Perfect For You

Pugoyaki

It was certainly one of those days.

NJ's eyes roved around the ground floor of the Nomnom Commons food park again, checking one last time because maybe she just missed something-but no. All the tables in the ground level dining area were occupied. Even the ones on the second floor were all occupied. She tightened her grip on her tray, the iron plate on it giving out one last sizzle before simmering down. Moisture from her beer bottle dripped down on her fingers as she walked through the crowd of the food park, still on the alert for an empty table.

Of course. She should have known better. It was a Saturday, after all, and a payday weekend at that, so NomCom would be packed. She hadn't been to this place for so long, and she had forgotten just how terrible an ordeal getting a free table would be on days like this. But she wasn't thinking, really, when she got into her car and drove straight to this place right after band practice that day ended. All she was thinking was that she wanted a bottle of cold beer from O-Beer The Counter, an entire plate of Luv U Sizz sisig, garlic rice, and a for-sharing serving of their signature pugoyaki-which was basically a takoyaki but with quail eggs instead of octopus bits inside it. It was the weirdest thing ever, but she wanted it right now.

But really, maybe what she just wanted was to be away from her band mates for at least a few hours. Usually they went out for lunch at Revelations, the café near the church, after band practice, but she just didn't feel like it right now.

Or maybe not her entire band, she amended. Maybe just him.

Some part of her knew that she was being unreasonable about this, and the way things were going right now, maybe God thought so too and was chastising her, somehow. She got stuck in traffic for almost two hours, when it normally would have just taken her an hour to go to this place from their village. It took her close to another hour to get parking space. When she reached the front of the line, the girl at Luv U Sizz told her they had just run out of their pugoyaki.

And now she couldn't find a table. There was no way she can eat her sisig on a sizzling plate standing up. She looked up at the sky above her. Why me? The bright summer sun beamed down on her, as if in reply.

When she looked back at the crowd again, her heart lifted. A couple occupying one of the tables near one of the performance areas was finishing the last of their meal. She walked slowly towards their table, trying to look nonchalant. The very second they stood up she swooped towards their table. With a cry of triumph, she set down her tray on the table-

At the same time someone else put their tray onto it.

She looked up, eyes narrowed, ready to fight for this table if she needed to. "Hey, sorry, but I got here first-"

Her mouth dropped open.

She stared at the person before her now.

"Narcisa?"

A tall young man with long dark hair reaching up to his shoulders met her gaze. He was still wearing that ridiculous midnight blue turtleneck shirt-ridiculous because he was wearing it in the sweltering Manila heat in the middle of April-but there wasn't even the slightest hint of sweat on his forehead. He put down a black violin case on the table, right beside his tray.

No. No.

Why him, of all people.

Van Esquivel.

Quite possibly the most annoying, exasperating, insufferable man she had ever met in her entire life. She was already twenty-four years old, after all, so by this time she had already met a good number of people she could compare him to.