Some Nights in Baguio

Somewhere above the noise of passing lives, Baguio City breathes cold air into people who no longer know how to rest.

Dante Bautista arrives with a backpack full of review materials he cannot bring himself to open, and a tiredness that feels like it has already learned his name. Dominic Lisandro arrives with a lie-one carefully spoken to his family, just enough to be granted time away without questions. They are strangers in the same city of fog and sleepless hours.

In the middle of the night, under the quiet glow of the lights of Burnham Park, an empty seat becomes the beginning of something neither of them has had in a long time: an honest conversation. No promises, no expectations, just two people convincing themselves they are only passing through. But Baguio has a way of making temporary things feel heavier than they should.

Between fog-drenched walks along Session Road, late-night convenience store coffee, and shared silences beneath cathedral steps, they begin to recognize each other in fragments-burnout, fear, unfinished dreams, and exhaustion that does not fade even after graduation.

Five days. That was all it was supposed to be.
Five days of no commitments.
Five days of simply letting things remain light.

But nights in Baguio stretch differently, and somewhere between laughter in ukay-ukay shops and arguments that end in distance, they cross a line neither of them notices at first-the quiet shift from knowing someone to needing them.

In a city built for passing through, some connections linger longer than they were ever meant to, quietly refusing to fade even when everything else moves forward, as if certain moments in time choose to stay behind in the places where they first began.

Started: March 30, 2026
Finished: ???