“Hey…”

Miguel looked over to the voice of a Joseph that halted in his tracks. “What’s wrong?”

“I like you!”

_________________________________________________

Miguel woke up drenched in sweat, breathing heavily, gasping for air. 

“Not again,” Miguel said, pinching the bridge of his nose. He let out the remaining embarrassment and tension into a sigh, although there was nothing he could do to get rid of the memory of that dream.

His right hand gripped his left shoulder – the spot where Joseph touched him, feeling nostalgic about the night of the Halloween Fair. Usually, being nostalgic over something would not be strange, but it has only been two months since the fateful, yet mundane encounter. It was basically routine for the large man at this point!

Oh well Miguel shuffled out of his bed, and put on his slippers. He looked back to the disaster that befell upon his bed, and contemplated whether to fix it or not.

‘Nah’ Miguel waved his hand dismissively ‘I’ll probably sleep more anyway.’

Miguel made a beeline towards his kitchen counter and grabbed the bag of bread he had and checked the tag.

MON02yyxx

‘A day before expiration. Cool, I can eat toast again tomorrow.’ Miguel thought, knowing full well that “later” could eventually mean “a midnight snack”.

Miguel plopped the slices of bread down the worn grill of the toaster, shut it with a bit of force, and cranked the dial to four minutes; the perfect toasting time for this archaic appliance.

While waiting, Miguel decided to whip out his laptop from underneath his bed, and set it on his dining table. He entered the address for the social media site and started scrolling down.

For a few minutes anyway. He really only had six people on his network: Rasheed, Edgard, Carlos, Carl, his four friends, Joseph, and Celine. His friends really do not update everyone on what they are up to, except Carl and Edgard, who seemed to always be taking pictures together. Joseph uploads whenever a new event was conducted on their university. Celine does not really do anything except share posts she found funny. Rasheed and Carlos are usually missing in action unless someone tags them.

A weak ding could be heard throughout Miguel’s apartment.

‘Ah, the toast must be done.’ Miguel interrupted his musings and stood up to grab a plate and fork to fish out the slices of bread. He thought four minutes would be enough, but the slices still came out pale and warm.

‘I should really replace this thing.’ Miguel said, reminiscing about the past twelve-years worth of breakfasts, toasting everything he could chuck in there.

*pa-tung*

A familiar sound came from Miguel’s laptop. He took his plate of bread and sat down, placing the dish and left it as an afterthought before the notification.

Joseph Ito has tagged you in an album

A few seconds ago

Miguel was curious to see what it was and pressed on the little button that popped up on the screen.

---

[LATE UPLOAD]

Many thanks to everyone who attended AEU’s Halloween Fair. It was a rousing success! Once again, thanks to our sponsors, especially Miguel’s Café because he was the only food joint that actually agreed to sponsor our event! Check them out, I’ve tagged them (except Miguel’s Café because the owner doesn’t know how to make one).

---

What followed was an array of pictures that Joseph took. Pictures of himself with other council members, himself with Celine, the student booths, some of the students who received bags of candy from him, and of course, what took Miguel’s attention was a picture of himself in the vampire costume, in front of his booth.

Miguel smiled. It has only been two months, but he was hit with a particularly strong sense of nostalgia. Around his left shoulder even.

Until the next picture, of course.

It was Miguel in the scrapped werewolf costume, blushing as if he was the inventor of pink, face contorted in both amusement and pain, all the while he was covering his hairy stomach.

Miguel closed his laptop, eating his breakfast in silence.

_________________________________________________

“Hey, mom, we’re the only Praxedes in this country, right?” A girl sporting a ponytail asked.

“From what I know, yes. Why?” An older woman with wrinkled features answered, sipping from a particularly cup of tea.

“I think I found our Miguel’s name here,” The girl flipped her phone over to the general direction of the old woman, showing a picture of Miguel in the vampire costume.

The old woman stared at the screen.

“Here too.” The girl swiped the screen and showed the older woman a picture of Miguel in the werewolf costume.

The old woman stood up, placed the cup on its matching saucer, and picked it up to drop off into their kitchen sink.

“Disgraceful.”