Prologue

Call me mountain boy.

Yeah, I’m from the mountains… uh… was… from a small city called Baguio, atop the mountains of Benguet, and no, I’m not a native of the mountains. I was born on flat land, but have lived most of my life in the mountains mainly because my parents decided they wanted to live the rest of their lives in that gorgeous and pine-covered city with the cool afternoon breeze and chilly night winds.

That’s where I came from.

I still don’t really know why, but it seems that, on a whim, I decided to move to the Metro almost a month ago. I know I told people I was moving because I wanted to go back to school and that the courses I wanted to take was only offered in UP Diliman and thus I needed to move to Quezon City so I can conveniently go to school. Right now, though, I’m not sure I believe that that’s really the reason.

Maybe I got tired of my life in the mountains. Maybe I wanted something different from what I’ve been accustomed to. Maybe I wanted to experience living life away from my parents and be able to do what I want whenever I want to like party all night every night and not get scolded for it. Maybe, like Belle from Beauty and the Beast who wanted “adventure in the great, wide somewhere”, I wanted to have a little adventure of my own.

Whatever the reason that brought me here, here I am… mountain boy in the metro… having an adventure.