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A sigh falls from your lips as you massage your temples lightly. You can feel a headache coming, and the loud rattling of the ceiling fan above is not helping your situation. You slump against your seat, crossing your arms over your chest as you turn towards the other woman beside you.
Maloi’s brows are knitted in concentration as she browses thoroughly through the catalog in her hands. Any other day and you would’ve found the sight cute, but you’re feeling utterly icky and irate at the moment so you can’t focus on anything else but that.
It seems that your companion has finally taken notice of your unusual silence, because she places the catalog down on the table and turns to face you. Her lips are curled down into a slight, worried frown, her brows still furrowed adorably, and you find yourself smiling for the first time that morning.
“May problema ka ba, Tintin? You look like you’re irritated,” she notes as she reaches forward to uncross your arms.
With a sigh, she reaches for both of your hands and intertwines your fingers together. It makes your smile deepen.
“Wag mo na kong pansinin, Lucky. Probably just the hormones,” you answer, leaning forward to plant a soft kiss on her forehead.
When you pull back, you find her already smiling with an understanding look in her eyes. She grins, bright and happy, before she pulls you closer and envelopes you in a very tight bear hug. You chuckle a bit as you return her hug, planting a soft kiss against her temple as she pulls back.
“What was that for?” you ask, smile never leaving your lips.
“It was just a show of my gratitude towards you, Tintin ko. I will be forever grateful to you for helping me with this.”
You could only tilt your head to the side as you smiled at her, reaching forward to cup her cheek softly. You run your thumb in circles on her cheek, scrunching your nose a bit. This is your own way of telling her that everything’s alright. After a while, you let go of her cheek and motion toward the neglected catalog on the table, which she happily picks back up.
You feel a sudden sharp pain in your temple, making you wince, so you slump back on your seat and discreetly let out a sigh. Today’s gonna be a long day and all you want to do is rest. But you’re currently at the sperm bank and looking for potential donors. After this, you’re headed back to the IVF facility to check whether you’re ready for egg retrieval yet.
It’s been more than two weeks since you started with those injectable fertility medications for ovarian stimulation. Later, you’d get checked to see if they can start injecting you with the medication so you would start ovulating. And about thirty-six hours after that, you’d be required to come back to the facility for egg retrieval.
The past few weeks have been a roller coaster ride of emotions for you, to be perfectly honest. You’ve been a moody bitch the whole time, and luckily, Maloi has been very patient and understanding with you. It’s been a troublesome past two and a half weeks, and you can’t wait for all of this to be finally over.
“Hey, Tintin?”
Shaking yourself from your thoughts, you turn towards the older woman beside you and see that she’s pushing the catalog towards you. Knitting your brows in confusion, you take it from her and look at the page that’s currently open. You have to do a double-take when you see the picture on the profile, because the dude looks like a male version of Maloi.
Turning towards the woman in question, you see her looking at you with a disbelieving smile on her lips. It’s eerily creepy, to some extent, how uncannily similar they look. After getting over your initial shock, you skim through his profile to do a quick background check.
And with every word you read, you find yourself in utter amazement. By the time you reach the end of the page, you’re quite convinced that he might just be the male version of Maloi from another universe. They’re so alike it’s kind of hard to believe that he exists.
“Him, Lucky,” you tell Maloi, handing her back the catalog.
“Choose him. You two are so alike, it wouldn’t be impossible that your kid would probably turn out to be so much like you too.”
With a smile on her lips, and a rather disbelieving chuckle, she takes the catalog back and gets up to make the transaction. You’re still quite in disbelief yourself, because it’s just your luck to find a guy who’s practically Maloi, dude version.
You don’t know why, but your heart flutters at the possibility of having a mini version of you and Maloi running around soon.
The thought makes you smile.
“Hey. Kamusta na ang pakiramdam mo?”
There’s a slight smile on your lips as you approach the bed where Maloi is currently lying on. The doctors have just finished administering embryo transfer on her and advised her to stay lying in bed for at least the next half hour.
There’s a huge smile plastered on her lips as she gently pats her lower abdomen. Your heart skips a beat at this.
Walking closer towards the bed, you take a seat beside her and reach for one of her hands, interlacing your fingers together. She smiles up at you, her bright eyes glistening with unshed tears. It makes you chuckle, as you lean forward to kiss the tip of her nose chastely. This has always been your way of comforting her.
“Excite ako na medyo kinakabahan, sa totoo lang. I could only hope and pray that this works out, Tin,” she answers as she stares at your conjoined hands, the smile on her lips mellowing out a little.
This saddens you a bit, so you pull your hands up and kiss the back of hers in a gesture of comfort. With a sigh, you reach towards her with your free hand and sweep the stray hairs from her face.
“Let’s just wait and continue to be hopeful, yeah?” you tell her with a reassuring smile.
“If it doesn’t work out this time, then we’ll just try again, okay? Hanggang maging successful. At oo, I am very much willing to go through all this again for you, Lucky.”
At your words, the tears finally fall from Maloi’s eyes. With a fond chuckle, you let go of her hand in favor of cupping her cheeks. She bursts out into a fit of cute giggles when you lean down to pepper her face with kisses.
Your heart warms at the sound of her laugh. It’s been a while since the two of you have been this close, and it’s been longer since you were able to be this physically intimate with her. Besides having been busy with your own respective lives lately, you kind of felt a bit awkward to be this physical and intimate with her because you’re not kids anymore.
“Thank you, Tintin. You’re the best best friend there is. I love you,” she says, her smile now back to being happy and bright.
You smile back at her.
“I love you too, you big baby. But you’re my big baby, so dapat by now alam mo nang handa akong gawin ang kahit na ano para sayo.”
An exasperated groan falls from your lips as you make a dive for your couch. It’s been a very hectic, hellish month that had you almost living in your office with how busy you were. But the bulk of the work is over and done with now, so you’re finally able to have some breathing space and rest.
You groan again when you feel your joints pop as you wiggle about the couch, finding the most comfortable position to lie in. You haven’t even bothered with completely taking off your dress shirt after unbuttoning it, and you’ve just haphazardly thrown your coat at the loveseat. That’s just how exhausted you are.
You were about to fall asleep when the shrill ringing of your phone had you groaning out loud in frustration. Grumbling heavily as you reach for the stupid device, your mouth immediately clamps up the moment you see the caller ID. With a sigh, you press the answer button and press the device against your ear.
“Lucky?”
“Tintin, hi. Nakauwi ka na ba?”
“Mmhmm . . . I just got back actually. Why?”
“Good, good. Nakakain ka na ba ng dinner?”
“I’m not really in the mood to cook right now, Lucky. I’m way too exhausted to be bothered to go to the kitchen. Seriously though. Why?”
“Can you at least be bothered to get up and open your front door for me? Nandito ako ngayon sa labas ng pinto mo and I come bearing dinner. I also kinda misplaced the copy of the keys you gave me so I can’t enter.”
At this, you find yourself springing up from the couch, stumbling in your hurry to open the door for her. You don’t know if it’s because of the exhaustion, but your heart started racing the moment your gaze landed on her smiling face after opening the door.
It takes a while before you take notice of her outfit, but you find yourself tensing up when you finally do. She’s wearing a yellow Puma tracksuit, with the top totally unzipped so it shows her light yellow tank top underneath.
You feel your blood start to boil at the mere thought of people ogling at her when she was on her way here. Gritting your teeth, you grasp at her wrist and gently pull her inside. You wanted to whine about her outfit, but you didn’t want to upset her so you just opted to keep your mouth shut.
“Go and rest on the couch while I set the food up, Tin,” she says as she heads straight for the kitchen while you jump onto your couch again.
The moment your back met the soft cushions, you kind of felt the exhaustion rushing back to your body. It is with great difficulty that you try to keep your eyes open. But it seems like the exhaustion had won in the end because you kind of blacked out, and the next thing you know, Maloi is shaking your shoulders to wake you up.
“Hmmm? Lucky? I’m sorry, did I fall asleep?” you ask as you sit up on the couch.
You’re about to get up and head to the kitchen, because you remember that she brought and prepared food for you, but she stops you from doing so. With heavy-lidded eyes, you turn towards her in confusion and find her smiling fondly at you. Shaking her head slightly, she takes a seat beside you and points towards the coffee table where a tray of food is placed.
“Pagod na pagod ka ah,” she says as she runs her fingers through your hair.
You feel your eyes drooping at the comfortable sensation. A poke to your cheek and your head lolling forward wakes you from your momentary nap.
“See? You’re even falling asleep on me now,” she says with a chuckle.
“But you need to eat. God, you’ve lost a lot of weight since the last time I saw you.”
Her words are accompanied by a click of the tongue as she reaches for the food. You’re about to reach for it as well, but she slaps your hand away. Feigning hurt, you look at her with the deepest pout you could muster.
She rolls her eyes but doesn’t say anything. She instead scoops a spoonful of the food and proceeds to feed you. A shit-eating grin breaks out on your lips, but she squints her eyes threateningly at you so you obediently open your mouth and let her feed you.
The next half hour is spent in silence as you let Maloi feed you. Once you’ve finished all the food, she gets up to clean up the plates. You tried to stop her and volunteered to do the dishes yourself, but she just shooed you away to your room so you could change into more comfortable clothes. You were just about done putting on a shirt when the door opened and in came Maloi.
“So . . . what did you come here to tell me? And don’t say it’s nothing because you wouldn’t have come here at this time of the night if it wasn’t important,” you ask as you watch her take a seat on the edge of your bed.
Her gaze is pinned on the bed at first, her fingers absently playing with the comforter as she looks to be contemplating. You let her be, because you know that it’s best to give her time to ponder when she’s like this.
Sighing, you take a seat on the bed as well so you’re facing her. You gently take a hold of her hands, enclosing them in yours as you try to rub soothing circles against her skin. It seems to have worked, because when she lifts her head to meet your gaze, there’s a pretty smile playing on her lips.
“Tingin ko mas mabuti pa kung bukas ko na lang sasabihin sayo,” she pauses to spare a quick glance at your wall clock mounted near the door.
“Err, I mean mamaya. You’re too exhausted so you best go to sleep now, because you need to be relaxed when I do tell you about it."
Despite being curious as hell, you readily agree with her suggestion. Not just because you can never say no to her, but she’s right when she says that you’re exhausted. And you're at the point where you can’t confidently say that you’d totally remember everything that she’s going to say now when you wake up in the morning.
At the nod of your head, she smiles brightly before leaning forward to kiss you on the forehead. She then gets up from the bed and smoothes out her shirt. You look up at her in confusion, your brows furrowed and your lips slightly turned down in a frown. When she takes notice, she tilts her head to the side as she looks at you in wonder.
“Bakit?” she asks, completely puzzled. Your brows furrow even more.
“Where are you going?”
“Uh . . . home?”
“At this hour? Nuh-uh! You’re staying over for the night. I’m not letting you go out this late, Mary Loi.”
Although her lips jut out into a slight frown, she doesn’t protest and just lets out a sigh. With a fond smile on her lips, she gets onto the left side of the bed, taking off her tracksuit top and throwing it on the couch at the other side of the room.
Shaking your head with an amused smile, you pull the covers back and get onto the right side of the bed. Turning on your side to face her, you reach a hand up to boop her nose gently. She scrunches her nose, but otherwise just chuckles as she stares right into your eyes.
Leaning forward, you gently kiss her on the forehead, smiling as you pull back. Forehead kisses have always been your thing. You and her have been doing it since you were kids, and you feel a bit sad that you’ve limited your physical interactions with her for months prior to when she asked you for that favor.
“Good night, Tintin,” she says as she closes her eyes, a gentle smile playing on her lips.
Your lips curl up into another soft, fond smile as you find yourself staring at her face. She’s beautiful, very much so, and you can never ever tire of looking at and taking in her beauty. Raising a hand to gently trace your finger along the bridge of her nose, you feel your eyes begin to droop once more.
“Good night, Lucky.”
It’s the feel of the cold sheets beside you that wakes you up hours later. Sitting up, you wipe the sleep from your eyes as you turn towards the other side of the bed. Has Maloi left already? Why didn’t she wake you up?
Gingerly getting up from the bed, you were about to head out to the living room when you heard heaving sounds coming from your en suite bathroom. Worry seizes your heart when, after opening the door, you see Maloi slumped in front of the bowl and heaving into it.
You hurry towards her side, gathering her hair so it doesn’t get in the way and you start rubbing her back comfortingly. She looks up at you gratefully for a moment, before she quickly faces the bowl again and throws up into it.
It takes a while, but Maloi eventually stops throwing up. You carefully help her get up, holding her waist as you lead her towards the sink so she can wash her mouth and freshen up. You do your morning routine after her, and she just watches as she sits on the edge of your bathtub.
Not wanting to make her wait for long, you quickly finish washing up before you pull her towards the kitchen for breakfast. When you re-enter the room, she tells you to go ahead to the kitchen because she still has something to take care of. With a kiss to her temple, you leave her inside your room and head straight to the kitchen to prepare breakfast.
You wondered what was taking Maloi long in your room, because you were about finished preparing your food but she was still inside. You were about to go and check in on her when the door to your room finally opened with her stepping out. There’s a small pouch in her hold, but you refrain from immediately asking her about it.
“Hey, great timing. Breakfast is served,” you tell her with a smile, pulling a chair back for her to sit in.
She takes a seat with a soft 'thank you' and a small smile on her lips, depositing the pouch at the edge of the table. Honestly, curiosity is killing you at the moment, but you know she’s gonna tell you about it eventually so you try your best to restrain yourself.
Breakfast is shared over a light conversation, as the two of you talked about your lives the past month that you’ve been very busy. She also took it upon herself to update you about your other friends, and for that, you’re grateful. You were just finishing your cup of coffee when she let out a deep breath, catching your attention.
It’s with curious eyes that you watch her reach for the pouch, noting how her hands were slightly shaking when she opened it. Your curiosity is heightened when she spills its contents on the table before you. Five plastic strips fall from the pouch, and with knitted brows, you pick one up and turn it over in your hand.
You almost choke on thin air when you finally recognize what the plastic strips are.
Your eyes widen comically as you stare at the two bright red lines glaring back at you. You feel a lump suddenly lodge in your throat as your heart begins to race. With shaky hands, you reach for the other strips and you suddenly feel like crying when you see that all of them have the same pair of bright red lines.
Still wide-eyed, you look towards Maloi, only to see her looking at you with a wide smile on her lips and tear-streaked cheeks.
“Oh my God.”