Waiting For Delivery

CHAPTER TWO

It had been a month since we arrived in Thailand.

The days had begun to blur together—early wake-ups, aching feet, customer complaints, and the occasional kind smile that made it all feel worth it. The Grand Shoreline Hotel was a three-star beast with gold-laced everything, but behind the glossy service doors, we were just a group of foreign staff trying to keep up with the rhythm of a country that wasn't ours.

The dormitory, once a place of excitement and giggles, was now a living jungle of wet towels, overlapping alarms, and mysterious missing snacks.

“Hoy! Anong oras na?!” Lea’s voice cut through the dorm room, shrill and frantic. “Late na tayo!”

I jolted awake, hair everywhere, and scrambled for my phone. 6:42 AM. We had to be out by 7.

“Sh*t,” I muttered, leaping off the bunk. “Ba’t walang nag-alarm?!”

“May nag-alarm,” Janine croaked from the floor mattress, blanket over her head. “Tinurn off ni Lea kanina.”

“Excuse me?! You snoozed it last night before bed!” Lea snapped, throwing her towel on the bed. “Mag-toothbrush muna kayo, ako mauna sa banyo!”

I was halfway into my uniform when I realized I’d worn my shirt inside out.

“I don’t want to live like this,” I groaned.

Janine popped her head up. “Too late. This is survival mode.”

Janine and Lea weren’t just roommates. They were constants—the first faces I saw every morning and the last voices I heard before falling asleep in a new country that still didn’t feel real.

Janine was the cool-headed one. Calm, collected, and surprisingly witty when she chose to speak. She moved like she had everything planned—even if her laundry habits said otherwise. She wore oversized shirts and always had a mug of coffee in hand, even when it was way too hot outside. At first, she seemed a little distant, but once you got past the soft sarcasm and deadpan delivery, she was the kind of friend who'd remember your favorite snack and split her last piece of chocolate without blinking.

“Pagod ka na, no?” she’d ask, tossing over her blanket. “Ayan, pang-comfort.”

Lea, on the other hand, was all volume and fire. She was sunshine and thunder on the same day. Loud when she was happy, louder when she was stressed, and loudest when she’d misplaced her ID for the fifth time in a week. She was the type to dance in the kitchen while flipping eggs, or sing off-key just to annoy us—and we loved her for it. Her heart was always on her sleeve, and so were her moods, but she never let anyone feel left out.

“Hoy, tama na drama mo,” she’d say, handing over a choco milk. “Drink ka muna, then iyak ulit kung gusto mo.”

The three of us weren’t perfect. We bickered, sulked, sometimes gave each other the silent treatment over things as small as laundry or who got the shower first. But when things got heavy—missing home, stress at work, quiet nights filled with overthinking—we were each other’s safety nets.

Somehow, in that tiny dormitory and faraway life, we stopped being strangers and became something closer to family.

Shifts end. The company van smelled like sweat, Lysol, and defeat. Janine leaned against the window, eyes closed, while Lea scrolled on her phone, grumbling under her breath.

“My table today asked for ketchup with their sashimi,” she said. “Ketchup. With. Raw. Fish.”

Janine cracked an eye open. “I had a guest complain na hindi raw ‘gold enough’ yung gold room key.”

I snorted. “Someone asked me kanina if we had steak. Sasagot ko sana, ‘Sir, you're in Thailand.’”

The driver chuckled from the front.

“Kuya,” Janine called, “stop mo kami sa 7-Eleven mamaya ha?”

“Copy,” he said with a smile. “Standard na ‘yan eh. Mga suki kayo dun.”

We all laughed.

Kuya Tads wasn’t Filipino—but he sure felt like one.

Born and raised in Thailand, his full name was Tadsuwan Intharakul, but nobody really used it. Ever since he started working with Filipino staff years ago, people just called him Kuya Tads—and somehow, the name stuck.

“Half ng puso ko, nasa Thailand. Yung kalahati… nasa Jollibee,” he’d joke while adjusting his backward cap and sliding his worn-out slippers against the van pedals.

He spoke broken Tagalog, sprinkled with Bisaya and his own weird mix of Thai-English slang. Somehow, it worked. He understood more than we expected, laughed at our corniest jokes, and sometimes beat us to the punchline.

“Mag-ingat kayo d’yan, mga anak ng adobo,” he’d mutter every morning as we piled into the van half-asleep.

Nobody really knew how old he was—mid-forties, maybe—but he carried himself like someone who’d seen more than he let on. He played old OPM ballads on the ride home, told stories about Filipino staff who came and went, and made sure nobody was left behind, even if it meant driving an extra round.

Back at the dorm, we dropped our bags and immediately changed into pambahay. A few minutes later, we were walking through the night market, bags slung over our shoulders.

“Eggs, kangkong, toyo, suka…” I muttered, checking our mental list.

“Add mo na rin choco milk, para kay Lea,” Janine teased.

Lea raised a brow. “Eh ikaw? Add natin ‘Sorry’ milk para sa susunod na magnanakaw ka ng gatas ko.”

“Guys, truce na tayo ‘di ba?” I laughed.

“Fine,” Lea said, grabbing a mango from a basket. “Basta sa next grocery ikaw magbitbit ng bigas.”

We cooked together that night—simple garlic rice, sautéed veggies, fried egg. No fancy plating, just shared jokes and messy counters.

But the peace didn’t last long.

It was our day off, and I had mentally planned out a perfect lazy day: laundry, nap, snacks. I walked into the laundry room, humming, only to find the washer occupied. Clothes sitting idle. Wet. Abandoned.

“Wala na naman,” I muttered.

I checked the basket—Janine’s again. Second time this week.

A few minutes later, she walked in, holding her phone and a half-eaten banana.

“Oh—sorry. Hindi ko namalayan oras,” she said, seeing me.

“Again?” I asked, more tired than angry.

She blinked. “Sorry na.”

“I waited thirty minutes last time. Ngayon, I set aside my morning just for laundry.”

“Grabe ka,” she muttered, “it’s not like I did it on purpose.”

“It’s just inconsiderate, okay?”

That did it.

“Wow,” she snapped, “so ngayon masama na ‘ko? Nagkakalabhan lang naman eh, hindi giyera!”

Lea came in halfway, holding fabric softener like a peace offering. “Ano ‘to, Battle of Fabric Fresh?”

“Laundry war,” I muttered, rubbing my temples.

“Okay,” Lea said, raising her voice slightly, “this isn’t about laundry. Pagod lang tayong lahat. At gutom. Tama?”

Janine and I glanced at each other.

I exhaled. “Fine. Sorry. I’m just… stressed.”

Janine nodded. “Same. Next time, I’ll set an alarm.”

Lea handed me the detergent. “There. Friends ulit. Now someone tell me bakit may damit ni Mark sa dryer?”

Later that afternoon, I went out alone to grab extra water and snacks. Janine and Lea stayed in, still nursing minor pride bruises.

It was hot. The kind of humid that clung to your skin. I stood outside the 7-Eleven, waiting for a bag of rice to be packed when I heard a motorbike pull up—smooth, familiar, routine.

That’s when I saw him.

Helmet off, hair slightly messy like he’d run his hand through it one too many times. T-shirt sticking slightly to his back. Golden brown skin that looked like it carried the sun. His eyeglasses caught a bit of the afternoon light. He was tall. Not towering. Just… enough to notice.

He walked toward the door, hands full of packages, eyes scanning his phone.

Our eyes met for just a second. Not long. But something in it—soft, almost shy—made my chest do that weird flutter thing.

He gave a polite nod, barely a smile. “Sawasdee krub,” he said quietly, his voice unexpectedly deep, but gentle.

“Uh… hi,” I replied, stupidly.

My brain scrambled to think of anything else. But he’d already walked inside.

I stood there for a moment, blinking at nothing.

What the hell was that? He was just a delivery guy.

But why did it feel like… something shifted?

That night, we cooked again—this time, noodles and dumplings.

“So,” Janine said, stirring the pot, “we okay?”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “I think we were just... all boiling under the lid.”

Lea snorted. “Like the laundry machine you never emptied.”

We laughed, loud and genuine this time.

I sat back as the steam fogged the tiny window. The kitchen was loud, chaotic, warm. It didn’t smell like home—but it felt like it.

And even with the leftover awkwardness, I couldn’t stop thinking about that brief moment outside 7-Eleven.

Just one look, one voice, one glance—and something unnamed stirred in me.

It was just a day off.

It was just laundry.

It was just a delivery.

But somehow, it didn’t feel small.