Work Text:
The city was winding down for the night. Traffic had thinned into scattered cars, enough to keep the roads alive without feeling crowded. Storefronts glowed against the dark, their signs reflecting in puddles left behind by an afternoon shower.
Mikha drove the same route she always took whenever she brought Aiah home: first, she needed to make a left at the intersection, slow down before the speed bump, then avoid the pothole near the bakery because Aiah always complained that it made her spill her drink.
She did all of it without thinking.
The radio played softly in the background. Neither of them bothered changing the station. The silence wasn't awkward, but it wasn't comfortable either. It was the kind that settled between two people who had already said too much.
Mikha rested one hand on the steering wheel while the other tapped absentmindedly against her thigh.
"If we ever see each other years from now," she said, eyes still on the road, "don't pretend you don't know me, ha."
Aiah looked at her, amused. "I'll probably still make fun of your red hair."
"Rude."
"Someone has to keep you humble."
A quiet laugh escaped Mikha.
"So..." She let the word linger. "We're really breaking up?"
Aiah looked back out the window. "Yeah."
The answer came easier than either of them wanted it to. Mikha nodded to herself.
"I was actually gonna ask if I could still keep our picture as my profile picture."
That earned a laugh out of Aiah.
"You're literally getting dumped and that's your concern? You are unbelievable."
"I've been told many times."
"You're an idiot." Aiah shook her head, still smiling.
"I know." Mikha agrees immediately, not expecting Aiah’s next words.
"...One that I think I'll probably love for a while."
The smile on Mikha's face faltered just enough for Aiah to notice. "I think I will too."
The traffic light ahead turned red. Mikha eased the car to a full stop.
Outside, people continued walking home, crossing intersections, carrying grocery bags, laughing with friends. The rest of the city kept moving, blissfully unaware that inside one parked car, two people were quietly learning how to become strangers.
"I was actually hoping..." Mikha began before stopping herself. "I was hoping you'd find your way back."
"I kept hoping I would too." Aiah lowered her eyes to her lap. "I tried."
Mikha swallowed. "I wish you had told me sooner."
"I wish I knew how." The honesty in Aiah's voice made it impossible to be upset.
Mikha sighed. "That's kind of unfair, babi."
"I know." Aiah looked over, eyes already glassy. "I'm sorry."
"So am I."
The light turned green. Neither of them spoke for the next few minutes. The city slowly gave way to quieter streets, to familiar houses and dim porch lights.
Mikha cleared her throat.
"So...am I deleting our pictures now?"
"Don't ask me."
"I am asking you."
"You can keep them if you want."
"What about you?"
Aiah smiled faintly. "I'll probably archive them."
"Archive lang, not delete?"
"They're still good memories." She traced invisible circles on her jeans with her thumb. "Why would I erase a chapter that made me so happy at one point?"
Mikha let out a soft laugh. "You always find a way to make heartbreak sound beautiful."
"Baliw ka talaga."
"That's because I love you so much." The words slipped out so naturally that neither of them acknowledged how strange they should've sounded now.
"I know." Aiah smiled through the ache in her chest.
They turned onto Aiah's street, and Mikha slowed instinctively, stretching the drive for a few more seconds.
"I wanted to ask one last favor sana."
"What is it?"
Mikha glanced at her before shaking her head. "Never mind."
"Mikha."
"I just wanted to thank you for being my favorite mistake."
Aiah blinked. "A what now?"
"Oh, joke lang. Joke lang. Ba’t ka nagagalit?" Mikha laughs genuinely at her own humor. Aiah, on the other hand, looks at her for a second longer, trying to immortalize how Mikha’s foxy eyes disappeared when she looks genuinely amused.
"Mikha Liamzon."
They laughed and for a second, it sounded almost normal. Almost.
The house came into view. The porch light was already on. Mikha pulled into the familiar spot in front of the gate and shifted the car into park.
Neither of them reached for the seatbelt. Neither of them opened the door.
“Actually…” Aiah starts off, carefully choosing her next words. "Ako ang may favor."
"Anything."
Aiah reaches out with her hand and rests it above Mikha’s.
"When people ask about me..." She took a breath. “Can you not make me the villain?"
"Of course." Mikha frowned, her tone sounded like she was in disbelief of Aiah’s question.
"Really?"
"You loved me the best way you knew how." She smiled, though it didn't quite reach her eyes this time. "We just needed different things."
Aiah felt the weight in her heart grow heavy again. "I'm sorry."
"Hey." Mikha's voice softened. "No need to be sorry."
Another silence settled between them. As if they both knew there wasn't much left to say.
"Promise me you'll be happy?"
Aiah smiled. "Race you to moving on?"
Mikha laughed. "Loser buys coffee?"
"Deal." Aiah squeezes Mikha’s hand before removing hers and clasping both her hands on her lap.
A minute passes but neither of them moved. It wasn’t because they were hoping one of them would change their mind. They had already made peace with their decision. They were only delaying the moment when one of them reached for the door, because once Aiah stepped out of the car, this would no longer be the drive home.
It would be the last one.
The funny thing about healthy breakups is that no one prepares you for what comes after. There isn't enough anger to convince yourself they're easy to forget. No betrayal to replay in your head until the hurt turns into resentment. No one to blame for a love that simply reached the end of the road.
So you grieve differently, quietly. You learn to live around the spaces they used to occupy. You break habits that once felt permanent. You catch yourself reaching for your phone before remembering there's no one waiting on the other side anymore.
It's a strange kind of heartbreak, Mikha knows that. However, that doesn’t mean she could easily adapt to the change in her life overnight.
She woke up at 6:45 AM. She didn't need to check the time. Her body already knew. It was the same hour she'd been waking up for the past three years.
Before her eyes were fully open, her hand reached across the bed for her phone. The screen lit up but showed no notifications. She unlocked it anyway. Her thumb found Aiah's conversation almost on instinct.
Good morning, Babi.
The words sat in the text box for a few seconds before Mikha sighed and held backspace until they disappeared, one letter at a time.
She dropped the phone onto her chest and stared at the ceiling. Being Aiah's girlfriend had quietly become part of her routine.
Good morning. Drive safe. Have you eaten? Text me when you get home.
It wasn't that those thoughts disappeared overnight. They simply had nowhere to go anymore.
Mikha picked her phone up again. Her thumb hovered over the call button. Bad idea.
She set the phone back down and started counting to ten. She picked it up again. "...Bahala na."
The phone rang. Once. Twice. Three times. Just as she was about to end the call, the other line picked up.
"Hello?" Aiah sounded like she'd only just woken up.
"...Hi."
"Hi."
"So..." Mikha smiled to herself. "This is how it feels to be unemployed."
"Huh? Nag-resign ka?" Aiah’s voice was a mix of drowsiness and confusion.
"Got fired, actually."
"Oh?" Aiah was just starting to form the right words to respond to Mikha’s news when the latter started speaking again.
"The position to be your girlfriend isn't aligned for me na raw," Mikha says seriously. She could hear movement from Aiah’s end of the call. She could imagine Aiah moving from lying down to sitting with her back against the headboard.
Aiah understands the humor all too well and decides to play along. "The board did say it was a difficult decision to come to."
"I heard the boss cried, too."
"That she did."
For a brief moment, it sounded like any other morning. Like yesterday hadn't happened.
"This is weird," Mikha admitted.
"Mm."
"I'm not used to not messaging you first thing in the morning, and not seeing anything from you."
Aiah was quiet. Mikha even had to check if the call had dropped, but the other girl started speaking again. "Kanina, when I woke up to your call, I almost asked if you were about to have breakfast." She laughed softly. "Caught myself halfway."
Mikha smiled. "This will take us a while to unlearn."
"Yeah." Silence settled comfortably between them. They had run out of things that hadn't already been said yesterday.
"Honestly," Aiah said after a while, "I dread the day we're not each other's go-to contact anymore."
"We can still be." Mikha looked out her bedroom window. She wasn’t trying to be hopeful. She was trying to find comfort because the hypothetical image of Aiah not reaching out to her anymore wasn’t something she could visualize in the moment. "...Maybe for a little while."
"I won't hate you," Aiah said quietly, "when you start not talking to me anymore."
"I'm not planning to."
"I know." Another pause. “But that's probably how this ends."
"Aiah," her name slipped out. Hearing herself say it felt foreign to Mikha’s ears. "Wow."
"What?"
"It's weird calling you by your name."
Aiah laughed. "Why?"
"Because I can't call you 'love' anymore…or Babi"
Aiah smiled to herself. "Maybe that's our first step to not calling each other that anymore."
Mikha nodded, forgetting Aiah couldn't see her. "I guess this is my cue to thank you for everything."
"Welcome."
"Hoy.” Mikha reacts almost immediately.
"What?" Aiah says with a teasing tone.
"That's your cue to thank me, too."
"Eh di hindi na galing sa puso 'yon." Aiah laughed. She hesitated for a second before saying her next words, knowing she was only speaking the truth. "Sabagay, my heart will always be with you naman."
Mikha covered her eyes with one hand. "Promise?"
"Promise." Aiah smiled even when Mikha couldn’t see her. "See you around, Mikhs?"
Mikha knew they probably wouldn't, at least not for a while, not until seeing each other didn't feel like reopening a wound. But she still said it back anyway.
"See you around..." The nickname escaped before she could stop it. "Babi."
The call ended a few moments later. Mikha stared at the dark screen in her hand. Almost instinctively, she unlocked her phone again, ready to send Aiah one last message.
Have a good day.
Her thumb hovered over the send button. Then she remembered. She erased the words.
Some habits, she realized, weren't going to disappear because they had agreed to let each other go. They would have to be unlearned.
Sometimes, relationships don't end because the love disappears. Sometimes they end because two people love each other enough to realize that holding on any longer would only change what they had into something they would no longer recognize.
You tell yourself it's just a rough week, a rough month. Things will get better after work settles down, after life becomes less busy or after one more conversation. One more promise. One more chance. Until one day, you realize you've spent more time trying to save the relationship than actually living in it.
By the time Aiah asked Mikha to meet her after work, the hardest part wasn't making the decision. It was accepting that she already had.
The cafe looked exactly the way it always did. The same playlist drifted through the speakers. The smell of freshly brewed coffee lingered in the air. The table by the window sat empty, waiting for them like it had every Friday for the last three years.
It had become their place in the five years they’ve been together. The baristas already knew Mikha preferred her coffee iced, no matter the weather. They knew Aiah always stole fries from Mikha's plate while insisting she wasn't hungry.
"Your girlfriend isn't here yet?" Aiah looked up. The waitress smiled as she handed her a menu.
"Not yet, but I'm sure she'll be here soon." Aiah watched her walk away before looking back at the message she'd sent that afternoon.
Can we meet after work?
Just five words that didn’t need explanation or follow-up messages.
The bell above the cafe door chimed, and a few minutes later Mikha slipped into the seat across from her, brushing a few strands of dyed red hair away from her face. She noticed the somber look on Aiah’s face.
"You okay?"
"Babi." That one word almost broke Aiah’s resolve. She could still stop this. She could tell Mikha she was just exhausted. They could just order coffee, talk about work, go home, and wake up tomorrow, pretending everything was fine. But Aiah knew better. She folded her hands together beneath the table.
"I need to tell you something. You know I love you, right?" She stopped and started again. "I love you so much. But lately, loving you started feeling like something I have to hold together by myself."
The smile disappeared from Mikha's face.
"And I'm tired."
Mikha looked down at the table, processing Aiah’s words. She didn’t expect to hear those words from her girlfriend when she had initiated for them to meet after work.
"When did you start feeling like this?" Mikha finally asked.
Aiah had looked away, her tears threatening to fall. "I don't know. A few weeks ago?" She shook her head. "Months, maybe?"
"Why didn't you tell me?"
Aiah laughed softly, though there wasn't any humor in it. "I didn't know how to tell the person I loved that loving them was making me tired."
"Kung sinabi mo you were feeling this way I would've done something." Mikha's eyes welled almost immediately. "I would've tried."
"I know."
"I could've carried us while you rested."
"See?” Aiah smiled sadly. “That's exactly what I mean. You would've carried us. You always say 'us,' but somewhere along the way..." Aiah paused, searching for the right words. "it started feeling like I was waiting for you to notice I couldn't carry myself anymore."
Mikha opened her mouth, then closed it again.
"I wasn't asking you to save the relationship." Aiah's voice remained calm. "I just wanted you to notice I was drowning."
"I didn't know." Tears slipped down Mikha's cheeks. "I swear I didn't know."
"I know." Those two words hurt more than any accusation could have because they were true. Mikha hadn't ignored her. She simply hadn't seen it.
"Can't I do anything to fix this?" The question came out almost as a whisper. "To fight for this?"
"If there was something left to fight for…" She smiled through the tears threatening to fall. "I would've stayed."
Mikha looked at her for a long time. "I can carry our love for us while you find your strength again."
"You shouldn't have to." Aiah shook her head. Please, Mikhs. Tama na. She almost wanted to say.
"I want to." Mikha insisted.
"And I don't want you to." Aiah wiped at the corner of her eye. "I think we both came here knowing what we need to do, babi. The kindest thing we can do for each other now..."
She couldn't finish her sentence, so Mikha did.
"...is to let each other go."
Aiah nodded slowly.
"I don't want this love to turn into resentment. What we had was beautiful. It still is. And trying to salvage it while we have nothing left to give ourselves would only delay the inevitable."
“Let me ask one last time. Mikha said quietly. "Is this really what you want, love?"
"It's not so much what I want." Aiah held Mikha's gaze. "It's what I need."
For the first time that afternoon, Mikha looked away. The logical part of her brain had feared this conversation happening after reading Aiah’s text. The better part of her could only hope it wasn’t going to happen, but here they were.
"I think we both knew for a while."
Aiah nodded. "One of us just had to say it first."
Another silence settled between them. The kind that only came after both people had finally stopped pretending there was still an answer they hadn't thought of.
"I'm going to miss you bossing me around." Mikha chuckled, wiping her face with the sleeve of her hoodie.
Aiah laughed through her tears. "You'll survive."
"I don't know..." She smiled. "I've gotten pretty used to being told what to do."
Aiah shook her head. "You're impossible."
"I learned from the best."
For a moment, it almost felt like another Tuesday. Just the two of them teasing each other over coffee. Both cups sat untouched between them.
“I don’t know how to do life without you.” Mikha looked at Aiah, and Aiah looked back at her.
"Me too," Aiah said softly. "But we’ll be okay."
A week passed. Not enough time to stop missing someone, but enough time to stop reaching for your phone every five minutes.
People say time heals. What they don't tell you is that time doesn't do the healing for you. It simply gives you another chance to choose differently. It gives you the chance not to send the message, not to make the call, not to fall back into habits that belonged to a life you've already said goodbye to. Some days you get it right. Some days your fingers move before your mind catches up.
Healing, Aiah realized, wasn't measured by how little she loved Mikha. It was measured by how often she remembered to let her go.
Aiah was folding laundry when her phone buzzed.
Mikha L.
She stared at the screen for a second before answering. "Hello?"
"They were looking for you at the party earlier," Mikha says on the other end.
Aiah smiled faintly. "You could've told them the truth."
"I didn't want to have that conversation today." The answer doesn’t surprise Aiah. She hadn’t told her family about the breakup, either.
"I'm sorry. I thought it'd just be harder for everyone if I came."
"No." Mikha sighed. "I should be the one saying sorry."
"What for?" Aiah asks.
"If you were only staying away because you were worried about how they'd react," She trailed off, "maybe we could've pretended for one night."
"Mikhs," Aiah said her name gently, a thousand thoughts wanting to come out.
"I know." Mikha laughed quietly. "I just…for a second, I thought we could smile for the pictures, let Mom feed us, then when everyone went home…" She exhaled. "We'd go back to being exes."
"You make it sound so easy." Aiah didn’t know what else to say, so she redirected the conversation. "Your mom wouldn't have let me go home without leftovers."
Mikha laughed. "Oh, she packed one for you anyway."
"What?" Aiah asked in disbelief. It was something Mikha’s mom was used to doing. Whenever they had home parties and get-togethers, Aiah would never go home empty-handed, courtesy of Mikha’s mom.
"Sabi niya, 'Baka makahabol pa si Aiah,' but I can’t tell her naman na you weren’t coming na. She packed you chicken pastel, kaldereta, and lumpia by the way."
Aiah could almost imagine the taste of the dishes Mikha had mentioned. Those were her mom’s speciality. "Please don't make me regret not going."
"I won't." A beat passed. "You and regret don't belong in the same sentence anyway."
"Weh? You don't regret dating me after everything?"
"Not even once." The answer came so quickly that it caught Aiah off guard. "And I never will."
"Mikhs..."
"I could never regret the best thing that ever happened to me," Mikha said softly.
"Okay, that’s enough." Aiah laughed, but her heart was already starting to hurt.
"I know some stories don't last forever." Mikha's sounded smaller. "But that doesn't make them any less beautiful."
"Stop na please? You're going to make me cry." Aiah pleaded. How could a conversation about food turn into this soft moment?
Mikha swallowed the rest of the words she wanted to say. Hindi na pala pwede.
"Mas iiyak ka kapag sinabi ko na kinain ko yung share mo na lumpia."
Aiah gasped dramatically. "You did not."
"I did." Mikha says proudly. She wasn’t just baiting Aiah to come over and pick up her packed food. She knows the other girl won’t. So instead of letting it go to waste, she had decided to eat her share the moment she got home to her own place.
"You've always been impossible," Aiah says, shaking her head.
"Yet you loved me anyway." Mikha countered.
They both laughed. Not at the joke, but at the old habits that still had a way of sneaking into conversations.
"Stay annoying, pulang manok."
"I'll try."
Another quiet moment settled between them. This time, neither of them seemed afraid of it anynore.
"I should let you go."
"Yeah, you should."
Aiah smiled to herself. "Goodbye, Mikha."
A pause lingered on the other end, "Good night, Aiah."
Call ended.
Aiah looked at the dark screen for a long moment before setting her phone down. It wasn't easier. Not yet. Maybe it wouldn't be tomorrow either. But for the first time since they decided to let each other go, she realized something.
They hadn't called each other babi, love, or any of the other names that had once belonged only to them. They were just Mikha and Aiah now.
They were still learning. Slowly.
One new habit at a time.