“…Alright, that looks great.”

Miguel pressed the beef patty one more time, only letting go of the pressure once he was satisfied with the sizzle. Sure, it may have the risk of burning the beef, but the sizzle was just so good that he was willing to risk it all. After all, what’s a few carcinogens here and there compared to the satisfaction of hearing meat juice boil?

Miguel turned off the stove, grabbing a bowl with a cat that is extra-ordinarily rotund on its bottom and a rice paddle from the dish dryer. He opened his rice cooker and let the hot steam from the rice hit his nostrils. He scooped out three full paddles of rice, filling the bowl three-quarters of the way, covering the entire design, leaving only its ears and feet able to breathe. He put the bowl on top of the tiled counter and grabbed the pan he used to fry the burger in, prying off the patty, gentle as not to scratch the non-stick surface of the cooking implement.

Had he only remembered to bring home the iron skillet, he could have been as rough on the pan as he would like. Instead, he had to make do with the non-stick pan he bought on sale a few years back. One piece of advice that always stuck with him as he went on with his life was ‘never use a metal spatula on a teflon pan, unless you want plastic in your food and your eggs to stay there for the rest of eternity’. A bit specific, but helpful nonetheless.

A few seconds of coercing later, the patty slid out of the pan and into the bowl, adding some color to the plain white rice. Miguel put the pan back on the stove and turned the knob to low and grabbed a tub of flour from his cupboard and a stick of butter from the fridge and added portions of it into the pan, mixing until it formed a viscous, brown paste. He then poured some chicken broth to the mixture and some milk, mixing until it reached the desired consistency, and, as the recipe he found dictated, sprinkled some salt and pepper to taste. As Miguel reasoned, the broth and the leftover burger juice were already adding the sufficient amount of salt and decided to skip that part. The pepper, however, has always been integral to Miguel’s diet. While he usually cannot handle spicy food, he insists that pepper spice and regular chili spice are two different entities and are entirely incomparable. Miguel grabbed the pepper shaker and shook the granules out until there was enough to form a tiny island of spice surrounded by a gravy sea. The light brown of the gravy turned three hues darker as he incorporated the pepper into the mixture.

“Perfect.” Miguel said, holding back a sneeze after some pepper got into his nose.

Finishing off this locomoco, he took the egg he already cooked beforehand and slid it on top of the rice bowl. He grabbed the dish with both hands and sat on the sofa, placing the bowl down on the coffee table right next to his laptop. He might have been starving, but the urge to reach out to people will fill more than this locomoco could. He grabbed the laptop and typed in the address for a certain social networking site.

He clicked on the register button once. Twice. Five times now. No matter how many times he clicked, it would never change the fact that this eight-year old, obsolete laptop was slow. He has resigned himself to this fate, and let the old thing do its job. It was natural for a laptop to be this slow after being filled with school files, pictures, and a few movies. After a few millennia, the page finally loaded and full. Miguel adjusted himself on the couch and proceeded to fill in the details, which took less time than it did to load the entire thing. He pressed confirm after being asked if these were the right details, and was brought to a screen that read “Friends You Might Know”

His entire family was there.

“Dyusmiyo.”

Cynthia Praxedes. His mother more or less looked the same, with a few added wrinkles across her face and a noticeable pair of crow’s feet gracing the sides of her eyes. Aileen Praxedes. His sister, on the other hand, looked vastly different, which was natural considering she was only ten years old back then. Miguel’s father was not there, as he expected -after all, his father would rather not get contacted by people outside of work.

No other name was familiar to Miguel. He has seen some of the faces here before, but he really did not think that knowing their names was important, or, at least, an utmost priority.

“Should I?” Miguel hovered the cursor over their names, letting the tenseness of his palm take over, teetering back and forth between a regular pointer and a clickable link.

“No.” Miguel sighed.

‘Did they even regret kicking me out? Do they even miss me?’ Miguel asked, and shook his head.

‘No, don’t you dare get sad.’ Miguel pinched the bridge of his nose, letting the sadness dissipate before letting go.

Forgetting that shameful display, Miguel typed out a few names of his friends. Edgard Smith, Rasheed Malek, Carlos San Juan, and Carl Crane, the ones he considered his best friends back when they were in college. With a single click of a button, Miguel believed he was on his way to reach out to everyone after basically being a hermit for the past eight years. For the heck of it, Miguel typed out Joseph’s name, looking at the keys and making sure he was hitting the right letters, lest he type out Jpsehh Tio or something just as far off.

The Joseph he knew was the only person who matched those entire credentials.

‘I guess Ito is just as rare as Praxedes then.’ Miguel mused, clicking on his profile.

Sure enough, the familiar, long violet hair, sharp brown eyes, and a confident smile was all Miguel needed to make sure this really was the Joseph he wanted to see. 

Miguel sent Joseph a friend request. Out of curiosity, Miguel continued to scroll down Joseph’s profile. There he saw Joseph in all kinds of different situations. The most recent one was a picture of him having dinner dinner with what seemed to be his family, with his violet hair popping out amidst a colony of dark hair, which was made even more radiant with their prize-winning smiles. Miguel would’ve smiled just as wide considering they got to eat the yang chow on the middle of their table. The peas, corn, and carrots added color and life to the fried rice.

The next one was a more serious picture, standing next to the other members of the student council, with the person in the middle of the line holding a certificate of some sorts and a bouquet of flowers. Miguel gave up reading the certificate, as the only word he was able to make out was ‘Certificate of Appreciation’.

“Getting a bouquet seems kind of nice.” Miguel mumbled, with his chin resting on the palm of his hand, bouncing with the rhythm of his legs. He continued to scroll deeper into Joseph’s timeline.

Most of the pictures were just pictures of Joseph with his friends, family, acquaintances or whoever he was with at the time, either eating dinner, or just posing in a line, with or without someone important-looking. Miguel thought it was about time to stop browsing – but his curiosity got the best of him, and let his fingers scroll down one more time.

On the screen was a picture of Joseph’s smiling face up close.

That was it. There was nothing special about the picture. Literally just the face of a customer who has frequented his café. Nothing more.

Right?

But why?

Why couldn’t Miguel stop himself from smiling?

What forces did this picture of his customer smiling hold?

Was it simply just a case of infectious happiness?

*pa-tung*

The noise from the laptop jolted Miguel out of deep thought.

*pa-tung*

And then another.

Miguel looked at the side of his screen.

Carl Crane has accepted your friend request.

Joseph Ito has accepted your friend request.

That was it - Miguel’s first step in reaching out. He was used to just talking to people out of courtesy for so long, that he had forgotten how to actually initiate a simple conversation. His hands were shaking, and he felt his heart catch its breath.

'How do I do this?' He thought

'Oh whatever! All it takes is a hello, right?'

"Hello" Miguel started.

"hey, is this for real?"  Carl responded, without even waiting a second later.

"Miguel Praxedes? from college?"

"migz?"

"miggy?"

"econ bitch?"

"That’s me. How are you?" Miguel replied, happy to know Carl still knew his nicknames

"no, how the hell are YUO? where the fuck have you been? you just stopped going to school all of a sudden." 

"we thought you were dead for fucks sake!!!"

"we missed you"

And it did. All it took was a hello. Miguel’s fingers were hovering over the keyboard, gauging what the other might have been thinking – what they might have been feeling. His friend said what he wanted to say all this time:

We missed you.

'I missed you. All of you.'

He sighed out all of his tension, along with the worry that him talking to his friends after not letting them hear a single peep for eight years. He felt a bit ashamed, thinking that his friends no longer cared about him.

But they did.

Miguel’s locomoco was getting cold.

But the warmth from just talking to his friend, and knowing that he was loved made up for it.