My two other brothers

Manong Ralph (that’s the polite way of calling him), 20, is the eldest, and is, as of the time of writing, the tallest…but I keep telling him that time will come when I shall exceed his height and look down upon him and insult him for his short-ness—I’m joking, of course. He’s an English major at the University of the Philippines. We’ve been roommates since time immemorial. Yes, until now, we share the same room at Yakal Residence Hall, a university dormitory in campus, because the Dormitory Manager has refused to part us. Because of that, I’m losing my identity. Did I ever say our friends think we look alike? In reply, I tell them, “No, his nose is bigger than mine!”

He also has a new blog. I've finally convinced him to start one. And I'm thankful he didn't really pursue his idea of naming his online journal Glassed (you've read the story, alright).

Sean is the youngest in the family and, by far, the shortest—though I suspect that time will come when he will grow taller than me. But no! That cannot happen. Tonight, I shall take the vitamin supplements Tatay has, again and again, kept reminding me to consume. Back to Sean: he’s the sporty guy among the three of us. For instance, he was the first to learn to bike, to roller-skate, to shoot a ball, and to do many other things outside of the house, while I and Manong Ralph were so absorbed reading novels. He excellently plays table tennis—he has competed in various tournaments and won in them—and he swims pretty fast, too. When all of us took swimming lessons, all of our other classmates and even the instructor, were amazed at his dive. I thought it was a nice, little old dolphin doing the trick.

Here's one of the phone conversations we've had:

"Sean, you miss me already?"

"Siyempre hindi."

"Ows? Na-miss na kita." And then I'd howl in laughter, knowing what his standard reaction would be: a distorted face forced to look frowning when, in fact, it's on the verge of actually smiling.

"Hindi talaga kita na-miss, Manong (he calls me that, too)." This can be translated as: Yeah, yeah, sure I've missed you.

Isn't that sweet?