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In hindsight, Alfred should have known that there was only one way this could go. It doesn’t matter how quickly he runs out of his apartment, nor how fast he gets on the subway, and especially not how frantically he races to the hotel. Every lost second that passes by makes him antsy, and he has half a mind to bail out altogether.
Who could blame him? It isn’t every day that he comes face-to-face with the only nation he ever bought, governed, and gave independence to.
“Somebody’s late,” Isabelo chirps.
Alfred huffs. “Only by a few minutes. And being late is something I learned from you.”
A century ago, the taunt would have gotten him a blade on his throat. Fifty years ago, it would have been a coy smirk over a glass of whiskey, heated tension cutting through the smoke-filled room of Manila’s fledgling congress. Today, Isabelo only rolls his eyes, playfully knocking into him as they step out of the Hilton.
“It’s been a while since I’ve been in New York,” Isabelo says. His purple eyes are bright and mischievous. “We’ve got some time to kill before the show. Walk me around?”
“That’s the plan.” Alfred grins.
When word got out that a Filipino would be making her Broadway debut — as the lead actress no less, and fresh off an award-winning performance in London — Isabelo immediately hounded Alfred to get him a ticket. When and where didn’t matter: Alfred got pestered in meetings, conference breaks, and even emails. Luckily, it wasn’t too difficult to pull some strings as soon as they ironed out the details with their respective embassies. Alfred doesn’t recognize the musical, but he trusts Isabelo enough to go blind.
He can tell how much the other nation had been looking forward to the occasion. Alfred’s simple button-down feels downright schlubby compared to Isabelo’s stylish suit jacket and shined leather boots, an ensemble pulled together by a thin chain of gold around his neck. The sleek illusion might be marred by the mustard dripping down their fingers, but the joy of a warm hotdog in the spring far outweighs any fashion choice. It is in laughter that Alfred and Isabelo try to manage their little food disaster, the usual hustle and bustle passing by.
“Oh God, I remember when you dragged me to the inauguration,” Isabelo says. They’re by the corner of 50th and 6th, just across Radio City. “A full orchestra they had before, and now they’ve got a Britpop duo onstage. Makes you think.”
“You’re so mean.”
“I’m just saying.” Isabelo’s voice is teasing. “I’m very, very jealous. You have a little piece of Arthur with you, even at home.”
“So mean,” Alfred repeats. The redness of his face can surely be blamed on the pollen. “He doesn’t even know how much I like him yet. How did you find out?”
Isabelo wags a playful finger at him. “I have my sources. And you have no clue how obvious your little crush is! Really, you should see how easily you melt when he chides you at meetings. He’s the only one who can pull you out of hero mode.”
“You’re killing me here.”
“I’m trying my best,” Isabelo says cheerily. His face softens into a small, bittersweet smile. “But I am happy for you.”
That isn’t fair.
Alfred clears his throat. He puts on a cheesy grin as he slings an arm around the smaller nation’s shoulders. “Dude, I’m happy for you too! You’re looking loads better than you used to. Guess finally getting some sun is doing you good, huh?”
Purple eyes narrow at him for a moment, but Isabelo lets the subject change pass. Airily, he says, “No high quite like getting rid of the boss that locked you up for years. Toppling a dictator is fun — you should try it sometime.”
“You might have heard that I’m busy toppling communism,” Alfred says, amused.
“Look at us, beacons of democracy,” Isabelo quips, not missing a beat. “On vastly different scales, of course, but I guess there’s no beating a superpower.”
There’s a tinge of self-deprecation in the words that Alfred doesn’t like. He wants to remind Isabelo of who he is and what he gave the world: the first constitutional republic in Asia, the first Asian president for the United Nations, the first modern nation to prove that a bloodless revolution was not only possible, but powerful enough to end tyrants. And there’s the more personal, more private aspects too: the first person he invited to shows; the first person he danced with at balls; the first person who lived with him for nearly fifty years. Alfred doesn’t know what weighs on him more.
He’s still mulling over the best response when the hotdog vendor gives them a dirty look. Alfred drops his arm, suddenly self-conscious, and he nudges Isabelo to leave.
Walking east leads them through the rest of Rockefeller Center. Isabelo tries to talk him into shopping; Alfred reasons that they can’t risk losing track of time. Alfred tries to talk him into shawarma; Isabelo reasons that they’d be better off getting a late dinner after the show. The bickering is so easy and comfortable that, if it weren’t for all the modern cars and brands around them, Alfred might have traveled back in time.
It used to be his every day, once. He didn’t realize how much he missed it.
Isabelo brightens as they approach St. Patrick’s Cathedral. He runs past Alfred to get there first, nearly bumping into a few people exiting the 4PM mass.
“It’s in Spanish,” Isabelo beams at him, a mix of breathless and giddy.
“Uh.” Alfred is dumbfounded. The Latino population of New York City is not a closely guarded secret. “Yeah?”
Isabelo laughs. “Nothing, I’m just remembering. I used to hate it when you forced English on me. You might’ve taught it in the schools, but I still had Spanish everywhere else.”
“Stubborn,” Alfred recalls, and Isabelo laughs again. “It kept bugging me. I thought you would’ve stamped out every last bit of Antonio’s influence.”
“You’re the last person who should be saying that,” Isabelo points out. Alfred shrugs. The other nation looks up at the basilica’s sharp spires, his expression unreadable. “By that point, Spanish didn’t feel like it was his. And I didn’t like you getting all up in my business, changing my ways, acting like you were better. You could call it my own personal revolt against you and Antonio. I’d take what you had and make it mine.”
“I was just trying to help,” Alfred mutters.
The other nation only smiles. “Pendejadas.”
“Isa,” Alfred says. It’s a dirty move and they both know it: the last time Alfred used that nickname, it was before taking the last plane out of Corregidor. “You know I mean that.”
For spring, the wind is unbearably cold.
“Well,” Isabelo says. He would look gentle to anyone else, but Alfred sees the steel in his sharp, purple gaze. “I’m not going to pretend that makes up for anything.”
The pigeons fly off in droves as the bells toll, and Isabelo’s gaze softens as he watches them soar to the sky. Alfred watches him, joyful and chatty and all things he never got to be, back when the stately, decorated men of Washington were breathing down on his neck. At least you’re not helpless and alone, Alfred told him then, thinking of the nights he spent waiting for a British ship to dock at his ports. He was never good at comfort.
He's about to ask whether the other nation wants to pray or something, but Isabelo grabs his arm and stares up at him with a challenge. “Are you going to lead the way to our next stop, or should I?”
Alfred thinks back to a sunset of yesteryears. In their first meeting, it was Isabelo touring him around Manila. “You know the city well enough. Didn’t it inspire your new capital?”
They pass by the giant Atlas statue across the street. Once upon a time, Alfred felt a deep sense of accomplishment at seeing the titan’s bronze figure carry the world on his shoulders; this time, he deliberately looks away.
“Oh, you know how it goes.” Isabelo’s grip has loosened enough that Alfred could wrench himself free. He doesn’t. “Besides, I’ve got bigger things in my life to worry about than a new capital: who’s dating who, my work-out routine, saving up for a camera, and all that.”
“You’re ridiculous,” Alfred says, almost admiringly. He notices that they’ve already stopped, and he has to stifle his laughter when he realizes where they are. “Seriously?”
Isabelo grins. “Seemed appropriate.”
556 Fifth Avenue has been a lot of things over the years. When the building first opened at the turn of the century, it was an art gallery. Sometime after that, it was a chocolate candy store. The building was then abandoned for about twenty years. And now…
“My consulate in San Francisco is prettier,” Isabelo says. “But the original is fine too.”
If Alfred squints, he can vaguely imagine the fine stonework buried underneath the flaking, freestanding stucco. “You do realize you brought us further from the theater?”
“Eh,” waves off the other nation. Alfred snorts as Isabelo lets him go, making a big gesture at the hut-like roof over the entrance doors. “It’s my first time here, you know. And honestly, this was long overdue. You did me so dirty by not giving me a proper place in DC until 1941! My senators used to say, Oh Beloy, for how rich they are, they couldn’t even spare us a pot to piss in. It was horrible. And I said—”
“Manolo, those American mouths are always open: you only need to aim,” Alfred finishes. There is a long-buried pride that flutters in his chest when Isabelo lets out a shocked cackle, and he can’t help but preen. “See, I haven’t forgotten our stories.”
Isabelo gives him a look. “Ah, but you still liked me back then.”
Alfred shrugs. “You were still mine, back then.”
Purple eyes stare at him, and for a moment, Alfred is plunged back into cigarette smoke in the winter dawn, rumpled sheets, and the naivete of who they used to be.
“You know, I was never really sure how to explain it,” Isabelo says softly. “On paper, sure, we had separated. But the others were wary when I started joining the Asian conferences. Even though you were already fighting the next war, it was like they still couldn’t see who I was beyond you. They asked so many questions about what you did to me and what we were to each other, and I didn’t know what to say.”
Isabelo laughs to himself. “They just saw an idiot who couldn’t let you go. I was so mad. We were barely talking — middle of the Red Scare, you were too busy for little old me — but my country was still so tied to yours. Back then, I could comfort myself with the thought that you liked having me around, yet when I became free…”
He shakes his head with a small, sad smile.
Alfred slowly asks, “But it’s better now, right? This way, I can focus on my own thing and you can focus on yours. We don’t need anybody else but ourselves.”
“Is that really what you think?”
“It’s what you fought for.”
“And we haven’t spoken this long in the decades since, señorito,” Isabelo says, the pet name as dangerously acerbic as it was a century past. His eyes are bright. “Clearly, I’m just another regret to you and not a nation, so it’s fine to avoid me even when your generals and businessmen keep forcing themselves into my—"
“Isa—”
“Don’t you dare.”
“Isabelo,” Alfred says. “Please.”
He offers his arm. Isabelo does not take it.
They retrace their steps in as much silence as New York allows.
Alfred wants to burst. An uncharacteristically slow pace brings them to the theater early enough that the lobby is only half-filled. Their usher, who must sense the tension, is quiet as she guides them to their box. By the time they’re seated, Alfred has flipped through his playbill so much that it’s already crumpled. He hears a loud peal of laughter from the orchestra rows, and he breaks.
“You know, this used to be a movie theater!” Alfred says, with forced cheer. “We went here once. Been through a lot of renovations though. I don’t know if you recognize it.”
“It was called The Colony,” Isabelo says.
“Right.” Alfred quickly realizes he is out of conversation topics. “Look, can we hit restart? We’re supposed to be enjoying ourselves tonight. You’ve traveled a long way to get here, and I don’t want this to end on a sour note.”
“...You really don’t know what this show is about.”
“Should I?”
Isabelo’s playbill has been folded into a fan, and like a classic debutante, he hides his face behind its flutter. Alfred plays along.
“Back in the 20s, this story about the misfortune of a young Japanese girl was very popular at my house. She got married to an American soldier and fell in love. But then the American leaves, and when he returns years later, he brings back a woman. He finds out that the girl gave birth while he was away, and the child complicates things for him and his new wife.” Isabelo chuckles, but Alfred can’t find the humor. “Eventually, the girl realizes that the man she loved had never truly seen her at all. So she gives up her son, and she gives up her life.”
Alfred frowns. “That’s the plot of Miss Saigon?”
“Of the opera that inspired it,” Isabelo says, putting the playbill down. “Who knows? Maybe things will turn out better for her this time.”
He hopes so, but the way Isabelo’s eyes darken makes Alfred doubt it.
“I don’t understand why you’d want to watch something like that with me,” Alfred says. In the privacy of their box, the truth slips out easier. “This entire day, I’ve had no idea how to talk to you. We’d be fine sometimes, and then you'd say something so angry…”
“I’m not angry.”
“Not even a little?” Alfred’s smile is tight. “I know what I’ve done to you.”
“You also know what Arthur has done to you, and you still want to stick your tongue down his throat,” Isabelo snipes back. It successfully diffuses the tension: Alfred is startled enough to snort, and Isabelo is appeased enough to simmer down. “I like having my freedom. I wish I didn’t have to give up your friendship to get it.”
“We’re friends!” Isabelo raises his eyebrows, and Alfred deflates. “Low-maintenance friends. I just have the whole world to take care of, you know. And your psycho boss had you confined in Malacañang anyway. It’s not like we could’ve met.”
“Now you’re conveniently forgetting the entire decades before that happened, and that it’s been five whole years since then!” Isabelo exclaims, more in disbelief than anything else. “I had to beg on my knees just to get this one day off with you. Don’t say that we see each other at conferences — I want to spend time with Alfred F. Jones, not America.”
Alfred hurts.
“I always have to be America,” he says hollowly.
He watches the other nation open his mouth and then close it, at a rare loss for words. The purple gaze boring into him is more intense than usual: it burns like the sun.
When Isabelo finally speaks, his voice is gentle.
“The biggest tragedy of Madame Butterfly is that she never realizes she has an identity beyond being a wife. So when she loses her husband and is about to lose her son, she doesn’t see any reason to live. But she’s wrong. She still has a loyal maid and a princely suitor; she’s not as alone as she thinks.” Isabelo puts his hand on Alfred’s, roughened by time and softened with compassion. “You’re wrong too.”
All these years, and Isabelo has kept his singular talent at disarming him.
“I—” Alfred stumbles, blinking fast. “That’s not something for you to decide. Not after everything that happened between us. For God’s sake, our relationship started with betrayal, and things haven't changed much since then! You can’t honestly say that you can look at me and see more than my mistakes.”
“Is that all you see when you look at me?” Isabelo says.
Alfred doesn’t answer. Instead, he smiles, bittersweet. “You know what kind of nation I’ve become since we put down my flag and raised yours. We said: today, you’ll be independent, and I’ll be a superpower. We thought we were growing up. But all we did was grow apart, and I don’t know if we got anything good out of it.”
Isabelo sighs.
“I think,” Isabelo says, “you’ve always been this kind of nation, because that’s how we met. Maybe you’re right and I shouldn’t even look at you. Maybe you deserve it.”
Alfred hangs his head in shame, but Isabelo continues. “Though if there’s anything I’ve learned from being caged and alone, it’s that we always can’t bear the cross of nationhood by ourselves. From being with Dirga, Malik, and the others, I’ve learned that being a nation can actually be pretty fun. And from being with you, back then, I’ve learned that enemies don’t have to stay enemies forever.”
The lights go down. The theater falls to a hush. The show is about to begin.
“For what it’s worth,” Alfred whispers, “I do see you as a nation. And I’m sorry.”
Isabelo laughs. “Oh, don’t be so serious, there’s plenty of ways you can make it up to me. I’ll see you in Manila next month — and I’m not taking no for an answer.”
The curtains rise.
Maybe the story is still a tragedy, but Alfred has hope that things are different this time.