Five Stars (Sampler)

Like being in the pocket of a melody

Holy shit, nothing's changed.

Sam looked out the window and gaped at the stretch of land. It was so unlike where he just came from, all blocks of buildings and glass. Here, it was still a palette of green, brown, and blue: tall grass, banana leaves, and clear skies.

He hadn't been home in a while—his parents usually went to the city to see him instead, 'cause if they waited for him to come home, there was a big chance they wouldn't see him at all. Not that he didn't want to see his parents—in fact, during Sam's first few years of living in the city, he'd dream about just getting on a bus ride home just so he could eat his mom's sinigang na baboy. The company cafeteria could never seem to do it right, nor could those fancy restaurants. It was either too blah or too sour. Or the soup wasn't as thick as he liked. Or too... not his mom's recipe.

But he stayed in the city because he had a dream, as silly as that sounded. He wanted to dance and sing and do it for a living. Some people would have given up on this dream right away, but when he was young, Sam hated being in school so much that he just couldn't think of doing it for longer to just get a regular nine-to-five job and live that way for the rest of his life.

No. He would perform on stages and tour the world.

That was the dream.

But the dream was big, so he knew that the work to get there was bigger, harder.

Nowadays, he lived in the apartments with the boys. Management's orders. The company figured that if they had all seven of them living in one place, then shuttling them around for their strict daily schedule of recording, training, practice, and show appearances would just be easier for everyone else. And it had been. The group saw the practicality in that and was beneficial in strengthening their bond and chemistry as a group as they presented themselves to the world and on stage.

A great business decision really, and all of them did sign five years of their lives into the group.

So to make today possible, he had to ask for it in advance. He chose his parents' twenty-fifth wedding anniversary as his one free day. There would be a whole party to celebrate the day with their family and friends.

Of course, he was part of the plan, but he had to break his parents' hearts for a bit when he told them he couldn't be there.

"I don't understand why you just can't say you'd go," Tessa had told him. It did seem mean for him pretend that he wasn't going, but the truth was he still somewhat dreaded that something might happen that day to stop him from coming.

But today, he left the apartment before any of his housemates woke up (except for Kota, who would clean the house before the rest got up to make a mess again). He had the company shuttle drive him for hours, and now he's here. In a tiny Volkswagen beetle that his legs are too long for.

People in his hometown might even think that he was the worst son for not being able to come home for his mom's birthdays or even the past few Christmases. But he had been working. End-of-the-year award shows happened around Christmas and New Year, and he couldn't afford to shuttle back and forth when he was already moving from city to city sometimes. He knew his parents made excuses for him. They probably made an excuse for him today. The upcoming album was probably the most plausible one—they had started working on their next album after they'd successfully released and toured their last one. They were about to record soon, after having just gone through the process of writing and choosing the title track from a roster of songs.

"Just move past me, go, go!" Tessa said out loud, as if the jeepney driver trying to overtake them could hear her.

Sam looked back and saw the jeepney attempting to overtake them again, then succeeding. "Do you think we can get there in an hour?"