Red and Joseph
Whenever someone asks: “How did you two meet?”, “When did you start?”, or “How did this all start?”, it’s hard to answer because it’s fragmented; there’s no point of origin. Her mom kept asking us about the dates because to her dates are important – it marks a milestone.
It goes as far as high school, when I had a lowkey crush on him and he had a lowkey crush on me. Circumstances got in the way from us being together because I was seeing one of his teammates, but that didn’t go anywhere. We bumped into each other one day in 2017. We said our hellos, it was cool that he recognized me. Later, I wanted to send him a message. I didn’t have a crush on him. It was just a normal message anyone would send anyone else, but then he messaged me first. It continued even until I started studying in Japan. When I was in Japan, we became closer.
She messaged me that she’s back in the country. Unfortunately, I had to leave for Indonesia. But when I came back, I hit her up so that we could hangout. It wasn’t a date at first, we didn’t know it was a date. It was only later that we called it a date. On that date, I went for it. There and then, she knew that she had feelings for me.
I really didn’t know I had them until he did it. He convinced me to go out again. We went to the cinema then hung out in a café. As we left that café that night, we found ourselves holding hands.
You were so sensitive about your hands. “I have rough hands! Don’t hold my hand!” but you did anyway.
Anecdote transcribed by Robert Ricafort
Photography by Celina Mae Medina
Models: Red Rivera and Joseph Bautista
