MY PRETEND BOYFRIEND

Chapter 21

The song ended beautifully, with the audience screaming and taking photos and videos of David.

As the song ended and it was time for the next band to take the stage, Sophia went backstage to help the others.

"Gutom na ba kayo?" she asked the band members who had just finished their performance, but most of them shook their heads. Only David nodded eagerly.

"Where's the food?"

"I still haven’t bought anything. Gusto mo bang kumain sa labas?"

"Hmmm?"

"Then come on." Sophia grabbed his wrist, pulling him out of the backstage area, but he hesitated.

"I saw what happened just a moment ago," David said. Sophia rolled her eyes as she remembered Benjamin’s departure.

"You know well that I'm trying to flirt with him, but you should go on pretending to flirt with me. I'm afraid Adrian will mess with Benjamin."

"You are flirting with me, not with others."

"Don't overreact. You are flirting with me, but I’m not, okay?"

"That’s the same."

“Just pretend, don’t take it so seriously.”

Then I noticed David fell silent. Sophia held his hand again as though she was about to ask for his forgiveness. How did she get to this point? The point where she was going to ask for this big asshole's forgiveness?

"I want to eat Burger King."

"Edi bumili ka," David said sulkily. But why was he sulking? Was he her boyfriend?

"Libre mo ako, please!"

"Where are your friends?"

"Kath is getting a tattoo. Yvonne is taking photos of the food to share on her page." Sophia pointed to Yvonne, the girl who was now laughing with the boys there. She didn’t know what they did to Adrian because he wasn’t here. But her curiosity disappeared when she saw him with Khaycee, the club president, holding the drum together.

"Okay. Let's buy Burger King."

On the way to the booth, their conversation continued...

"You didn't play Taylor Swift's song."

"Hmmmm."

"But it's okay, Miguel sang well earlier. He has a nice voice pala, ‘no?"

"Why?"

"Huh? Didn't he sing well?"

"Why?"

"I think he's good naman."

"Bakit ba siya yung kino-compliment mo? Ako yung nandito, oh. Praise me first."

"Baliw ka talaga, para kang bata. Why do you always need a compliment, huh?" He eventually gave her his poker face again.

"This one! This one!" She poked his shoulder to stop at the Burger King booth.

"How many orders?" The seller asked.

"Nathaniel, how many orders do you want?"

"Two."

"So, can I have four?" Sophia ordered, and then she saw the seller and her friends giggling. It seemed like she put seven or so into the bag.

"Isn't that too much?" Sophia immediately reminded them.

"It's okay. It's free for David and Sophia."

"Thank you."

"But please... Can we take a picture with David?" Sophia turned to look at the bored-looking person next to her and nudged his shoulder.

"David daw, oh."

"What?"

"She wants to take photos with you."

"I want to poop. I'm gonna go to the restroom."

What?!

In the end, she had to apologize to the girls because that damn guy left her. Only to find out that he didn’t go to the restroom, he was just sitting on a chair behind an arch.

"David, here’s your Burger King. You know, I paid the full price because of you."

"That's right. You actually need to pay when you buy things." He said.

"Damn! You always make me lose my face. From the Burger King, to the song, and so on."

"..."

"Where's my Taylor Swift's song?"

"Bullshit."

She should have been used to being cursed. So, she just sat next to him while eating her skewer in a delicious way. She saw a person in front of her picking up her phone as if she was taking a selfie. But... she knew what she was doing.

"Hey, she's taking a photo of you."

Sophia told David. His face immediately looked up from the bag of Burger King to the girl standing five meters away from them.

"Awwww!" That voice stunned her.

"David smiled! David smiled at me!" She thought the girl was completely dead.

"Did you smile?"

"Yes. You said she wanted to take a photo."

"But when someone asked, you always refused. Right?"

"Because I want that photo."

"What? Are you crazy? I saw many people tag you on i********:, why do you want that photo?"

"Because you are in the photo with me."

"..."

"It is hard to find a picture of us with you not trying to do the pa-cute pose."

"..."

"But that's cute."

LUH.

Sasabog na naman ‘tong lintek kong puso.

Sophia just returned from a sudden heart attack. Having friends like David is really tiring. He kept on saying such sweet words, or let's just say flirting with her, even when Adrian wasn’t around. They spent time walking around and looking for food until the music festival was almost at the end. The last band was about to play on the stage, it was Khaycee's band aka Bandarito. She led her Bandarito band to perform on stage. Then Sophia and David tried to get back into the crowd and listen to the last act together.

"Hello!" The lead vocal said hi to all the people here, and they loudly screamed back.

The introduction only took a few minutes, then they started to play music. They danced to the beat of Lady Gaga's songs and moved their bodies slowly. They played for only ten minutes, but that was the happiest moment ever.

"And this is gonna be the last song..."

After that, Sophia didn’t listen to Khaycee anymore because the thick hand of the person next to her patted her shoulder gently.

She turned to look at the person next to her for a moment. He raised his earphone while she looked at him confusingly.

"You said you wanted to listen to a song from Taylor Swift."

"Yes, but you didn’t play it earlier."

"My friends won’t let me. They wanted the other song."

"Alam ko naman, eh."

"Now the event will be over soon."

"Uhmmm."

"Let's listen to Taylor Swift's song, together." His hand put the right-side earphone into her ear, then she also put hers.

In front of them was the last band. They were playing a song that she couldn’t hear clearly. There were many people around them and they were singing along with the singer. Only she and David were waiting for the rhythm of the song in their earphones.

It was just them. Just them who could hear the song. She could remember from the intro of the song, it was Everything from Taylor Swift.

"Everyone sing together! Wave your hands!" Khaycee said, so David started singing along with the song, their song.

I don't wanna look at anything else now that I saw you,

I don't wanna think of anything else now that I thought of you,

I've been sleeping so long in a twenty-year dark night,

And now I see daylight, I only see daylight.

Then Sophia subconsciously sang with him. They were singing together...

“I once believed love would be (Black and white)

But it's golden (Golden), And I can still see it all (In my head),

Back and forth from New York (Sneaking in your bed),

I once believed love would be (Burning red) But it's golden.”

And that is how they ended the Alter Matter Fair Music Festival... listening to a song by Taylor Swift, together.