Three months went by in a flash.
The glint of moonlight shined through a broken window of Aeiou's room as he woke up to a phone call.
When he looked up to a broken window above his head, he saw that the sky was still dark. His eyebrows met as he rubbed his eyes harshly. "Hello?" he answered the phone.
The heavy sound of sobbing of came out of the receiver. Aeiou rubbed his temple. He already knew who it was. He didn't even need to ask. He would recognize this person by sob alone. That small cry could only belong to Tori.
"You bought another sim card?" It wasn't even a question. Aeiou cupped his forehead and felt blood rushed to his nerves in an instant.
"Aeiou, after everything—why?" Tori asked through her sobs, "Why did you block all numbers I used to call you? How can you be so heartless to me now!" She paused for a while, gulped, and took a long deep inhale. "This is not you, Aeiou. You're… you're better than this."
Aeiou clenched hardly on the phone. He sat on his bed and pulled his back until he felt the cold wall behind his head. This was the nth time this girl called him with a new number, as Aeiou refused to changed his number, he just blocked Tori completely. There were innumerable girl's numbers in Aeiou's phone, most of them were his exes and some were numbers he forgot to dig. If Aeiou guessed right, there were three hundred contacts in his phone, and if he remembered it right the ratio of whom he had flirted already and he forgot to play around was nine to one. In every ten contacts, he forgot to flirt with at least one person. That ratio showed how merciless Aeiou when it came to flirting, he would flirt with everyone until someone would answer a Yes and ghost everyone else.
Now going back to Tori.
"Wow, you're actually trying to gaslight me, cunt," he said without remorse.
"Aeiou! You can call me that c-word all you want but my love with you is forever, and you're in love with me! It was a mistake that I did that, I know, but can't we fix this?"
Remembering that made Aeiou's nerve swell momentarily, he didn't hesitate when he said, "You're dirty."
"I'm not!"
"You fucking are."
"No!" The girl cried intensely and took a deep breath. "You act like you're less dirtier than me, do not forget that you're a playboy who had ten girlfriends before you had me!"
The way this girl think was truly stupid.
Aeiou didn't know whether to laugh or shout, "Wow, you're mental gymnastics is one of a kind! How's that related? You see… I told you I can't go to the bar with you because I'm busy reviewing for an exam. You know that? Exam? That was time you should be staying by my side, supporting me! But what did you do? You made it worse and fucked another dude! You're dirty fucking crazy!"
This girl had the guts to call him every week and ask the same stupid question; Aeiou, after everything, why? In all honesty, Aeiou couldn't remember how many numbers he blocked so that he could finally have his peace of mind. She even warned before that she'd show up to Aeiou's house if he blocked her again. But Aeiou was smart and replied: "Do that and I'll tell everyone what you did." because up until this day, Aeiou was kind enough to hid what Tori did, and then he blocked all of her numbers for good after.
Aeiou had enough of the drama.
But here she was again, for the nth time, crying. Aeiou's best guess she must be drunk this time, and forgot what Aeiou could do – that her dignity was under Aeiou's mercy all along.
"Aeiou, after everything why?" she asked once again.
Aeiou pondered why he hadn't blocked her at this point. Before, he'd click block even before Tori got to say something. But this time, he was taking his time, and the answer was right at the tip of his tongue: "Because you're a cunt," he said nonchalantly. "And I also aced the exam without your support, how's that?"
"Well, that's great then."
"Yeah, you and your one night stand could never."
He liked cursing at Tori after what she did to him, and he also liked telling her the news that he made it. Not that he wanted to tell Tori so they could celebrate together, but that type of urge to tell someone you succeeded after they harmed you. Calling her the c-word, and all other bitch names made Aeiou's stress go away. Temporarily.
But this time, telling her the news that he had made it after what she did brought Aeiou a sense of peace. Something like a string loosened inside his chest and he let out a small sigh. His heart beat never seemed to be fast beating before, but now it's slowly calming down like he was about to sleep. He unconsciously whispered, "Isn't this amazing?" He never knew why, but he was unconsciously longing for this.
"You're amazing." Tori thought Aeiou was talking about the exam.
Amazing – when Aeiou heard that word he felt even greater.
"You won't cheat on me if you think I am amazing."
Aeiou sighed and despite of what he had implied, he found himself calm this time. It felt like it's done, he felt neither anguish nor resent anymore when he heard Tori's voice. It seemed to be true that success was the best kind of revenge.
So if his resentment over his cheating girlfriend was down the drain, the only problem left was how to stop Tori calling him. Should he tell everyone Tori cheated so Tori would be too shy to call him again and finally stop?
That seemed to be the most logical choice. Tori was a Filipina too! She would be slut-shamed to death not just by other people but by her own family if exposed. Truly, Filipino families were yet to break free from their conservative culture; pre-marital sex was basically a mortal sin. Unlike Americans who were slightly liberated with this kind of topics, Filipinos are yet to even flinch and bother to take a step forward. And the credit all goes to Christianity that had influenced even real socio-political issues in the country. While there were laws protecting women and children from violence, there was not even a policy protecting the LGBT community from getting shamed by a pastor or priest during mass, calling them works of the devil.
Not that Aeiou was part of the LGBT, but it's awful to ponder how things would have been if he has to walk this Earth as a gay kid. It would have been harder for him knowing what path he had already walked in the past (which would be discussed later on), now imagine if he was gay, Aeiou could almost puke blood. Not that he thought being gay was awful, but it's the society that's awful and disgusting.
But today, he could take advantage of this highly influenced belief of his own race. Should he? No.
Not that he still cared for her, it's just he couldn't let anyone else know that he'd been cheated on. No. Matter. What.
To be more specific, Aeiou was this handsome eighteen year old boy, all brown skin and long eyelashes, who's a champion of pageants and singing contests in their school, and has a long ex-list of girls. So after all of his achievements, he'd be only cheated on?
No way!
Imagine how awfully embarrassing that would be.
Truth to be old, if he knew Tori would only cheat on him he would have broken up with her before he started reviewing for the exam. Because, well, they broke up, and they both have the rights to find new flings, this wouldn't have even been a problem!
Aeiou licked his front teeth. But how else would he make Tori stop if not exposing and shaming her? Aeiou had to think of other ways to make her stop. But he couldn't think of another way!
Suddenly, an idea binged inside Aeiou's head. "Tori?" He fixed his seat.
"Yes... Yes! Aeiou?"
"Tori," Aeiou sniffed once and caught his breath, his voice was shaking. "Tori." He sniffed his fake tears back and prepared himself. "I'm gay."
"I was stupid... I could kill myself! What?"
Aeiou stopped himself from laughing, "I'm gay." Then, he took a deep breath and, while smiling, summoned his inner gayness. "Oh bitch don't want me, m'kay?"-he flicked his free hand and almost lost it-"I like dick. Hahaha!"
"Huh?"
"M'kay, Tori you're the first person I have ever came out so please don't tell anyone."
"Aeiou... I. Since when?"
Aeiou has a twisted smile on his face, "Since birth, bitch."
"You want me to kill myself?" Tori unbelievably asked.
"Not that I mind," Aeiou sassily responded
Suddenly, there was a long silence, and then a strong gush of wind came out of the receiver – no, the speaker of his old phone started emitting broken frequencies. Here it comes. Aeiou immediately distanced his ear from his phone.
"You fucking crazy! I gave you my all and then at the end you're just gay!"
Although broken, Aeiou was used to picking up broken words as his phone was already bumpy and old.
"So you're only collecting girlfriend because you don't want people to know!" she was downright angry and murderous.
Aeiou covered his mouth and said, "Yaaaas, Queen! Read me."
Tori gasped and continued, while Aeiou just sat there on his bed with the phone on his hand, away from his face, staring at the ceiling, listening to every gaslighting words Tori has to say. "You need therapy! You need God!"
Aeiou hugged his stomach and produced silent laughter. Once the broken frequencies stopped, and only the sound of Tori's heavy breathing was audible, Aeiou moved the bottom of his phone closer to his mouth and spoke, "Tori, if you still force yourself to me, I'll take this legally! You'll see Legally Blond II: Gay Edition." Aeiou warned indifferently.
"Legal actions came before telling me you're gay!? You really don't love me anymore! Ah! I never loved anyone who's gay!"
Aeiou jumped off his bed in happiness. He succeeded.
"Let's get her out of here," said a deep voice from Tori's end.
Finally! She was getting picked up by the bouncers! Aeiou smiled even more and banged his head. He was about to end the call when the girl picked up the phone again.
"Your mother should have just killed you in her womb if she's also going to abandon you and give birth to a gay child!" The world stopped. "She hates you so much she wants you to suffer life more than death!" Something like a chain engulfed Aeiou's chain and this time it wasn't just a chain, there were spikes and blades around it.
Tori hit a sore spot in his heart.
Aeiou's happiness faded and his face turned dark. He slowly picked up his phone to his mouth, "Hey Tori..."
"What!"
"You're a cunt!"
Aeiou hung up the phone, open the casing, and took the sim card out of it. He broke the small piece of plastic then threw it into the garbage bin. The sim card shot, and then Aeiou threw his phone to his bedside. He now lost his sim card full of contacts of girls, and that included Tori. He laid his back down to his bed as if it weighed ten times more than before. A cold gust of wind found its way through the shattered glass of Aeiou's window.
His room was seven square meter, just right to fit a junior sized bed, a desk, and a cabinet, and to move around a bit. Yet now it felt so big. What he sawand what he felt didn't align.
When Aeiou closed his eyes, he found himself inside a never ending abyss; everything was cold and distant from the real world. He had no idea where he was.
A familiar voice echoed.
"She hates you so much she wants you to suffer life more than death!"
Aeiou punched behind him with murderous intent, but there was no one aside from a never ending horizon of darkness.
Aeiou stepped back twice, and a scared look spread on his face. "Fuck."
"Hey." A voice echoed again, but this time, it didn't echo from the depth of the darkness. "I know why you told Tori the news." It spoke low and deep, yet clearly, as if it was whispering close to Aeiou's ear. Aeiou turned around three hundred and sixty degrees and saw no one. He hid his momentarily growing fear and asked, "Who are you?"
"Not that it's important to know," it said. "But I can tell as much as: you told Tori you aced the exam because you want her to feel at loss after she cheated on you. You want her to know how special you are, and that you're something who shouldn't be left." The voice spoke slyly, "But in truth it's because of her cheating that you became motivated to actually study more. And after you told her you aced the exam you felt so relieved. And when she told you you're amazing you felt even great. You got your closure.
"Tell me, Aeiou. Of all the public schools around why did you have to choose to go to an international school where you have to study ridiculously to get in with a scholarship?"
The school Aeiou went for an exam was an Elite University in their town, Santa Monica University. The name was simple for an elite university, but once you got inside you'd eat your words. Once you got in, you'd be the talk of the town, and a career in international field would be at your hands. It's an instant shot to the moon, and Aeiou just passed a scholarship that waivered his tuition and other miscellaneous fees.
Aeiou didn't answer. If this voice knew that much about his feelings and external conflicts, then he guessed it also knew the answer to its own questions. He didn't need to answer.
"Tsk. Such a strong mind," it mysteriously said as if it didn't get what it wanted. "You went there because just like what you did to Tori, you also want to prove to that person why she shouldn't have left you."
An ache engulfed Aeiou's chest. This voice truly knew things about him. Suddenly, figures started coming out of the dark.
There were small and big figures, most are kids and some were adult women, circling around Aeiou. They began getting closer and closer to Aeiou and as they get close enough their faces became illuminated by a light in front of them.
"That's Philip's child. Did you know? She was left by his mother at birth!"
"Really? I pity the father then, could he raise a child alone? How can you work and take care of a child at the same time? He must be so depressed."
"The father might be resenting this child, look at his face. He looked like his mother."
The children pointed at Aeiou's face, "Loser! Loner! You don't belong with us!"
Suddenly, Aeiou's phone rang for the morning alarm, this was the part where he should wake up from that dream, shout and cry for his father, and lock himself in his room.
But Aeiou refused to and kept his eyes close, locking himself up in that dream.
The disembodied voice talking to Aeiou, gasped.
Aeiou smiled, "I don't know why you're here but I don't need you inside my head." He walked to one of the kids, a fat boy with small eyes and the one shouting at him the loudest. He bent down and took him by the neck, strangling him. The boy lifted from the ground and as he struggled, Aeiou spoke to everyone around him, "I want you all to know was that I am crazy and sad enough, I don't need you here." A crack sounded from the neck and life left the boy's eyes.
Everyone around Aeiou ran to the endless abyss, panting.
"Do not come back or I'll kill every one of you! Hahaha!" Aeiou laughed proudly. Then, when everyone was gone, his laugh stiffened, he held his chest and felt a hollow wretchedness somewhere in his heart. It was a cold big space never to be filled. Aeiou fell on his knees and cried. Remembering all the words those images (was what Aeiou called them) had spoken to him made the whole even bigger. He cried and cried, until he couldn't cry anymore.
That's when he finally opened his eyes and found his pillow wet. He wiped his tears and sat up on his bed, thinking.
Fucking Tori… it's because of her I dreamed like that. That guy she fucked… he better be ready once I learned who he was.
Meanwhile, on the other side of Sta. Monica, the moon shined brightly over the guy that Tori fucked three months ago.
Zed was kissing a girl on a dark alley not far from the P.U.K.E belt. They met in a bar not far away from the said line of bars.
This girl wore a beige crop top and elephant jeans, showing her small waist. She sneaked away of her guards when she saw Zed sitting alone on a counter. Her father was a CEO of the demolishing company so she has bodyguards along with her friends whenever she came out. However, scared to be tagged as a spoiled little girl, she told her girl friends to distract her guards before sneaking towards Zed.
Zed was wearing a black polo and tight black trousers. The buttons of the polo were undone halfway revealing his chest, how could she resist?
Fortunately, she wasn't even saying a thing when Zed automatically asked for her name and told her to follow him to a corner outside. If it was an average looking guy, she wouldn't budge to follow, because they might kill her, but it was an extremely beautiful one, so she didn't care to die.
On the dark alley, the girl's arms –with silver bracelets and diamond rings– slithered behind Zed's black collar gently. Meanwhile, Zed devoured her red lips fiercely. Zed pulled her hair down to rose her chin to the air and kissed her downwards. Zed was too tall and she's too small compared to Zed's height, hence it didn't take long before Zed put his hands on her bare underarms and rose her up to the wall before kissing her with the same intensity. It was hard to kiss someone small especially when standing.
"I can't keep up." The girl muffled between that kiss, it wasn't a protest, more on like a moan.
However, a second later…
Zed dropped her automatically. "Then stop." He wiped his lips and walked away coldly, disinterested and disengaged.
The girl was left confused on the ground, "No. I was just dirty talking. Fuck me with your cock now."
A Lamborghini drove past the street and the headlights illuminated Zed's enraged blue eyes when he turned back, looking down at her, he said, "How dare you?"
"What? We were both shameless what…"
"How dare you tell me what to do?" He walked away.
Zed Revelderio walked back to the parking lot while fiddling a flash drive on one hand and his motorcycle keys on the other. That flash drive contained their footage of that girl earlier. He stole it from a CCTV room, where two operators and three guards were knocked out on the floor after they refused to give the footage of them kissing; hence, he punched them to sleep.
That girl was the daughter of a businessman who owns a demolishing company, Zed knew. So how did he knew this despite of her not mentioning it? He sneaked once to his father's office three months ago and saw a document left out on the table, his father rarely leave anything for anyone, especially for Zed to see, but maybe he forgot this time because he's busy with his newly organized family.
The document talked about a project where Zed's father hired a demolishing company to eradicate a place. When Zed saw the place's address, his grudge for Henry increased a thousand fold.
It took three months for his plan to work out.
In the parking lot, Zed fiddled his finger with his wet lips.
He looked at his phone where the flash drive was already connected using an OTG connector, and sent that one picture of him kissing the girl to a contact number named 'Jaspher'. Then, he forwarded that message to the email of the father of the girl he just fucked using an anonymous email that reads; ifuckwhoiwant@gmail.com.
If it was obviously Zed that she was kissing then the business partner won't be worried and maybe even become happy, but Zed was turned back in the picture, and so it came out as a lewd picture of her daughter kissing a tall stranger which was a problem if it got leaked to the public.
His phone rang once. When he checked it, there was a message under a contact named Jaspher that read: Please, stop doing this to yourself. It's first day of school tomorrow!
Zed replied, "Report this to my father as if someone sent this to you to threaten the family. This was the daughter of his business partner regarding a demolition of a place… the place is quiet important to me. So I want the project down. You know the drill. Do the right thing." Upon sending that, an email popped up. It made Zed smirk.
The email read, "What do you want?" It was from that girl's father.
Zed simply replied with: "I'm a guy from that slumps you want to demolish recently. Drop that 100 Million Dollars deal you have with Henry Nuevas, or I'll leak these pictures of your daughter with me."
That night, Zed failed to do what he was known for, fucking, but he was done from what he always wanted to do, destroying his father.
End of Chapter.