Anthologies {MIKHAIAH AU}

please please please pt 1

The first time Aiah Arceta saw Mikha Lim, she was sitting on the hood of a beat-up, dark green hatchback, a cigarette dangling lazily between her fingers. Mikha wasn't smoking it—not yet. She just held it like she held everything else: loosely, like it didn't matter if she kept it or let it burn out. Her long, bright red hair spilled over her leather jacket, fire against black, and her gaze—sharp, amused—seemed to cut through the noise of the parking lot like a blade.

"She looks dangerous," Stacey had said that day, whispering behind her palm, loud enough for Aiah to hear.

"Dangerous? Grabe, mas mukha lang siyang chill," Aiah had replied, though she didn't quite believe it.

Because Mikha didn't look chill. She looked like the kind of person who might take you somewhere you weren't supposed to go. Someone who'd show you a place you'd never forget, even if you came back in pieces. And maybe that wasn't so different from danger, but Aiah didn't care.

By the end of that week, Mikha was leaning against Aiah's locker, that same cigarette tucked behind her ear like a prop she never planned to use.

"Uy," Mikha said, her tone as casual as a shrug. Her eyes flicked up and down Aiah's pink sweater, her pleated skirt, her polished, good-girl smile. "Nasa daan ka."

Aiah blinked, confused for half a second before stepping aside. "Sorry!" she squeaked. Then, because something in Mikha's smirk made her bold, she added, "Wait. Hindi pala ako sorry."

Mikha arched an eyebrow, clearly surprised. And for a second—a brief, impossible second—she smiled. Not the kind of smile that reached her eyes, not like Aiah's wide, dimpled grin, but a sliver of something real, something sharp-edged and fleeting.

"Cool," Mikha said. "I like you."

After that, Aiah never stopped hearing her friends' voices, warnings wrapped in concern.

"She's bad news," Sheena had said one night when Mikha dropped Aiah off late after their third date—or what Mikha would insist wasn't a date at all. ("Just two people hanging out," Mikha had said, and Aiah had nodded, even though her heart was screaming, Please, please, please, just let it be more.)

"Alam mo, wala siyang plano sa 'yo," Maloi added. "Mukha lang siyang... ewan, parang... all smirks and problems. Like, she doesn't even try to hide it!"

"Hay nako," Stacey sighed, exasperated. "Baka siya pa ang magbigay sa 'yo ng problema."

But Aiah couldn't help it. Mikha had a way of making everything seem sharper, brighter, like sunlight through broken glass. The way she laughed—low and slow, like she didn't want to waste energy but couldn't help herself—sent shivers down Aiah's spine. And when Mikha pulled Aiah onto the back of her motorbike one Saturday afternoon, Aiah thought she might explode from the thrill of it all, from the way Mikha turned her head and said, "Hawak ka nang maayos," her voice tinged with something close to care.

Mikha's friends weren't much better in the eyes of Aiah's circle. Colet and Jho were loud and brash, always cracking jokes that went too far, and Gwen—the quietest of the trio—had a permanent scowl that made Aiah feel like she didn't belong.

"Hindi ka nila gusto," Maloi pointed out one afternoon.

"Eh ano ngayon?" Aiah said, shrugging. But she didn't mention that she felt it too, the tension when she walked into a room where Mikha's friends were sprawled across couches or leaning against walls, looking her over like she didn't fit in Mikha's world.

But Aiah didn't care about them. She only cared about Mikha.

Mikha, who never quite gave enough of herself. Mikha, who would show up at Aiah's doorstep with a crooked grin and a playlist full of songs she refused to explain. Mikha, who would touch Aiah's cheek so lightly it felt like a secret.