I came across this picture and it reminded me of a childhood friend whom I played with a lot, had pointless arguments with, etc.

But no. That friend has nothing to do with that movie.

Eight - nine years ago, this kid came to our neighborhood looking simple… I can’t think of any other word to describe him that time because I was eight. You can’t think of a boy, one year younger than you are, like that. He was just a boy. 

Then one day, after almost a year of being playmates, his dad … and his mom went to work abroad. We slowly became strangers, in a way that maybe it was because he was always not home and went to live in their aunt’s house in the next block. And after weeks of not seeing each other, he had gone back to his hometown with no telling where it is exactly.

Now, he’s here.

The boy who used to have his canines and incisors deeply embedded to his gums now has nice teeth…

…who once dangled from the TV cupboard is now bigger than that thing’s size…

…who once hung off from our front gates is now taller than it…

…who once looked normal to me is now “extremely good-looking”, according to some, and has a bunch of fangirls from different classes…

And last week, he won the crown for a school pageant making him twice as popular than he already was before he even entered that competition.

(For the pageant's promotional poster. He wasn't Mr. Photogenic, though.)

(Don't mind those two.)

Maybe he's an example of an ugly duckling who became a swan? Nope. He's not a late-bloomer, either. He did have an okay  face. But it was not that appreciated until the day that he came back. Or maybe, it was just that, his face was forgotten until we saw him again.

It was only now that I knew of the place where he's been. Somewhere in Mindanao. Davao or Cotabato or Zamboanga, was it? Or maybe, even Cebu. He went there with fluency in speaking Kinaray-a (our dialect) and when we met again because his niece is my classmate, I was asked to talk slowly when conversing with him because he can only comprehend a little of my language now. He is more on Cebuano and he can neither speak in Filipino nor English that much. He still has that thick accent of Cebuanos even when he speaks Kinaray-a. 

He came to our house the other day and even my parents and sister did not recognize that he was the same boy who thrashed around the neighborhood and nearly had his right index finger cut off (he put it inside some rotating part of a machine).

That form of estrangement still has not left us and we don’t treat each other like we're close anymore.

My friends tease me to him because of being the infamous childhood friend and playmate - a very stubborn one - who used to “find and dig some gold” somewhere in a corner. We have history of being together, they say. I sometimes can’t grasp the fact that among the many people that could’ve been that someone, it became me. IT IS ME. 

I admit he does look good and has become manlier. I’m not crushing on him, though. Just sayin’…

He is now painfully handsome, I could die! (JUST KIDDING! :P) WAHAHAHA!!

HE LOOKS MUCH MUCH BETTER IN PERSON. xD