It started with Fridays.
Every week, I was there — always the same time, always the same spot, a few steps away from the bar where the light was soft enough that it made everything and everyone look a little kinder. I didn’t have to think about it anymore. It had become a rhythm, like breathing.
At first, he wasn’t part of that rhythm. He was just another face among the regulars, a voice I heard sometimes laughing from across the room, someone who belonged to the bar’s background noise. Until one night, he wasn't just part of the noise anymore. He sat beside me.
He didn’t ask. He didn’t make a show of it. He just slid into the seat like it was waiting for him. And somehow, it felt like it had been.
The first time, I thought it was a coincidence. The second time, I wasn’t so sure. By the third time, it was a pattern.
He knew exactly where I sat. Always. No searching, no glancing around. He would walk in, catch my eye, and make his way to me like it was the only option. And without fail, he would take the seat beside me — not across, not one seat over — right there, so close that I could hear the shift of fabric when he leaned back, the soft catch of his breath when he laughed.
It wasn’t just Fridays anymore. Lately, he had started showing up on other nights too. It was subtle at first, but it was there. I would already be sitting down, drink in hand, pretending to be absorbed in my phone, and I would feel him before I even saw him — the way the air seemed to tilt when he walked in.
He knew. He knew exactly where I would be.
And he always sat beside me.
We talked about everything and nothing.
Anime, mostly. Hunter x Hunter and Demon Slayer and Inuyasha. He would argue passionately that Demon Slayer had better animation, and I would roll my eyes and tell him that Hunter x Hunter had better writing. He had this way of laughing when he knew he was losing the argument — like it didn’t matter whether he won or not, as long as he could keep the conversation going.
And sometimes, somehow, basketball would come up.
I didn't like basketball. I never had. But when he talked about it — about the Philippine Basketball League, about the players he admired and the rivalries he followed — I listened. I listened because it was him, because there was something about the way he cared about these things that made them feel almost beautiful. His voice would shift when he talked about it, lighter and quicker, full of an energy I couldn't help but be drawn into.
I didn’t like the game, but I liked listening to him talk about it. Maybe that was enough.
Maybe that was everything.
It should have been simple.
Two people sitting at a bar, talking about anime and soil and sports they didn’t even agree on. That’s what it should have been.
But it wasn’t.
There was something else underneath it all, something slow and quiet and steady, like water wearing down stone. I could feel it every time he sat down beside me without asking, every time he smiled a little too long, every time our conversations wandered into places that felt almost private.
It scared me, a little.
It scared me how much I looked forward to seeing him. It scared me how my heart jumped when I heard the door open, how my chest tightened when I realized it wasn’t him walking in. It scared me how much I cared, without even meaning to.
And then came the night he brought his friends.
We didn’t sit together that night. He sat at a separate table, laughing too loudly, clinking glasses, being the center of a different universe. But every now and then, he would call out across the room, pulling me into his world with a wave or a half-shouted joke. He introduced me to them, casual and proud, as if I were someone important.
I overheard him telling them stories — little things about me, things I hadn’t realized he had remembered from our conversations weeks ago. Details I thought had fallen into the void of alcohol and noise and late-night distractions.
But he remembered.
And that meant something.
His birthday was coming up. A Tuesday.
I wanted to say something. I wanted to ask if he would be at the bar that night, if I could see him, if I could be part of whatever made the day special.
But I didn’t want to seem like I cared too much. I didn’t want to cross a line that hadn’t even been drawn yet.
So I thought about pretending not to know. I thought about just showing up, casual as always, like it was a regular Tuesday, like it wasn’t a big deal at all.
And yet, a part of me wanted him to know that I remembered. That even when I wasn’t supposed to, I had been paying attention. That he mattered, even if I couldn’t say it out loud yet.
Maybe I would send a message. Something simple. Hey, I’m at the bar tonight.
Maybe that would be enough.
Or maybe it wouldn’t.
Maybe this was the kind of thing you couldn’t half-do.
Maybe you had to choose: step into the space between two people, or stay safely behind it, forever wondering what could have happened if you had been brave enough to try.
