Chapter 6: You're Not Dense

Arriving at the library, Tina and Matthew went straight to their table, as was now habit, and sat facing each other again. Tina had become nervous on the way to the library, though, after realizing that she had already answered Matthew's question...well, part of it. But now he was waiting to hear about what had happened after she met Alfred.

'This...this is Matthew I'm talking to. What is it that I can tell him that he doesn't already know? ...wait..' Tina wondered. "Matthew, did Alfred ever tell you what happened between him and Antonio?" she said, surprising him since he hadn't been expecting a question.

"Well, I know they got into a really big fight a while back, and that Carlos had something to do with it." Matthew answered. "He didn't really mention anything about you or Juan though..."

"Oh," Tina let out a sigh. "Typical of him not to think it was a big deal..."

"Was it, really? Al usually likes to brag about things when they're big deals."

"Well, I guess I understand why he might not have mentioned some stuff..." Tina realized. There was so much more to Alfred's fight with Antonio, and all that happened afterwards, that Alfred probably wanted to brush the whole thing off. "Okay, I'll start from there then. You see, since we met, Alfred visited a lot. At first I thought that he only came when Antonio seemed to be too busy to notice, but then I found out that Alfred came over all the time. He met with Juan when I was with Antonio, and Juan distracted Antonio so Alfred could meet with me. It was weird. I knew that this was the boy that was bringing problems to Antonio and that Antonio would definitely be angry if he ever found out that we were meeting with him, but I just couldn't help going to see him and talking with him. Alfred's one of those people you can't just ignore, you know?"

'Yeah, exactly the opposite of me.' Matthew reminded himself.

"Anyways, Juan was getting really attached to him. He even started calling Alfred 'kuya' and copying him. Since Juan never considered anyone else as an older brother, besides Kuya Yao, I thought it was okay... Except, after a while, I started to notice how troubled the whole ordeal was making Antonio. At the time, Antonio practically lived with us, but he went out often to deal with some family problems. He would always come home late at night, fatigued, and he would look like he'd just been fighting. Although he always smiled at me and told me that everything would be sorted out eventually, I already knew from Alfred that Antonio wasn't going to be able to deal with it for much longer. It scared me, actually, how the happy, simple, everyday life I had been living with Antonio was being disrupted...

"Juan, on the other hand, began standing up to Antonio more because of Alfred's influence. He would always tell me that we'd be so much better off living alone and that we didn't need Antonio 'bossing us around' all the time. Sometimes, he even left home for a whole day or two to spend with Alfred. I tried to discourage him, but I couldn't help thinking that Juan seemed so much happier when Antonio wasn't around..." Tina breathed. She seemed to contemplate how detailed she should go into the next memories. Matthew reached across the table, grabbing Tina's hand.

"And then what happened?" he asked earnestly. Tina looked up at him. 'Yes, this is only a memory. I'm just telling Matthew what happened...it's not like it's happening right now or anything...' she told herself.

"One day," she continued. "I overheard Juan talking to Alfred on the phone, about how Alfred should come over and finally make Antonio leave. They had this odd notion that they were saving me as if I was in trouble or something. The part that scared me the most was that maybe they were right. Having Antonio around all the time made me so dependent on him, so much so that I couldn't even think of how it would be to live apart from him. But I would always be a 'little sister' to Antonio, and I didn't know how to keep living like that either. And Juan seemed to be gone so often; I didn't want him to be miserable or resentful, and he was family.

"So on my twelfth birthday I asked Antonio if he'd prefer living at his own home more, since there were family problems. When he didn't seem to understand why I was asking him so, I blurted out that I didn't want to be friends with him anymore.

"What do you mean you don't want to be friends anymore!" Antonio asked angrily, getting off his chair so fast that it crashed into the hardwood flooring. "What did I do wrong, Tina?"

"I-I…" All she could do was stutter. Tina hadn't wanted him to get so worked up. She didn't really want to stop being friends with him, but if he didn't leave their house now, Alfred would come and make Antonio leave. She had to make him leave, even of she would rather him stay forever. "You won't let me be friends with anyone else!" she tried to scream back, but it came out like a whimper.

"And what? Now you're gonna be friends with that American kid?" he asked, making a contorted expression, not looking directly at her. Antonio didn't understand why Tina was doing this now. This was Tina, the good little girl that always let him know what she was doing and where she would be, the little girl who was always so excited when he would visit, and would always be waiting for him no matter how late he came home. He had always thought he would be enough for Tina.

"At least he doesn't bully Juan!" she started to argue back, saying things that was only influenced by Juan himself.

"Oh, so this is about your little brother." Antonio interrupted, as if he understood the whole situation now. 'She's doing it again,' he thought to himself. 'She's putting other people before what she really wants.' "If you're going to stop being friends with me for your brother's sake, you should think about yourself more!"

She just stared at him. Tina hadn't expected him to say something like that. Had he known that she loved him? Had he actually understood? Does he know how hard this is for her, then? How hard it is to tell him to leave when all she wanted was for him to stay.

"It's all Juan's fault anyway. He's the one who won't be friends with me!" he continued. "After all those times I spent with you guys, teaching you and taking care of you…" Antonio turned to her, reaching out his hand to her, making Tina feel guilty. There was Antonio, practically asking Tina to let him stay with her forever, but she didn't reach out to his hand. She couldn't for Juan's sake, and maybe even hers. But she hated herself at that moment, and she hated Alfred for somehow bringing her to want Antonio to leave.

At that moment, Alfred burst into the room, fist heading straight into Antonio's stomach. He had barely dodged, but was quick to return the blow. The two started fighting as Juan jogged into the house, obviously winded. He didn't know what Tina had tried to do before he and Alfred got there, but he didn't ask anything and Tina didn't tell him. They watched the fourteen-year-old slowly get overpowered, until suddenly he stopped and said he gave up. That was when Tina's heart broke. 'No, it can't be over already...' she reasoned. Alfred hesitantly backed away as Antonio turned to head for the door. 'No. He can't be leaving...'

Antonio turned to look at her one last time before he walked out the door. He gave her the same smile he gave on those nights he came home after a fight and had lost, when he would say everything would get sorted out eventually, but Tina was sure she saw a tear streak down his cheek. She couldn't cry, at least not yet. Not when Alfred was standing there, smiling victoriously at the door Antonio just left from. Not when Juan was standing right next to her, relief on his face, as if some terrible thing had just been taken away. But she couldn't help it. She barely realized the tears streaming down her cheeks until everything was too blurry to see.

But right now, she was able to hold it all in. Matthew stared at the girl in front of him, whose hands he were still holding. He was about to tell her that it was okay to cry right now, but then Tina suddenly lay her head facedown in the desk, her forehead resting on their clasped hands.

"He was right there, Matthew. Antonio had wanted to stay with me, but then all I did was stand there and let him leave." she mumbled into the table. "Even now, I still don't understand why I didn't grab his hand." Tina regretted, squeezing Matthew's hand tighter.

Matthew squeezed back, waiting for Tina to look back up so he could confirm his guess to Tina's question. But when she made no move to change positions, he asked her anyways.

"You're in with love my brother, aren't you?" he asked, trying not to lose his voice.

"...Yes." she finally admitted out loud, to Matthew and to herself. He should've already been used to Alfred being preferred over him, but somehow it still particularly hurt this time.

"Don't look so depressed, Tina. I'll help you out." Matthew offered, already trying to repress his newfound, strong affections for the girl sitting in front of him.

"No," Tina said, finally facing him. She still looked troubled, but at least it seemed like she hadn't cried.

"I already messed that up too." she began again. "A couple weeks after Antonio left, I got to talking to other people. Kiku was particularly happy that Juan and I were going to be more independent. Even Arthur and Francis were okay with the decision. But when Alfred saw me talking to Dylan this one time, he started telling me and Juan that we weren't ready to live alone yet, since we had been so used to having Antonio around, so he would be looking after us from then on. Of course, Juan completely agreed with Alfred, but it just made me so angry. I had completely thrown away my chances of being happy with Antonio because they had convinced me that we were better off alone, and yet here was Alfred, trying to do the same exact thing as Antonio.

"I got into a lot of arguments with them, but I kept backing down in the end because I didn't wanna tear apart our household, which I was practically running by myself anyways. Alfred made a deal with me then, that after a while, when Juan thought we could be fine by ourselves, he would let us live alone without argument.

"I agreed and what followed was two years of Juan learning all of Alfred's skills and bad habits while I kept the house together, trying to avoid Alfred. It probably sounds stupid of me, but although I was so angry with Alfred back then, I couldn't help but gradually start talking to him and following him around again. It was almost if there was a kind of peace again in our house, but I still kept waiting for Juan to show signs of wanting to be the 'man of the house.' Still, I didn't expect him to tell Alfred himself that he was ready to look after the both of us himself. Both Alfred and I were about to start high school after that summer, so maybe that's why Juan thought it was good timing, but as far as I know Juan didn't know about my deal with Alfred.

"So, it happened again... Before Alfred left, he asked me if I wanted him to stay a little bit longer, but I refused him and said goodbye. I guess I was a little bit miffed at him that day too, because, even though I acted mean towards Alfred a lot, he couldn't even realize I liked him [Juan told me I was being so painstakingly obvious with my feelings for Alfred]. Alfred acted just like Antonio and was just as dense." Tina sighed. "Since then, he only visited every now and then, and Juan and I got to make other friends. I glad, though, that after coming here, Alfred and Juan are still close. But Alfred still doesn't seem to notice me though..."

"You really care about your little brother, don't you, Tina?" Matthew said more than asked, while Tina nodded, smiling. "Well, aside from that, you seem to have a thing for dense guys." Matthew laughed, somehow accepting the situation a little bit better than before.

"That's not true. I like you. And you're not dense."


Not dead...yet:

Finals start tomorrow, and yet I just had to type up and post up a chapter. Actually, expect at least 2 or 3 more chapters in the following couple of weeks since I don't even study/care for finals T_T.

At this point in Filipino history, Juan represents the Filipinos who wanted independence from Spain, and Tina represents the Filipinos that had been privileged from the beginning and didn't think Spanish rule was all that bad. When the Philippines wanted independence from the United States, Tina is the one that fought against Alfred and Juan is the Filipinos who sided with the Americans.

Oh, and excuse the slight copypasta I did in there...

A little bit after Filipino independence from Spain (after the Treaty of Paris), Philippine President Emilio Aguinaldo interacted with Japan, England, France, Australia (Dylan Kirkland – male, sophomore), and the U.S.. Alfred was the only one who wouldn't recognize the Philippines as an independent nation.

Haha...even though this is the 6th chapter, this is where it's all gonna start! XD

~(O_O)~