Iris

Track 15: Sa Susunod Na Habang Buhay (Ben & Ben)

Track time stamp: 3:19-3:56

And even though everything changed through time, the hole in the heart left unfixed. You're still the one I'd choose even in the next lifetime.

Seconds to death, the heart screams for what the mind has buried. It's not always about the person nor the place, not even time. It's about how you felt at that very moment it happened. That's what makes it unforgettable.

It flashes at the back of her mind. An image slips in that what once felt surreal, felt a whole new pain.

Driving in endless circles on a midnight sky. No GPS, no maps, no destination, just the road heading to a place where the heart leads. The one next to you. Right on the passenger's seat. That's the one.

Hair blowing in the wind, losing track of time, just you and her. Tokyo never felt so lightweight than admiring an epitome of beauty admiring itself. Nothing more beautiful than a woman who peeks her head in over a rolled window and falls in love with the city. Not knowing that to someone else, she was her city that someone was falling for.

She, Claire. Over the half windows down, she leans over, squeezing her cheeks on to the glass. Feeling the air brushing her cheeks, the cold never bothered her. Her eyes turn glassy but not in a way of crying of sadness but of happiness. She smiles dearly. She was the human embodiment of the pleading emoji.

The only happiness that you would want to cry.

Tokyo remembers it all too well. What she felt everything at that moment. It was surreal but real.

And that was the last thing that she thought of before her eyes completely shuts.

Forever.

(Flashback: Lemon and Bagoong.)

Loud rainstorms are the worst. Terrifying. But for most people, it tends to help them fall asleep faster. The sound of the dewdrops hitting the ground and the roof sounded like a lullaby.

And that is to sprawl into a nice cozy bed, hide under the thick sheets, bury your face in the most warm, most fluffy pillow there could ever be.

The moon was bright whilst the heavy pour, the only thing that illuminates and gives a silhouette of each corner of the dark room. Across the blinds where the moonlight shines through, giving shadows to the dewdrops falling from the outside.

Tokyo was in her deepest dreams. And the second she hears her wife wailing, she broke the record of the fastest bull that won a race. She sprawls out and curls out of the sheets like a lightning bolt.

The worst came when she saw an empty space next to her on the bed. The wailing intensifies and she follows the sound. She runs to the door in her Pjs and saw the 7-month-old pregnant Claire with sprawled knees on the floor and thank God, not again at the end of the staircase when she accidentally slipped and fell straight down. And that wasn't even the worst. You don't wanna know what's worse than Claire reattempting to ride a bicycle with a 4 months old baby in her womb just because she was bored and wanted to buy materials to do knitting for Tokyo's birthday present.

You wouldn't want to know about more of Tokyo's dilemma in handling situations of an angry, moody, very unpredictable pregnant wife.

Claire's entire face was buried in her palms. Her shoulders were shaking with each sob.

"Hey, hey, shush. Are you... are you okay?" Asked the crazily worried Tokyo who was about to throw everything just to ask what's wrong with her crying wife.

"He died." Claire's voice shatters and Tokyo swore it crushed her to pieces.

"What?! Who... w- who died, Mary Claire?!"