His Diary

“What on earth are you talking about?!” Mari’s eyes widened in shock.

“I was the reason she ran off campus that night.” He broke into tears. He washed his hands on his face, shaking uncontrollably. “I read it! She wrote it in the novel I asked her to write.”

“She’s a writer. Of course, she has a wide imagination.” She walked to his couch and patted his shoulder. “It was just a dream she remembered.”

“I don’t think so. It really happened. I remembered that night.” He kept weeping. “I chased her that night, but I wasn’t able to catch up.”

Mari kept rubbing her nephew’s back, hoping that doing so could help.

“You can’t blame yourself for something you haven’t done.”

“I need to know the truth. I need to know why she ran away that night. Only then will I ever be calmed.”

“So, what would you do once you found out the truth?”

He shook his head. “Riri is now living her life in the web of lies I made.”

“You know how to disentangle her from that web. You just don’t want to do it.” She looked him straight in the eyes while holding both his shoulders. “You should be the first person she can trust, being her fiancé.”

*

When Mari left, Jiro went to their room and found Airi sound asleep.

He sat by her bedside, admiring her. He caressed her cheek with the back of his hand. “I missed doing this to you,” he whispered, leaned down, and kissed her lips.

She stirred a little, so he immediately got up and fixed himself as if nothing had happened. He was lucky she didn’t wake up. She only changed her sleeping position.

“You look peaceful when you sleep. I’m beyond happy to have you back to me.”

After fixing her blanket, he walked to the bookshelves and pulled out a black notebook with a purple spine. On his way to the balcony, he grabbed some pens. He drew the curtains before closing the sliding door.

He walked to the other end of the balcony, where a relaxing lounge space was. He didn’t mind the icy breeze from the overlooking sea.

A cushioned daybed sat against one side, layered with neutral-toned pillows featuring soft textures and geometric patterns. Warm lighting from a hanging pendant bulb and a small lantern on the floor created an inviting, intimate atmosphere, especially as the sky appeared to be transitioning into evening.

To not make any noise, he almost tiptoed on the floor made of wooden decking, partially covered by a light woven rug. A round, knitted pouf rested near the seating area, adding a casual, bohemian touch.

A pang of pain stabbed his chest as he turned the pages of his diary. He went through all of his entries from the moment he first saw Airi during the camping trip with the girl and boy scouts, when he experienced an unexplainable rush of happiness. His dimples appeared as he smiled at that memory. Then he moved to the next page, where he described his first day in high school when his crush from camping fainted in his arms. And so on… until he reached the page where he wrote about their prom night and the days after that.

Dear Diary,

Today marks the second day of Riri’s disappearance. Uncle Tenian and Aunt Lucia are downtrodden. Uncle Tenian’s disheveled hair indicated that he hadn’t jumped into the shower, and probably into his bed too. Aunt Lucia's dark circles were swollen, a sign of insomnia brought on by longing and anxiety over their daughter.

I'm extremely nervous, too.

It’s the second day of her abduction, but we still haven’t received any call for negotiation. We don’t know whether the abductors need money or not. And it’s making things worse. Our anxiety is escalating. Our brains won’t stop overthinking.

Is she really kidnapped?

Or did something worse happen to her?

We are looking at all possibilities, positive or bad.

Merry and Zai-zai also have no idea where Riri went after she vanished that night.

He stopped reading. Inhaled. The sun was already down the horizon. The stars twinkling from the distance lit the night sky. The cold breeze began to swoosh along with the waves crashing on the rocks and sand.

He continued to read the subsequent entries.

Dear Diary,

Honestly, I have been losing hope even in the capacity of our private police. We’re paying them for nothing! However, just as I was about to fire all the staff, we received a call from a small village clinic.

They have Riri!

After five days of searching, we have found her in a remote clinic several kilometers away from our town.

A middle-aged farmer brought her in, according to her attending nurse. He said that he found her lying unconscious by the roadside. She had several bruises and some scrape wounds…signs that she struggled to escape.

We contacted the farmer to get his statement. And we learned that he lives with his wife. We even asked him to go with us to see if the kidnappers’ hideout is near where he found Riri. We’re so glad he willingly extended his hand to assist us. Unfortunately, there were no signs of other possible places where Riri might’ve been kept. The village is only composed of less than a hundred households.

After our visit to the village served its purpose, we returned to the clinic and told Uncle Tenian and Aunt Lu that we had located Riri. They were ecstatic that their daughter was still alive.

We waited for her to wake up so the police could ask her what happened. However, when she opened her eyes, the first thing she did was cry and scream as if terrified of our presence. Fortunately, Mang Lanong, the farmer, and Aling Crising, his wife, stepped out and calmed her down. It worked! But we were baffled. How could she calm down with strangers but not with us, whom she knew? She was crying even with her parents’ presence.

I brushed it off. I was only fifteen to fully understand what was going on. Maybe the couple outsiders’ voices just had some relaxing tones that pacified her.

Jiro put the diary down when he saw that the limousine had already arrived. He watched as Mang Lanong got off the driver’s seat to open the door for Merry and Zai-zai. He studied how the old man would smile politely and show respect to their visitors.

He was grateful that after finding Airi, they hired the couple to be caretakers of their villa. He would sometimes question why his parents trusted them so readily, but he chose to ignore it. He couldn’t disagree with his parents, though everything happened so quickly.

*

Back in the study, Jiro sat seriously on his swivel chair. His back was against Merry and Zai-zai.

“Why the urgent call?” Merry asked. She was about to go home after work when Mang Lanong picked her up.

Jiro turned the chair to face them. His unblinking eyes and serious look hinted to the women that something important was about to be disclosed. “I need you to be honest.” He cleared his throat before continuing, unsure if he would get the answer he desired. “Tell me what you know about the night of the JS Prom.”

“Why are you getting back to square one again?” Zai-zai asked.

“Please. Just tell me. My conscience tells me I was the reason Riri ran off campus that night she was kidnapped.”

“What made you think so?”

“She added it in the story she was writing. Said it was just a dream she remembered.”

Zai-zai looked at Merry, hinting for her to answer.

“Well, the truth is—” Merry started, unsure whether to continue or not. “—she got jealous of you dancing with Frea that night. She was somehow anticipating that you’d ask her to dance.”

“I was supposed to, but she just left that night.”

“She told us about it while she was recovering. She said that the moment she stepped out of the school gate, someone had been stalking her.”

“Are you saying it was all planned?” he asked.

“Who knows? She only told us that while she was hiding from the two men, she heard them talking about you.”

“What about me?”

“She heard them say, ‘This girl is special to Jiro. Hurting her means hurting him, too.’ She tried her best to identify them, but she couldn’t.”