The typing of the keyboard harmonized with murmured conversations in the background as the scent of coffee and pastries wafted through the cafe—another Monday afternoon with deadlines to meet. Except that this would’ve been any other had it not been for the man beside me—the roughness of his palms met mine; our fingers interlocked atop the table. Our eyes reading our notes, just focused on studying. His lips would occasionally plant kisses on my right cheek, unabashedly too in public. My lips could merely muster a bittersweet smile, which spoke a sentiment my tongue doesn’t have the courage to say: how long can I protect this love until life demands me of its price?

I swung my head to my side as I reciprocated his kiss. Yet whispers stirred behind us with unintelligible words. I immediately yanked my hand back and turned my head to the laptop in front of me. The voices may have been hummed low, but it felt too close to feel unsafe. I could only think how their eyes could’ve glared or their eyebrows furrowed at the scene of just two boys in romance.

Even so, I slid my trembling hands back into his. This time, more quietly. More scared. Not because I wanted to, but because I am too familiar with how snapshots of my life become a story passed to someone else. I then recall my past relationships—how the hands had to be held beneath tables or dates could never happen in familiar spaces. I felt my chest tighten.

I felt a buzz in the table as I received a message from my mother, with a text offering a dinner if ever I was free. I then found myself at a crossroads: to be with my parents meant leaving the man beside me, and staying would mean less time with my Ma and Pa. 

The gray area meant bringing him with me, and making myself a subject of my parents’ scrutiny and skepticism. Doing so would set my life under increased surveillance as they’d put meaning behind my every action. I heaved a deep sigh as the circumstance mirrored what my months can look like moving forward. A constant back and forth between two realities that should never meet.

Ever since, my parents have always shown disdain towards people like me. Although we received applause for our humor and wit, and are met with jeers and support, we are only easy to love as characters on the screen. They would support icons such as Vice Ganda, yet turn to insults for an average queer person at the kanto. The community may have been celebrated in the media, but acceptance is tapered on entertainment. At the end of the day, our identity is best seen on screens but never in reality, where the children become someone their parents warned them to be.

A romance cultivated on secrecy; yet I wonder: how many gossips have every moment, every glance, and every kiss birthed? And how many until it reaches the ears of my Ma and Pa? They would see skin tainted with sin.

I have learnt to call my lovers behind locked doors. Travel far to the north, away from anyone who could possibly recognize my being. To put up a facade when my chest bleeds from heartbreak. Why does it take so much of me to become me? Is my right to exist measured in how much I bleed?

Because in Filipino societies, queerness is never free, and its love always comes at a bargain.

Ma and Pa laid out the rules completely: homosexuality is a sin, and you dress according to others. These doctrines found their way into the cracks of our conversations—in the dining table or while cleaning even. Every beat of my heart was blasphemy, and me loving meant making them my enemy. Soon enough, I came to know a third principle: family was not forever.

I repositioned my fingers and grasped his more firmly. It was beautiful—my hand did not perfectly fit, but there were gaps for my fingers to trace the spaces my palm couldn’t meet. I stared at the man beside me, still studying, and wondered if he ever knew how much he had liberated me. He averted his gaze away from his screen, and held my stare.

Yet the affection in his eyes was different from my Ma’s when I first came out. I remember the first words, dressed as a concern yet laced with repulsion. How it “drained” her thinking of her son being with someone’s son. How this was all in the mind, and was merely one prayer away too. How thinking about my orientation drained her energy from work. These chains extended to Pa as well; he had a stroke. And anything too shocking could trigger another; becoming myself was a health risk. How ironic. Between the two of us, one’s heart had to be suppressed for the other.

It was too binding. And how this love was bartering with the devil: my love and my being, for my parents. Love, no matter what form or from whom, wasn’t meant to be all-consuming. But this one does. And if love was to be nurtured at home, then I guess I only had space for one love.

“Tara?” I snapped out of my thoughts as he offered to pack our laptops and plan for dinner. I paused. I took his hand as he helped me off my seat. I looked around, and saw how the cafe had begun to empty. In a not-so-random evening, with my palms meeting his, and our fingers interlocked out in the open. Our eyes held each other’s. We quietly walked outside and picked a place to have dinner.

I’m sorry Ma and Pa, but in order for me to be happy, I have to disappoint you a little.

Because in this world that condemns such romance, choosing to love is its own silent rebellion. 

And I think this is a love worth fighting for.

Editor’s Note: This literary piece was first issued in the January to May 2026 Second Semester Newsletter of Atenews.