The Billion-Dollar Proposal (COMPLETED)

XXXV: This Time It's Real

A/N: May you all enjoy this chapter hwhehwhw. Maraming maraming salamat po sa inyong lahat, see you later this evening for the Epilogue and the Author's Note! Pardon me for the grammatical errors and misspelled words.

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Ever since that day, the both of them became busy.

Bongbong Marcos, who was now the president-elect, had to make up for some absences over the past few weeks and spent time formulating his cabinet members. Both of these tasks required him to spend time. While they were waiting for a response, him and his team were busy making a number of calls and distributing offers regarding it. Meanwhile, they gave themselves permission to work on another significant thing, such as organizing their schedule and making it possible for all of these meetings to take place with a number of ambassadors. He was also quite caught up with formulating some concrete plans and ideas for the country if ever to be asked about it. Martin was particularly busy removing the ban and court verdict against the soon-to-be president entering the United States, in addition to reviewing some other paperwork to nullify its efficiency.

Leni Robredo, the outgoing Vice President who had been dutifully doing her job as her title says nevertheless of her being seen or not, was also taking up chunks of her time upon cleaning and organizing the OVP herself together with her so-called family. Boxes here, containers there, and cellophanes of trash everywhere. Since another woman is going to reside in this office and be VP for the next six years, they opted to retain its cleanliness compared to that of a warehouse-like appearance before due to the donations that were flooding inside. She was also preoccupied with her commitments being guest speakers on graduation rites from different schools and took lead in inaugural sessions of the local officials and Risa Hontiveros, the lone opposition who made it to the finish line, inside her office.

It was a fateful night when Bongbong made the decision to pull an all-nighter because he needed to review some books and files that spanned the entirety of Duterte's presidency and figure out how he would begin addressing each and every one of the exacerbated and expanding problems that the country was facing. He had to skip quite a few pages because they depicted a great deal of murder, and he was not the least bit interested in reading such grueling stuff.

The door suddenly clicked open and upon the looks of it, he knows the person standing against the light very well.

"I don't want friends in my cabinet, Jing. You can give up your shit now," Bongbong muttered.

"Grabe ka, mangangamusta lang e. Akala mo naman talaga," Jinggoy walked and took a few steps forward as he sat down in front of Bongbong.

"So? What's up?" tanong nito nang hindi pa rin inaalis ang tingin sa guidebook.

"No, ikaw dapat ang tatanungin ko niyan. How are things and Leni?" the re-elected senator asked.

He breathed out and subsequently looked at Isko, "My presidency, still a developing story. My marriage, well, standing on a solid sturdy ground. Everything's fine, dude. Medyo busy lang talaga. Siya rin naman. My family...they're good, Imee still getting on my nerves. So I think things are still pretty much the same as before."

"Well, happy for you dude. You deserve it," he gave him a semi-hug. "And I think nakokosensya lang ako kasi di ako nakadalo sa kasal niyo sana ni Louise. My campaign manager advised me not to go."

"It's fine. Completely understandable. Yet you just missed half of your life," Bongbong joked.

"Yeah, the chase! Damn," he regretfully uttered. "That's what I'm talking about. The adrenaline of it must've been fun."

"Fun 'till di mo naabutan si Leni sa condo," Bongbong mumbled.

"Baliw, naabutan mo nga diba," he playfully tapped his shoulder lightly. "Di ka ba uuwi? Sabay na tayo, hatid na kita."