Tamolito stood in front of the Arch of the Centuries — este, wrong schoolch pala. Take two. Tamolito stood in the shimmering, backroom-esque halls of the Newport Performing Arts Theater, a goated place to celebrate the grindset. “Why am I even here?” his mind chimed. “I’m just larping on this occasion, frfr.”
His friends were backstage, bussin’ the pre-grad aura; a cocktail of pure joy and last-minute vibe checks. Tamolito, meanwhile, had a hollow, cheugy aura that Baby Gronk won’t even tolerate.
He was a beta in this sigma-centered event, an NPC among high-level players. The program felt heavier than his unfinished thesis, which was collecting dust in a folder named “last copium (67).” He scanned the list of graduates. No cap; his name isn’t there.
Tamolito: still chopped. Tamolito: error 404, diploma not found. His heart ended the glazing streak like a Kai Cenat stream.
Then the procession started, and out came the chaotic gremlins he called his friends. First up, Tung Tung Tung Sahur, or Triple T, who skibidi-rizzled his way through. His movements were giving AI slop, predictable yet odd like a clanker. “TUNG TUNG TUNG SAHUR!” Tamolito yelled, echoing around the room like a wail of a broken edging streak.
He spotted Tamolito in the crowd, immediately hitting the griddy and mouthing, “SDIYBT.” Their inside joke usually made Tamolito wheeze, but today, it felt like his soul was being gently, persistently gyatted into submission.
Next came Grimace, who approached the stage as if ready to face Diddy. His entire personality was larped from a trend — he’d been mewing so hard, his jawline surpassed all sigma graduands. As he received his diploma, his reaction was empty; he stared blankly, realizing that he was just a throwaway character. “It’s the Grimace Shake, bro,” Tamolito’s internal monologue supplied unhelpfully.
Tamolito sat there as the event continued, his brain a mess of TikTok edits and intrusive thoughts. “Bakit sila? Bakit hindi ako?” The trumpets looped louder in his head.
He could feel the bitterness creeping in like a ragebaiting lag spike. But then Triple T, now safely off-stage, holding a cup of overpriced “aesthetic” coffee from a hidden cafe, perhaps, locked eyes with him again. This time, there was no joke. Just a small, crooked smile that said everything.
Something clicked in Tamolito’s brain, like finally understanding brainrot slang after months of hearing it. He saw his friends up there, edging in their moment, and he felt… warmth? Not the buldak burrito kind of warmth, but the genuine, heart-expanding kind. He realized his journey wasn’t cringe; it was lategamemaxxing.
Delayed doesn’t mean denied. “It just means I’m building character development, frfr,” he assured himself. His time will come when it's right. Maybe next year. Or the next. But it’ll come.
The ceremony got slimed, and his friends rushed toward him like weebs seeing a Vtuber. They enveloped him in a group hug so tight he could feel his ribs yeeting.
Tamolito laughed. A genuine wheezing laugh that came straight from the gyatt. “Gagi, Triple T,” he said, pulling his chaotic friend into a side hug. “Congrats, bro. Seryoso. ‘Wag kang mag-alala, ha?”
Triple T paused his mogging session, looking down at him with that signature unhinged grin. “Tung tung tung?”
“Oo,” Tamolito said, his voice steady but soft. “Next year, ako naman. My turn to get that W.” He looked around at his friends: his chaotic, unhinged friends. “You'll wait for me, right? No cap, frfr?”
And they all responded in a glorious symphony of slang: “Saur.” “Frfr.” “Aight, Bet.”
Tamolito felt the weight lift off his shoulders. He wasn’t stuck in Ohio being delulu. He was just locking in for the next goofy ahh grind. Not every rizz ends in a W. But if you just keep cooking, on god you’re gonna bag the fries in no time — one step at a time.
- Je Rellora
(Illustration by Elysse Nicolle Duller/FEU Advocate)