A Twist Of Time

thirty two

As promised, Hisako showed up the next morning, but she looked exactly like how we first saw her; in rags and with blistering tears in her eyes. She was walking behind an army of soldiers and when she saw the sight of me, her face suddenly lit up and ran to my open arms. 

"Vawee! I miss you!" she squealed. I held her tightly. Hisako was a child who loved hugs much like me when I was a kid.

"I missed you too, Hisa. How was it at the palace while you were alone?"

She let go and the smile on her face disappeared. "Bad. Very bad. They didn't make me eat."

I was surprised and mad, which led me to stand up and face the soldiers one by one. "Who didn't feed her?"

They all stayed silent.

"She's a child! Are you all stupid? It's the time of war, the last thing you can do is to starve an innocent kid to death!" I exclaimed. They hung their heads. "So you're all going to stay silent? Talk or I'll have all of you suffer what you made her suffer!"

"What's going on?" Sergio suddenly chimed in. "Valerie, what's wrong?"

"Fucking idiots," I whispered under my breath. "Ask them. I'm not going to explain their stupidity."

"Love, calm down. You're not like this."

"'Not like this?' Sergio, the first conversation we've ever had was me pissing you off. How is being a warfreak not like me?"

"No, you're not like this towards other people."

"Look, just tell them off and I'll be alright. It'll hurt my pride if you don't," I said. I carried Hisako and went inside our cabin which was conveniently nearby. Putting her down on my bed, I looked through the blinds and watched the confused President standing before his soldiers.

He breathed in deeply. "Men, I apologize in behalf of your First Lady. She's been stressed, and I expect that you will give your utmost cooperation and understanding whenever her bad moods occur. I know that you are all good men, all who want to serve the country as much as I do, as much as my closest friend, Manuel did, but I think that starving a child-who I treated as my own-is too much. 

"I know she's Japanese. I know you despise her. But at least half of you have children at home who are exactly like her; a child wanting their parents back. So if you have a heart, you'll know the pain my wife and I are going through."

He looked at my direction, making me close the blinds immediately and run away, pretending that I didn't listen to his long speech. The door opened a few minutes later, and as expected, Sergio had a straight face on. He sighed.

"I talked to them. I suppose they'll stop it right after," the President said, closing the door. "We need to get ready. There's a dinner after this meeting at the campgrounds, and that's the only time that Hisako can come with us. I don't want her exposed to different types of things she shouldn't be exposed to."

I couldn't find a valid argument, so I stayed silent. The day passed and I soon found myself stuck in an utterly boring room, with some soldier beside me reading an unrelated book under the table, pretending to listen. I couldn't keep myself from rolling my eyes whenever General Rude-erweld screamed something at either another soldier's face or Sergio himself.

"Miss Valerie, I think it's time you make yourself useful instead of sitting there like a mindless toy. Say something relevant for a change," Rutherweld sneared. Everyone stared at me, slouching in my chair, playing with a piece of string I pulled from my dress.

"I guess... you could all stop overlapping each other's opinions, that would be nice," I replied in a nonchalant manner. Rutherweld looked more than enraged.

"Idiotic, but we'll get to that soon."

"More like ironic," I whispered to myself. Sergio, who was beside me, nudged my elbow right after.

We were dismissed with absolutely nothing achieved or improved. Instead, Rutherweld left with a few broken relationships with his colleagues and a hot head. He deserved it. 

The dinner in the campground was at least decent, though. The soldier beside me was obviously nervous because in the laughter and loud talking of the crowd, Rutherweld could be heard scolding a soldier in a cabin nearby. He was probably next.

I was walking silently with Sergio next to I when I felt him put an arm around my shoulder, or in Filipino terms, inakbayan niya ako. My head turned up to look at him, who had his eyes on something else, obviously trying to look cool. I'm a millennial, I know the pa-breezy moves he's doing.

"What are you doing, Mister Smooth Moves?" I asked. He faced me with a smirk.

"Nothing."

"Oh. Well then, what's this?" I motioned to his arm.

"My arm."

I nudged him. "If that wasn't obvious."

And we both laughed. We sat down on two chairs away from the fire and the lights, talking among ourselves.

"You know, I still wonder how I got here. Last time I saw you was in my history book," I said to him.

"Did I look handsome?"

"How was I supposed to know? It was in black and white and very blurry."

Sergio smiled at me and leaned closer to the point where his head was resting on my shoulder comfortably. He moved his left hand and put it on top of my right and intertwined them, so now we looked like an actual couple in the 2010's.

"When you go back in 2016," he started, sighing. "Please do keep yourself healthy. Sleep early, eat as much food as you want, but not too much, since too much is bad."

"Why are you suddenly telling me this? I've been a pain to you for so long but here you are, telling me to stay healthy."

"Valerie, don't you get it? Have you ever noticed? We've already kissed, I've called you my wife for so many times, and I worry and think about you at night more than I do it to myself."

I strengthened my grip on his hand. "What does that mean?"

"It means that I love you. Why don't you ever believe that?"

I shook my head and looked away. He lifted his and looked straight at me.

"Why won't you?" he asked again. I kept staring at the ground. "Is it because you don't love me back? Is it because I'm too much of a baggage for you? Or is it because I'm just some boring man from Cebu who suddenly became the President because his best friend died?"

"That's not it!" I exclaimed. I could hear the crowd of soldiers in the distance silencing. "Sergio, I love you to death. But I don't want to believe you because this isn't true! I don't believe in magic, and I know that someday, in the blink of an eye, I will be back in my world, and I will miss you. Don't you know how hard it is to miss someone? Have you ever felt that? Everything will be over once I leave, and the love? It's gone. The pain will come."

I had tears in my eyes. My hand went to catch a falling one but he did it first, and held my cheek softly.

"I won't let you go. You don't have to get attached to me, Valerie. We can make this work and even if you leave, I will still love you and you will still love me. Just because you're far from someone doesn't mean that the love will fade. I will die soon, and if it brightens your mood, I'll make ghastly visits to you at night."

"That'll make it worse," I whispered. "I don't want to miss you."

"Then don't! I may not be with you when you leave, but you still have my heart, and that's all that matters."

"I don't have your heart. I have something else from you."

"What is it?"

"My mother once told me, 'Ang pag-ibig ay hindi ang pang-aagaw ng puso. Ito ay ang pang-agaw ng tingin, ng oras, at ng hininga, kapag nakikita at nakakapiling mo ang taong nagpapatibok sa puso mo.'"

Love is not the act of stealing of hearts. It is the stealing of glances, of time, and the taking of your breath away when you see the person that makes your heart beat.