Chapter 2

July is such a tedious month.

     It’s the stitch between a hot morning and a rainy afternoon. You wake up feeling hot and sweaty, but you go to bed covering yourself with blankets due to the rainy cold.

     Soleil used to call these the restless days, when the red-hot deities began to stir, and the cold ones began to rest. When the dreamers are more prone to failed ideas, and the travelers will always get lost.

     Luke has always had the tendency to suffer from both.

     It makes sense since Luke was born on the 16^th of July, right along the middle of the chaos, although it has been very long before he thought of celebrating his own birthday.

     For twenty-three years, he hated the marker of time. He was forever growing up, and forever growing old. It was an endless cycle. For centuries, his birthday was more or less any other useless day for him. Far less important than the day he was bestowed upon his curse.

     That date, death, birth, and rebirth combined into one.

     Still, it is his birthday, and all birthdays deserve a gift.

     He walks by the glass front of a mall, his reflection translucent in the glass.

     Behind the glass poses a mannequin mid-step, its arms covered with the sleeve of a blue sweater. One hand up, behind the mannequin’s neck as it wore denim jeans for its pants. As Luke explores the mannequin, he realizes that he seems to be mimicking the pose. It’s his birthday, after all, maybe he is in the mood for something different.

     Inside the store were unlit candles which filled it of its smell. Clothes were in different racks; Luke however went straight to where they kept the same batch as the sweater he saw. It was apparently made of thick cotton. He throws on his right shoulder and checks for the fitting denim jeans. He knows his sizes perfectly. They have not changed at all.

     “Good day, Sir!” A cute and cheerful clerk-boy, probably in his 20s – similar to Luke himself, but Luke’s age is frozen in time – approached him, “Would you like me to help you?”

     “Oh, no worries, I got it,” he said as he pulled a white sleeved shirt. He nonchalantly walks to a fitting room near the back of the boutique.

     “Alright, do give me a holler if you need anything,” says the clerk-boy after closing the door in the stall Luke was in. He was alone with a chair, a full-body mirror, and himself, and he felt at peace.

     He carefully removed his shoes, kicks off his pants and hangs it on the hook to the wall by his left. Change sound in its pocket and it falls to the floor as he wasn’t able to hang it properly. As it hit the floor, something came tumbling out of the pocket and it hits the floor with a ring, stopping only after bouncing twice as it twirls before it stops.

     It’s a ring.

     A small metal circle colored dark blue. A familiar band of something symbolic, once loved, now pocketed and ignored. The memories keep trying to return, but Luke refuses to let them in.

     He stares at the ring for a while. His hands shake, but he doesn’t reach for the ring. He doesn’t reach for the ring, but instead continues to undress. He removes his jacket, and slowly unbuttons his polo. He puts on the white long sleeve, followed by the denim jeans. He puts back his shoes, and finally tops off his outfit with the blue sweater. The clothes fit hit physique perfectly. His toned body can be felt through the clothes, but he is not that muscular that the clothes seem to look thin – just enough to show off the work that he has achieved with his body through the years.

     He slowly removes the price tags off of the clothes one by one, ignoring how many zeroes the prices may have.

     'Wow, I look good today. I guess since it is my birthday,' he smiles as he looks in the mirror. He tilts his waist and puts his arm behind his neck and flexes his arms. 'I am so glad that society can finally tolerate people like us,' he thought. He looks in the mirror again and observes his features; even in modern time his face hasn’t changed in centuries.

     Luke leaves his old clothes scattered on the dressing room’s floor. The ring is left and ignored, and the only thing he grabs is his old jacket. It’s soft, it’s made of dark blue leather, not a crease can be seen on its skin even though it has been with him for centuries – the kind if vintage item that people would pay all of their fortune for these days. It was the only thing Luke would refuse to leave behind in this cruel place of Manila. His manly scent clung to it like permanent dye, doomed to stain forever. He doesn’t care, he loves that jacket with his life.

     The jacket is centuries old, but it still looks brand new. It’s the same with his features, never been tampered and never been touched by the decay of time.

     Luke steps out of the booth, nonchalantly yet again.

     As he tries to make his way out the door, he bumps with the clerk-boy from before. He blushes at the sight of Luke, “O-Oh, it’s you. D-Did you find everything suited to you?” He was too frantic that he didn’t notice that Luke was wearing a different set of clothes from earlier.

     Luke frowns a bit, “Sorry, I guess I’ll just have to check a different branch and find my size,” he says as he casually walks out the door.

     By the time the clerk-boy finds the clothes inside the booth, he won’t be able to remember who they belong to. Luke will be gone, from his sight and his memory. Such is Luke’s curse, which can also be a blessing. He knows this will happen but he has too little care for the world that he is in right now. How is a little sprucing up going to harm such a big business?