No. 45 | Melbourne Magic

Events in this issue take place immediately after the events in Passing Through.

Melbourne, Australia, June 7^th, 2018

“Where did you want to eat?” Andrés asked.

“Anywhere that would let me bring my luggage with me,” I said with a tired laugh, looking at the oversized suitcase I had with me. Because I insisted on going on a date as soon as I landed in Melbourne, I had to bring everything I brought from Sydney with me. I really was tired. I had been lugging around my suitcase with me all day, and then it seemed that making the most out of my luggage allowance was a mistake. Having lived in a tropical country my entire life, where I developed an inconveniently low tolerance for colder weather, I packed one too many jackets for an 21-day trip to Australia in the winter. Because I was Filipino, I stuffed all the free space in my suitcase with pasalubong for my aunt and her family.

All I wanted and needed was to sit down, eat, and catch up with Andrés, who had been teasing me the night before that we were going to a Thai place after making him choose where to eat on the condition that we wouldn’t get Thai or fish and chips because that was all I ate in Sydney.¹ I really wasn’t in a position to choose. I wasn’t craving anything in particular. I was just hungry, ready to inhale anything that would be served in front of me, regardless of what it was, as long as it was edible. I was also overwhelmed by everything I was seeing. We were in the middle of Melbourne Central, like an Australian take on a major Tokyo train station, half mall, half train station that was stacked with choices in an effort to bring everything close on the way home. 

Neither of us making a decision, I asked, “Is there any place you haven’t tried yet? My treat.” I remembered promising to take him out to dinner on my Birthday. I explained the concept of how Filipinos celebrated their birthdays, that whoever was celebrating had to treat everyone else. Apparently, it was the other way around everywhere else in the world, a fact I pieced together from all of the conversations I had with my past international flings.

Deciding on a ramen place that was behind where we saw each other for the first time in six months, I finally had a good look of Andrés, whom I couldn’t believe was sitting in front of me. I had been waiting for this date for literally half a year. He looked thinner. That rush of anxiety that made me ask myself if he had made a mistake swiping right on my profile when I saw how handsome he was in person came back with that tangible reminder that his photos did not do his face justice. His chest hair was peeking from behind his shirt, the same way I remembered it from that night in the park and from playing with it while making out with him on Pyrmont Bridge. I wondered if I would see the rest of it. I was going to be in Melbourne for a while…

Dinner was a lobster roll and a bowl of lobster ramen, washed down with matcha beer and sake. In between bites I was apologetic for making him wait for an hour. He told me not to make a big deal out of it, as he had been drinking with a friend, so he wasn’t really waiting. With my logic still fucked up from travelling from Manila to Sydney then from Sydney to Melbourne then from rushing to the airport to where we were, I said that I thought his shift ended at 4. He said that it ended at 4:30, and if it ended at 4, it would have been worse because I would have been making him wait longer. I then had to apologise for texting on the dinner table. My aunt and I made a deal that I would be texting her updates to make sure that I was safe, or else she would call me and ruin our date. Every notification from her was a reminder of why I did not want that night to end—the first and more obvious reason being it was my first date with Andrés since forever, the second being I had to come out to her.

As if seeing my anxiety, Andrés gently pushed the ramen bowl closer to me, set up a spoonful of noodles and soup, and brought it to my mouth. Melbourne magic, I thought. As soon as the umami from the ramen copulated with my tongue, snippets of our first date played it my head. I remembered why I liked him so much. It helped that he was explaining how to drink sake and what kind of flavours I should be looking for while tasting it, in his easy way of talking about everything, without a tinge of pretence. Tell me more, tell me everything. Better yet, show me everything, the life you’ve been having without me.

And he did. Needing dessert but not fancying anything the ramen place offered, we set off on a quest to look for something sweet. The five minutes we spent walking from the ramen place to the Melbourne branch of an ice cream store Andrés showed me in Sydney made me feel like Remy from Ratatouille, when he was scaling a wall and eventually discovering that he was in Paris.² Emerging from the tangled mess that was Melbourne Central, I found myself in the middle of Melbourne, and it dawned on me that this was officially the start of the summer vacation I had been looking forward to all year, and it took a deep breath and a smile to make myself believe that it was all happening, all with Andrés by my side. I just wished that I didn’t need to lug my suitcase around.

We were laughing like teenagers in the ice cream store. We shared a soft serve topped with fairy floss and popping candy, the latter being the source of our euphoria. Just when you thought popping candy on ice cream was a bad idea, wait until you’ve seen a 22-year-old and a 28-year-old lose their shit over it.

With both our hankerings for dessert insatiable, I told him to take me to another dessert place. I didn’t tell him that I wanted to discuss something serious with him, and a second dessert was a ploy to stall saying what I needed to say and coming out to my aunt as soon as I got home. On our way to a location I told him to keep a surprise, I was writing my speech in my head. A few days before I left for Australia, Astrid and I discussed that I should clarify things with Andrés. Going on that date with Kevin really messed me up. I was somewhere in between feeling guilty because while I wasn’t sure what Andrés and I were, I did know that we were at least something, and feeling dismissive about it. It was a bad date, anyway. What was there to feel guilty about?

We were a block away from Chinatown when I noticed he wasn’t holding my hand. He hadn’t been the whole night. I tried to motion for him to grab mine, but he wasn’t noticing me. Or maybe he noticed because he put it in his pocket, and when I told him to hold my hand because I was starting to feel cold, he told me to put it in my pocket. I had a feeling he could tell I was about to drop a bomb on him.

Second dessert was a tiny bowl of dessert ramen that came with a tiny bowl of sweet sauce and a tiny bowl of balled fruit. It was difficult to eat, and we were both making a mess. Neither of us enjoying it, he said that it tasted like gulaman.³ I laughed and called it a gentrified gulaman, it being $8 when you could make the same thing in the Philippines with bits and pieces you could pick up at your lola’s kitchen. I always found it cute when he hinted his Filipino heritage.

I put my phone and my hands on the table. He took my ring from my pinky. It was the Mickey Mouse ring I bought from Tokyo Disneyland when I went to Japan last year. A while back, I told Andrés how in 2017, I made myself face my fears every week as a New Year’s Resolution. The morning before I bought that ring, I had jumped off of a mountain in front of Mt. Fuji then zoomed into Tokyo Disneyland in the afternoon. The ring was a commemoration of that day. It was a cheap ring I paid for with change in my pocket, but every time I looked at it, it was a reminder that if I could jump off of a mountain, there was nothing to be afraid of. Now, he was wearing it.

“What’s your passcode?” he asked, taking my phone.

“I’m not telling,” I said. I had very good reasons not to, and I was starting to panic. He would see that I tracked down where he worked. He would see that I nicknamed him the cute Aussie. He would see that I detailed out my date with Kevin to Audrey. He would see that I was flirting with a guy in Sydney. He would see that Leo and I speculated how Andrés would be in bed based on him giving me a blow job on a park bench.

Failing in his attempts at guessing my passcode, he grabbed my hand to use the fingerprint sensor to unlock my phone. I withheld it, and came up with a proposition, “I’ll give you my passcode on two conditions: first, you have to hold my hand when we walk out of here,” which he immediately did even though we weren’t close to leaving, “and you have to say yes to my weird request.”

“What is it?”

I had to laugh awkwardly before I could answer. It seemed too immature to ask, but I felt that I needed to do it. “Be my summer fling,” I finally blurted out.

“But it’s winter.”

“It’s summer where I live.”

“But it’s winter,” he repeated. He looked at the small plastic stand that showed the day’s deals. “Do you like lychees?” he asked.

“Jesus, Andrés, just say it,” I said, smiling. If I were in his shoes, I would have done the same thing he did. It was stupid. Adults in 2018 didn’t do summer flings, especially not in the winter. Adults continuously dated each other without putting labels on their relationships until one of them has a breakdown from the uncertainty of what they’re doing, if it’s going to lead to something else or if it’s going to remain a confusing mess for the rest of eternity, and leaves.

“Can you walk me to the train station? I’m going to miss my curfew,” I eventually said, breaking our silence. 

With my phone in one hand and my hand in the other, Andrés was still attempting to unlock my phone. “Stop getting it wrong so much,” I said. “You’ll brick it, and I still need it to call my aunt when I get to my station.” He didn’t listen. I stopped walking.

“One word, three letters, say it, and it’s yours,” I told him with a blank stare.⁴

“I already said it,” he said.

“Said what? I didn’t hear it.”

“L-U-V,” he spelled out. Where did that come from? Did he…?

“What? That’s not what I was asking you to say. All I needed you to say was ‘yes,’ silly.” I unlocked it, anyway. Constructively, he already said yes, and that was my goal in the first place. Regardless of what he sees, I at least already went on the date I had been waiting for so long, in a city welcomed me with glittering lights, exciting me for the next two and a half weeks. Melbourne magic, I thought again. 

I then made the mistake of being myself. Somewhere between holding his hand and lugging my suitcase along and being naturally clumsy, I tripped and fell on the sidewalk. He looked too stunned to even help me up. I started laughing. “I thought of a really bad joke.”

“What is it?” he asked with a look that warned me that he knew what it was going to be.

“Never mind, it’s so stupid.”

“Just say it.”

“See? I’m already falling for you.” His warning look became a punishment. “Fuck you. It was funny,” I said, laughing all the way to Melbourne Central to catch my train.

“Ring, please,” I requested, before going through the turnstiles. “Oh, and selfie, please. I have to send this to Astrid.” He still looked awkward in photos, but photos made it apparent why I referred to him as the cute Aussie. I had been calling that even before we met in person.

After explaining to me which escalator and which train to take, Andrés let me kiss him on the cheek good night. My heart was half-full of ecstasy, the rest of it filled with the weight of having to come out to my aunt when the train reached my station. 

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1. All the travel guides also recommended to ask a local where to eat in Melbourne. Having lived there the past five months, Andrés was technically a local.
2. https://youtu.be/oFaffLQGx7k?t=1m5s
3. Jelly-like Filipino dessert served with a syrup made with brown sugar
4. Yes, Miss Waldorf!