“Hello, doll face,” Blayze greeted the young pretty girl, waiting for a pedicab, a local Philippine transportation that was also known as tricycle. It was a motorcycle with a sidecar or a hooded cab on the right side. It was like a taxi that takes more than one person, sometimes more or less seven people at most at the same time, to a certain destination.

The pretty girl didn’t say a word. She just looked at him with lips slightly parted. How he loved to look at those naturally cherry red lips. Her long chestnut hair was in a ponytail, and she wore a local public high school uniform of dark blue skirt and white blouse with a left square pocket. He could see two bars on the left breast pocket, meaning she was in second year high school.

It was late afternoon, so he guessed she was going home. He happened to pass by the school as he walked around Dumaguete City. Then, he saw this pretty girl who stood out from the crowd of high schoolers, outside their campus.

In front of the school was a park just across the stree, where some local events were sometimes held. He later on learned, just like the Negros Oriental’s Buglasan Festival. There was a vast of bermuda and carabao grass area in the park, where families and groups of friends would have a picnic in the afternoons, and small peddlers roamed around to sell cigarettes, candies, peanuts, corns, and others. There were mango trees and palm trees that gave shade around the park, especially at noon, when the temperature was especially higher.

“Can you tell me where this is?” Blayze showed the girl a piece of paper, the address where he was actually staying. He had no other pretext to talk to her but this one, even though he already knew where it was and he already stayed there for a couple of nights.

She timidly took the piece of paper. “You can walk if you want, but you can take a tricycle to be surer you’d get there and not get lost.” She gave the paper back to him.

He chuckled. “Just what I thought. Harolds Mansion is known around here, isn’t it?”

She nodded. She gasped when someone suddenly put an arm around hers.

“Hi!” the newcomer greeted him with a huge smile.

He nodded with a smile.

“Is he your boyfriend? Is that why you always ditch me?” the newcomer added in English for his sake, obviously.

He chuckled and saw the pretty girl blush. She mumbled in a fast local dialect he couldn’t understand. But he knew she denied that he was her boyfriend.

He stared at her, mesmerized by this innocent girl. In the US, all the girls he met were not as timid as her. He loved her aura. Her physical features were mixed of local and foreign origin. She was different from most students around here. He could tell it right away, with one look.

The dark-skinned newcomer with pixie hair giggled after saying something to her, and she frowned. But then in spite of her protests, the friend of the pretty girl talked to him.

“We’ll show you to Harold’s mansion, and then… maybe you can help my friend in finding someone?”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, I forgot. Did she tell you her name? She’s Kendall Torres, and I’m Samantha Bloom, Orlando Bloom’s future wife. Joke! And you are?”

“Elijah.” He preferred it than be called by his second name Blayze. He thought Elijah was more common and friendly.

“Elijah what?” Samantha probed. Her round black eyes were focused on him.

“Mitchell.”

“Okay! Let’s go!” Samantha pulled both of them by the arm, linking them like they were old buddies.

He liked her for being this outgoing. He let the girls lead him and didn’t comment even though he knew where to go. He righted his backpack and glanced at Kendall, over Samantha’s head. The latter was shorter than Kendall.

Samantha blabbered as they crossed the street, passing through different small business establishments, such as eateries, internet cafes, and others. They passed by the Silliman University campus, a private university that catered preschool to tertiary school levels. It took them about fifteen minutes or less. He wasn’t sure. But time seemed to run so fast that he wanted to see them again.

“So, here you are,” Samantha said to him, looking at the small building.

“Can I see you tomorrow?” he asked Kendall, looking at her beautiful face.

“Why?” she asked innocently.

“I want to see you again.”

Samantha giggled and teased Kendall in their local dialect. Kendall swatted her friend’s hand that poked her in the side. He noticed she must be ticklish on that part. She kept jumping whenever she was hit there.

He couldn’t help but smile. “I’ll see you at the boulevard around this time. My treat if you want to eat something.”

“Okay! It’s a date!” Samantha readily answered before Kendall could decline. Her lips just parted but she wasn’t able to say anything. She slightly elbowed her friend, but the latter was fast enough to block it.

The next day, he waited and waited at the boulevard. But Kendall and even her friend Sam did not come. So, he waited for her to come out of the school the following day. She was there and was surprised to see him, when he waved at her and caught her attention.

“Why didn’t you come?” he queried. It wasn’t confrontational as it may have sounded. His voice was gentle.

She swallowed. “I… My mom was sick. I had to take care of her.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.”

“But she’s better now, she said.” She smiled a little. She was shy, he realized.

“So, can we go to the boulevard now and hang out?”

“I…” She was clearly reluctant. After all, they just met the other day.

“Come on,” he urged and grabbed her soft and cold hand. He knew she was nervous somehow around him. He was fast to hail a pedicab and told the driver their destination.

The driver was smiling widely at them. Blayze was glad to be close to her like this, seated beside her in the enclosed place like the pedicab.

They talked until the sun set, and more people gathered at the boulevard. The cool air was quite refreshing. The peddlers, young and old, passed by or stopped by to offer their goods but they declined. They ate the local “balut Pinoy.” It was basically like boiled egg. He dared not eat the original “balut,” which already had a chick in it. Pity chick! And what cruel people these were! Oh, well, he wasn’t judging. Animals were killed for food anyway. But still, he didn’t have the stomach to eat it.

Kendall dared him to eat Indian mango with the so-called uyap, which was tiny shrimp that were fermented. Lots of them. He did love it, even though it was salty. But the smell was terrible!

“I don’t think I’d eat it again,” he commented and she giggled.

He was mesmerized by it. He looked at her like a besotted lover. Oh, well, he was clearly besotted with her but she was not her lover. Yet.

“I like you, doll face,” he said.

Her smile slowly faded, as she stared back into his blue eyes.

He was about to kiss her but she turned her face away. He stopped midway and smiled.