Page 25 of Signal No. Us

Jake, delighted by the chaos as always, ran the scoreboard on a small whiteboard propped against the karaoke machine, updating it with theatrical flourish after every act.

“Now,” Jake announced into the microphone, static crackling gloriously, “it’s time for the part of the night where people humiliate themselves for fun. Karaoke!”

“Not me,” Allan had said preemptively, to absolutely no one, since he was fairly sure his fate had already been decided several minutes ago by committee.

“Who’s next?” Jake said, scanning the crowd with theatrical menace. “Well, look who it is. The barangay’s very own Wonder Kid.”

“I hate this family,” Allan said to Ver.

“You’re not family, just a friend,” Ver joked. “But we love you anyway, so go on, sing.”

Robby, a few chairs down, was very obviously trying not to laugh, which somehow made the whole thing worse.

“Fine,” Allan said, standing with the dignity of a man walking to his own execution. “But someone else is singing with me. I refuse to suffer alone.”

“Robby! Robby!” the entire table said, more or less in unison, with a speed that suggested this had also been decided by committee well before Allan arrived.

“Me?” Robby said, pointing at himself with the least convincing surprise Allan had ever witnessed.

“You,” Tita Becky confirmed, already elbowing Tita Yolanda in anticipation.

Robby stood, brushing invisible dust off his shorts with exaggerated reluctance that did not fool a single person present, and joined Allan at the makeshift stage, two plastic chairs and a tarp-covered table that had, over the years, hosted every fiesta pageant and impromptu political rally the barangay had ever needed.

“I want it stated, for the record,” Allan said, “that I am being coerced.”

“There’s no coercion here,” Jake said, adjusting the ancient karaoke machine’s antenna with the focused care of a surgeon. “It’s all voluntary. There’s just a list, and your name happens to be on it.”

“I didn’t sign that list.”

“Tita Becky signed for you,” Jake said. “In your name. She says that’s legal.”

Jake, cackling, punched in a song number without consulting either of them.

The intro started. Allan recognized it immediately and closed his eyes in brief, silent despair.

“You picked this on purpose,” he told Jake.

“I did,” Jake said proudly.

It was, inevitably, a duet: Kailan by Smokey Mountain, covered by MYMP—one of those old OPM ballads that had played at every Filipino gathering since the dawn of videoke, the kind where the lyrics existed less as poetry and more as a public confession machine you were legally obligated to operate sincerely once the intro started.

Robby, to Allan’s genuine surprise, actually knew the words. Actually sang them, not well, off-key in a way that curved dangerously close to endearing, but with the full-bodied commitment of someone who had clearly grown up doing this at every fiesta of his life and had simply decided, tonight, to aim the whole performance directly at Allan.

The crowd noticed. Of course the crowd noticed. The BEBES were already elbowing each other so hard Allan feared for Tita Yolanda’s ribs.

Allan tried to match the commitment, badly, and found himself laughing through half his lines, which only made Robby grin wider and lean in closer during the chorus, microphone forgotten between them, singing directly at Allan’s face like this was a personal challenge rather than a song.

“You’re doing this on purpose,” Allan said, mid-verse, off-mic.

“You’re the one who said you didn’t want to do this alone,” Robby said. “I’m right here. Just follow me.”

By the final chorus, the whole plaza had joined in, Jake conducting with both arms like a deranged choir director, Ver filming with unnecessary enthusiasm, the BEBES swaying with their hands pressed to their chests in performative anguish. Robby’s voice cracked comically on the last high note, and Allan lost it completely, doubling over laughing, the microphone dangling forgotten from his hand.

When the song ended, the applause was loud, delighted, and completely disproportionate to the actual quality of the performance.

“Ten out of ten,” Jake declared. “For the joy of it, not the tune.”

“I have never been more humiliated,” Allan said, breathless, still laughing.