Mushy Crush-y Tuesday Mornings

After the first shift of the week ended, I found myself along my usual route to Gaisano Mall, to wait for a jeepney to take me home. At this ungodly hour, especially now that I've just finished beating myself over the hill to please a stranger on the other side of the world, I suppose I could just hail a cab at the front of the office but the peace and the cool of the early morning air always gets to me and I'd rather walk some ways off to the kanto, normally with a ciggie on one hand, and spend time riding the jeepney, which speeds through Bajada like a daredevil.

On this special dawn though, I was with a friend from work. He was going home as I was. Usually, he would prefer to be alone, not wanting the barrage of silly questions I throw at him, and he'd normally walk a different way even if we're going at the same side of town. But today, he walked with me. He was hungry and I suddenly found I also was so we went to Dimsum Diner at Damosa.

I've been meaning to ask him some pointed questions about who he really is so while eating, I ventured out to tell him I have a crush at the office. I knew the term was too juvenile, too high-school, so I gladly defined what I meant by it. I defined a crush as somebody whom you think lights up a bare and boring room even when it's not exactly empty, who you'd like to talk to no matter how small the small talk is, and who is possibly as silly as you but whose comment you always allow to slide, even finding some remarks impossibly witty when if somebody said it, you will find downright stupid. I didn't give him any details, only intending to find if he grabs the bait that I've laid out in front of him. I segued to ask if he likes anyone in the office. Giving him the barest of a smile, he understood where I was leading him at.

Armed with a couple of sticks of my Marlboro Greens and his 3 sticks of Black Devils, we sat on an elevated platform beside the road and we had a long discussion about who he is- about being, ehem, old, about what it means for him to love, or even like, somebody, on his last failed relationship, where he stands on the gender spectrum, about his daughter, how he hates guys who actively pursues guys but hides behind a facade of respectability with a girlfriend or a wife, how he is actually very open but does not care to tell just everybody about it, on being honest and comfortable with his family, his close circle of friends- and about how his near-fatal accident changed his life. We also talked about his cousin, who everybody suspects has an incestuous crush on him.

We decided to call it a day, errrr a night, when the sun was beginning to peek out of the horizon. I guess there was actually nothing really special on this morning, but as it is, I was able to know more about the guy in ways I suspect he wouldn't even start sharing with other people. I was feeling light and heady and pondered on all we had talked about.

Well actually, what I didn't tell him was I crush him.