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There’s a plastic bag of grapes hammered above the door entrance, just like in Ximena’s own home.
Jayce told him, a long time ago, when he had first brought Viktor to celebrate Media Noche with them, that hanging it above every door entrance to the house brought good luck. He told him this while wearing a pure red shirt and red boxers as well as jumping a total of twelve times while shoveling twelve grapes into his mouth to swallow before 00:00 becomes 00:01. All while holding Viktor’s hand.
And if Jayce was superstitious, Ximena was even more so. After all, where could he have gotten it from? Every year all the lights are turned on and all the doors in the house open even well before the clock strikes midnight. Every year she places a prosperity bowl and a bowl full of twelve different round fruits and a saucer of coins on the table. Every year she’d give the both of them a red envelope (that they have to accept with both hands while accepting or else!) with a single fifty peso bill and cinnamon stick inside to be kept in their wallets all year round for wealth.
The inside of Jayce’s wallet perpetually smells of cinnamon now, having been home to countless red envelopes over the years. Viktor’s wallet barely smells like it. With time, he hopes it reeks of cinnamon just like Jayce’s.
Ximena had also lent them gold jewelry to wear, strictly instructing them to never take off the jewelry nor the coins inside all their pockets until they woke up the next day. It was kinda funny being decked out in gold, walking around with a giant gaudy necklace pendant of Sto. Niño, and it was even funnier when Jayce had eaten with his bare hands and accidentally started choking on a gold jade ring when he put his fingers in his mouth.
“Is your family as superstitious as you and Ximena?” He asks Jayce, holding his hand and staying as close to him as possible their sides are touching. Ximena had told them to go already while she stayed behind to lock up the car.
The gate to the house is open, tables and chairs already set up in the garage. Numerous people mingle around. A bunch of kids draw on the concrete sidewalk with rocks. Some preteens catch grasshoppers and make grasshopper homes out of leaves and wood by the empty lot full of plants. Teenagers play cards on a table away from everyone else. Adults drink and scream and sing karaoke and go in and out to refill the food table. No one notices them yet, but only because they’re somewhat hiding behind a car.
The amount of people in the garage right now is akin to a whole house party. Viktor wonders how cramped and chaotic the inside would be.
And that’s not even all of them! Jayce had said. It’s only some of them!
“Kind of,” Jayce replies, shaking his head and his hand in a ‘so-so’ manner, “We follow the same superstitions, then we have ones that they don’t follow and ones they have that we don’t follow. I mean the red clothing I think is the norm across nearly all of us I guess. And the fortune bowls.”
“Are they as crazy about minmaxxing superstitions like you and Ximena?”
Jayce lets out a laugh. “That I don’t know. But we’re all pretty crazy about money, I can assure you.”
Before they went to Ximena’s, Jayce had drilled him about the yearly money throwing tradition they always do for New Years.
Jayce had reminded him with emphasis, to avoid wearing his good shoes and wear practical ones he doesn’t mind getting stepped on or dirtied instead as well as to bring something he can easily stuff bills in with speed and efficiency. He’d even suggested a claw grabber to snag what bills and coins are on the ground. Viktor had rolled his eyes at this and said it was overkill. He’s not that desperate for money.
Jayce just solemnly shook his head and let out an ominous ‘you’ll see, you blind fool.’ Whatever the hell that meant.
He talks about the yearly tradition like it’s rife with violence and chaos. Viktor thinks he’s exaggerating.
Still, he finds it cute how Jayce, who usually goes out in heels, is wearing his extremely old and dirtied pair of beaten up Vans right now. Always one to overprepare.
Viktor squeezes his hand. Jayce looks at him.
“Shall we?” He asks.
“Of course.” Viktor replies.
“You nervous?”
“Hah, a bit.”
A thumb soothes the skin of his hand. “They’re good people. You’ll like them too.”
Viktor smiles at him and kisses his forehead. “If they’re like you, only less manic and insane, I think I’d like them even better.”
He laughs when Jayce shoves him, muttering a ‘you lie’ under his breath.
Hand in hand, they walk towards the garage. A boisterous woman, who had been previously chatting in a different language with other people at the top of their lungs like they’re screaming, notices them and screams even louder in delight.
“JAYCE.” She shouts—which is probably her normal speaking voice—as she walks to them and engulfs him in a hug, laughing as Jayce grins and hugs her back.
“Hi tita.” He greets her, beaming down at the woman, before pressing a kiss to her cheek and she presses one to him back.
He stands there, blushing, as she coos over him with ‘ang laki laki mo na!’ and ‘did you get even more handsome?’ and ‘how’s work?’ It’s only when she notices the hand Jayce is holding does she register Viktor actually being there.
She turns to him and it’s like a predator zeroing in on prey.
“Ay sorry, I didn’t see you.” Jayce’s aunt laughs. “And who are YOU?” She asks, full of energy and no malice, looking at him up and down. Probably noticed the Talis colors on his cane and slightly raised an eyebrow.
Jayce presents Viktor with a small ‘ta-da’ of his arms. “He’s my partner, tita. Viktor.”
“OH MY GOODNESS.” Is all she says before Viktor is hugged with an ironclad grip, face turning red from being squeezed tight. “Ang pwerabuyag naman! Ang cutie cutie mo naman nako po nako po!”
It becomes a whirlwind of attention. Bombarded with questions while having his body squished and prodded at and squeezed accompanied by variations of cooing and compliments. Viktor remembers to do mano po for every vaguely elder person he meets and getting greeted back with a hand on the back or shoulder or a kiss to his cheek.
He remembers being told to eat first then getting separated from Jayce when he gets pulled away by other people, meeting him again at the food table, and losing him once more when he says he’ll just go back to get some lechon sauce.
Fortunately, Jayce manages to find him, face peppered with lipstick marks all over and no lechon sauce in sight. He’d been gone so long Viktor had been eating with his hands on his third plate by that time, shoveling rice and food into his mouth like a starved man still.
(Jayce follows soon after, gnawing on a giant bone with both hands and moaning with delight, eating it alongside a plastic plate filled to the brim with sauce like it’s soup, and a plate with several sticks of hotdog and marshmallow on it).
Somewhere down the way, Ximena finds them still eating, albeit dessert this time, and kisses the both of them goodbye while she goes to talk with the other oldies.
They can hear the oldiers’ laughter and chatter loud as day even when they’re outside and the older people are inside. Sometimes he still gets heart attacks thinking Ximena and her family are actually fighting with how ear-piercing their voices are.
And it’s fun. He just follows Jayce, and Jayce never leaves his side. They’re two introverted codependent freaks stuck together like a bunch of parasites who can’t live without being attached to someone in this scary place.
They manage to gorge on so much food they’re almost food drunk, and after that Jayce plays with the kids a bit, his eyebrows furrowed and lips pulled in a thin line as he’s locked in an intense and serious conversation with a little fat girl sitting on his lap, and Viktor himself even nods along to an intellectual exchange with a lanky boy wearing a white towel on his back and knee-length shorts talking about Roblox and Minecraft.
A bunch of other kids start throwing rocks and slippers at each other while others play their own games from hide and seek to taya taya and ice ice water and so on and so forth. Some other kids are by a tree blowing baby powder out of tissue paper rolls like they’re smoking?
What?
Massive waste of baby powder but, sure.
A few meters away from them some young adults are secretly smoking, huddled together behind a neighbor’s car where no elders can see them.
And there’s a baby on a toy car just riding it wildly on the road, followed by a caregiver giving their utmost attention to the toddler.
Then he gets roped into conversations with the more extroverted cousins near Jayce’s age, and he finds himself laughing a bit, his reservations lowering, and then they go back to the food table for a second round, and then they’re back with the cousins playing slapjack, then tongits, and then spirit of the coin, and after one of them screams because ‘there’s someone staring by the gate’, which Viktor, for his sanity, elects to ignore, they go do drinking games after.
Jayce has a plate of chicken on his lap. Donuts arrive and the teenagers swarm to it like piranhas. The elders, naturally, avoid it, citing blood pressure and diabetes, even when they’ve got a plate of oily fried red meat in front of them. Someone’s singing My Way somewhere.
Goodness there’s an even bigger bunch of prosperity and fruit bowls on the dining table and an even bigger bowl of coins, now with bills, beside it.
They go back outside to the garage then in the house then back out then the road then in and back and forth and back and forth and back in forth his legs feel like he’s walked a million miles already. People are still arriving. The sky turns deep dark blue. The moon rises. Someone’s belting out Beyonce's ‘Listen’ by the KTV machine.
A random crusty-eyed shit tzu pops out and just starts walking around. It sniffs his toes for a moment before getting kidnapped. Somehow he ends up with a cup of gulaman he exchanges with Jayce for his beer bottle. Oh there’s lumpia and lechon and leche flan in front of him again. They whoop as they down their sixth Jaeger shot while a cousin next to them vomits on the road.
He offers to help refill soft drinks and when he’s stepped foot inside a kitchen filled with busy people coming in and out washing and cooking and refilling, someone shouts at him to GET OUT WE’RE BUSY after being inside for only three seconds.
Some shy kid he’s pretty sure wants to approach him just silently stares at him with wide eyes while he’s being questioned by more people in the sala. He gets asked what his job is, how long he and Jayce have been together, how long he’s lived in the Philippines, and what he thinks of the current president.
He looks to Jayce for help on that one and Jayce, with practiced nonchalance, just replies sikretong malupet, which Viktor knows secretly means haha we are not fucking talking politics here we are going to die.
He meets a million titas and titos and a million lolos and lolas and a million cousins and niblings and relatives and family friends. He even meets a teenager who, somehow, because of family lineage and blood, is actually Jayce's lolo. His throat becomes dry saying hi po over and over again. His cheeks turn tacky from how many faces and lips it’s touched.
He gets asked if he’s visited Ozamiz yet, and if he’s tried the local delicacy already. When he replies which one, the tita who asked him answers by pretending to snort drugs.
And Viktor actually does have fun. A bit overwhelming, and he’s pretty sure he’s gone deaf at one point from the constant exposure to hundreds of ear-splitting noises, and how loud people’s voices are, but everyone loves him so much and vie for his attention. He has Jayce and his hands to squeeze for comfort so he never reaches his limit. He ends up yapping and going from place to place so much he barely even notices when it’s time for money throwing.
The tables and chairs get pushed aside as everyone gathers at the garage. Outside lights turn on once crickets begin to chirp. There's a buzz in the air, chatters scattered throughout. Jayce brings out a tote bag and hooks it on his shoulder, hyping himself up by swinging and stretching his arms around and letting out puffs of breaths, brows furrowed and lips pulled into a frown like a man on a mission. Viktor rolls his eyes and smiles.
“You ready?” He asks him.
“I think I will stay at the back,” Viktor tells him, “that way I’m ah, not in the middle of all that chaos.” He says this while wiggling his fingers at the crowd in front of him.
Jayce kisses him. “Okay,” he says, still stretching. “Told you to bring a claw grabber.”
Viktor smacks him. “I am not so destitute that I’m starving for a giant amount of cash, Jayce.”
“You’re gonna die.” He says cheerily. Viktor salutes when Jayce shouts at him to get ready Viktor! I love you don’t die! when he leaves Viktor to join the middle.
“Are you okay there, kuya Viktor?” A thirteen year old girl who’s somehow taller than Jayce asks him.
He looks at her and smiles. “Yes of cou–”
The sound of coins hitting the ground activates some primal instinct in everyone. People shriek and in a fraction of a second, the girl’s eyes instantly widen, then glaze over, and she leaves him to squat around for coins.
Viktor stands back and just watches it unfold around him. There’s a bit of pushing and pulling, you’re bound to be nudging or touching someone else with how packed everyone is in this small space. He’s had a few people bump into him, but none so extreme he loses balance. With every handful of coins thrown at the ground a chorus of screams and exclaims washes over the crowd.
The girl’s hand reaches for a twenty peso coin. Someone, aiming for the coin, slams their foot down on the hand, before quickly lifting up, and they squeak a quick apology before moving on. The girl, completely unphased, picks it up and pockets it.
That should have been the first sign.
It’s when the stack of fifty peso bills, freshly deposited from a bank, comes out, that the energy becomes crazier. Some people start jumping in preparation. Jayce stretches his head.
The first few bills go flying in the air and the crowd becomes wilder, reaching out with outstretched hands to grab it.
Some are folded into a ball before throwing. Some are thrown as is, floating through the air, harder to catch. An older tita powers up before jumping, grabbing it like it’s a basketball. A tito, already drunk and shirtless, carries a large bucket to swing at the air like a net, increasing his own surface area for catching money. The young kids at the absolute front get thrown a bone every once in a while when the money is thrown right in front of them instead.
A few bills find its way into his hand, and he laughs with every successful grab, putting each one in his pocket. Someone grabs one bill the same time as he grabs it, and they let go with a quick apology.
Viktor thinks, Jayce is right, this is fun, and he was definitely exaggerating, everything’s so peaceful and polite. Viktor thinks he’d like to do this again.
Everyone’s so mindful! And when Jayce accidentally bumps into a kid and makes them lose their balance, he catches them before they fall down and brings them upright again. He asks them if they’re okay before ruffling the kid’s head.
It makes Viktor smile, heart fat at seeing how comfortable and affectionate Jayce is here, how still he’s so caring and soft with others. How uninhibited he is compared to how reserved and different he is with the rest of the world.
He thinks about using the money to grab some fancy cafe meal with Jayce after when he sees a college aged kid get elbowed just for fifty pesos.
All notions of order and peace break down after that.
Because now he’s watching, with renewed eyes, registering something he’s missed when it was so obvious this entire time, as Jayce maniacally laughs after getting hit in the face with a hand full of metal rings. He watches as an auntie shoves her own hand down her bra to store every bill she catches in it with no care of people watching.
And he watches as he notices her wearing a deep, wide neckline too. Which would have been easier with accessing the inside of her bra faster than an ordinary neckline, meaning her outfit decision was strategically planned and not just something she wanted to put on.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he recalls Jayce ominously shaking his head and telling him he’s a blind old fool.
A thick wad of purple bills come out and the frenzy dials even higher. A slipper is separated from its owner. It gets stepped on as the crowd ignores it. A young man jumps and waves his arms, screaming dito! Dito tita!
Jayce screams MOVE BITCH and pushes the person beside him to catch a bill. Some kid accidentally bends her own nephew’s fingers backwards and they fall to the concrete ground, both unwilling to let go of the same one hundred peso bill.
A group of preteens, who he met earlier and thought were very kind and polite, turned out to be Satan’s agents in disguise with how evil their strategy is. Stealing whatever bills people are locked in on while they almost grab it with their hand. Key word almost. It quickly gets swiped. Little vultures.
Viktor notices, also for the first time, people’s feet being stepped on with the full force of a jumping human’s entire weight, and not even reacting to it, eyes locked on the tita at the front throwing money. Not even the preteens flinch when they get hit. Pain is nonexistent.
Jayce screams a guttural HOOOY TANGINA while another girl goes haha di mabilis magjakol. He’s left dumbfounded. Blinking. Mouth slightly open in disbelief, realizing that Jayce might not be exaggerating after all.
Well fuck.
Viktor opts to just minimize straining and only move whenever a bill reaches the back where he’s standing. Much, much calmer than the rest of the crowd.
With how violent and foul-mouthed Jayce is he’d think Ximena would have something to say about it, especially when she’d been so strict in admonishing Jayce and always reminding him to always act proper. But when he turns to look, he finds her smiling at the violence instead as she takes a landscape video on her phone.
The last bill gets thrown and after, the chaos begins to die. People laugh and begin to calm down.
But a tita with a Prada bag who’s migrated abroad, and who rarely visits home, stands up and pulls out ten five hundred peso bills. The chaos instantly cranks to overdrive.
Viktor thinks he saw someone actually go flying ten feet in the air just to grab it.
Unfortunately, just like every sinful mortal man, he too wants a beautiful shining five hundred peso bill. Alas, Jayce was right. He has but only one arm, and his reach is severely limited. He gets a faceful of someone’s hair in his mouth and barely escapes with his life. Not a single yellow bill caught.
Finally, finally, when there’s truly nothing left, after a few more jokes asking who else will be throwing money, if there’s anyone who will throw a thousand pesos, does the energy calm down and people move to their own corners to count their money and chat with one another. The evening chill begins to sway through the air. Viktor shivers. His pits are sweaty.
Jayce, unfortunately, remains locked in combat with the same cousin he pushed earlier. Both aggressively tugging at a yellow bill their hands are crushing.
“AKIN TO IBIGAY MO NA.” Jayce shouts at his cousin.
“AKIN TO!” The cousin shouts back. “I STEPPED ON IT FIRST.”
“BITCH MY CANE WAS ON IT FIRST THAT’S BASICALLY MY FOOT YOU ABLEIST.”
The elders just laugh. The air stinks of Fundador and sweat.
When finally Jayce finds him again, having successfully snagged ownership of the yellow bill and flaunting it to Viktor, do they find a spot on a table to count their money on.
Viktor with glee, pulls out the bunched up bills in his pockets and places them on the table. He’s caught a decent amount. And for his first time too. He starts to count it. Jayce begins organizing his own money beside him.
“So,” he chirps, “how was your first time?”
“You didn’t lie,” Viktor blows some air out of his mouth, “You people really are crazy about money.”
Jayce starts stacking his coins. He solemnly shakes his head. “I gave you tips and disregarded them. For shame.”
“I–Ah…Well, now I know to follow you next time.”
“Why didn’t you do it the first time?!”
“Didn’t feel like it.”
“Boo!”
They pause. An angel passes by. Or something.
“You weren’t pushed around too much?”
“No,” he sniffs, “in fact even when the chaos had gone up everyone was still so mindful. Nothing but being slightly bumped into a few times.”
“Good, that’s,” he breathes, “that’s good. Cool.”
“Someone’s hair got into my mouth.”
“Yeah that’s pretty normal. Someone’s knee hit my gut.”
Viktor whistles, then, “five hundred,” he tells Jayce with a smirk. In the most dominating alpha sultry tone he can muster, he puts his hand on Jayce’s shoulder and purrs, “I can treat you to a tiny overpriced latte and some fancy pastries now baby.”
Jayce, this time, is the one who fondly rolls his eyes and laughs. He likes making Jayce laugh. He likes seeing Jayce scratch his cheek to try and hide how red it is.
Then he sputters and slams his hand down on the table. “ONE THOUSAND THREE HUNDRED SIXTY THREE.” He spits at his beloved partner in life and in science, grabbing a few bills and smacking them across Viktor’s face to rub it in. “I TOLD YOU TO PREPARE YOURSELF.”
He sighs and rubs his forehead, feeling a headache coming on. “Yes, I suppose you were, right. I thought you were exaggerating–”
“AND I WASN’T.”
“-and you weren’t. Hurrah. Huzzah. Consider me surprised. Dumbfounded. Jayce Talis is once again right and woe is me for being so so wrong.” Viktor tries to say it with hatred and annoyance, but he cannot get rid of the pathetic dopiness in his voice and the smile tugging at his lips.
“I told you about it and you wouldn’t believe me! It took you actually seeing it live to actually believe me! You untrustworthy lying liar not believing your own partner–”
He tries not to, and fails, and he grabs Jayce’s cheeks and kisses him before smooshing and tugging his cheeks and grabbing the fat under his chin and plapping his face all over. Who gives a shit if Jayce's family are right there getting front row seats to their weird asses.
“Ahh!” Jayce giggles. Instead of fighting back, his arms lay limp as he lets it happen.
“I need to eat you whole.” Viktor grits out. “I’m going to fuck you but I’m going to get us fancy food first and then I’m going to fucking chew on you.”
He lets go and packs their money away in his wallet like nothing happened. Jayce is struggling to keep a straight face. Fixes the red envelope inside when it snags on the teeth of his wallet's zipper before closing it.
Jayce blinks and looks at him, all demure. His dimple is showing. “Can we go to the fancy one in Eastwood with the flan and hojicha?”
Viktor smiles and kisses the tip of his nose. “Of course. We will be destitute once more after though.”
“Anything for hojicha and flan with you.”
“Would you like to bring Ximena along?”
“She hates drinks with milk. Makes her tummy grumble and need the bathroom after.”
“Ah, I forgot. Another fancy cafe next time then.”
“Do you want to check out Gashapon and Fully Booked first before we go to the cafe though?”
He stares at Jayce, and without question, nor hesitation, “I’d love that.”
He loves Jayce. He loves Ximena. He thinks he’s growing to love the rest of his family too.
By next year, Viktor’s fully decked out with an extra long arm through the use of a modified claw grabber and a fanny pack. Several times Jayce had walked into a room to find Viktor having spent countless hours catching bills mid-air and picking up money off the ground with speed and accuracy. By his second New Years with Jayce’s extended family, he headbutts his own partner to steal the bill firmly grasped in his hand and uses his cane to jab people’s armpits and block their path so he can steal the money they were going to catch.
They go on a small road trip to whatever cafe they find in Tanay with Ximena after.