Waves Don't Wait

The sun doesn't rise in Manila like it does here.

In Dinadiawan, it spills gently across the water, gold brushing against the edge of the world, as if time, for once, is in no rush. Nyra watches it from a borrowed porch with salt-dried skin and a heart too full of things she hasn't said out loud.

She didn't come here looking for anyone. She came because something in her cracked after one too many late nights in a boardroom that didn't know her name. The kind of tired she carried wasn't cured by sleep. It needed distance. Stillness. Saltwater.

Then there's him.

She notices him the way you notice a sudden gust of wind, subtle, then unavoidable. He's always nearby: repairing a fence, carrying driftwood, pausing to watch the horizon like it speaks a language only he understands. He doesn't say much. But when he does, it lands.

Their exchanges start quiet, practical, and forgettable.

Until they're not.

Now her morning walks linger near his stretch of sand. Now his silence waits a beat longer before passing her by. There's something there, in the space between their glances, heat disguised as distance, interest hidden under restraint.

Nyra never asks who he is.
He never offers.
And yet, he's in her thoughts long after the ocean has gone still for the night.

She doesn't know what this is.
She only knows that her breath catches when his hand brushes hers. That the sound of his voice stays with her long after he's gone. That whatever's happening between them feels like a tide, slow, certain, and pulling her under.

She knows this isn't forever.
She didn't come here to fall.
But the waves don't wait.

And neither does whatever this is, blooming quietly between two people who never meant to be seen.