Nieces and Nephews

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"You're not going to the review center today?" His voice resonated throughout the room from my phone as I rummaged on my pile of shoes, picking out which one I should wear.

"I have other plans today, Reyes, and besides its Thursday, it's not my schedule." Finally giving up, I just grabbed the nearest off white sneakers I could get and went outside my closet.

"Oh, right I forgot."

Clangs of metal and wood echoed from the other line, and then a chink of two alloys coming into contact together, seeming to sound like nail being hammered followed right after.

'𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥 𝘪𝘴 𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦?'

"So are you going somewhere?" He asked after the hammering gradually died down.

I sat down on the carpeted floor and crisscrossed my legs to a comfortable position.

It has been almost a week since the registration at the review center. We went there last Saturday and in the following week, we immediately started the sessions last Monday. It was only yet the first week, but boy the topics and tests were harder than expected.

I was already having trouble, so I'm not even sure if Liam was still even processing and understanding anything anymore. Every time I checked on him, he looks like he's short circuiting.

His face was morphed into utter confusion, like he was looking at the board as if the letters, numbers, and symbols placed on it were ancient characters. And that the teachers were speaking a whole different language.

I placed the phone atop of the edge of my bed, grabbed the ankle socks, and put them on. "Yup, I have somewhere I want to go, I'm meeting with my brother."

I heard a gasp from the other line. "Oh! You have a brother? Is there something special today that you're visiting him?"

After tying up the sneakers at my right foot, I moved on to the other.

"Nope, nothing in particular is special today, just wanna have talk with him with all the fiasco's that's going on. Also, I never visited him since graduation."

When he was about to say something in reply to my statement, a loud wave of high-pitched voices echoed from the other line that I could only would've guessed as children cut him off.

"Helio! Make me a wooden sword!—Make me a wand!—No! I'll have the wand Lia!—Helio! Make me this one see!—Yes, I will please calm down, No! Wait don't—!"

"Hello? Who is this? Leigh? Who's Leigh?—Troy give that back!—Cris! Catch!—Oh no you don't!"

I was startled, and a bit taken aback at the sudden change of atmosphere from the other line, but after a moment, a smile slowly morphed into my lips at the sound I was hearing from the other line.

More sound of children yelling coherently was heard, and the poor phone was occasionally having the sound of tuds, apparently showing that it was being smacked constantly through a surface. Heliodor can also be heard shouting in the background to give his phone back to him, guessing that he was chasing the children in circles.

Before I knew it, I found myself laughing whole heartedly at the ruckus that was happening at the other line. Making me feel all light and bubbly inside, the airy feeling in my chest rising to every part of my body.

I don't know what to make of these sensations but what I know is for the past few days, I've been feeling this sort of emotions more frequently.

After a few more tuds from the phone, more teasing from yelling children, and a hysterical Reyes shouting from the background, he finally got a hold of his phone, panting loudly at the speaker, and forming inaudible words.

"Would you take a breath first? I feel like I'm talking to a dog." I rose from my desk after tying up my hair into a bun and went to my bed, gathering up my things.

"Yeah—wait—sorry." He was still panting from the other line, a faint sound of children singing along in a chorus to a nursery song was being heard in the background.

I grabbed my denim jacket from the hook, put it on, and folded the sleeves a few times until it was on my elbow length.

"What were they saying about the sword and wands?"

A few gulps of water resonated from the phone, together with few heavy breaths. After a while, he uttered out a reply.

"I make them all sort of things, you know. Back then I've always made and fixed some stuff up, and when I studied engineering for 2 years, my skills got better, so my niece and nephews requests a ton of stuff to me when they visit in the weekend—I have a pretty large family tree—anyway, those ones they were requesting earlier were just simple requests."

"Simple requests? Then what would be the complex ones?"

He chuckled, "An example is when they made me build two tree houses, with a connecting bridge in the middle, a retractable ladder, a rock-climbing wall, a doll house themed on the other, and all the other add ons that was impossible to do even for a licensed engineer. The thing was practically an obstacle course, and it was a pain to do it, it took me months to finish it."

I grabbed the phone from the bed and bluetooth my earbud to the phone. After a female voice signified me it was already connected, I pocketed the device.

"You're spoiling them you should learn to say no from time to time."

"I've experienced enough to learn not to say no."

I raised a brow. "What happens if you refuse?"

A knowing and a hysterical laugh, "Oh it's going to be hell and beyond for me."

I chuckled at his response as I stepped out of my room and closed the door behind me with a click, and made my way to the stairs.

"How do you know that, though?"

"I might have tried it once, and then suffered the hellish consequences. After that, I never dared tried again."

I made my way to the living room where my mom was casually watching the television with our dog Nimue on her lap.

Removing the earbuds, I went to where my mom was and told her of my plans. "Mom, I'm heading out to do some errands. I'll probably be back this afternoon."

My mother's brows knitted in worry, "You haven't had lunch yet honey, eat first."

I shook my and just smiled softly, grabbing the key from the hooks on the wall, "It's fine I'll just eat outside, go on without me. Gotta go! Bye!" As I was waving goodbye, she insisted still that I should eat, but by the time she was getting up to stop me, I was already out the door, bolting to the garage.

When I reached the garage, I put the earbuds back on and went to my car, entered the vehicle, and started the engine.

"You're heading out already?"

I placed my things down on the other seat before I replied, "Yeah, I'm a little behind schedule already and I still have to go to the library this afternoon." I closed the door from beside me and carefully went out of the driveway to the road.

"Have you eaten?"

"Nope, I'll just eat at the place where my brother is."

A skeptical pause, "Oh okay, how old is he, if I may ask?

"Um, by now he'll be—" I paused and counted the years, drumming my fingers on the steering wheel as I did so, "—he'll be 25, I think?"

"Only 5 years older than me—wait, by now? What do you mean? Where is he anyway?" Turning left, I finally reached the main road out of our neighborhood and stopped at an intersection with a stoplight.

"I said 'by now' because that was going to be his supposed age if he was still alive." After what I said, a lingering pause impended from the other line, only being broken a few moments after when he finally seemed to find his words.

"What?" He said, still confused and not fully registering or processing the statement I just said.

I shook my head and smiled lightly. "He's no longer with us Reyes. I'm visiting him at the cemetery."

Silence loomed once again, and all I could do was just smile. A sad, longing smile.

"Wanna come along? You can meet him even if it was from the phone."

I was kind of nervous at this point because of his prolonged silence, thinking that I've gone too far, or reached his comfort zone he had. But that all slowly dissipated away as I heard the familiar-light hearted chuckle. That for some reason seems to be different even if it sounded the same.

A tinge of longing was also clear to his laugh. It was presented with empathy instead of sympathy.

"Okay, Reyna, let's meet your brother."

I smiled at what he said, not feeling angry or anything for the first time to someone who portrayed any sort of feelings towards my brother.

Because most of the time someone does that, all I could see in their eyes was false sympathy. Feeling actual pity towards the tragedy of my brother's death but also judging our family and him who died for what happened.

As if they knew everything, as if they were part of our family.

But with this guy, it wasn't. With Heliodor, it was just a pang of longing and understanding he was feeling towards me. His demeanor and way of talking was bringing me comfort not anyone has given me before. I like the way his making me feel right now, his comforting voice that was almost similar to how my brother addresses me back then.

I sighed contented. A not so sad smile gradually etched to my lips.

"Sure Helio, let's introduce you to my brother."

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