Chapter 1: Just One More Game

At 2:17 in the morning, Mark Villanueva was losing money he did not have.

The room was dark except for the blue light of his monitor. An electric fan rattled in the corner, pushing warm air around the cramped bedroom. Beside his keyboard stood an empty cup of instant coffee, a half-eaten packet of chips, and a phone whose screen kept lighting up with notifications he had no intention of reading.

On the monitor, his character lay dead.

“Putangina. Bobo naman ng teammate ko!”

Mark slammed his palm against the desk.

It was never his fault when he lost. His teammates were idiots. The internet connection was trash. The matchmaking system was unfair. Sometimes, he suspected that the entire game was designed to keep talented players like him from reaching the rank they deserved.

He had been playing for six hours.

Six hours that could have been spent sleeping before work, answering Mika's messages, or looking for a better-paying job. But those were ordinary things, and Mark had never liked the idea of being ordinary.

In the game, he could become someone else. Someone feared. Someone whose name appeared at the top of the leaderboard. Someone who could silence an entire team with a single victory.

Outside the screen, he was twenty-nine years old, employed at a small logistics company, earning barely enough to cover his expenses, and living in a rented room with a woman who had begun asking questions he no longer wanted to answer.

His phone vibrated.

Mika: Gising ka pa?

He glanced at the message and sighed.

Of course he was awake. What kind of stupid question was that?

Mark: Oo. Last game na.

He sent the message and immediately queued for another match.

It was a small lie. Harmless, really. He had told himself the same thing for the past three hours, and nothing terrible had happened yet.

That was how he justified most of his decisions. If the consequences did not arrive immediately, he considered them imaginary.

His phone vibrated again.

Mika: Mark, bukas na yung kuryente. Please don't forget.

He stared at the message.

There it was again. Money. Bills. Responsibilities.

Mika had a way of making ordinary life feel like an endless list of things he had failed to do. She never seemed to understand that he was trying to get somewhere, that he had plans, that he was not meant to spend his entire life counting every peso.

He was not lazy, he told himself. Lazy people did nothing. He was always doing something.

He was gaming. He was researching betting odds. He was looking for opportunities. He was trying to figure out a way to earn more without wasting his life working for people who would never appreciate him.

Was it really so unreasonable to want something better?

His character respawned. Mark leaned forward, fingers moving rapidly across the keyboard.

He won the match.

For a few seconds, satisfaction flooded him. The victory screen appeared, his performance was praised, and the familiar rush spread through his chest. There. That was what he was talking about. He could do something well. He could be exceptional.

If only people would stop getting in his way.

He checked the time.

2:46 a.m.

Another notification appeared, this time from a betting application. The basketball game he had wagered on earlier had ended. His bet had lost.

Mark's smile disappeared.

He opened the app and stared at the balance. The amount was not enormous by itself, but it was money he had meant to use for groceries and transportation. He had already lost twice that amount earlier in the week.

He should have stopped.

He knew that.

But stopping now would mean accepting that the money was gone. It would mean admitting that he had made a stupid decision, that his judgment had failed him, that perhaps he was not as clever as he believed.

He could not accept that.

He opened another market and studied the numbers. He had watched enough games to understand the patterns. He knew which teams were strong, which players were inconsistent, and when the odds were misleading. His losses were not proof that he was wrong. They were temporary setbacks.

One good bet could recover everything.

He transferred the remaining money in his e-wallet.

His thumb hovered over the confirmation button.

For a moment, he imagined Mika discovering the transaction. He pictured her expression, the disappointment in her eyes, the inevitable questions.

Then he imagined winning.

He imagined the money returning to his account, the bills paid, and himself explaining everything with a smile. He would tell her that he had known what he was doing all along. She would shake her head, perhaps scold him a little, and eventually laugh.

She always forgave him.

That was one of the things he loved about her, although he would never have described it that way. Mika was patient. Mika was understanding. Mika knew that he was capable of more than his current circumstances suggested.

She believed in him.

And if she believed in him, then surely he was not wrong to believe in himself.

He pressed confirm.

The bet was placed.

Mark leaned back in his chair and exhaled. A strange calm settled over him. Whatever happened next, at least he had done something. He had taken a chance instead of sitting around complaining about his life.

People who never took risks never got anywhere.

He repeated that thought until it sounded like wisdom.

At 3:08 a.m., the bedroom door opened.

Mika stood in the doorway, her hair tied loosely behind her head. She wore an oversized shirt and looked as though she had only just woken up. For a moment, she simply watched him, her eyes moving from the glowing monitor to the empty coffee cup, then to the phone in his hand.

“Mark,” she said quietly. “Hindi ka pa natutulog?”

“I'm finishing something.”

“Akala ko last game mo na.”

“It was. I'm doing something else now.”

She glanced at the clock on the wall.

“May pasok ka pa mamaya.”

“I know.”

“Then why are you still awake?”

Mark turned toward her, already irritated by the question. “Bakit ba? Can't I do anything without you checking on me?”

Mika blinked.

“I'm just asking.”

“Yeah, but you always do this. Every time I'm doing something, you make me feel like I'm doing something wrong.”

She was silent for a moment.

“Hindi kita inaaway, Mark. I'm worried about you.”

He almost laughed.

Worried about him? He was twenty-nine, not a child. He did not need someone hovering over him as if he were incapable of making his own decisions.

He wanted to tell her that she was suffocating him, that her constant reminders were the reason he could never concentrate, that perhaps if she gave him some space, he might finally accomplish something.

Instead, he looked back at his monitor.

“Matulog ka na. I'll be there later.”

Mika remained in the doorway.

“Did you pay the electricity bill?”

His jaw tightened.

There it was. The real reason she had come.

“Not yet.”

“Mark, I gave you the money yesterday.”

“I said not yet. I'll pay it.”

“Where is the money?”

He looked at her then.

For one brief second, he considered telling the truth. He could say that he had used part of it, that he had lost money betting on a basketball game, that he was hoping to recover it before the bill became overdue.

He could admit that he was afraid.

But the words seemed to catch somewhere inside him.

If he told her, she would look at him differently. He could already imagine it: the disappointment, the questions, the quiet realization that perhaps the man she loved was not the man he had promised to become.

He could not bear that look.

So he did what he had learned to do whenever reality threatened his pride.

He made the conversation about her.

“Why do you always assume the worst about me?”

Mika stared at him.

“I'm asking about the electricity bill.”

“And I'm telling you I'll pay it. Why can't you just trust me?”

“Because you keep saying that, and then I have to remind you again.”

“Fine. If you don't trust me, then why are we even together?”

The question came out sharper than he intended, but once it was spoken, he felt a familiar sense of relief. Now she was defending herself. Now she was explaining that she did love him, that she did trust him, that she was only trying to help.

Now the attention was no longer on the money.

Mika lowered her eyes.

For a moment, Mark felt victorious.

Then she said, “I don't want to fight with you.”

She turned and walked back toward the bedroom.

Mark watched her leave, irritated that she had not apologized, but relieved that the conversation was over.

He returned to his phone.

The betting result had arrived.

He had lost again.

For several seconds, he stared at the screen without moving. The amount seemed larger now, although the numbers had not changed. His stomach tightened. He calculated what remained in his account, what he needed for transportation, and how much he could borrow if necessary.

Then, almost instinctively, he opened the application again.

There was another game tomorrow.

Another opportunity.

Another chance to recover everything.

Mark placed his phone beside the keyboard and started another match.

He did not know that Mika was lying awake in the next room, staring at the ceiling and wondering how many more promises she could afford to believe.

He did not know that something in her had begun to change.

And he certainly did not know that one day, years from now, he would remember this night—not because of the money he lost, or the game he won, but because it was one of the last nights when someone still cared enough to ask him to come to bed.

For now, Mark was certain of only one thing.

He was going to win it all back.

Just one more game.

Just one more bet.

Just one more chance.

And then, he promised himself, everything would be different.