Chapter Three

| Music |

♥

It is, I think, wondrous, that all these things I write down on this diary came from my vague memories. Remembering all them is like seeing a blurry tape, all unclear but his eyes – just his eyes. Until now, even years after, I can still feel the electricity I felt back then under those gazes. It was just beautiful. And although my memory of the scenes I had with him are hazy, faint pictures, at least I know that what I feel – and what I'll forever feel, stays the same. Stays unscathed. Still as clear as always.

The smile he'd given me stayed in my mind for a few seconds, before actually realizing that he started walking away. I can compare his smile to a thunder; unexpected – thrilling, ephemeral, and albeit very dangerous, it's worth watching.

All of us could smile, but Sean Gutierrez rarely does, so I feel like I've reigned after seeing him do so.

I walked after him, not saying a single thing. I tried to walk with his steps but his long legs' strides are fast and lengthy. I took his smile as his acquiesce. Maybe I'll see him play.

Sean stopped walking in front of the town's biggest bars. He turned his head and looked at me.

"Why?"

I blinked multiple times in confusion.

"Bakit... ano?"

"Why do you want to see me play?" he asked. "Again?"

"B-Bakit hindi?"

"Wait," he said, putting up his palm in front of me. "Hindi por que niligtas kita, gusto kitang maging kaibigan."

That was not the exact words he'd told me. I can remember how his words were so harsh and hard, but back then, I didn't seem to mind. I refused to feel the prickle his words brought to my chest.

"This doesn't have anything to do with what you did," I said, my lips quivering. "Gusto lang kitang mapanuod. Just... just that."

That was true. When he played in school once, I was with the audience, although not singing along with him. I watched him in an inexpressive awe, my hair on my nape standing, having goose bumps hearing his unique, rough voice singing a song everyone loved. I've never listened to any rock song before. I didn't like that kind of song because it hurts my ears – but when I heard and saw him sing one, I realized that rock songs are amazing.

Especially if a good singer is delivering it.

He cocked his head to a side, still stolid. "Come, then," he said.

He turned around and started walking. His footsteps were all I heard on that silent walk, and it kept me sane.

I was surprised about how many people knew him when we passed by the wide entrance. Many people greeted him, patted his back, called his name, and Sean replied with either a mini salute or a nod. He was sixteen, but his friends were old men, muscular, bulky, with mustaches. As a sixteen year old, I was scared and intimidated by their strong appearances.

As I've said, Sean wasn't so much of a bad boy everyone thought he is. He's got a heart, a soft one, beneath his hard, almost metallic shell. As if he'd sensed my unease, he slowed down his walks, and went together with mine. From that simple gesture, I felt like we've eclipsed.

He did all those without making a facial expression.

We arrived in a dark, wide room with fancy and comfortable couches and tables, illuminated only by sparkling red, blue, and green lights. Many teens from sixteen to nineteen, I suppose, and twenties to mid-thirties, are there, either dancing or drinking beers. I almost regretted that I came with him, but Sean didn't think twice when he saved me, why shouldn't I do the same?

I put up a brave face, and acted as if the noise of music and the smell of sweat and the humid air didn't bother me at all. This is the world these people live at – how the in the earth could they do that?

But including those people was Sean, and then I remembered his hot passion on playing guitar and singing, I can almost see him on fire. I chose to not judge other people he'd been playing for, for the sake of him.

We stopped in a single table, a glass on its middle and a flower.

He looked at me and said, with a loud voice near my ear, "sit here."

I did.

I felt out of place now that Sean left. I was on my stupid uniform, and I've never felt so little. I wondered why did the guards let a high school girl enter this club, but maybe it's because of Sean's influence.

If days before that happened, and someone told me I'll go to a bar to watch someone play, I'd think they're crazy and hilarious. Like, no way in heaven I'll do that. But I sat there in that table amidst the happily crazy humans dancing and drinking with all their might, barely believing myself.

If I wasn't there, I'd be in my room, a book stuck in my nose and pen on my hands, scribbling notes.

Studying.

If you'll ask me, yes, that day, I felt freedom creeping up onto my soul. It was minutes later before I realized – I was out of my circle of tasks every day! I went out of my cycle and did something my Mom would hate, gosh!

I looked around and saw smiling people, laughing, having fun – where was I when all these people didn't think a bit about their lives? Where was I when all these people didn't care about how they looked like, when they just danced with their hearts?

Memorizing a freaking math formula?!

It stressed me! How much have I been missing?

I stopped thinking when I heard a loud, electric guitar strum that echoed around the crowded room. I looked at the broad stage, and I saw Sean, standing on the middle, now on his black, plain, shirt and ripped jeans, a black piercing on his ear. He licked his lower lip, and smiled crookedly, the white lights shining on him.

Just when everyone heard a strum, everyone looked at the stage and screamed. Shouted his name. If they were amped earlier, they are now more amped up.

It's so impressive of him to have such fans at his young age.

Like before when the first time I've seen him play, I was not screaming like the crowd did. I looked at him, the drop dead handsome rock star that saved me a day ago.

He looked so different.

I almost dropped my jaw.

He said a simple 'hi' on his microphone and everyone replied a scream and yells of his name, about how he's hot and amazing, and Sean, for the first time, laughed.

If his smile was enough to make my mind go blank, what more could his laugh do?

When he laughed, a deep dimple appeared on his left cheek. It sent my heart beat fast, and an instant desire to hear it more.

He didn't say anything more.

He closed his eyes, as the drummer started to play, then his guitar, then...

He sang.

Looking back, I was, again, in an inexpressive awe. I looked at him, watched him, listened to him, looked at how his hands play his instrument so smoothly like he can do it even if at sleep. So smooth and yet so hard and harsh, his music and voice travelling through the room and through the people that listen to him.

He reigned over the stage. He was singing at us but his mind is on another world. At the stage, he looked so powerful – hot, almost like on fire. He played and he sung and I've never, ever, appreciated rock music until I heard him sing.

His lips were telling the lyrics rather naturally, with much dynamic and burning passion. He tells us words we wanted to hear along with the melody he and the band creates. I watched him lose himself while singing. He banged his head while strumming the guitar ruggedly, inducing strong notes and melodies I've never forgotten until now. I closed my eyes and felt his voice stroking my ears, his voice burning my skin and my heart.

And I opened my eyes again.

I saw him. Again. I saw his fingers, his black electric guitar, the wrinkling of his face when he sings, his sweat on his chest and on his forehead and on the sides of his head – and, the one thing I loved most – his overflowing love for music.

On that stage, I'd seen him on another way. He wasn't just aloof. He wasn't scary. He creates an aura only he can do and look so handsome and hot on the stage while playing. He didn't deserve all people's fear on him.

On that stage, everyone cheered, screamed, and sang along with him. His music was his buddy. His music was with him. He creates music and he shared it with the audience.

On that stage, he was more accepted.

I took out my phone camera and shoots him several pictures. Pictures I know I'll look at for so many times.

He was a whole different person when he plays, when he gets on stage, and when he gets off. His step on the stage is his step on his haven, where he can be himself even for a short amount of time.

He is himself until the music ends.

♥