Chapter Text
The first thing Summer felt when he woke up was the heaviness in his chest. His eyes snapped open as though he had surfaced from deep underwater, gasping for air that wouldn’t quite reach his lungs. The dream clung to him like damp clothes, images half-faded yet sharp enough to cut through his waking mind.
The man.
The voice calling him Sirius.
The camera in his hands.
That smile.. warm, steady, and devastating.
Summer sat up slowly, pressing his palms against his face. His skin was clammy with sweat, his heart still racing.
“It was just a dream,” he whispered, though even to his own ears, the words sounded weak.
His gaze drifted to the desk across the room. There it was, the antique camera. Sitting innocently in the pale light of morning, as if it hadn’t followed him into his sleep. Summer’s throat tightened.
The initials flashed in his mind again: P.AQL
He swallowed hard, forcing himself to get out of bed. When he drew the curtains, sunlight poured in, illuminating the ancestral room with its carved wooden beams and capiz shell windows. Dust motes swirled lazily in the golden light. It should have been comforting, but instead, the familiar creaks of the old house felt almost watchful, as if the past itself were holding its breath.
By the time he made his way downstairs, the smell of garlic rice and fried fish greeted him. His relatives were already gathered around the long narra table, the clatter of utensils and low hum of conversation filling the air.
“Good morning, Summer,” his mother said warmly, sliding a plate toward him. “Tulungan mo ako mamaya kay Lolo, ha? He’s asking for you.”
Summer nodded absently, sitting down. His grandfather, Helios, sat at the head of the table, quiet as always. He carried an air of gravity even when doing nothing at all. Summer hesitated before asking, trying to sound casual.
“Lolo… may I ask something?”
Helios' eyes flickered toward him, dark and unreadable. “Ano ’yon?”
Summer cleared his throat. “The camera in my room. Old, leather strap, heavy. Do you know whose it was?”
For the briefest moment, Helios froze. It was so slight that perhaps no one else noticed, but Summer did. His grandfather’s hand stilled above his coffee cup, his jaw tightening. Then, just as quickly, Helios relaxed, lifting the cup to his lips.
“An old thing,” he said flatly. “Baka naiwan lang diyan noon pa.”
“That old?” Summer pressed, unable to stop himself. “But it looks… well, special.”
Helios' eyes pinned him with a quiet weight that made Summer shrink back in his chair. “Not everything old is worth remembering.”
The words landed heavy, final. A warning disguised as indifference.
Summer didn’t speak again for the rest of breakfast. But inside, something stirred, curiosity sharpened by defiance. If the camera was worthless, why did Lolo Heli looked like he’d swallowed glass the moment it was mentioned?
After the meal, Summer stepped outside to clear his head. The morning air was crisp, the provincial town stirring awake with the sounds of roosters crowing and distant chatter from the market. Across the street, his eyes caught the house again, the modest one that had unsettled him the night before.
It stood quiet, its wooden shutters slightly askew, its paint faded but walls sturdy. Not grand like their ancestral home, but dignified in its simplicity.
And once again, Summer’s heart ached.
“Bakit…” he muttered under his breath, pressing a hand against his chest. The ache was irrational, unfamiliar, and yet it felt older than his own body.
When his cousin wandered out to hang laundry, Summer asked, trying to sound offhand. “Hey, who used to live in that house?”
The cousin squinted at it. “That one? Wala na, matagal nang walang nakatira. Abandoned for years.”
“No records? No family?”
“Not that I know of. Bakit, gusto mo bilhin?” The cousin laughed, shaking their head. “Creepy na nga ’yan, eh. Buti hindi pa gumuho.”
Summer forced a chuckle, but his eyes lingered on the house. Empty, abandoned. Yet why did it feel like it was watching him, calling him?
That night, as he lay in bed, the camera once again caught the moonlight from the window. Summer stared at it for a long time, chest tight. Sleep pulled him under faster than he expected, and soon..
He was dreaming again.
But this time, he wasn’t in the province.
The world around him was bustling, sharp with the scent of exhaust and roasted chestnuts from a street vendor. Buildings towered above him, trampling over the sky. A younger man hurried down the university steps, his books pressed tightly against his chest, his brow furrowed.
Summer’s breath caught. It was the same man from his dream last night. Only this time, he wasn’t smiling.
Law books spilled from his arms when a voice thundered behind him. “You dare walk away while I’m speaking to you?!”
A stern man in a suit loomed, his eyes cold, his voice like steel. The fine lines of old age made him even more terrifying. Summer couldn’t make out every word, only fragments that cut like glass.
Disgrace. Ungrateful. You will obey.
The young man's jaw clenched. His hands shook as he gathered his books, but when he looked up at the man, there was fire in his eyes.
“I won’t be like you,” he whispered, almost too soft to hear.
The older man’s face darkened.
And then-- he ran.
Down the busy streets, through crowds of strangers, his breaths sharp and desperate. The dream lurched, showing him boarding buses, ferries, wandering through towns with his worn bag slung over his shoulder and the camera clutched like a lifeline.
Loneliness radiated from him. Hunger, exhaustion, fear of being followed. And yet, the taste of freedom was all he could focus on. For the first time, he was free.
Summer jolted awake, heart pounding, breath ragged. He sat up in the dark, clutching his sheets. The dream lingered, sharper than any he’d ever had before.
The man’s name burned on his tongue, though he had never spoken it aloud.
“Aquila..."
And as he whispered it into the silence of his ancestral room, the camera gleamed faintly in the moonlight, as though it had been waiting for him to remember.
○○○○
The third night came with the same weight pressing down on Summer’s chest. He tried to resist sleep, pacing the creaky wooden floors of his room, but the pull was too strong. The camera sat on the desk, silent but commanding, as though it had already decided for him.
And when his eyes finally closed, the world shifted.
He was on a ferry.
The salty wind whipped against his face, the deck swaying beneath his feet. Passengers huddled together, clutching bags and baskets of produce, chickens cooped in bamboo cages. In the corner stood Aquila, his figure solitary against the open sea.
His clothes were worn from travel, his shoes scuffed. The sharpness of his former life was gone, replaced by a raw fragility that clung to him like the salt in the air. Yet in his hands, steady as ever, was the camera. He held it as though it was the last piece of himself he had managed to carry through the storm.
The ferry docked in a small port town. Aquila disembarked with a quiet determination, weaving through the bustling streets of the Visayan region. The cadence of the language was different here, softer, melodic, and though he struggled with it, he greeted strangers politely.
Summer followed, unseen, his chest tightening as he watched Aquila rent a small bahay na bato across from a larger ancestral home. The house was modest, with its wooden shutters, weathered paint, a stone base that had seen decades of rain.
Summer’s breath hitched.
It was the same house across from his family’s ancestral home. The one that had made his chest ache.
Days blurred into a quiet rhythm.
Aquila opened a tiny shop at the front of his rented home. A sign, hand-painted in uneven strokes, read: Sulyap Gawasnon (gawasnon in bisaya means free/liberated)
The first customers were children, giggling as they posed in pairs, their faces smudged with dirt and laughter. Aquila knelt down, adjusting their positions, clicking the shutter with a faint smile.
The business was small. Barely anyone came at first. Some days he earned just enough for rice and dried fish, other days nothing at all. But he kept going, setting up his camera at fiestas, offering freelance work for weddings and baptisms. The coins he earned were tucked carefully into a wooden box under his bed, savings for a tomorrow he could only hope for.
It was a far cry from the luxury he once had in Luzon. No silk ties, no polished marble halls, no servants calling him Señorito. Instead, he swept his own floor, patched his own clothes, and stretched meals as far as they would go.
And yet, there was a quiet dignity in it.
Summer could feel it, even through the dream. Aquila was not poor, not entirely. He had enough. Enough to survive, enough to breathe, enough to be free.
But loneliness lingered. At night, Aquila would sit by the window with his camera on the table, gazing at the street outside. The laughter of siblings from the big ancestral house drifted across, filling the silence of his own room. His eyes softened, longing curling in the corners of his expression.
Summer felt it all.. the emptiness of the photobooth after the last customer left, the heavy silence of meals eaten alone, the quiet ache of watching happiness from across the street.
The dream sharpened. He saw Aquila walking through the market, children tugging at his sleeves, women teasing him with offers of free vegetables if he’d take their portraits. For the first time in days, Aquila laughed. The sound rang clear, unguarded, and Summer’s chest clenched painfully at how rare it was.
Then, one evening, as the sun dipped low and the air smelled faintly of burning wood, Sunghoon looked up from polishing his lens and... froze.
Across the street, framed in the golden light of the setting sun, stood a boy with eyes like glass and a smile that reached his whole face. His laughter carried as he tugged his younger brother by the hand, his other siblings trailing close behind.
Sirius.
Summer’s breath caught. The click of the unfamiliar name ticked his brain.
He had seen this boy before,
in the painting,
in the mirror,
in the contours of his own face. The resemblance was uncanny, a reflection pulled through time.
Aquila lowered the camera slowly, staring as though the world had narrowed to just this moment, this boy.
And Summer felt it too, the way his heart stuttered, the ache blooming into something sharp and alive.
The dream blurred at the edges, colors bleeding like wet ink, until only the image of Sirius remained.
Smiling. Radiant.
Alive.
Summer woke up with tears wetting his pillow.
The first rays of dawn painted his room in pale gold. He lay there, chest heaving, the ache so raw it felt as though it might split him in half.
His hand found the camera on the desk, his fingers trembling as they brushed against the cracked leather strap.
This wasn’t just a dream. It couldn’t be.
Somehow, impossibly, he was remembering.
○○○○
The nights fell quickly over the province. Summer lay restless in his bed, staring at the antique camera as though it might explain itself if he looked hard enough. His chest was tight, his body humming with a nervous anticipation he didn’t want to name.
When sleep came, it swallowed him whole.
The dream unfolded gently this time.
He was in the photobooth.
The room smelled faintly of old wood and developing chemicals. Aquila sat hunched at the desk, carefully wiping down the metal of his camera, his hands steady with practice. Outside, the laughter of children spilled in through the open windows, carried by the evening breeze.
Then the door jingled open.
“Kuya! Ang ganda dito!” a cheerful voice rang out.
Aquila looked up.
Six boys tumbled into the shop, all varying in age but unmistakably siblings, their faces glowing with the easy warmth of family. They filled the small space with chatter, their voices overlapping, teasing each other as they tried on props and argued over who would sit where.
And among them was Sirius.
Aquila froze.
The boy was radiant, his smile bright enough to soften even the dimmest corners of the room. His eyes sparkled with mischief as he tugged his younger brother forward, insisting that they sit together for the portrait. A small mole rested beneath his right eye, catching the light whenever he turned his head.
Summer’s breath caught. His chest squeezed so hard he thought he might collapse.
Because it was like staring into a mirror.
The curve of the cheekbones. The slope of the nose. The exact placement of the mole. Even the way Sirius laughed-- wide, unrestrained, as though the world had never managed to break him, felt achingly familiar.
He was him.
And yet, he wasn’t.
Summer wanted to step forward, to speak, to ask a thousand questions, but he couldn’t move. He wasn’t really there, only watching through the thin veil of another’s memory.
Aquila cleared his throat, trying to compose himself. “So… you all want a portrait?”
"Po?" the youngest of them asked.
"Uh.. magpapakuha ba kayo ng litrato?"
“Ah opo!” one of the younger siblings shouted, climbing onto the stool. The others pushed and shoved, arguing about who should stand in the middle.
Sirius laughed, hands raised to calm them. “Kalma nga, lahat tayo makikita! Smile na lang.”
He turned back to Aquila, his grin softening into something gentler. Aquila's fingers trembled as he adjusted the focus. For a moment, his usual composure cracked, betrayed by the faint pink on his ears.
The siblings finally settled into place, their voices still bubbling with excitement. Sirius positioned himself at the center, pulling his youngest brother close, his smile wide and genuine.
“Ready?” Aquila asked, voice lower than before.
“Opo,” Sirius replied.
The shutter clicked. A moment was captured, suspended in silver and light.
The dream lingered. Summer watched as Aquila developed the photo later that night, hands moving with care as though handling something fragile. When the image finally emerged, the siblings’ faces stared back, joy preserved in stillness. But his eyes lingered only on one face.
On Sirius.
Summer’s throat tightened, his own eyes burning. He felt the weight of the gaze, the tenderness hidden behind it, the unspoken beginning of something far larger than either of them could hold.
And as the dream dissolved, fading into darkness, Summer whispered the name before he even woke.
“Sirius…”
He opened his eyes to the ceiling of his ancestral room, tears slipping silently down his temples. His chest felt raw, torn open, like he had just lost something precious he never truly had.
The camera on the desk gleamed faintly in the dawn. Watching. Waiting.
Summer hadn’t been much of a journal-keeper. Back in the city, his notebooks were filled with half-finished sketches, random grocery lists, and doodles in the margins of class notes. But now, in the province, he found himself sitting at his desk night after night, pen trembling in hand as he tried to trap the dreams before they dissolved.
The pages filled quickly:
▪︎ Law student. Rich family. Ran away. Camera always with him.
▪︎ Photobooth across from Lolo’s house. House still standing.
▪︎ Six siblings. Other siblings are still blurry except the one always with Sirius.
▪︎Sirius looks like me. Same mole. Same eyes.
He paused, staring at the last line until the ink began to blot.
Same eyes.
It wasn’t an exaggeration. In the dream, seeing Sirius had been like looking into a mirror warped only by time. The resemblance was too sharp to be coincidence. And yet, no one had ever told him about him- no stories, no anecdotes, not even a photo. He only learned about him from the hidden portrait he stumbled upon.
Why?
Why had his family erased him so completely? Why aren't those siblings included on their family history?
Summer rubbed his temples, the pen slipping from his hand. His gaze shifted to the antique camera resting quietly on the desk.
He whispered it aloud, testing the sound. “P… A… Q… L..”
The name surfaced in his chest like something long submerged.
“Park… Aquila.”
The moment the syllables left his lips, his heart clenched. It was right. He didn’t know how he knew, but he did.
At breakfast the next morning, Summer tried again, careful this time.
“Lolo,” he said casually as he buttered his pandesal, “I had a weird dream last night. May photobooth daw across the street. Did that ever exist here?”
For the first time, Helios' hand faltered. His spoon clinked sharply against the edge of his mug.
“No,” his grandfather said after a pause, his voice firm. “Nothing of the sort.”
Summer tilted his head, feigning innocence. “Wala talaga? Kasi it felt so real…”
Helios' eyes met his, and for a heartbeat, Summer swore he saw something raw flicker there. Of fear, or grief, or both. But it was gone before he could name it.
“You shouldn’t waste your thoughts on dreams,” Helios said, returning to his meal. “Wala naman maidudulot na maganda sayo ang mga yon”
Summer bit back his retort. He wanted to scream, Then why does it hurt so much? Why do I wake up crying for someone I never knew? But he held his tongue, the silence at the table suffocating him.
That afternoon, he wandered outside, notebook tucked under his arm. The sun was harsh, cicadas screaming in the trees, but his eyes found the house across the street again.
Its shutters hung loose, the wood weathered, but it stood tall against the years. Summer imagined laughter spilling from its windows, photographs drying on lines, a boy with a camera leaning against the sill.
The ache in his chest sharpened.
He flipped open his notebook, sketching quickly before the image slipped away. The curve of the window frame. The worn paint. The shadow of a boy with sharp features, his hands curled protectively around a camera.
When he finished, he stared at the drawing until his vision blurred.
“This isn’t just a dream,” he whispered to himself. “It can’t be.”
That night, he lay awake longer than usual, the camera heavy in his hands. He traced the initials again and again, until his fingertips went numb.
The name thrummed in his chest, tangled with another-- Sirius.
He thought of the portrait he found in the attic, hidden away with dust and silence. He thought of how no one ever spoke of Sirius, as though grief had swallowed him whole. He thought of the boys' laughter and how it felt like it was haunting him everyday.
And he thought of the dreams, so vivid, so real that stitched him to a past he wasn’t sure he wanted to remember.
Sleep eventually claimed him, but even then, his last thought lingered like a promise.
I will find the truth. Even if no one wants me to.
×××
TBC.