It was a humid summer afternoon of the year 2014. I was there with some people to attend a Youth Group meeting. Very few were outside the church by the ancient 'Lomboy' tree waiting for the others when I saw you.
You were there with your brown skin that looked like chocolate my mother didn't want me to eat when I was a child. Perfect and flawless but forbidden. Sitting on your left cheek were scattered raisins of moles that perfectly accentuated the frame of your small face.
You were there with your black-inked hair blown by the afternoon breeze ruffling the unkempt part that kept kissing your forehead.
You were there embracing a guitar, surrounded by three smaller and shorter boys. They were a perfect picture of angels singing praise to the Lord. But you didn't resemble anything like that, you looked like a superstar with your long musician fingers strumming some guitar chords I was not familiar with, singing notes of a song I was sure I had heard somewhere but couldn't recognize.
You were sitting on a table with your leg propped on a chair in an old open building called 'salakot'. You were wearing a shirt emblazoned with the words 'NY Yankee'. My teenage mind couldn't fathom what the word meant. Was it your surname? Name of a place? The name of your favorite band? It wasn't until years later when the thought of you visited my more knowledgeable mind that I realized you must be a baseball fan.
You were there. I was there looking at you. Studying you like my Math homework. Familiar but I couldn't quite comprehend and answer. And when the curiosity got the best of me, I asked the person beside me.
"Kinsa na sya?"
"Asa?", she asked back, while looking around.
"Kanang lalaki nga naglingkod nagtugtog ug guitar, naas salakot", I stated, trying my best not to point my finger in your direction.
"Ahhh kana siya? Anak mana ug Reyna."
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