Chapter Text
The primary flaw of the College of Liberal Arts was that it actively encouraged a very specific brand of romantic nihilism, usually aggravated by a total lack of functional university infrastructure.
If you spend seven consecutive hours in a room that smells like industrial floor wax, damp paperbacks, and the collective existential dread of forty overworked students, ay natural lang na pati yung utak mo ay maaapektuhan and your brain eventually compromises its capacity for basic moral reasoning.
The university administration loved romanticizing the oldest buildings on campus. Every year the student handbook repeated the same dramatic lines about “historic architecture” and the “soul of the founding scholars.”
Pero alam naman ng lahat yung totoong dahilan kung bakit walang renovations.
Kuripot lang talaga ang admin.
The Literature majors were left to suffer in a beautiful, decaying architectural relic where the windows didn't fully close, at pati yung mga ceiling fan ay tumutunog na kapag umiikot na para bang isang hinga na lang ay babagsak na. Even the walls held the damp chill of every rainy season since 1974.
It was exactly 7:42 PM on a Tuesday, and Krystal Mejes was currently leaning her forehead against the cold, slightly greasy glass of the university library’s main exit doors. Outside, sobrang lakas ng ulan.
The kind that turned the campus walkways into shallow rivers within minutes and drowned out every other sound on campus.
The water had already swallowed the first three steps of the plaza. The air smelled like wet concrete, flooded drainage, and rain-soaked dirt.
Krystal pulled the collar of her old leather jacket up to her ears. The cuffs were scuffed to hell and the fabric permanently smelled like cheap hazelnut coffee from the stall behind the gym.
“Phenomenal,” she muttered at her reflection on the glass. “Napakagaling talaga. I love higher education. Nothing humbles you faster than becoming a wet rat outside the library.”
She fished her phone out of her pocket. The screen flickered violently, displaying a miserable 4% battery before the interface sluggishly loaded a text message from Carmelle, her roommate slash best friend. The text had been sent twenty minutes prior, but due to the library's thick concrete walls and non-existent Wi-Fi, it had only just arrived:
“Good luck running back to the dorms miss maem lol, nagbaha na naman daw doon sa may drainage malapit sa university lagoon balita ko. Bring a kayak or just accept your fate. Also naiwan mo na naman dito yung sira mong payong na never mo ginamit HAHAHA xoxo.”
Krystal shoved the phone back into her jeans, letting out a long, heavy sigh. Waiting out the storm was legally impossible. Behind her, the fluorescent lights were already shutting off row by row.
The library suddenly felt a lot bigger when it got dark.
Pati si Mang Nilo, na head ng security ay nakatayo na malapit sa last aisle. Wala itong sinasabi but he was jingling his massive ring of keys with the kind of aggressive, rhythmic intent that clearly translated to: get out of my building right now or prepare to spend the night sleeping on the index cards.
Kung minamalas ka nga naman talaga. She looked down at the umbrella racks near the exit. They were completely empty. Merong mga ibang sira doon na payong na parang isang hangin lang ay tatangayin na. Lahat ng mga naiwan doon ay mga sira na at di na pwedeng magamit..
Except for one.
Tucked in the very back corner of the lost-and-found bin was a single umbrella standing perfectly upright. Krystal stepped over, her heavy combat boots clicking loudly against the polished linoleum, and reached into the basket.
The moment her ink-stained fingers wrapped around the handle, her eyebrows knitted together. It was heavy. Not the cheap, hollow-aluminum heavy of the ones sold for two hundred pesos at the campus convenience store, but the solid, weighted density of real, varnished oak. She pulled it out of the bin.
It looked violently expensive.
Also painfully pink.
The umbrella was pastel pink. Not normal pink either—rich girl pink. The fabric wasn't cheap nylon; it was a thick, heavy-gauge silk canvas, and right at the base of the handle, tied with an absolute, terrifying precision that suggested the owner used a drafting ruler, was a delicate white silk ribbon that ended in a perfect, symmetrical bow.
Krystal stared at it. It looked like it belonged to a Victorian aristocrat. Yung mga mayayaman na umiinom ng tea tuwing hapon kasama ng mga amiga nila. Not a third-year Literature major who currently had a three-page structural critique of The Waste Land due at midnight.
“Desperate times,” Krystal whispered to the empty, darkened lobby. “The university administration has a legal, ethical obligation to ensure its top scholars don’t contract pneumonia before midterms. This isn't theft. Uulitin ko, Krystal Mejes, hindi ka magnanakaw. It’s an administrative loan. Nanghihiram ka lang.”
She pushed the glass doors open, stepped out onto the concrete portico, and pressed the release button on the wooden handle.
The umbrella didn't just pop open; it expanded with a soft, luxurious, incredibly engineered thwip, the heavy canvas instantly muting the deafening roar of the rain. Halatang mamahalin. The moment Krystal stepped down the stairs and into the downpour, The umbrella smelled faintly like vanilla and expensive fabric softener.
Rich people really lived differently.
She tucked her heavy canvas tote bag higher under her arm, gripped the smooth oak handle, and plunged directly into the flooded courtyard. As she ran across the flooded courtyard, Krystal became painfully aware that she looked like a goth anime character hiding under a magical girl umbrella. But she was dry, she was warm, and she was entirely convinced that by tomorrow morning, she would slide the pink anomaly back into the bin, and the universe would remain in perfect, unbothered balance
What a perfect plan.
—
The morning sun during the Philippine rainy season was always a hypocritical piece of work.
It rose bright, hot, and blindingly yellow, turning the giant, muddy puddles in the middle of the university quad into shimmering mirrors, hindi mo aakalain na kagabi lang ay halos bumaha sa labas ng dorms dahil sa lakas ng ulan. Na para bang naglalakad sya sa low budget na apocalyptic film habang pauwi kagabi.
Krystal Mejes walked down the main avenue of the university at 8:45 AM, an oversized iced matcha latte balanced in her left hand and the pastel-pink umbrella tucked securely under her right armpit.
She was a woman of her word. She had every intention of returning it. She wasn't a criminal; she just possessed a very low tolerance for being soaked to the bone. Simple lang naman ang plano nya: Ibabalik nya yung payong doon sa lost-and-found bin bago yung 10:00 AM na seminar nya on post-colonial poetry, buy a piece of banana bread from the cafeteria, and pretend this entire aesthetic detour had never occurred.
She was just about to clear the cobblestone path leading toward the library lobby when she noticed the massive, multi-departmental bottleneck of students crowding around the campus Freedom Wall.
The Freedom Wall was a massive, three-meter-wide corkboard pinned to the exterior brick wall of the administrative building. On any regular Tuesday or Wednesday, it was covered in high-energy, chaotic nonsense: anonymous confessions about secret crushes on basketball varsity players, furious rants about the library's terrible Wi-Fi speed, and flyers for underground garage sales. Today, however, the crowd of nearly fifty students was dead silent. They were staring at the center of the board like they were reading a royal execution order or a list of people who had just been expelled by the university senate.
“Grabe,” a sophomore from the Accountancy department whispered, nudging his friend with a heavy textbook. “Seryoso ba talaga siya? Ang yaman-yaman ng pamilya niya tapos magpapalabas siya ng ganitong memorandum para lang sa payong?”
“Laminated pa, oh,” his friend giggled, pulling out their phone to snap a photo of the board. “Ganyan yata talaga kapag future corporate CEO. Kulang na lang may legal letterhead and a dry seal from the Supreme Court.”
Krystal slowed her pace, a sudden, cold prickle of unease forming at the base of her neck upon hearing the word 'payong'. Her internal alarm system, the one developed from years of submitting essays five minutes before the portal closed—began to wail. She nudged her way through the thick wall of crisp linen shirts and corporate-casual Management majors, her vintage leather jacket creaking softly as she aggressively forced her way to the front row.
When her eyes finally found the center of the corkboard, her soul instantly left her body and ascended to a higher plane of pure cosmic embarrassment.
Pinned exactly at eye level, held down by four heavy-duty metal pushpins, was a bright, neon-pink sheet of paper. It wasn't written with a standard permanent marker, and it certainly wasn't typed on cheap copy paper. It was printed in clean, high-density, professional ink, perfectly centered, and sealed inside a thick, heavy-duty laminating pouch that gleamed aggressively in the morning sun.
The heading was typed in bold, capitalized, terrifyingly clean typography:
OFFICIAL ADMINISTRATIVE MEMORANDUM FROM THE OFFICE OF THE STUDENT COUNCIL PRESIDENT
TO THE ANONYMOUS INDIVIDUAL WHO REMOVED A PASTEL-PINK UMBRELLA (SPECIFICALLY: CUSTOM OAK HANDLE, HAND-TIED SILK BOW ATTACHMENT) FROM THE LIBRARY LOST-AND-FOUND BIN ON TUESDAY, MAY 26, AT APPROXIMATELY 7:42 PM:
Let it be known that the item you removed was not abandoned property, nor was it trash. It was temporarily placed in the wire repository while I was conducting an emergency structural and logistical audit of the library’s first-floor facilities alongside members of the university administration.
That specific umbrella is a limited-edition heirloom piece imported from Europe, gifted to me personally by my grandmother. It possesses both significant sentimental and material value.
I am giving the anonymous perpetrator exactly twenty-four hours from the posting of this notice to return the item directly to the Student Council office on the second floor of the Business Building. No questions will be asked, and no disciplinary actions will be pursued, provided it is returned within this window.
Please be advised that I have already filed a formal request with the Management Information Systems (MIS) office to retrieve and isolate the high-definition CCTV security footage from the library lobby cameras covering the exact 7:30 PM to 8:00 PM time block. If the item is not on my desk by tomorrow morning, the footage will be opened, the identity will be logged, and the case will be endorsed directly to the Student Disciplinary Tribunal for unauthorized conversion of property.
Do not test my patience. Return the asset.
— CAPRICE CAYETANO
President, University Student Council
College of Business Administration
Krystal stood entirely frozen, the ice cubes in her matcha latte melting rapidly into a watery, tasteless green sludge.
She slowly, horizontally turned her head to look at the object tucked under her right armpit. The pastel-pink silk canvas. The solid, polished oak handle. The delicate, white silk ribbon tied into a bow that was currently brushing directly against her scuffed, black leather sleeve.
Caprice Cayetano.
The Management department’s crown jewel. The ultimate golden girl of the entire university population. Caprice Cayetano was the kind of person who looked like she had never experienced a bad hair day, a late jeepney ride, or a hormonal blemish in her entire existence.
She was perpetually seen moving through the campus wearing soft, cream or pink cardigans, her hair tied back with immaculate silk ribbons, exuding the kind of soft-spoken, demure grace that made people instinctively clear the path for her. She was a consistent top-tier scholar, a ruthless debater who could dismantle an opponent while smiling politely, and Krystal’s unstated, long-standing academic rival.
For three long semesters, Krystal Mejes and Caprice Cayetano had fought a silent, cold war across the university’s dean's list. If Krystal pulled a flat 1.0 in her rigorous Literary Theory seminar, Caprice would pull a perfect, flawless grade in Advanced Macroeconomics. They had exchanged nothing but stiff, polite, terrifyingly fake nods across the auditorium during university award ceremonies, and murderous, silent glares across the library aisle when competing for the last functional power outlet near the window.
“Oh, my god,” Krystal muttered under her breath, her throat completely dry as she backed out of the crowd, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. Lord, please kunin mo na ako ngayon, she thought. Seriously, mas gugustuhin nya pang bumuka ang lupa at lamunin na lang sya ngayon. Because holy shit. She didn't just borrow a random umbrella. She stole a personal declaration of corporate war from Caprice Cayetano.
She looked down at the umbrella again. The white bow seemed to mock her very existence. Caprice wasn't just going to discipline her; she was going to use her full, terrifying Excel-spreadsheet efficiency to publicly execute Krystal’s academic standing. She could see the headline now: Top Literature Scholar Suspended for Petty Umbrella Larceny. The shame would kill her mother.
Krystal turned on her heel and walked away from the bulletin board as fast as her combat boots could take her, her mind racing at a million miles an hour. Her plan to simply drop it back into the library basket was entirely ruined; if anyone saw her putting it back now, she'd be caught red-handed. She needed to get back to the dorm. She needed to hide the evidence.
By 1:15 PM, Krystal was sitting on her twin bed, staring blankly at the pink umbrella resting on her desk like a piece of radioactive material. Her phone, which she had finally plugged into its charger, vibrated violently on the mattress.
It was an email notification.
Krystal opened it, expecting a standard automated message from the university portal. Instead, her eyes locked onto a formal, system-generated notification from the Student Council's official administrative network.
The email contained a single attached file—a high-resolution video format—titled:
CCTV_Library_Lobby_7.42PM_Isolate.mp4
With trembling fingers, Krystal tapped the download button. The video file opened to a crystal-clear, five-megapixel feed of the library lobby from Tuesday night. There she was. The camera angle was zoomed in with devastating precision, capturing her scuffed leather jacket, her messy dark hair, and her unmistakable, smugly triumphant facial expression as she pulled the pink umbrella from the bin and gave the lens a fleeting glance before exiting into the storm.
A short text followed at the bottom of the system automated email, typed in Caprice’s unmistakable, ruthlessly clean prose:
“To the student identified in the isolated MIS log: The footage has been successfully retrieved. I now possess your name, your student number, and your full department profile. My twenty-four-hour public deadline remains active on the Freedom Wall. You have until midnight tonight to return the asset to the second-floor executive office. If you fail to appear, the disciplinary endorsement will be submitted automatically at 8:00 AM tomorrow.”
Krystal dropped her phone onto the sheets after sending the file to her best friend because she needed moral support right now, her face burning with a sudden, catastrophic mixture of adrenaline and complete panic. Caprice didn't know who took it when she printed that loud, neon-pink notice this morning. She had put up the warning first, blind and furious, and then marched straight over to the IT department to pull the tapes herself.
She had found her. She had the proof. And instead of dropping the name directly to the dean, she had sent the video straight to Krystal's student inbox—a cold, calculated, electronic execution order.
Krystal looked at the digital clock on her laptop. 1:18 PM. The countdown wasn't just anonymous anymore. Caprice Cayetano knew exactly who her target was, and she was waiting in her office for the literature scholar to break.
You see, the human brain, when confronted with sudden, high-level administrative blackmail, does not think in beautiful literary metaphors. It thinks in numbers.
Specifically, Krystal was calculating the exact number of pesos remaining in her gcash account (842.50) and weighing it against the cost of a one-way ferry ticket to a remote island where Excel spreadsheets had not yet been invented.
She sat on the edge of her dormitory mattress, her phone still buzzing with the malicious intent of that five-megapixel video file.
"I am a dead woman," Krystal told her wall. The wall, covered in peeling scotch tape and printouts of obscure 19th-century poetry, offered no constructive feedback.
"You're not dead," Carmelle said, walking into the room while balancing a bag of cheese-flavored popcorn on her chin. She dropped the bag onto Krystal’s desk, right next to the pristine, glowing pastel-pink umbrella. "But your academic reputation is definitely on life support. At talagang tumingin ka pa talaga sa cctv bago mo dinampot yung payong. You looked like a raccoon getting caught in a trash bin, Krystal. Very un-goth of you." Oh, great nakita na nito ang video.
"She has my student number, Carmelle," Krystal groaned, burying her face in her hands. "She sent it from the Student Council server network. That’s not a notification; that’s a digital warrant. Kapag hindi ako pumunta sa office nya by midnight, she’s going to endorse this to the tribunal. Do you know what the tribunal does to Literature majors? They make us write formal apology letters in Times New Roman, twelve-point font, with double spacing. It’s a human rights violation."
Carmelle picked up the pink umbrella, examining the white silk bow with the analytical precision of a customs official. "You know, for a ruthless business major, Cayetano has excellent taste in fabric softener. This smells like a five-star hotel lobby. Why don't you just go there right now? It's only two in the afternoon."
Krystal bolted upright, her eyes wide with defensive panic. "Are you insane? Go there now? In broad daylight? Alam mo ba kung anong itsura ng Business Building kapag 2:00 PM? It is filled to the brim with third-year Management students wearing ironed slacks and talking about 'market penetration' and 'synergy.' Kapag pumasok ako doon habang hawak hawak ang payong na 'to, na sobrang detailed ang pagkaka describe sa bulletin board malalaman ng lahat na ako ang kumuha! it won't just be an administrative return. It will be a spectator sport."
She stood up, pacing the small square of linoleum between her bed and the door. Her literature-trained brain was frantically trying to reconstruct the timeline, looking for structural flaws in Caprice's strategy.
"Think about the mechanics of the situation," Krystal said, pointing a finger at Carmelle. "She posted the neon-pink notice at eight in the morning. According to the email timestamp, she isolated the CCTV footage at 1:14 PM. That means when she printed that laminated manifesto, she was operating on pure, blind, furious speculation. She thought some random freshman had swiped her heirloom."
"And then she saw your face on the screen," Carmelle chewed thoughtfully on a kernel of popcorn. "And realized her arch-nemesis is a petty thief."
"Exactly!" Krystal threw her hands up. "The narrative symmetry is completely ruined. If I walk into her office during business hours, she wins the public relations war. She gets to sit behind her mahogany desk, look down at me through her designer glasses, and make me sign a property release form while five different committee heads watch. I will not be a victim of corporate theater."
"So what's the play, master strategist?"
Krystal’s eyes drifted to the window. Outside, the afternoon sun was beating down on the campus, but the weather app on her laptop was already predicting another heavy downpour by midnight. The university campus at night was a completely different ecosystem. After 11:00 PM, the Business Building became a ghost town, populated only by the hum of ancient vending machines and the occasional security guard reading Facebook Reels.
"A stealth drop-off," Krystal whispered, a slow, chaotic smirk beginning to form on her face. "The ultimatum says 'on my desk by midnight.' Hindi naman naka specify, na kailangan ko sa kanya ibigay ng personal di ba? If I wait until 11:45 PM, the entire building will be empty. I can use the side stairwell by the computer labs, slip into the Council office, Tapos, iiwan ko na lang itong payong sa office nya and then i will vanish into the night like a literary ghost. By tomorrow morning, the asset is recovered, the legal deadline is met, and we return to our regular schedule of exchanging silent, murderous glares during honors assemblies."
Carmelle stared at her for a long, judgmental three seconds. "At talagang you're going to break into the Student Council office at midnight para lang maiwasan na mag 'sorry' kay Caprice?"
"It’s about the principle of artistic autonomy, Carmelle. You wouldn't understand."
She couldn’t outrun someone who controlled the system.
But she also wasn’t going to walk in at noon like a criminal surrendering.
Caprice Cayetano wanted her asset back before midnight? Fine. She would get it.
But it wasn't going to be a formal surrender—it was going to be a stealth midnight drop-off that would bypass her trap entirely.