a fraction numerous times, as if wanting to say something but was very much having qualms.

"If you want to move out, then move out," Uno went on before he tilted the knob to head off but came to a halt when he heard Dos sobbing.

He turned to his back again to face her. All the madness that'd been filling him magically vanished in a speed of light upon seeing her pitiable look.

"You know what, Dos, if you have this hobby of saying and doing things without further thinking, then it is what it is. 'because I just thought now that I couldn't stand giving you cold shoulders for logic I couldn't fathom. So, fuck it. Stay with me. I'd bear with your immaturity."