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Juanito has been complaining about their family reunion for the last three months, so Placido doesn’t think much of it when he brings it up. At least, not until Juanito drags out his name and says, “Sama ka? Please?”
Let it be known that Placido Penitente has a resolve of steel—especially against all things Juanito Pelaez. He only agrees to go to a gaudy lunch that’s probably worth more than he will ever make in his life because he wants to. Never has there been an instance in Placido’s twenty short years of living that would lead you to believe otherwise.
On the way to the venue, he realizes three things:
- If the stories are anything to go by, Juanito’s extended family is far bigger than Placido is used to. It has always just been him, his mother, and her younger brother.
- He has only ever met Juanito’s mother that one time in their last year of high school when she caught him sneaking out the window of her son’s room while she was watering the flowers in her garden. Not his best moment.
- He hasn’t even met Juanito’s father.
“Is there anything I should know before we get there?” Placido asks, looking pointedly at the traffic ahead of them. “I feel like you’re throwing me into the shark tank here.”
Juanito turns to him. “Just be yourself,” he says with a grin that Placido thinks is far too wide even as he sees it from his periphery, not at all reassuring. He has a hand drumming on the edge of the steering wheel and another placed precariously on the gear shift so their arms brush every time the car jolts. “Ako bahala sa’yo, Placidete. Kailan ba kitang binigo?”
Placido ignores the question and tells him to pay attention to the road.
“Thanks for coming with me,” Juanito says after a while. He’s looking ahead when Placido finally looks at him and Placido isn’t even a little disappointed.
As soon as Juanito opens his door and steps out of the car, a blur of yellow and orange comes crashing into him hard enough to send him stumbling back into his seat. “I think you get stronger every time I see you,” he says. He laughs, his head in Placido’s lap and the armrest digging between his shoulder blades. Juanito sits up and presses a quick kiss to Placido’s cheek before carrying the tiny human out of the car and into the dining hall.
It takes a few moments for Placido to snap out of his bewilderment, unbuckle his seatbelt, and actually open his door. It’s only been a minute and a half and he already feels way out of his depth, but he smoothes out his shirt and wipes his palms down the side of his pants as he approaches them. “You forgot to lock your car,” he tells Juanito, reaching into his boyfriend’s back pocket to grab the keys and lock the car himself. He looks at the child in the yellow sundress and tries to offer a smile. “Who’s this?”
Juanito’s eyes light up with mischief as he says, “Oh, her? This is Isa—”
“Kuya! Hindi ako si Isa!”
“Ay, ganun ba? Magkamukha kasi kayo eh.”
“Hindi kaya.” The child huffs and wriggles in Juanito’s arms before sticking her tongue out. Placido thinks they look surprisingly similar considering Juanito’s hair isn’t in a braid that reaches his waist and she’s missing at least two of her teeth. “We’re eternal twins kaya hindi kami magkamukha ni ate.”
Placido can’t help the laugh that bubbles out of him. “I think you mean fraternal.”
She tilts her head and frowns at him. “What’s that?”
“Fraternal kayo ni Isa, hindi eternal,” Juanito explains, ruffling her hair. “Pero sa bagay, habambuhay din naman kayo kambal. Ito pala si Placido, ‘wag mo masyadong awayin, sensitive ‘yan—”
Placido shoves him lightly.
“Aray! May hawak akong bata!”
“So, what’s your name?” he asks her, ignoring Juanito’s indignant squawking.
She looks him up and down before nodding to herself. “Teresa po, pero you can call me Tere. Are you Kuya Juanito’s boyfriend?”
Placido stops to check with Juanito if their relationship is something out in the open today, but Juanito simply laughs off the concern on his face. “Bakit, Placidete? Ngayon ka pa nagduda, eh matagal na naman tayong may label.”
“Naninigurado lang,” Placido says, placing a hand on Juanito’s arm. He smiles at both of them. “Nice to meet you, Tere, I’m Juanito’s boyfriend. We should probably go see the rest of your family now.”
“Okay! I have to go back to mommy before she finds out I didn’t go to the CR.” She jumps out of Juanito’s grasp and races to the dining hall, yelling out, “See you later, Placiding!”
Juanito laughs as he stretches out his arms and slips his hand into Placido’s. “Tere’s my favorite cousin. I think you passed the test so I guess you’re here to stay after all, Placiding. She came up with that all on her own, by the way.”
“Why do you look proud? Congrats, para kang bata mag-isip.”
“Mahal mo naman,” Juanito says, grinning.
Placido rolls his eyes but holds his hand a little tighter. “Oo na.”
Just on the way to their table, three of Juanito’s aunts press wet, red-lipstick kisses on his cheek and gush about how big he’s gotten since they last saw him. Placido has never been particularly averse to physical contact, but the scene sends shivers down his spine.
When they get there, Juanito’s mother waves him over with a smile and tells him that she hopes they didn’t come in through the window and Placido feels the heat rising to his neck as the rest of the table regards their exchange with confusion. “Ah, hindi po,” he laughs awkwardly.
Juanito has mercy on his soul and intervenes, officially introducing Placido to his parents as his boyfriend—which is as flattering as it is mortifying.
Placido offers out his hand to both of them; Juanito’s father’s grip is rough and unrelenting, but Juanito’s mother holds his hands in her own so gently. The callouses on her fingertips are familiar as they press into his skin and she tells him to take care of her son. “Of course,” he says, heart lodged in his throat all of a sudden. And then, against his better judgement, “Mahal na mahal ko po anak niyo.”
Timoteo Pelaez stares at him for three silent beats before he says, “Maupo ka nga diyan, hijo. Sumasakit paa ko kakatingin sa’yo,” and turns back to his conversation with one of Juanito’s uncles.
Placido often forgets how natural pleasantries, small talk, and socializing all come to Juanito until he sees it in action.
Without a large family of his own, admittedly most of his exposure to the typical Filipino family dynamic comes from his friends’ stories and Juanito pestering him to watch Four Sisters and a Wedding with him on a random Tuesday night.
It goes like this: One relative approaches them, smiling with all her teeth in display and asking, “Tumaba ka ba?” as she pinches his cheek and recounts a tale from when he was five years old and would take off his shirt at every opportunity. Another slaps him on the arm, saying, “Hay ‘nako, you should really eat more!”
The comments seem to roll off his back with practiced ease and Juanito waves off all his relatives’ remarks of ang laki mo na and kamukhang kamukha mo tatay mo nung bata siya and ang gwapo mo naman, may girlfriend ka na ba?
Instead, he introduces Placido to everyone and their mothers—flaunts him as his boyfriend like a kid at show & tell while the stiff, awkward comments of bakla pala anak ni Timoteo fall flat. “Hayaan mo sila,” he says, a smile on his face but a single cord of tension holding him upright. Placido wants to run fingers down his back until he’s all soft and pliant but now is not the time. “There’s just one more person I wanted you to meet anyway.”
Juanito’s grandmother is a beautiful woman with bright white hair and crow’s feet dancing in the corners of her eyes. Placido’s heart hammers in his chest as soon as Juanito picks her out in the crowd and pulls him in her direction.
He’s about to take the seat across her when nimble fingers wrap around his wrist.
“Hindi ako nangangagat,” she says, voice swaying like a gentle breeze, “tabihan mo ‘ko.”
Juanito looks at him encouragingly, bottom lip tucked between his teeth. When Placido remains frozen in place, he decides to quip, “Ako nga nangangagat, tinatabihan mo naman.”
“Ang kalat mo,” Placido says. Gago hangs in the air, unsaid—a censored expletive, an endearment that suddenly feels too intimate to speak out loud.
She smiles as he sits down next to her. “Who’s this, darling?”
“This is Placido,” Juanito says, so soft. His eyes find Placido’s and Placido feels the lump in his throat rise and fall as Juanito’s grandmother pulls his hands over to her lap. “He’s my partner. I’m going to spend the rest of my life with him.”
...and isn’t that a thought and a half?
There have been jokes and off-handed comments, but they’ve never really talked about it before. Talking leads to wanting, and in the farthest corners of his mind, Placido knows that he wants it more than anything.
“Is that what you want, dear?”
It takes an embarassing couple of moments to realize that she’s talking to him and even longer to realize that there are tears streaming down his face. He thinks he croaks out a yes as he starts to pull his hands away from her to wipe away his tears. She reaches out to do it for him and the callouses on her fingertips remind him of home.
God. He’s never had a grandmother before.
“Tangina, Pelaez,” he swears softly. “Saan ‘yun nanggaling? Wala bang warning diyan?”
When he looks up, Juanito is looking back at him with wide and shiny eyes. “Bakit ka umiiyak?” Juanito asks with a disgustingly wet sniff. “Ayan tuloy, ako rin!”
Juanito’s grandmother laughs at them, thumb brushing just above Placido’s cheekbone. He turns back to her, heart on his sleeve and hands falling limp at his side. “You two will be just fine,” she tells him. It sounds like a promise.
Later, Juanito ends up with his back against the bathroom wall and Placido’s mouth everywhere. “Let’s go home,” he breathes out, “I think we pissed off half my relatives today. Wanna walk back out there like this and try the other half?”
“Shut up,” Placido huffs. He closes his eyes and lets his forehead slump on Juanito’s shoulder. Their chests are pressed together and he can feel Juanito’s heart racing to catch up with his. “You’re insatiable.”
Juanito laces his fingers through Placido’s hair. “I think that one’s you, babe.”
Let’s go home , continues to rattle in his brain as he breathes in all that is Juanito Pelaez. Back at the dining hall, someone is screaming out a horrible rendition of Ben&Ben’s Araw-Araw and everything feels just a little bit ridiculous.
Getting on everyone’s nerves ends up a double-edged sword, but Placido dutifully keeps his mouth shut and Juanito keeps his grin wide while they go around the room in wrinkled dress shirts and their skin warm all over.
Juanito’s mother smiles when they bid their goodbye, tells them not to be strangers and to visit more often so she doesn’t miss them too much. “If you ever need anything, Placido,” she says, “you have our support.”
His father coughs next to her and she elbows him on the side, but he lets out a deep chuckle. “Umubo lang ako, ito naman. Welcome to the family.”
Some of the tension in Juanito’s shoulder eases up at his father’s words, and whatever of it is left, Placido can take care of when they get back home. That is also a promise.