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The train roared a bit too loud as it sped off to the next station in Sheena’s opinion, her brows furrowing even more as she adjusted her hold on her envelope.
The music playing through her earbuds was bordering the maximum volume and yet she couldn’t seem to ignore all the noise around her.
The guard’s reminders to stay behind the yellow line was getting annoying.
The Tiktok video that the person in front of her was watching wasn’t appropriate for public settings.
Even the person on the other side of the platform was being too loud just for existing, in Sheena’s opinion.
She slumped a little lower against the wall and let out a sigh as she stared at her sketches.
She had a plate due at the end of the week and still had no idea what she wanted to do.
“I want you to tell me what comfort looks like to you. If you were to explain comfort through a picture, what would it be?”
Could her professor be any more vague?
She had sketches of her cats, her bed, but none of them felt like comfort.
It was a little funny if she didn’t have a deadline looming over her head, that she was stressed out thinking about what comforts her.
She stands up a little straighter to make way as people push past as they exit the train.
She watches as the people in front of her get in but she stays put.
The guard used to look at her as if she were the strangest thing in the world, not rushing to get on the train as soon as it arrived.
She doesn’t do that anymore.
She’s seen Sheena in all her different states—all of them letting a few trains pass before getting on.
Gano’n ba talaga kalakas yung warning buzzer? Kainis naman.
She closes her eyes to calm herself down. When she opens them again, there’s a Kitkat bar in front of her.
“Hi, can you hold this for me?”
Sheena doesn’t notice it but the corners of her lips tug a little when she looks up at the red-haired girl smiling at her.
Her eyebrows raise a little when she starts to take off her backpack to open it.
“Akin na envelope mo, your plates might get gusot if you’ll hold it lang sa train.”
She doesn’t wait for Sheena to respond before taking the envelope and carefully slipping it into the sleeve next to her laptop.
Once she’s done, she looks at Sheena, who still seemed frozen in place, and takes her Kitkat-less hand, giving it a soft kiss before holding it between them as they moved forward to line up.
“Sorry I took a while, did you wait long ba?”
Sheena looks at their held hands and then at the girl who was still smiling at her.
She lets out the breath she didn’t know she was holding and smiles back.
Her fingers wrap tighter around the soft ones against hers and she stands closer.
“‘Kala ko hindi ka na dadating eh,” she jokes, leaning her head on her shoulder.
“OA! When have I ever not shown up?”
Sheena giggles at her frown and rests her head on the girl’s shoulder. “Na-miss kita buong araw, mahal ko.”
She feels Mikha kiss her head before she replies, “buong araw nga ako excited to tell you what happened today eh!”
Maybe it’s the way Mikha seems unbothered by the crowd of people surrounding them or the way her eyes seem to twinkle even though she’s been at school since 7 am despite her first class being at 9 am, but Sheena forgets all the noise she was trying to drown out.
What does it matter if this girl was smiling at her like there wasn’t anything else that could make her happier?
Sheena realizes she still has her earbuds on and quickly takes them off, placing them in her pocket in the meantime.
She refuses to let go of the hand holding hers—even if it risks having an earbud fall out.
No, she wouldn’t trade a second of feeling Mikha’s palm against hers—fingers filling in the gaps between hers as if they were made exactly right to make her feel whole as soon as they interlocked—for an attempt to block the world out.
“Ang saya-saya naman ng mahal ko na ‘yan, ano ganap mo ngayon?”
Mikha turns to look at her and Sheena could have sworn she saw them sparkle.
“It was so tiring, actually. We had two presentations today tapos last pa kami sa LC ASEAN eh nag-overtime yung isang group! But our professor liked ours daw kase first time niya to have someone use girl groups to discuss the growth of a country.”
“Oh? ‘Di mo ‘yan na-kwento sa’kin ah! Nakakatampo naman, usually ako first audience mo,” Sheena pouts jokingly.
Mikha’s eyes widen and Sheena immediately laughs, placing her hand on Mikha’s left cheek to pinch it.
“Oh, joke lang! Joke lang! Si batak naman manuyo oh, kahit pabiro lang yung tampo parang mag-e-essay na.”
If words could describe the way Mikha’s eyes always seemed to tell Sheena exactly how she felt, she’d have an entire encyclopedia detailing the meaning of every dip and curve her eyelids made.
She could tell you that right now, there was nothing else on Mikha’s mind than whatever she was about to say next.
“Eh kase naman! I like including you always.”
Sincerity.
“‘Di ka naman nagkukulang dun.”
If she could paint the way Mikha’s eyes looked when they pleaded with her to believe that she was honest, the canvas would hold the perfect shade of brown.
“I like knowing na you’re updated with me lagi… because it’s like I still get to do everything with you kahit I’m not with you all day.”
But then again no amount of mixing pigments and adjusting shades could match the pair looking back at her.
No amount of strokes on a canvas could ever hold the amount of sincerity Mikha’s eyes held whenever she looked at her.
No, a canvas couldn’t tell her it loved her the way Mikha’s did with every look.
“Gusto ko ring alam ko lahat ng nangyayari sa buhay mo. Mas masayang maghintay kahit ilang tren pa dumaan kung ibig sabihin naman makakasama ko sa pag-uwi yung daldal mo.”
The soft rumble on the track reminds the two of where they are and they move forward with the people on the platform as the train nears its stop.
Sheena feels Mikha’s hold on her become tighter and when she looks, Mikha’s smiling again.
“I missed you, sinta. I think I forgot to mention.”
Sheena doesn’t know what a heart feels like when it softens. (If that were even a thing since she assumes hearts are already soft as they are.)
What she does know is that her heart feels lighter and warm and if she could melt into the floor, she already would have.
If her professor had asked her to draw what it might feel like to have butterflies in your stomach, she would have drawn the road between La Salle and Benilde and two girls in the middle of the pedestrian lane, hands held.
It would be raining and yet the space between them wouldn’t reflect the darkness that the heavy clouds above them caused because things were lighter when her hand held Mikha’s.
They easily slip inside the train when its passengers finish alighting, hands held like nothing could part them.
They settle in the middle, where there’s enough space for them to stand comfortably and they won’t be bothered much by people going down.
It’s a long trip from Vito Cruz to Doroteo Jose where they get off.
As much as she’s used to commuting, Sheena still hates when people bump her.
She knew it was inevitable, but it didn’t make it any more comfortable knowing that.
So when Mikha lets go of her hand, she’s suddenly all too aware of her surroundings.
Except it doesn’t last long because suddenly, Mikha’s arm is around her waist, pulling her close.
Mikha shifts their positions and it’s only then that she sees that they’re at the next stop and someone’s making their way through the crowd to get to the exit.
When Mikha looks back at her, she’s staring, and it makes her chuckle.
“Sorry I let go of your hand, sinta, you were too close to everyone else for comfort.”
Sheena rests her head on Mikha’s shoulder and Mikha pulls her closer.
“Thank you, mahal ko.”
She doesn’t know if Mikha feels it but her shoulders relax.
It wasn’t the first time Mikha had been attentive without her having to ask. That’s just how Mikha was.
The first time they rode the LRT together, she hadn’t said anything.
She was uncomfortable next to everyone but she didn’t want to take the smile off of Mikha’s face because she had been so excited to ride to school together.
Sheena was good at pretending that things were okay—she’s everyone’s sunshine after all—but Mikha thinks otherwise.
Where everyone sees the biggest smile, Mikha sees every slight change.
So it shouldn’t have shocked Sheena when Mikha pulled her towards the middle of the train and set her right in front of the seated passengers where there were less shoulders brushing and more air for her to breathe, but it did.
Sheena doesn’t expect people to notice, but Mikha did. Mikha always did.
“For what?” Mikha asks.
The train stops abruptly and Mikha’s free hand quickly grabs the overhead railings to steady them.
She tries not to laugh when she sees the woman sitting in front of them roll her eyes from her periphery.
“Okay ka lang, mahal ko?” Sheena looks up to check on her and is greeted by Mikha’s smile.
“Always.”
If her professor had asked her to draw what safety looked like to her, she’d draw the train in motion, entering the station with the traffic light painting the front of the train red with its light.
The train would be empty, and so would the station be, save for the train’s driver and the guard holding up the stop sign as if the traffic light weren’t enough to make the train stop.
They wouldn’t get it right away, not without her having to explain first.
No, they wouldn’t understand that this was exactly the way it felt to have Mikha’s arms anchoring her to the train’s floor.
It felt like driving a speeding train on a one-way track and she’s locked in because she has no other choice but to get to her destination and finally being reminded that she’s allowed to stop.
The world seemed to constantly demand the most of Sheena, but not Mikha.
Mikha was the constant red light at every train stop, reminding her that she could take her foot off the gas pedal for a bit.
“So bakit nga thank you?”
Sheena feels Mikha’s thumb gently rubbing her back and it hits her.
“Kase kilala mo ‘ko. Kahit yung mga bagay na hindi ko sinasabi.”
This is exactly what comfort felt like.
“What kind of girlfriend would I be kung ‘di kita kilala, silly!” Mikha chuckles, her eyes disappearing.
Maybe it’s because her other classmates had talked about their favorite cafes or scenes from their comfort shows, or because the examples had been places or objects, but it didn’t immediately occur to Sheena that comfort could be a person.
“Hindi kase! Alam mo yung mga ayaw at gusto ko kahit hindi ko sabihin.”
Comfort was the Kitkat bar in her bag’s pocket that was there because it was her favorite treat after a long day.
“Baka you haven’t noticed, I’m just a little bit obsessed with everything about you.”
Comfort was the envelope full of unfinished drafts kept safely in Mikha’s backpack because she didn’t mind keeping it during travel because Sheena liked holding her sketches when she was in school in case inspiration struck on the go.
“Alam mo ba pagod na pagod ako kanina.”
Comfort was the hand behind her back steadying her so she didn’t have to worry about having to hold on to anything when her arms were already tired.
“Halata naman, I’m sorry I made you wait, sinta.”
The LRT kept getting fuller and fuller and no amount of people going down seemed to make the train seem less crowded.
“Hindi, okay lang. Hindi na ako pagod. Thank you.”
None of it mattered when all she could see and feel was Mikha.
“I wrote you something kanina… pero later ko na kunin when we go down.”
Sheena had just gone through what she thought was the most overwhelming day so far in her entire stay in Benilde and the way Mikha was holding her like she was the most precious thing in the world made tears threaten to fall.
Sometimes Sheena feels like she could get away with the tiny waves of emotions she has, but Mikha proves her wrong every time.
Even with her head down against Mikha’s shoulder and her face away from the girl’s view, somehow, she still knows.
Because unfortunately for Sheena, Mikha knows she takes a deep breath and holds it for a few seconds when she’s trying to stop her tears.
She leans her head against the side of Sheena’s head so she can whisper, “hey, if you need to let it out, no one’s gonna see.”
“Nakakahiya.”
“No, they’re probably just thinking we’re malandi. Ate in front of us is inggit na nga eh, she rolled her eyes and started chatting someone,” Mikha whispers back, her smile growing wider with every word.
Sheena raises her head and hits Mikha’s arm.
“Baliw!”
“As long as you’re smiling, okay lang.”
She doesn’t know if Mikha took classes on comforting people or if she just knew Sheena that well but somehow, she always found her wiping her tears before they even fell.
Sheena was always better at expressing herself with pictures she drew or took.
She wasn’t as confident with words as she was with a pen or a camera, except when Mikha was like this, she found it was hard to run out of things to say about her.
If they weren’t in a packed train car, she probably would have told Mikha that she was glad the universe conspired to allow them to meet because otherwise, what use was having gaps between fingers other than to remind her of what could be missing in between.
Yes, she’d know the absence of Mikha’s hand laced with hers even if they hadn’t met because she refuses to believe that anyone else’s would fit just as well as Mikha’s did.
“So ano pa nangyari sa araw mo, mahal ko?”
They’re a stop away from Doroteo Jose and Sheena wishes the train would slow down because as soon as they arrive, it’s a one-way trip to letting go of Mikha’s hand.
They’ll exit the station together so Sheena can ride a jeep home but Mikha has to go back inside and walk to Recto station because she needs to ride the other line to get home.
In a perfect world, Mikha would live just a few doors down with her so she could be so selfish as to use up her time doing the world’s demands next to Mikha without worrying about what time the station closes or if they’d get home safe.
In another world, Sheena would be selfish enough to ask the universe to have them both live a little further than the few stations they travelled together so she could hold the girl’s hand just a little bit longer.
Except this is the world they’re in and Mikha still hasn’t finished her story but the train is once again about to stop.
So she takes Mikha’s hand and they find their way out of the train and she doesn’t let go until they reach the turnstiles, but their hands find each other’s as soon as they’re out.
They walk to the stairs leading to the exit and Sheena stops right before the first step down.
“Okay ka lang, sinta?” Mikha asks, tilting her head a little.
“Siomai tayo?”
Mikha smiles and starts walking the familiar steps that lead to their favorite siomai stall, “whatever you want, sinta.”
The extra time that walking to the stall, ordering, and eating the siomai bought Sheena wasn’t a lot, but it was enough to see Mikha animatedly talk about the highlights of their role play presentation.
Soon, they’re face-to-face with the different vehicles, probably full of people about to go home, too.
Mikha takes Sheena’s things out of her bag and a piece of folded paper labeled “sinta”.
“I just got bored so I wrote like I was chatting with you. I think may naulit na kwento but it’s okay, at least you have visuals of me making kwento.”
Sheena opens her envelope and places it inside so she didn’t lose it.
“Excited na akong basahin, mahal ko.”
Mikha smiles as Sheena takes her hand again, bouncing a little in place, making the keychain on her backpack clink.
A jeepney slows down in front of them and Mikha immediately wraps her in a hug before it could come to a full stop.
“Ingat ka, sinta. Message when you get home.”
“Ikaw rin. ‘Wag mong hahayaang may mangyaring masama sa mahal ko, ha?”
“I promise.”
Sheena gets on the jeepney and waves at Mikha one last time before it speeds off and Mikha has to walk back.
She looks down at the sketches on her envelope and for the first time, she’s excited to get home and work on her plate because she’s realized that comfort isn’t just her cats, or her bed, or even her favorite chocolate ice cream.
Comfort, in fact, was a crowded LRT train at 6 PM on a Friday but it didn’t matter because in the middle of it all were two held hands.
Yes, the two held hands would be the portrait’s focus.
She’ll keep the smile and the stories for herself.