Luca Goes To The Philippines

I Can

The next day, the day finally came. The singing competition is tonight, and every participant of the competition got serious about practicing, including Mariposa.

Mariposa sat on her tree, and practiced playing her guitar. After the secret was out, and there was tension with Alberto, she did not wake up happy this morning. She only ate half of her peanut butter sandwich, and decided to be alone. The tree was the only place she could be alone.

Unbeknownst to her, her siblings were watching her from the front windows since some other bedrooms were facing the backyard, so the other siblings had to borrow the front windows to watch their sister practice. Even Elizabeth was watching, but she had bigger guilt than all of her cousins when they found out Luca, Alberto, and Giulia no longer practiced with Mariposa, making the half-butterfly sad and lonely again, like she used to.

"Ooooohhhh!" Elizabeth closed the window, and groaned sadly, falling herself onto her bed, "Guilt is so awful!" She continued to groan with guilt as she lay down on the floor, then sat down on her desk, bumping her head down repeatedly, and sat down in front of the piano, which she threw her hand down on the lower keys.

Then, her 8 cousins came inside of her bedroom without knocking as they also felt Elizabeth's guilt.

"What are we gonna do?!" Ligaya asked, almost sobbing "We can't just stand by and let this happen!"

"We've ruined our sister's one chance at true happiness!" Divina whimpered.

"All she wanted was friends, and she finally got them, but we took them away!" Renaldo cried.

"Those three didn't mean any harm at all, they were innocent," Imelda said.

"Guess Luca, Alberto, and Giulia liked Mariposa much is not because she's so lonely without any friend and they wanted to feel her being accompanied, but also because they didn't have a big family like us," Tala stated.

"Yeah, and I thought having a big family was a misery, but I was wrong. You know what they say, the more the merrier," Jayjay admitted.

Ligaya nodded, "Unlike those three, Luca is an only child with overprotective parents, Alberto was abandoned by his own dad, and Giulia grew up with her separated parents, and no friends or siblings at all until she met the boys."

"Until all of them met each other, and then they met our sister... and us," Boyet added.

"I couldn't imagine what would be like if we were in their shoes," Imelda frowned before correcting herself, "Except for Luca and Alberto, they don't even wear shoes."

"Well, we can't do anything now. We can't take it all back. Those three were already in trouble. I just hope they'll be safe," Elizabeth sighed, "All we have to focus now is support Mariposa for her singing competition tonight."

The rest of the siblings glanced at each other, and nodded in agreement, still feeling helpless.

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Later, when evening struck, Alberto was sitting on a chair, hugging his knees and staring at the window in guilt. Luca and Giulia were still in their respective rooms, and hadn't moved the whole day since yesterday since they were still mad at Alberto for berating Mariposa. Even their parents can't make them leave their rooms.

Alberto couldn't bring himself to cry because of his mistakes to his new friend, but deep down, he was very guilty. He hasn't spoken for a day or talked about what happened yesterday. He silenced himself just to pass the time that he might forget why he was guilty, but it never did. He kept saying, "Silenzio Bruno" whenever the dumb voice inside his head said that everything was all his fault for what happened to his friendship with Luca, Giulia, and Mariposa, but Alberto let him win this round. Bruno was right this time. He ruined the friendships he made.