Teen sitcom slasher showdown

Most sitcoms have done a couple of spooky episodes, usually to coincide with Halloween. A god-tier example is “Too Old to Trick or Treat, Too Young to Die” from the third season of That ‘70s Show, which had the cast struggling against Hitchcockian horrors found in Rear Window, Vertigo, The Birds, North by Northwest, and Psycho. 

Two other favorites of mine are the Boy Meets World season 5 episode “And Then There Was Shawn” and the Wizards of Waverly Place season 1 episode “Movies”—both of which act as affectionate parodies of slasher movies despite neither being Halloween episodes. The actual Boy Meets World Halloween offering was a time travel-themed multi-episode crossover arc with Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and it’s just as delightful. “And Then There Was Shawn,” however, is so iconic that it was even given its own oral history treatment in 2012.

Recently I rewatched both of these episodes and decided to do a little side-by-side comparison just for fun, based on six categories, and really to see how they’re each love letters to the slasher genre in their own way.

Do you like scary movies? 

First off: Why a horror episode? According to the team behind “And Then There Was Shawn” (henceforth referred to as “Shawn”), which aired in 1998, it had a lot to do with the big self-aware teen slasher resurgence of the era—and the fact that, after five seasons, the writers had a good grasp on the characters and the environments they would thrive in. Which, apparently, included a dwindling-party whodunit. And it’s because they know these characters so well that it worked. 

“Movies,” on the other hand, aired in 2007, a time when horror was trying to find its voice again, one experiment being a brief foray into moderately successful Hot Topic-coded slasher remakes that aren’t all that fondly remembered. So it probably wasn’t enough of a cultural phenomenon on its own to drive the creators of a Disney Channel show to make an episode just to capture that zeitgeist; it was more likely that they needed an excuse for Alex and Justin to want to see a restricted movie in a theater, and horror movies were the safest bet. 

Who survives? “Shawn.” Scream penetrating youth-oriented Disney-adjacent cable TV is just a testament to its impact and legacy.

Why can’t I be in a Meg Ryan movie?

Boy Meets World and Wizards of Waverly Place aren’t just sitcoms, they’re sitcoms aimed at younger audiences. It calls for a bigger suspension of disbelief when the plot of the episode involves, well, murder. So how exactly do these kid-friendly characters find themselves in a situation that happens to include a masked killer? 

“Movies” had the Russo siblings learning spell improvisation, also known as make-them-ups. Just like genie wishes, these spells have to be super specific and have no room for ambiguity. It backfires on Alex as she’s trying to get into an R-rated screening: instead of putting herself in the theater, she literally ends up in the movie. 

As for “Shawn,” well… it was all just a dream. And cliche as it may be, it gave the episode the creative freedom it needed: “With the dream structure, our writers were able to get away with murder,” said actor Ryder Strong, who played Shawn. “Literally.” 

Who survives? “Movies.” Shawn’s dream may have been written in to make something creative possible and it makes plenty of sense in terms of a bigger season arc, but “Movies” makes use of a metafictional trope that I just love, joining the likes of The Final Girls and Teen Beach Movie.

What do we have behind door number three?

Every slasher needs a Scream Queen. The guest star of “Shawn” was Jennifer Love Hewitt, best known at the time for Party of Five and being the final girl in I Know What You Did Last Summer, one of the less forgettable follow-ups to Scream. She played Jennifer Love Fefferman, a.k.a. Feffy, a new student who becomes a one-time love interest for Eric. (Apt, since JLH was Will Friedle’s girlfriend at the time.) 

In “Movies,” pop star-turned-horror heroine Ruby Donahue was played by Malese Jow, fresh off three years on Unfabulous playing the BFF of Emma Roberts’ Addie Singer. The script tried to flesh her out by having her complain that the trashy sorority slasher role was her agent’s idea, but more than anything it was a fun little cameo made noteworthy by the actress’s Nick-to-Disney network jump. 

Who survives? “Shawn.” Feffy, we hardly knew ye. Bonus points for the joke where Jack says his favorite scary movie is “the one with the hottie from Party of Five” and Feffy quips, “Neve Campbell?”

Movies make psychos more creative

“Movies” and “Shawn” wholeheartedly embraced and had plenty of fun with the postmodern leanings of Scream, from exaggerated, way-too-long movie titles to the lampshading of ever-present tropes. The film Alex and Justin find themselves stuck in is called Night of the Halloween Sorority Party Disaster 2. Alex asks a perky sorority sister, “ Aren’t you a little too old to be in a sorority?”—an obvious dig at how high-schoolers and co-eds in low-budget slashers have a tendency to be played by 30-year-olds. When the suspense ramps up, Alex observes, “Why did the music get all scary?” Not long after, Ruby remarks, “This is the part where I run screaming into the steam-filled showers, which have been left running for no reason at all.” 

Of course, this is still the Disney Channel, so there’s no body count, and the (non-)killer’s weapon is nothing but a hair dryer. But the logline of NOTHSPD2 (“[an] evil sorority sister [has] come back from the grave to punish us for our reckless destruction of pillows”) and the subtle attention to detail that extends to switching aspect ratios more than make up for it.  

“Shawn” dials up the meta elements in ways that were so much edgier than Boy Meets World ever had a right to be. There’s an actual body count (ten, just like in its reference title And Then There Were None!), jump scares, and red herrings. When the first victim—a character whose first and only appearance took place in this episode—questions why he has to be the one to die, Cory says, “Well, Kenny, it’s certainly not going to be any of us.” There’s even a genuinely creepy song that plays over the school’s sound system. Shawn steps into the role of the resident horror fan who states the rules and tropes and makes commentary. Notably, they discuss the trope of virgins being safe from death, with Shawn muttering that he’ll get as injured as he can without actually dying. 

There’s also a running gag that never fails to make me giggle: 

SHAWN: “The death of the janitor signifies the end of the last of the obvious suspects, just like in the cult classic, The Last of the Obvious Suspects.”

CORY: “The killer is one of us.”

SHAWN: “Like in The Killer is One of Us.” 

ERIC: “Killer, killer, you’re the killer, and I know you’re going to tell me you’re not the killer, and because you’re beautiful you think I’m going to believe you but I’m not! It’s just like that movie, Killer, Killer, You’re the Killer, and I Know You’re Going to Tell Me—”

Who survives? “Shawn” would make Randy Meeks absolutely proud.

They sell this costume in every five and dime in the state

Both of the killers’ costumes are—surprise, surprise—based off of Ghostface from the Scream franchise. The version in “Shawn” trades the elongated ghoulish face of agony in for a generic skull, making it look like the Grim Reaper. “Movies” has the killer don a translucent mask similar to the ones in Jawbreaker, giving its would-be victims a glimpse of its eyes and the pink of its lips pulled into a slasher smile, albeit in a blurry, flat, doll-like uncanny valley way not unlike in Alice, Sweet Alice. 

Who survives? “Movies.” Because I love Jawbreaker, and because the mask did make the killer look creepy despite its silly weapon.

Like the plot of some scary movie

Neither of these slasher episodes can be considered “throwaway” when it comes to the overall progression of either show’s story. On Wizards, “Movies” provided an opportunity for character development and coming of age—it brought the siblings closer and taught them not to be in a rush to grow up. Being the ninth episode of the series as a whole, though, it’s still a little too early to make any real changes, so its effect is quite surface level. 

“Shawn” is the culmination of the title character’s feelings regarding the events of BMW season 5, which centered heavily on Cory and Topanga’s breakup. Aside from being a fully realized story with twists and reveals, the episode actually moved the overarching plot along, affecting character relationships and giving the audience insight into Shawn’s headspace (i.e. his guilt and anxieties) as his best friends go through this rough patch.

Who’s the Final Girl? “And Then There Was Shawn” nabs the honor with four out of six points, and for a lot of the categories, it’s not even close. There’s a reason people still talk about this episode all the time not just as a best for Boy Meets World, but as a cultural shift for television, period.

Betting on courage, faith, and hope: A Bangkok diary

Putting the “blog” back in Blogger. (Or: How I learned to stop worrying and love not having to write an essay all the time.)

December 14, 2022

I woke up to news that j-hope would be attending the Golden Disc Awards in Bangkok and immediately my mind was racing, trying to decide if I had it in me to spend on airfare, a hotel, and a ticket to the show only a little over a month after my trip to Osaka. But it was ultimately a no-brainer—the opportunity was just too rare to pass up. The idea of Hoseok traveling again to Southeast Asia seemed to have become less and less likely in the last three years. My untouched holiday bonus would more than cover the expenses. And my ASEAN passport meant all I had to do would be to book a plane ticket and go. 

But most importantly: It was kind of all I ever wanted. 

By the day’s end, propelled by tunnel vision, I had everything settled—including a three-night stay at a decent-looking hotel that only cost me P4,300 total (and it’s a 20-minute walk from the stadium!) and a floor seat I bought off a Twitter mutual I knew I could trust. It felt great to have something to look forward to, and to have it be this: my first time in Thailand, first time traveling off the cuff and truly alone, first time attending an award show, first time in a stadium, first time seeing him.

January 6, 2023

I never usually worry about having internet access when I travel. In Japan they gave our tour group portable Wi-Fi devices, and every day I left mine at the hotel because it was too heavy and I liked being able to leave my phone alone and pay more attention to what was around me. In Singapore I would read a physical book on the MRT as I train-hopped and I would always have my plastic camera in hand. I was planning on approaching this Bangkok trip the same way—but then I realized that I would be needing data if I wanted to use Grab to get around. Which I very much did; it would be more straightforward than having to do the usual back-and-forth of a regular cab ride, and I didn’t have the time or brain capacity to study a whole new commute system.

So my first order of business was acquiring a tourist SIM with a pre-loaded data package to last my entire stay, which I easily accomplished before I even got to baggage claim. My Grab app switched seamlessly to the Thailand interface and allowed me to pay with my debit card. Within 5 minutes of exiting the airport I had booked a ride to my hotel, and I was very excited about the prospect of getting to go anywhere I wanted as a solo traveler without having to worry about getting lost or ripped off.

After a quick nap (I’d been up since 1 a.m. and got settled in the hotel at noon) I headed back out and crossed the first thing off my itinerary: a visit to Daddy and the Muscle Academy + Stickerland in Siam Square. The area reminded me of Taipei’s New York New York, bustling on a just-barely-darkening Friday, and there was a bakeshop nearby that seemed to specialize in holding cake decorating workshops. Daddy + Stickerland was even dreamier than I imagined, overwhelming in the best way with its turquoise exterior and cloudy-sky ceiling and adorable characters and rows and rows of work and merch by amazing young Thai artists. I heard “Forever 1” by SNSD and “Not Shy” by Itzy while I browsed, and I walked out of there with the cutest, handiest A6 weekly planner and a bunch of postcards to bring home for friends.

After walking around for a bit I had scallop aglio olio for dinner at the Siam Paragon food court and bought macarons from Ronnies—my favorites were the raspberry, blueberry yogurt, and truffle vanilla (As in black truffle! I’d never had it on a dessert before and the flavor was intense in the best way). On the way back to the hotel I stopped by the nearby 7-Eleven. One of my favorite things about visiting a new country is getting to experience their selection of fun little drinks, and in Bangkok I got to try Coke Starshine, a.k.a. Starlight. It was a deep pink in color, and it did somehow taste like the rainbow caramel popcorn you could buy off the street, a firework show with the base cola flavor we’ve always known serving as its night-sky backdrop. Perfect for the beginning of the year.

January 7 – D-Day

I didn’t get out of bed until 11 a.m. since I still had several hours before I had to be at the stadium. I ordered in for lunch, knowing that I didn’t want any bathroom breaks during the show but also that I needed sustenance and hydration since it wouldn’t be over until 10 p.m. A Filet-O-Fish (unheard of in Manila since the beginning of the pandemic, not even for lent) was the most convenient choice, along with some decent mozzarella sticks (yes, also from McDonald’s). I found tomato sauce packets in the takeout bag after I’d already finished them off, which was a major L on my part. 

Before long it was half past 3 and I was on the street about to enter the stadium grounds. The energy was infectious and very easy to get swept up in, even if you were alone. It was nice to feel young, to see people come together like this, to learn how they like to express themselves and their passions through their bags and merch and picture-perfect outfits. It was nice to put in the effort and be part of something special. 

The stadium itself wasn’t as overwhelming as I’d thought it would be, but that was probably because I was close to the stage. I bet it was different from the benches—and when they began flashing the live feed with a dynamic, aerial view of the stadium, I got a sense of how colossal such a space really is. 

The girl next to me was local; she had a Treasure lightstick and she gave me a little snack as soon as she sat down. It was a super sweet gesture, and I tried to return the favor by letting her borrow my shitty binoculars. I also vowed never to say anything bad about her favs again. 

Onstage the artists were finally being led out to the seating area. There was NewJeans, remarkably firecracker-esque in their red-and-white stage outfits like they just walked out of East High from High School Musical. And then came Le Sserafim and (G)I-DLE, then half of IVE, then Seventeen, whom I hadn’t seen since 2020’s Ode to You in Manila. I was struck all over again with the realization of how handsome Wonwoo is IRL—it’s that idea of “ang lakas ng dating” that has nothing to do with confidence and swagger but instead the person’s natural, innate ability to draw you in without even trying or knowing. I shifted in my seat and fidgeted with my binoculars, preparing for the moment Hoseok would show. 

He didn’t. 

Not for the first three hours, that is. And it was just the latest in a string of conundrums over the three weeks that had passed since they’d announced him as part of the lineup. First we learned on Naver that he wasn’t even performing—which was never clarified by GDA or by his company, despite fans’ repeated requests. Then it was the day before the show and he had yet to fly to the city, and we learned only later that afternoon that he would be flying in the morning of. I’d been in a tailspin all day, going crazy, wondering if I’d gone all the way to another country for pretty much nothing, and almost cried tears of relief when I learned he would attend, at least.

I was resolutely staying off Twitter through the show, wanting to avoid spoilers re: how he looked on the red carpet before I saw him with my own two eyes. Which was why it took me a day or two to find out that the reason he didn’t show until the final hour was because he’d been running late, stuck in traffic. (He’s just like me fr.) 

In the meantime, there was plenty else to be excited about. Park So-dam was an adorable host. The NewJeans performance was a great, really fun way to start it all off. I also enjoyed LSF, Younha, and (G)I-DLE’s stages, and the IVE girls were super cute as they accepted their awards. Stray Kids’ entrance with the jeep was awesome to witness in the moment, right there in the audience, and I loved getting to see Seventeen live again. I may not feel as strongly for them as I used to, but I will always respect and be impressed with the way they can command a stage—and I will always find their larger-than-life personalities funny and charming. The weather was also pleasant, cool and crisp, and I found myself glad that the event was held in the open air of the stadium. 

Jay Park was performing when the live feed flashed to the artist area, and that was when we finally saw him. It was a bit of a shock, to say the least. I’d been keeping an eye out for when they would bring him out to his seat, but somehow I ended up missing it. The screams—mine included—instantly crescendoed when we saw Hoseok’s face. 

He was seated during the performance, but Treasure were standing and losing it to Jay Park (:/) and they were blocking my view, so I was just like, 

So much for never badmouthing them again. 

Even from a few dozen feet away I could tell Hoseok was pretty tall, and plain pretty, period. It was surreal to look through my binoculars during different points of the show, knowing he would be right there, trying to make out his features, seeing him bright-eyed and magnetic as always. Being able to pinpoint his mannerisms and think, That’s him, all right. The little dances, the moment with the mic stand when he made the little surprised face and gently put the awards down to adjust it to his height, the sweet little purse-lipped smirk he did during a speech. 

So many “littles,” but can you blame me? Look who we’re talking about, come on.

The show ended, the stadium emptied, and I found myself back out on the road, nursing an Est Cola can featuring a TinyTan j-hope (I made sure of it), which reminded me of the now-defunct Pop Cola as it cooled and fizzled down my parched throat. I began the walk back to the hotel, which wasn’t very scary even so late in the evening when so many other attendees were heading the way I was going. I was comforted, for once, to be in a crowd as it spilled onto the streets. 

Hoseok was already flying out of Bangkok by the time I got into my room. It had only been an hour or so since the show finished; I couldn’t even have daydreams of running into him in the city the next day. It must’ve been exhausting, having to take two six-hour flights in one day and having such a small window of time to accomplish a schedule by himself. I hope he had a good time, got enough rest, and wasn’t too hard on himself about the whole traffic situation.

My dinner was a 7-Eleven microwave meal of macaroni and chicken in tomato sauce and orange iced tea. I wanted to try some of the rice dishes, but I was wary of them being too spicy or creating a mess. I was apprehensive about the macaroni at first, but I liked it—there was, notably, no cheese on it at all, but the sauce was tangy and flavorful and stood well on its own, with just a hint of sweetness that my Filipino palate appreciated. I also tried the snack my seatmate gave me, which was a thin shortbread cookie with a white chocolate filling. 

I wasn’t all that tired, and I didn’t have restless energy, either. Rather this sensation of being sated had washed over me, and it left me feeling calm and light, like all was right in my life for the time being. Stillness. It wasn’t long before I turned in and fell asleep.

The view from my window in the new hotel room.

January 8

I checked out of my hotel a day early. I’d tried to book another room twice the night before and always chickened out when I got to the payment page, telling myself it would be too wasteful, but ultimately I decided I deserved it—the P1400 I’d already spent on my current room that wouldn’t be refunded, plus the P3000 I would pay for the new room, would be worth it if it meant I could have some peace of mind. The past two days had my OCD on overdrive; the room wasn’t as well kept as I had hoped. 

It had served its purpose, and I was grateful to be able to stay somewhere accessible to and from the stadium, but for my last night, I thought I could make the most of the trip as an extension of the holidays. 

I chose the Ramada Plaza by the riverside because it was a five-minute walk from Asiatique, the night market I wanted to go to, and the room promised a view of the water. Stepping into the lobby felt like instant relief—it seemed like a stay there was worth more than just twice what I’d paid at my previous hotel. The receptionist who checked me in saw my passport and began speaking to me in friendly, warm Tagalog; she seemed happy to interact with a fellow Filipino. The giddy feeling multiplied when I walked into my room. It was so much more spacious, so much more comfortable, so much more luxurious. And to top it all off, there was a bathtub. 

I’d been planning two more spots to check out on the last day: a bookstore called A Book with No Name that looked wonderful in pictures, and the night market I’d mentioned. Unfortunately the bookstore was a little too out of the way and it had gotten late, what with the transfer and check-in to another hotel. Instead I went to Iconsiam, a large mall and entertainment center with 10 or so floors boasting different immersive and elaborately designed areas. For lunch I had hamburg curry from Umaimon at the Takashimaya dining hall. The curry was a little too salty for my taste but the beef itself had a distinct flavor and texture I’d never had before. I never knew ground meat could be melt-in-your-mouth, and later when I passed by the cooler food court on an upper level, I regretted not being able to stay there, but I was happy with my choice of meal. 

Left: A retractable Snoopy pen I got at Iconsiam with ears that flipped up with the spring mechanism.

When I got back to the hotel I prepared a bath and used the Screamo bath bomb I bought from the Lush at Iconsiam (the only reason I went there, really). I’d wanted to get a bubble bar, but this one just called out to me—how could I resist it when it looked like Ghostface? As it fizzed in the water, the face briefly began to resemble a creepy wraith, and it smelled like cherries and almonds. 

At 9 p.m. I dragged myself out of my room to walk to Asiatique: The Riverfront. At first there didn’t seem to be much to see, but I probably lit up when I finally got to the end of it that faced the river. I loved it out there, where the wind was picking up and it carried the faint scent of freshwater. I lamented, as I often do, the lack of an accessible large body of water that I could visit near my home, just to sit by when I needed to read or walk along when I needed to think and breathe. I walked through the rest of the place, sampling street food and looking through the shops. 

I loved this upcycled vintage shop and its creepy-cute doll-like mannequins.

I got a tote bag with “Bangkok” in lowercase Courier New printed all over it (so chic for a mass-produced souvenir item!), and for my niece I bought an adorable elephant bucket hat. I walked back to the hotel to call it a day, already wistful over having to leave soon, making another 7-Eleven stop for a last hurrah of sorts: Milo ice cream, chocolate oat milk I’d fallen in love with, and chocolate-mint flavored Fisherman’s Friend (to this day I’m kicking myself over not thinking to get more than one). 

January 9 

My Grab driver to the airport was a girl about my age, and she was wearing a cute purple beaded flower mask chain. She plugged her phone into the aux, and I didn’t really mind the music until the second song came up and it was D.O’s “That’s Okay.” All of a sudden the drive away from Bangkok had become way more poignant. 

On the plane I was seated on row 12. It was an exit row, which gave me plenty of legroom. It was nice to get used to traveling again, although I’d never really done it all that often to begin with. It felt especially good to rely on myself more, not just financially (okay, that doesn’t feel as good) but also in terms of getting to exercise real independence in unfamiliar places. It’s never easy to find ways to get around and have everyday interactions when you have social anxiety, but I’m not going to let that stop me.

I wished I could visit more places, especially the rich cultural and historical sites and art hubs I’d been researching when I was preparing for the trip, but I figured I could save them for when I had more time to explore and learn more cost-efficient ways of getting around. Maybe then I wouldn’t be alone, too. It was an excuse, more like an incentive really, for me to come back, because I’d grown fond of what I’d seen and experienced of the city. (And there were so many more restaurants and cafes I wanted to try.)

When I got home I looked at my desk and saw the Daruma doll I had gotten as a parting gift back in Osaka. You could make a wish on the doll by drawing one of its blank eyes, and when the wish came true, you could fill in the other eye. I remembered, all too suddenly, that one of my wishes had been to see Hoseok. Hopefully within the next year, I’d supplied—I just never knew it would be this soon. Not only that, but I got to start off the year in a city I’d never been before. 

The experience hasn’t been perfect, don’t get me wrong. But that doesn’t mean it’s any less precious to me, or any less incredible. In the end everything still seemed to have fallen into place. It’s only made me more determined to see him perform, and soon. If this has already happened for me, suddenly very few things feel impossible. 

Salt, simmer, and stir

The first time I tried to make Marcella Hazan’s tomato sauce I burnt it. My mom pointed out my mistake after: having the heat dial turned as far as it would go counter-clockwise, which I thought was the lowest setting. To get a proper simmer, she said, I had to turn it back to where it’s almost off, igniting just enough of a flame to keep the heat going.

 

Leave it to me to mess up a notoriously easy idiot-proof recipe. 

 

I always meant to try again, but in the end, it took me four years before I got around to it. And I didn’t even plan on it until I was at the supermarket standing next to the cans of whole peeled tomatoes, thinking to myself: Why not? I picked up a 400g one instead of the 28oz the recipe called for, deciding to halve it for now. I went to the dairy aisle and got a stick of butter and cottage cheese, wanting subtlety and creaminess to finish it off. 

 

I didn’t decide to cook it until 1 a.m. on a Saturday, having woken up from a nap that made me miss dinner. I emptied the can of tomatoes into the pot, added half the stick of butter, cut an onion diagonally (not by design, I’m just bad at it) and also stuck half of it in. Added two or three good pinches of salt—I can never salt anything again without thinking of this tweet—and stirred occasionally. Turned the dial all the way to the left again, a full 180 degrees, worried that the bubbling was still too strong before remembering I was supposed to turn it back until the flame was barely there. 

 

The sauce thickened and its flavor filled the air. Its bubbling felt like a mere afterthought, which is how I knew I had it simmering correctly now. I was finally doing it right.

 

Before I knew it 45 minutes had gone by, and in the last stretch I boiled some water and added the packet of Nissin pasta from the Japan aisle that I’d bought just for this, which looked like a thinner type of ziti. It was funny to me, the idea of combining a 45-minute sauce with 3-minute noodles.

The halved recipe made just enough to richly coat the entire pack of pasta, which lasted me two servings: one to tide over my hunger from that missed dinner, and another for the next day when I had no idea what to eat for lunch. I put it in a bowl and topped it with some of the cottage cheese, admiring how chunky and streaky and full-bodied the sauce turned out. And then I got to sit down and eat. 

 

Tomato sauces are usually a hit or miss with me—I’m not a fan of adding olive oil and sometimes it just tastes off to me for reasons I can’t explain. But this sauce was perfect, light and fresh and just the right amount of sweet, with even a little bit of umami. It was exactly the way I’d always wished a tomato pasta would be, and even on the first bite I knew I should’ve made a full batch, so I could share it and, yes, have more servings when I wanted. 

 

I first heard of the Marcella Hazan sauce on Alida Nugent’s now-defunct blog Your Best Worst Friend, and it was during a time when my depression was new and unrelenting and my relationship with food was beginning to get complicated. I avoided dinner with my family and everything seemed like a chore, even just fixing myself a bowl of leftovers. (And don’t even get me started on washing the dishes.) 

 

But Alida Nugent’s post, which I’ve put up here because I still re-read it all the time, made the recipe sound simple, and warm, and filling. Comfort in a bowl, no spoon needed. I’ve been obsessed with it ever since. And now, after having made it myself (Me! Not such a kitchen disaster!), I can definitely say it has healing properties, too. 

 

With my mom gone for over a year now, getting food in my stomach hasn’t gotten any easier. I miss her cooking, and I miss savoring a good meal with her. I wish I could’ve shared what I’d cooked with her. But I’m always thinking about that little mistake I made with the heat dial, and how she knew how to fix it when I couldn’t even explain it right. Now, every time I make this sauce, I think of her when I turn the heat down. And it’s just like she’s looking out for me like she always did.

Something’s gotta give now

I waited until after the One Direction concert to tell my parents I wasn’t graduating. 

By the time they announced the group’s Manila tour dates in May 2014, I was already over it. My “official” One Direction phase lasted only a month: It was January 2012, I was seventeen, and I had moved on from teen heartthrobs (the Jonas Brothers) in favor of edgier dreamboats (Andrew VanWyngarden). I was in a hurry to grow up. 

When my friends from bandom—that subculture of the internet dedicated to the glory days of 2000s pop-punk and alternative bands from labels like Fearless and Fueled by Ramen, my main focus being The Academy Is…, Cobra Starship, and The Maine—began revealing themselves as One Direction converts, I didn’t get it. I was immune to their accents and their glossy, clean-cut, just-shy-of-matching pinup-du-jour looks. But rabbit holes were rabbit holes, and one night, in an attempt to understand the Directioner Mystique, I found myself looking up their tour diaries and the quintessential fanmade “funny moments” (which were indeed funny) on YouTube. And then came the excellent songs from an admittedly solid debut album, and I couldn’t deny it. I was hooked.

For the next four weeks or so, at least. It was enough to get me to spend another P360 (not a small value for someone on a UP student’s allowance) on the latest issue of BOP magazine, something I hadn’t done since I was thirteen, just so I could get the fold-out mega poster and put it up on the wall by my bedside. It was enough for me to tune in to the premiere of the “One Thing” music video and look back on it as some defining point of a year in which I turned eighteen and so many significant, unforgettable things happened. I took a screenshot of a close-up featuring Zayn and Louis and set it as my laptop wallpaper. But by February, I’d become preoccupied with a series of Ayala Mall shows headlined by The Summer Set and A Rocket to the Moon, and it just so happened that my crush on John Gomez at the time was enough to stomp out any remaining embers of what I felt for One Direction. 

So when we found out about On the Road Again Tour in Manila that night in May, I was far enough removed from everything One Direction that I didn’t panic about needing to see them—but I was also still attached in a way that was more about nostalgia and knowing what a huge cultural event it was than anything, and I knew I didn’t want to miss being there in some way. 

An actual photo of Manila Bay from that night in 2014. 

The shows were going to be held a whole ten months later in March 2015, on the Mall of Asia concert grounds. Having attended Katy Perry’s Teenage Dream concert there, I knew two things: one, I didn’t have the means or will to spend on anything besides general admission, and two, general admission gives you shit visibility of the stage because you’re basically on a flat parking lot surrounded by massive heads. It was pretty much a no-brainer to make the decision to stay outside and not buy tickets, since it was an open field and we’d basically get the same experience. The important thing was getting to hear these songs live, because they did have their part in becoming a soundtrack to my teenage years. 

The day before tickets were made available, people started camping out at the Mall of Asia Arena for fear of losing out on the sections they wanted. My best friend at the time, Camille, was one of them. I was nineteen and in the middle of the longest summer of my life, a blue-moon kind never to be replicated again that lasted a total of four months because my university had decided to shift the beginning of its academic calendar from June to August. I was at a crossroads and anxiety-ridden about my future and the fact that I was delayed at school. 

An endless night in the city was just what I needed. 

I don’t even remember what I told my parents regarding where I was going and where I would be sleeping. They certainly would’ve never allowed me out if they’d known the truth. Somehow I ended up going on this overnight excursion, living out my YA novel dreams like I’d read about in Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist or Graffiti Moon. Accompanying my friends as they chased after their dreams of seeing One Direction from the front row was just an excuse. 

We inhabited the coffee shop by the boardwalk until it closed, after which we sat facing Manila Bay in the open air while the skies and the city got darker around us and the clocks eked past 3 a.m. Soon our friends had to go and secure their spots in the line to get tickets, and Rian and I were left with the sounds and smells of the sea and this colossal, magnificent, deserted mall to call home for the night. 

We were nowhere and everywhere, exploring where we could and talking trash and the things we loved, every little thing that connected us and made us whole, together. I can remember none of it now, but I know it mattered deeply and it made sense in the moment. And through it all the mall stood empty: apocalyptic, creepy, grand, surreal. Almost a decade later and I can still feel the way my heart jumped when we spotted a silhouette inside an Icebergs, and the relief and hilarity of discovering it was nothing but a cardboard cutout. I can imagine us sitting on a bench outside a vacant, lifeless SMX Convention Center, nothing but specks in the midst of such a looming structure, laughing loudly and freely against the quiet at juvenile prank ideas and feeling like we owned the world.

Memes and existentialism and the latest episode of SNL (Andy Samberg and St. Vincent, now a classic) on a first-generation iPad Mini at a McDonald’s, Jem and the Holograms and “Dancing Anymore” by Is Tropical and “California Daze” and “Sugarstone” by Peace in the early hours at a 7-Eleven as the sun finally rose over the commercial buildings and concrete. 

We sang bits and pieces of The Strokes’ “Razorblade” through the night: 

I don’t wanna know!

I don’t wanna know—

Tell me tell me tell me tell me

No, don’t,

Okay

By the end of it, we had been awake thirty-two hours. I went home with the strangest sense of jet lag, and knew even then that I’d come away from it a different person, as easy as recognizing the changes that came with a new day. For months after I would see how much had shifted in my life and be able to pin it all on this one night.

Months passed. It seemed impossible that May that they would, it seemed so far away, but they did.

The day before the concerts, it was announced that Zayn would be taking time off from the tour to recuperate, which meant that he would not be appearing in Manila with the rest of the group. My month-long stint as a Directioner aside, I’d come to identify myself as a “Zayn girl,” and I was mildly devastated that three years of waiting had led to this. Still, his health was more important, and it was going to be another fun, endless night with friends nonetheless. 

Camille’s VIP ticket was for the second day, so a group of us were going to spend the first day at the barricades, listening outside the venue. We got there with minutes to spare, securing a good spot away from everyone else who had the same idea we did. When “Clouds” started up, there was screaming all around me. I tried to feign being too cool to react at first, but quickly dropped it because it didn’t matter and this was bigger than me. And because I was so happy, I couldn’t believe it was happening. Nobody saw it, but I was grinning from ear to ear.

It started raining during “One Thing.” I flashed back briefly to when I first saw the video and couldn’t help the emotions that rushed through me—it seemed so long ago. We only sang louder and didn’t even attempt to run for cover. Fireworks exploded with color across the skies as the show drew to a close, and I took shitty videos on my low-fi toy camera that would remind me of Ang Nawawala. 

That Monday, I would try to take a short afternoon nap and wake up in the dark. I would miss everyone. The group would be gone, already jetted off to another city two thousand miles away. I would miss them and I would miss the sea. I would think back to hearing “Girl Almighty” live (for free!) and how euphoric and religious it felt, and I wouldn’t mind that this was what I had to remember, because it was so nice the way only the simplest things could be and I was learning to take what I could get and make it mean something. 

Next time, I would think, I’m getting a ticket. 

But as we all know by now, there wouldn’t be a next time. Less than a week after he announced his break from the tour, Zayn left the group altogether, for good this time, and the rest of the members would go on “indefinite hiatus” by the end of the year. And this is going to sound dramatic, but it led me to question everything I thought I knew. 

Even as my interest dwindled over the years, it became undeniable that One Direction had earned their place as icons for the 2010s. At the time I was unsure of many things regarding what’s to come for me, but I found comfort in the fact that I could be sure of them. I was convinced they weren’t going anywhere, and then they were just gone.

For the first time, I felt like I was getting old. My generation was beginning to date itself, little by little, and our cultural icons and markers were disappearing and becoming obsolete. This boy band was my little piece of fluffy escapism. It was easy to take them for granted; I could be interested in them without being invested. I’d counted on them to remain the same for a little while longer, but deep down I always knew they were meant to fade from those teenybopper magazine covers eventually—that was just the way things were.  

Still, I was twenty years old, and they were the biggest thing on earth. It was never easy to face the end of something you’d grown used to. If they couldn’t last, then did anything else have a chance?

I’ve come to think of these nights, ten months apart, as parallel to one another—two halves that come together to create my own great rock ‘n’ roll friendship movie. Think Detroit Rock City, Wayne’s World, Almost Famous, and, yes, Nick & Norah. One Direction, as it turned out, ended up being beside the point. Despite the hyperbolic gut reactions I’d written about, after seven years I’ve come to find that any feelings or thoughts I ever had for or about them have basically ceased to exist. 

(Except for the generational grudge I hold against Zayn for doing what he had to do just before the Manila stop of the tour, and the never ending rollercoaster of declaring I’m over him until he goes and does something hot like dressing up as Daredevil for Halloween or consistently taking a stand against Israel, after which I’m in love with him all over again. That’s never going away.) 

Looking back on it now, these two infinite nights ironically became the end of several things, even if some of them took longer to fizzle out than others. In the first essay I ever published, which was about Zayn’s departure, I wondered what else I might lose in time, and it wasn’t easy to go through the gradual process of finding out it would be the very friendships that made these adventures so special in the first place. Some of them I can freely admit to being partly my fault, while others are a bit more difficult to explain. 

I could never have survived that summer in 2014 or that precarious period of my life in 2015 without them, and it’s bittersweet to recall what we’ve been through now that we’re no longer in touch. Just another thing that I believed was permanent, only to have it pop like a bubble in my face. Now the best I can do is to wish them well. 

“Maybe this is growing up, learning to live with what you’ve been dealt,” I wrote then. “I think of my past self, how she would walk and feel and live and be, and how she has no god damn idea. Maybe the present is nothing more than feeling blindly for what’s to come.” 

I’ve always regarded the One Direction concert as some sort of desperate last hurrah, if only in terms of keeping up the pretense that I was doing well in school. But I know now that it was larger than that. It became a turning point, the end of an era, a certain finality to my youth. 

That night, just minutes after the concert finished, the streets were already clearing faster than I was expecting. We walked and saw them riddled with paraphernalia, and the physical proof was a relief. It all seemed so ephemeral all of a sudden, like they would poof away and it’d be like it never even happened. (How does “Night Changes” go again?) We waited out the dark at a gas station Family Mart having a 1 a.m. dinner of cup noodles. We tried to take turns napping, but I gave up and read The Disenchantments on my phone—a novel about young adults coming of age against a backdrop of music, temporary places, endings, and uncertain beginnings. 

At 6 a.m. I looked through the window and for some reason was surprised to see it was fully light out. It couldn’t possibly be morning. It couldn’t possibly be over. It couldn’t possibly belong in the past.

Alyssa and I decided to head out then—Camille still had her day-two VIP experience to look forward to. We got on a bus, our exhaustion giving way to a comfortable silence. My mind was already on other things. Neither of us spoke the entire time. 

I was going home, and I knew I couldn’t be stuck in suspension forever. I had to come clean. The days that would follow my confession about my non-graduation would be scary and miserable. I didn’t know then that I would find my way eventually, even if it took a few more wrong turns and plenty of time. I didn’t realize that my parents were on my side. Now that I’m older and I got to figure these parts out, I can recognize the power, bravery, and freedom of facing the coming changes and taking the next step forward, even if it meant letting go of what was safe and familiar.

The bus passed Coastal Mall, which I’d known from childhood. This place that I hadn’t seen in years and years was now dilapidated and abandoned—lonely, eerie, and in ruins. All around it, new buildings thrived, modern and edgy, and all it could do was fold it on itself and become lost in time, in a moment that’s simply no longer. Seeing it, along with the sleep deprivation, the anxiety, and a longing for all that took place only hours before, left me unable to figure out what I felt. But the sun was bright and the skies were clear and could tomorrow really be so bad if it looked like this? Anything could happen, and so many things were waiting for me. 

The future was wide open. 

Crying in hotel rooms, and other occupational hazards

The night before I left for Jeju Island, I had dinner at the mall with my sister who was back in Manila for a few days. My niece was with us, as well as our cousin and a friend. I stopped by the supermarket first for things I would need on my trip: apple shampoo, toothpaste, cherry blossom-scented soap I’d always wanted to try, a plug adapter because the letter from the travel agency had suggested it.

We met up at Scout’s Honor after. I picked at my meatballs as we discussed our jobs and burnout and what we did on our days off, which we didn’t get to talk about very often. Our lives after college pulled us in irreversibly different directions, one of us even living and working in a city thousands of kilometers away. It made catching up a bit more difficult than before.

We had never had a grownup dinner where it was just us, without our parents. It felt for the first time like we were regular young adults having another night out, like I’d read about in novels and seen in the movies. I thought it was something I could get used to.

Dylan was two and just beginning to speak in full sentences. Idly I watched her play with the puzzles and blocks the restaurant put out for customers and my mind was already a little bit far away, imagining all the places I was about to see.

I tried not to think about the time. The mall was about to close. I still had to pack. My flight was early.

I told myself: I’ll just lose sleep.

The rest of it went without saying: So I can have this.

✈

The first song I heard on the street when I arrived in the city, tinny but unmistakable on the loudspeakers of the underground shopping complex beneath Chilsung-ro, was “Spring Day.” At this point, I had probably listened to it hundreds of times in ardent anticipation of the trip, letting it occupy my headspace as I pictured canola blooms and clear crisp weather. A common, meaningless occurrence, hearing a very popular song by a very popular South Korean group in South Korea, but I was always a romantic, and it was obviously fate.

It was my first time traveling alone and I was fretting about it for weeks. My editor had texted asking if I would be free to go to Jeju Island for a story, and my calendar was blissfully blank. I had just gotten my passport renewed — it was exciting to finally get to go somewhere new with it.

I didn’t receive any information and I wasn’t actually sure it was happening until the day before the flight, when the travel agency sent me an email with my plane ticket and the itinerary for the tour. I’d never been on a press trip. I was used to taking my time in a new city until it became like a second home during month-long stays with my diplomat aunt. But now I only had four days and three nights. A change of pace, to say the least.  

I spent that first night trying to get used to my hotel room. I went on my private Twitter account for close friends and wrote about it: i have this whole room to myself (perfect for crying!) and i know i’m gonna miss it like hell already. Patch replied: do they have a tub? cause u really deserve a tub. They didn’t, but it was easily the nicest thing anyone has said to me anyway.  

I went to bed, awkwardly messing up the pristine sheets on one side as I got under the covers. I read a story on my phone, brightness turned low. Something about a writer who travels to a different country for work and falls in love, and it makes him happy, but he’s also sad, because he’s sad all the time. Something I kept coming back to because I found comfort in its muted melancholy.

It was 2 a.m. before I knew it. I had to be up in four hours. I left the story unfinished, watched my lock screen fade to black, and closed my eyes.

✈

I couldn’t fathom trying to muster the energy and commitment to hike three hundred steps up the Seongsan Ilchulbong Peak, so I ducked out of the tour group when nobody was looking and went across the fields to look at the sea instead.

I walked along the streets first, took in the people selling tangerines on the roadside and tried to pluck up the courage to enter a coffee shop or McDonald’s. But I was afraid of seeming like such a tourist, much too aware of being by myself and of the language barrier, so I ended up at the nearby 7-Eleven. I went to the counter with a bottle of pear-flavored Sprite and felt myself uncoil somewhat from being so tightly wound when I managed to avoid messing up “감사합니다.”

I sat at the hexagonal wooden table outside and stared at the brick wall opposite me with a sign that said 해녀민박 — Haenyeo Bed and Breakfast — above it. There was an image of a Jeju woman diver (the haenyeo in question) on the bottom left, standing regal and proud in her diving gear.

It was beginning to rain.

I walked out to the edge of the field that overlooked the water, the wind whipping around me, and tried to memorize everything I could see. There was the peak to my left, looking like the opposite of ephemeral where it stood starkly framed by the morning sun. There was the surrounding town, so familiar already that my heart ached a little at the thought of leaving, at the thought that my time with it had begun to run out before I even stepped off the bus because we were never meant to stay in one place for too long. And then there was the off-kilter shape of the sea. From where I stood, it didn’t look all that different from the bleak, empty skies.

There was a protective barrier on the edge which was barely up to my thigh. The thought entered my head, unbidden as it always was: It would be so easy to jump. My fingers twitched with an impulse to walk up to it and peer at the pale grey depths waiting below. I shook it off and braced myself against the chill, huddling tighter in my leather jacket as I headed for cover from the rain though I didn’t really mind it.

At the airport waiting to fly back home I would listen to “Waiting for My Sun to Shine” by The Maine, and the lyrics would remind me of this moment, somehow already in the past.

And it wouldn’t occur to me until three months later how not normal that was. To be in another country, someplace I’d never been, looking out into something beautiful and only thinking what a nice place it would be to die.  

Earlier that month, Anna Borges had published an essay on The Outline titled “I am not always very attached to being alive,” comparing constant, reflexive suicidal ideation to living in the ocean. In it, she discussed the “nebulous gray space between fleeting thought and attempt,” where there’s a passivity and indifference to the feeling of wanting to die, more background noise than anything.

One of the songs I kept listening to on repeat those days was “Dark Water” by JR JR, its chorus a devastating suggestion that maybe you were always drowning, and you just now realize that you were. So you could say I understood it a little too well, that resignation and recognition that it was just another side effect of mental illness, just another part of who I’d become. Not always an emergency — sometimes the act of it was mundane and ordinary, like washing your hands or crossing the street.

Borges further wrote about learning to tread these unpredictable waters, of trying to keep your head above the surface and stay afloat. Some floatation devices, she said, were like driftwood, “shallow motivators, hardly anchors to life, but sometimes you just need something that will get you through the month. Or the week. Or the night.” Others were life preservers, more sturdy and long-term, helping you swim towards some semblance of a future.

This is something I’ve been doing for longer than I care to admit. My relationship with my own future has become precarious and complicated. An anonymous message I got on Tumblr when I was 17 asked what it was that I did when I felt like dying or when everything got to be too much, and I answered that I sought something to look forward to, that I would regret missing, no matter how shallow (pesto pasta, a new movie) or far-fetched (visiting New York, meeting a celebrity crush).  

An excerpt from one of the last entries I posted on Dayre before I left it for good:

I honestly can’t imagine how there could possibly be anything more, anything left for me, even if I somehow reach a stable plane of existence and become a functional human being.

There are flashes, sometimes: A published novel. A pet cat. Watching my niece grow up. A studio apartment with big windows and enough space for all my books for once.

“The ocean is nice sometimes,” Borges concluded somewhere near the end of her essay. I must have been thinking the same thing as we left the Seongsan Peninsula. Not just bodies of water, but also the state of being suspended. Whether you’re desperately holding on, or letting yourself be washed away. Despite that brief lapse into the unmentionable, I felt more like myself than I had in a while. No longer so concerned with being a tourist, struck instead by a sudden sense of belonging. I always did think to myself that if I had to settle somewhere, it would be a quaint seaside town.

Out there on the field, I spotted a group of haenyeo bobbing up and out of the water, fresh catches in tow. I had read about them once in a magazine: how they were known for their independence and power, some of them well into their 80s, making an honest living diving for fish. And now here they were, right in front of me. Our tour guide had mentioned that we might see them if we were really lucky.

The friends I had made in the tour group were wistful, lamenting what a shame it was that they had missed the haenyeo. I listened to them as I leaned against the window, and made no move to tell them what I had seen. Some magical moments you just had to keep to yourself.

✈

I was moving on autopilot, spending the day trips sightseeing and being friendly with my companions who had no idea how depressed I was. I smiled for pictures and kept up with pleasant conversation. I passed the banchan as we had a meal and laughed along. At night I would go back to my hotel room, drained and boneless, and just fend off the cold and the sudden loneliness while I began sobbing in the dark for no reason.

I was running out of layers.

I wouldn’t be able to stop picturing it for months: the room, every light turned off, no air conditioning because it was spring and the cold slipped in through the closed windows and chilled the hardwood beneath my bare feet. Shadows and lights from passing cars crawled across the bed and onto the ceiling, and I’d lie awake at unguarded hours shrinking under the blankets and quietly wailing.

✈

So far, the days in Jeju had been glacial and unforgiving, the last impressions of winter overstaying their welcome. It was like the weather was my mood ring, the skies coloring the city a palette of blues and greys, the rain seeping through to my skin as though I needed a reminder of how gloomy it was inside.

But everything was different on the fourth day, when I hauled my once-again-full suitcase out onto the street and turned my face up to the kind of morning I’d been hoping for. Our bus pulled away from the hotel for the last time and I watched the scenery change out the window, saying goodbye to all of it the only way I knew how.

When I try to recall it now, I don’t think about the activities we did together or the places we went. Instead I think of the scent of pine and saltwater, the miyeokguk and tangerine juice at breakfast, the greenhouses that reminded me of Burning. Silly, seemingly fleeting details, like using a public bathroom encased in two-way mirrors at Jeju Glass Castle or buying a cactus pen as a souvenir because I found it cheap and cute and discovering months later that BTS’ Namjoon had one exactly like it.

I think about that weird, unmoored feeling of being part of a tour group as a solo traveler and meeting all kinds of people, and how nice it could be to just go along with it and let things happen.

I’d brought my favorite plastic film camera with me to remember it all by. And while I don’t particularly enjoy having my picture taken, the friends I had made insisted on documenting every little stop of our tour. In the end, I’m glad I didn’t turn down their offers to take my photo among the canola fields or next to some mascot at a theme park, leaving me with an album that allows me to say, over and over again, “I was here.”

But the definitive snapshot that I’ve kept in my mind is this: the sun out and bright as the skies bled blue between evergreen trees, radiating warmth and welcomeness all around. A perfect day made even better with a summer latte — smooth, sweet iced coffee topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. A last-chance glimpse at what Jeju really looked like in the spring.

✈

Four months later I was in Singapore, exhausted after having gotten up at 5 a.m., almost missing a 10 a.m. flight, and heading straight to the indoor flea market event I’d volunteered to cover in Marina Bay Sands, which lasted until 7 p.m.

I met up with my sister for dinner at NY Night Market, worried that we would have nothing to talk about — we’re both quiet people, and we’ve never been all that close or actually spent any time alone together. We both ordered pasta and shared a plate of ranch cheese fries. I asked her about work and she asked about my day. We moved on to other things, and it didn’t feel like small talk.

(“I cried watching Hello, Love, Goodbye because I could relate to it,” she said. “Did it remind you of your previous relationships?” I joked. But she clarified, “No, their lives as OFWs, being apart from their families,” and then I definitely wasn’t joking around anymore.)

The rest was comfortable silence. I hadn’t considered it, maybe forgotten it because she’d been away for three years, but we’d always been able to do our own thing and still count as company. It takes a lot of trust and familiarity to be with someone and not feel the need to fill the quiet.

Unlike Jeju, I knew Singapore like the back of my hand. I lived there for a month when I was 18 and returned a couple of times, and it was an easy city to get to know regardless. It’s taught me independence from the first time I went out alone and found my own way around a foreign country as a teenager. (To meet the bassist of my then-favorite band, but that’s a story for another long-winded essay.)

I had a free day before I had to fly back home, and I was going to spend it revisiting a few of my favorite places and taking pictures. I got an MRT pass that gave me unlimited rides for a day and read Normal People by Sally Rooney, bought at Kinokuniya first thing that morning, on the train or whenever I stopped and sat somewhere.

I started at Somerset Station and slowly made my way through the loose route I had in mind, though I didn’t really venture that far: Dhoby Ghaut, Bencoolen, Clarke Quay, Tiong Bahru. I considered visiting my old apartment block in Queenstown but thought better of it because it wasn’t worth the long walk in the dry heat — if I had, I would’ve seen that the teal and lavender facade I’d adored was gone, replaced with a drab all-over white and the barest orange creamsicle accents.

The main item on my agenda was the art installation BooksActually was hosting at the theater development space Centre 42, which I learned about in their newsletter. Called “The World’s Loneliest Bookstore,” it had a vividly imagined post-apocalyptic concept where a freak solar flare leaves only 4,169 people alive in the whole world, and the one remaining person in Singapore has scavenged paintings and books and set up the last bookstore on earth as she attempts to reach anybody else who could possibly be out there.

The installation itself was just as detailed: a shelf stood lined with eggs, cereal, matches, and odd knick-knacks, an old radio hummed with throwback pop and static, and the woman from the story sat behind a counter, content with her solitude. Visitors could buy secondhand books and pick up printed paraphernalia with poetry. My favorite was the table with dozens of house keys bearing handwritten addresses. You could choose one to take with you, and I decided on one emblazoned with the word LUCKY.

At 1 a.m. I left my hotel room and walked along an eerily vacant Orchard Road to clear my head. (Nevermind that I had another early flight in a few hours.) I went to the basement 24-hour Japanese grocery, walking listlessly through the aisles past other twenty-somethings who obviously didn’t value their sleep. I didn’t have a lot of room in my suitcase, so all I bought were a couple of instant noodles I wanted to try: the Pokemon seafood ramen with tiny Pikachus in the form of fish cakes, and this insanely good salt and lemon yakisoba.

This late-night walk crosses my mind whenever I hear “Better Now” by Disco Hue, one of my favorite bands from Singapore. But at the time I must have been listening to “Song Request” — pretending I were one of those people in its music video, lonely but sufficed in a darkened city.

✈

I sometimes think about what it would’ve been like if I hadn’t gotten into BTS right before I went to Jeju. If any of it would have meant half as much.

Everything was so new. It’s embarrassing to think about now, but it was wonderful timing to be right there as I experienced those first few weeks of obsessing over a recently acquired interest I already felt very deeply for. It was the same rush you got from a school crush: that hyper-awareness of proximity, of standing in place and knowing they’d been there once, too — no longer as hyperbolic, but every bit as fervent. They followed me around; I saw them everywhere without really looking.

I can’t listen to “Spring Day” without being reminded of everything, the song and the memories inseparable, forever linked.

And because I only grew to love them even more as the months passed, they made a significant impact on my other trips too.

I never would’ve made fast friends with another underpaid and overworked Manila writer at the Singapore event who had a Koya keychain and said she liked the Hoseok sticker on my camera. I ran into her outside a train station the next day while having my little adventure but hid behind my book because I didn’t know how to say hi. We shared a ride to the airport for our flight home, and I would’ve liked to, but we didn’t keep in touch.

 

 

I never would’ve made a “delulu” joke that “What if we’re going to the same country?” one month later when I flew out to Singapore again for another story and BTS also happened to be flying somewhere that same morning, only to find out on Bon Voyage that we actually were at Changi Airport at the exact same time, not very far from each other at all. The hyper-awareness of proximity was belated this time, and it’s not like I ran into them, but it’s still a fun and endlessly frustrating story to tell. No one on Archive of Our Own could’ve written it better.

I never would’ve recognized “Mikrokosmos” as it played in the candy-scented lobby of Hello Kitty Island. (Map of the Soul: Persona had just come out and I wasn’t over the novelty of it just yet.) Never would’ve listened to the very same song on the plane back to Manila as I looked out the window at the night sky, crying all I wanted because it was a charter flight and I had the entire row to myself.

The fog and lights in Jeju made it hard to see the stars, but here they were bigger and brighter and there were more of them than I had ever seen in my life.

✈

I’ve been very fortunate to have had jobs that took me places. Writing the article itself was always strange because I had to stick to the relevant details, the half-hearted observations that went towards my word count: The Teddy Bear Museum draws crowds of keen Princess Hours fans. The indoor flea market has a section dedicated to Instagrammable food like milk in cookie cups and White Rabbit soft serve. The elevators at Legoland Hotel play “Everything Is AWESOME!!!” by Tegan and Sara feat. The Lonely Island all day under disco lights.

I had to omit such a big part of the experience — namely, my depression and how it affected the way I perceived and internalized what was going on around me. All that time to myself that was a relief, but could also be alienating. The unease of trying to enjoy myself when I’d grown unaccustomed to it. The detachment that seemed to manifest physically as the slow sensation of being hollowed out. The constant notion that I never thought I’d (still) be here.

Everything was precious and important, and everything was pointless and temporary.

In that story I keep reading, the protagonist imagines writing about the things that actually mattered to him on his sojourn — the raw, haunting, personal traces that exposed too much. In the end, his final piece held nothing about wounds and scars, or an inconsequential grocery store, or the person he’d fallen in love with. But the idea of what he called “becoming a part of a place instead of simply walking through it” remained.

I didn’t keep a journal that year. I came to remember my travels in pieces: stray notes on my phone and scraps of paper, an untitled Spotify playlist labeled only with emojis (a daisy, a cactus, and an orange), bad film photography, tweets I wrote in the moment, tweets I wrote when I began to miss it. I wrote this to unravel the rest of it, the ugly parts I couldn’t put in print.

Depression has this way of making every surreal, beautiful, monumental thing that happens to you feel like it’s something you’ve held on long enough to see. I count it all up. I hold it for safekeeping. Each one becomes so much more poignant, and lands with much more weight, especially after almost a year of not being able to leave home. As though something up there must have known that I couldn’t afford to waste any more time or throw any more of my life away.

I cut my hair short right before I went to Jeju. I haven’t had a haircut since. It’s strange to note that fragments of that version of me are still here. I always came home feeling like I’d lived through something, like I wasn’t the same. Some of it hurts like anything, but when I look back on it now, there’s only nothing but fondness.

I’ve lived through so many things already. It’s not so bad, I know now, to live through this.