Ling had been through wars.
Not the poetic one but the real kind where deadlines, responsibility, being the eldest daughter and the provider who never asked for help kind of war. She rarely or never even cried when she had to juggle two jobs at nineteen while trying to finish her college studies nor cried when their mom abandoned them for someone else when their father had died. She just laughs at it as if she's expecting all of that at once.
Life is so hard that she often finds herself awake before her alarm goes off, calculating how many organs she could easily sell while still being able to function at work. Kidney is very risky, she knew. Lungs, well how will she breathe? It's a huge inconvenience. Her fingers? Slightly negotiable but she's a hundred percent sure her girlfriend, Orm wouldn't appreciate it.
She smiled at the thought of Orm. Her girlfriend since highschool, the class princess who had all the boys go loco with just how she simply walks. She met her when her mom, the principal, needed help to carry things over to her office and found Orm there who offered her a snack. Secretly, She then likes Orm eversince.
She kept it to herself for years until their graduation when she decided that she'd lose nothing for confessing her feelings. They'd part ways, she'll be in a community college studying the only course that's available while Orm will study in the city to pursue her passion of medicine.
"I thought, you would never say it." Orm said, blush creeping on her cheeks after Ling said how much she likes her.
The toga she's holding quietly fell on the cement, They're on the rooftop and they can see their fellow students along with their parents spilling out from the auditorium where they held their graduation but none of that mattered, not now, not ever, "W-what?" Ling asked, surprise written on her face.
"I like you too, silly. Didn't you even wonder why I'm still single all these years and just clinging onto you?"
Ling's mouth literally fell. They've been classmates since freshmen and halfway in high school where their classmates talk about having a girlfriend or a boyfriend and their wanting to experience first kisses, Orm would just simply smile and find the seat next to Ling and ask if she'd eaten.
She thought the girl was just being kind to her. That's all. "I like you so if you ask me to be your girlfriend, my answer will always be a yes."
March 28, 2012.
That is the day of their graduation from high school and the day when Ling got herself a girlfriend.
"Phi Ling," Mali wailed. "I can't find my uniform."
From the other room came the sound of someone coughing dramatically and Ling sat up slowly. Her musing of the past halted the moment she heard her siblings scrambling.
"Have you tried," she called out in a calm, haunting voice, "opening your eyes?"
A brief silence ensues and then she hears her sister's, "Oh."
Knowing that she wont have peace until she sent her siblings to school, she dragged herself to the kitchen. While waiting for the rice to cook, she scrambled some eggs for breakfast and poured coffee like it was medical equipment keeping her alive. Then Ken walked in, scratching his head.
"Phi Ling, I need 100 for a school project."
Ling froze mid stir, "Define need."
"It's for the grades."
"That's not a definition, kid."
Like a real Gen Z, he showed her a group chat message of their class and Ling stared at it for a while, calculating the rent, electricity, water and food. The mysterious "miscellaneous" always meant disaster for her wallet.
