Chapter Text
On a crowded street in 1944
And you were headed off to fight in the war
You still would've been mine
We would have been timeless
I would've read your love letters every single night
And prayed to God you'd be comin' home all right
And you would've been fine
We would have been timeless
June 15, 2026
The house was quiet in the particular way it only ever was when Sherwin wasn't home.
Not lonely. Not empty. Just... quiet.
Risa slipped her heels off at the doorway with a sigh that seemed to carry the weight of an entire news cycle. Twelve hours of chasing statements, editing scripts, and standing beneath the harsh Manila heat had left every muscle in her body pleading for rest.
At thirty-nine, Risa had become one of the country's most respected investigative journalists.
But none of that followed her home.
Here, she was simply a woman who missed her husband.
She dropped her handbag onto the dining chair.
The digital clock on the microwave blinked 8:17 PM.
Home. Finally.
Normally, this was the hour she'd hear Sherwin humming some old OPM song from the kitchen while pretending he wasn't burning dinner. He would greet her with an exaggerated salute.
"Good evening, Mrs. Gatchalian."
She would roll her eyes, kiss his cheek anyway, and steal whatever he was cooking before he could complain.
Tonight, the kitchen lights were off.
The silence reminded her that he had left yesterday afternoon.
Four-day flight rotation.
Singapore.
Then Osaka.
Then back to Manila.
She'd covered elections, typhoons, and political crises with less composure than she handled Win's departures. Fifteen years together had taught her that loving a pilot meant learning to make peace with airports.
It never got easier.
She just got better at pretending.
Risa wandered into their bedroom, loosening the clip from her hair. The familiar scent of Win's aftershave lingered faintly in the room, as though it had seeped into the curtains after years of shared mornings.
She smiled before she even noticed it.
She already knew what waited inside the bedside drawer. Sliding it open revealed three more light purple-colored envelopes, stacked carefully in order.
Night Two.
Night Three.
Night Four.
His handwriting leaned slightly to the right, every letter impossibly neat from years of filling out flight logs.
Sherwin never failed.
If he was gone for one night, there would be one letter.
Four nights meant four.
Seven meant seven.
She had once teased him that he was single-handedly keeping the Philippine Postal Corporation alive despite never mailing a single one.
He'd simply shrugged, "Para naman kahit pa-paano, mafeel mong kasama mo 'ko."
That had been fifteen years ago.
He'd been doing it ever since.
Risa showered, changed into one of Win's oversized university shirts that had somehow become hers over the decades, and reheated the sinigang he'd insisted on cooking before leaving.
He always stocked the refrigerator before every trip.
He claimed it was because she forgot to eat, even though she always insisted she was perfectly capable of feeding herself, but the untouched vegetables that inevitably spoiled every time he was away suggested otherwise.
At exactly nine o'clock, she carried a mug of hot salabat to the bedroom.
The rain had begun outside, soft against the balcony railings.
She reached for the second envelope.
Night Two.
The flap opened with a satisfying crackle. Inside was a folded sheet of paper.
She unfolded the letter.
My sweetheart,
If you're reading this exactly when you're supposed to, then congratulations! You've once again resisted opening all four letters at once. I'm proud of you!
By now, I'm finally at the hotel if everything goes smoothly, which means you can call me after you've had dinner. Please actually have dinner first.
I know you, Ris. Don't tell me coffee counts.
If today went the way I think it did, you probably spent most of it arguing with someone who deserved it. You also probably forgot to drink water until one of your producers reminded you. So please tell them thank you for me.
If everything goes according to schedule and there aren't any delays, I'll probably be flying into Osaka around sunset. So when we talk tonight, don't forget to ask me what it looked like.
Anyway, before I forget... Did you remember to lock the balcony door? Yes, I'm asking because last month you forgot. And no, I'm never letting you live that down.
I miss you.
People assume airline pilots get used to leaving, but the truth is... I never got used to leaving you. It only gets better at coming home.
Thank you for choosing this life with me. Even though it's hard.
I'll talk to you tonight, okay? Please call me, I'm waiting.
I love you.
Always yours,
Sherwin
P.S. You left your reading glasses in the second drawer again.
Haha, got you again! They're literally on your nose, aren't they?
Risa instinctively reached up.
Her fingers touched the glasses perched on her nose. She burst into laughter as the room felt warmer somehow.
Not because he was there, but because he'd somehow anticipated this exact moment twenty-four hours before it happened.
She folded the letter carefully before opening it again, rereading the part where he'd admitted he would be waiting for her call.
Every time.
Her iPad rested beside her.
She resisted calling immediately.
Just to make him wait another minute just to be annoying.
It was tradition.
Exactly three minutes later, she gave up.
She pressed Call.
It rang only once.
Win answered with his reading glasses perched low on his nose, his tie already loosened, hotel room lighting casting everything in soft gold.
"There she is."
"There you are."
He smiled.
She laughed. "Di naman halatang naka-abang ka 'no?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
"You answered before it even rang."
"I have excellent reflexes. Mahihiya sa'kin si The Flash."
"Mhm."
"For safety."
"Sige, Capt. Kunwari convinced nalang ako."
"In case my favorite journalist decided she missed me."
She smiled so widely it almost hurt.
"She did."
Silence.
Not awkward. Never awkward.
"So," Win said softly, "how was today?"
She told him everything.
About the press conference that ran an hour late.
About the intern who accidentally sent an important file to the wrong person.
About the coffee she'd forgotten inside the conference room.
He listened. Really listened
Interrupting only to laugh in the right places.
By the end of her stories, she realized she'd never asked about his day.
"What about you?"
"Oh."
He leaned back against the hotel headboard.
"I watched the sunset from thirty-seven thousand feet."
"Yabang," she rolled her eyes, smiling.
"It was beautiful."
"I know."
"I wished you could've seen it."
"I will."
He frowned.
"You will?"
"I've heard the way you describe sunsets."
Her voice softened.
"So I'll know exactly what it looked like," she chuckled quietly. "So go on, Mahal ko. I'm listening."
Sherwin spent the next several minutes doing exactly what she'd asked.
He told her how the first streaks of amber appeared just as they began their descent into Osaka, the horizon slowly blooming with color as though someone had brushed watercolor across the evening sky. The clouds caught the last of the daylight in gentle layers.
The entire sky looked too delicately painted to belong to the real world.
Risa closed her eyes.
She could almost see it
The amber sky. The Osaka city lights slowly coming alive beneath the wings of his aircraft.
It was one of her favorite things about loving Sherwin.
He never simply told her where he'd been... He brought her there.
She smiled, opening her eyes again. "I swear, one day you're going to make me believe l've seen half the world."
A soft laugh came from the other end of the line.
"I married a writer. I need to meet your standards."
"You exceed them every time you hand me a letter, Mahal."
"I actually don't know what you love more," Win teased. "My letters or me?"
Risa pretended to think about it.
"Hmm."
He waited.
"The letters."
He gasped dramatically. "Excuse me?"
"Well, they're very dependable."
"I am dependable."
"They don't leave the country every other week."
"They also can't make your coffee the way you like it."
"They don't forget to put the cap back on the toothpaste."
"...Isang beses lang nangyari 'yun ah?!"
"It also happened yesterday morning."
"Ay, sorry. Nagmamadali ako, sweetheart eh."
She laughed, tucking her knees closer to her chest. "See? The letters are winning."
"Sige, ganyanan ha."
"They're very romantic."
"I wrote them."
"I know."
"So technically, you're still complimenting me."
She smiled, pretended to think.
"Maybe."
He let out a triumphant laugh. "Sige pwede na 'yang maybe mo."
Then Win spoke again, softer this time.
"For what it's worth..."
"Hm?"
"Kung kasya lang ako sa mga envelopes na 'yan, I would've put myself inside."
Risa's smile faltered into something gentler.
"I know you will."
"I hate leaving."
"I hate seeing you leave, too."
"But I do love coming home."
She glanced toward the two unopened envelopes still waiting on the side table.
"I love that part too."
"So are you still picking the letters over me?"
She smiled to herself. "No. I love the letters because they sound like you."
A pause.
"But l've never once wished they were enough."
Win didn't answer right away.
When he finally did, his voice carried the same quiet certainty it always had.
"Good, kasi malapit na ako magselos."
She giggled. "Ikaw talaga! Pati ba naman mga sulat mo, pagseselosan mo?"
"Oo."
"Sherwin."
"What?"
"Ikaw rin naman ang sumulat no'n so technically..."
"I know, but those letters get to spend the whole night with you."
She laughed so hard she had to lean back against the couch. "And you don't?"
"I get thirty minutes on the phone if I'm lucky."
"Sige, extend ko to thirty-five."
"Oh, wow. Thank you for your generosity, madam."
"They're also very handsome letters."
"They learned from me."
"They're thoughtful."
"Duh." Win said confidently, while pointing to himself.
She grinned, looking at him shaking his head from a hotel room hundreds of kilometers away.
"You ate?"
"I did."
"Vegetables?"
"...Define vegetables." He laughed.
"So that's a no."
"Huy, may kangkong at okra kaya sa sinigang na niluto mo."
"Okay, I'll let it slip."
"Because they do count."
She settled deeper into the bed, iPad balanced against a throw pillow.
"So how was today? Sunsets aside," she asked.
"Long."
For a while they simply looked at each other.
"Go on, I'll listen.'
Thousands of kilometers apart, yet somehow sharing the same evening.
Outside Risa's window, another plane crossed the night sky above, its blinking lights disappearing into the clouds.
Risa watched until it vanished from sight. Then she looked back at the man on her screen, talking about his day.
Oh, this man.
The man who folded every letter as neatly as she folded his uniforms.
The man who counted the nights they'd be apart and made sure she had something to open for every single one of them.
The man who flew thousands of feet above the ground for a living, yet somehow never let her feel the distance between them.
Sometimes she wondered what she had done in every lifetime to deserve a love that knows even the smallest things.
And she knows she would never stop wondering.