The Filipino Wonderkid: Road to the World Cup

Volume 3: The National Stage

Coach Ramirez gave them a free afternoon two days before the next match.

"No training," he said. "Rest your legs. Explore a little, if you want."

Rafael's hand shot up immediately. "Define explore."

"Not football-related. That's the only rule."

---

The team split into smaller groups almost instantly, half of them heading toward the mall a volunteer had recommended, the rest content to nap through the free hours instead.

Salcedo and Tomas claimed the classroom for a quiet afternoon, Salcedo insisting he just wanted to sleep while Tomas insisted just as firmly that he was staying to make sure Salcedo actually did.

"You don't have to babysit me," Salcedo said, already half-asleep on his mattress.

"I'm not babysitting. I'm resting too. Coincidentally, in the same room."

"Sure."

Enzo stayed behind as well, spending most of the afternoon re-taping the grip on his gloves for reasons nobody bothered questioning anymore.

"You redid that yesterday," Tomas said, passing by with a pillow under one arm.

"It wears down."

"In one day?"

"Faster than you'd think."

Tomas didn't argue further, mostly because arguing with Enzo about equipment maintenance had never once ended in his favor. He settled onto his own mattress instead, one eye still open toward Salcedo's corner of the room, the promise to "coincidentally rest in the same room" apparently a serious one.

---

Kai, Rafael, Miguel, and Marco ended up walking toward Abreeza together, Belle tagging along with her camera slung loose around her neck for once, not actively working.

"First mall in Mindanao," she said, reading a plaque near the entrance. "That's actually kind of historic."

"Everything here is 'first something,'" Rafael said. "First time flying. First time this far from home. First mall in Mindanao. I'm exhausted just reading about it."

The walk over took longer than expected, the afternoon heat pressing down on the sidewalk in a way that made even Rafael's usual commentary slow to a crawl. Marco fanned himself with a folded schedule sheet, mostly ineffective but committed to the effort anyway.

"How is it hotter now than during the match," he asked.

"No wind today," Miguel said.

"That's not comforting."

"Wasn't trying to comfort you. Just answering the question."

---

The mall itself dwarfed anything they'd seen in Tuguegarao, three floors of stores stretching in every direction, a cinema complex glowing at one end.

Rafael stopped dead in the middle of the entrance. "We're going to the movies."

"We just got here."

"Doesn't mean we can't plan ahead."

"You said that about the last mall too."

"It's a good philosophy. I'm sticking with it."

They checked the cinema schedule anyway, mostly to humor him, and found nothing that fit the timeline before the last bus back.

"Nothing works," Marco said, reading the showtimes.

"There's always next time."

"You said that about the durian stand too, before we even found it."

"I'm a consistent person, Marco."

---

They wandered without much direction for the first hour, Marco getting distracted by a sporting goods store, Miguel disappearing briefly into a bookstore and emerging with something he refused to show anyone.

Marco spent a solid twenty minutes inside the sporting goods store alone, examining a display of boots he had no intention of buying with a seriousness usually reserved for actual shopping decisions.

"You're not buying those," Rafael called from the doorway.

"I'm looking."

"You've been looking for twenty minutes."

"Looking takes time."

A store employee eventually approached, offering to size him for a pair, and Marco spent another five minutes politely explaining he had no money and no intention of buying anything, information the employee accepted with visible disappointment before wandering off toward a more promising customer.

He eventually emerged with nothing but a pair of grip socks, which he defended as "a necessary purchase" for reasons he couldn't fully articulate when pressed.

"What'd you buy?" Rafael asked Miguel.

"Nothing important."

"That's suspicious."

"Everything's suspicious to you."

"Only the interesting things."

Rafael tried twice more to peek into the bag before giving up, mostly because Miguel had gotten disturbingly good at angling it out of view without appearing to try.

"One day I'll know," Rafael said.

"Maybe."

"That's not a no."

"It's not a yes either."

---

Kai found himself drifting toward a small souvenir section near the food court, thinking about Sofia's very specific request from two nights earlier.

Sofia: bring back a coconut

He picked up a small carved coconut shell cup, polished smooth, clearly meant for tourists rather than actual coconut water.

"That's not really a coconut," Belle said, appearing beside him.

"It's coconut-adjacent."

"She's going to know the difference."

"She's ten. She'll be excited regardless."

Belle didn't argue that logic. She just watched him turn the cup over in his hands, deciding.

---

"You could get her an actual coconut," Belle offered. "There's a stall outside selling them fresh."

"That seems complicated to transport home."

"More complicated than a fake one that disappoints her?"

Kai considered that. "Fair point."

He bought the carved cup anyway, reasoning that a real coconut probably wouldn't survive a flight home in one piece, and Sofia would forgive the substitution eventually.

Belle wandered the souvenir aisle a while longer after that, picking up small items and setting them back down without buying anything herself.

"Not shopping for anyone?" Kai asked.

"Not this trip. Just looking."

"That's oddly restrained for you."

"I spend all my money on memory cards. There's a budget hierarchy."

"Fair enough."

---

By early evening, the group had reconvened near the food court, Rafael already scouting the different stalls with the seriousness of someone conducting actual research.

"We should try durian," Marco said, pointing at a stand near the corner.

Rafael's face changed instantly. "The smelly one?"

"That's the one."

"I've heard things about that fruit."

"Good things or bad things?"

"Both. Aggressively both."

---

They ended up at the stand anyway, Rafael approaching it with the caution of someone defusing something dangerous. The smell hit before the fruit did — sharp, sweet, undeniably strong.

"That's..." Rafael started, then stopped, unable to finish the sentence.

"Distinctive," Miguel offered.

"That's one word for it."

The vendor, amused, cut a piece and offered it forward. Rafael stared at it like it might move on its own.

---

"You have to try it," Marco said. "We're literally in the durian capital. It's basically required."

"Says who?"

"Says everyone. It's a whole thing here."

Rafael took the piece with visible reluctance, sniffed it once more, and finally took a bite.

The whole group watched his face for a reaction, someone from a neighboring stall even pausing mid-order to see how it would go, the durian-first-timer reaction apparently a small local spectator sport in its own right.

---

For a long moment, Rafael didn't say anything at all, chewing slowly, expression unreadable.

"Well?" Kai asked.

"It's..." Rafael paused again. "It's actually good? Why does it smell like that if it tastes like this?"

"Nobody knows," the vendor said cheerfully, clearly having heard the exact same reaction a thousand times before.

Rafael immediately asked for a second piece.

---

"I take it back," he announced, mouth still half full. "Durian is the best fruit in the Philippines. I'm converted."

"Ten minutes ago you called it the smelly one."

"That was before I understood it."

"You didn't understand anything. You just ate it."

"Understanding comes in many forms, Miguel."

---

Belle photographed the whole exchange without asking permission, catching Rafael's exact moment of conversion with perfect timing.

"That's going in the folder," she said.

"Which folder?"

"The one where I keep proof you were wrong about something."

"That folder must be enormous."

"You have no idea."

---

As the evening cooled, the group wandered toward Roxas Avenue, drawn by the smell of grilled food and the noise of a night market setting up along the street. Vendors called out prices, smoke rose from dozens of small grills, and the whole street buzzed with an energy different from the mall's air-conditioned quiet.

"This feels more real," Miguel said, taking it in.

"Real how?"

"Less curated. More like actual Davao instead of a mall that could be anywhere."

Kai understood what he meant without needing more explanation.

They passed a stall selling nothing but grilled corn, the vendor turning each cob slowly over the coals with practiced patience. Rafael bought two before anyone could stop him, insisting durian had "opened his palate to new possibilities."

"That's not how palates work," Miguel said.

"It's exactly how mine works now."

"You've had two food revelations in one hour."

"Three, if you count the mangosteen I stole from you earlier."

"You didn't steal it. I gave it to you."

"Under duress."

"You asked nicely."

"That's the same as duress, from the right angle."

Strings of bulbs crossed overhead between the stalls, uneven in height, some flickering just enough to notice. A radio somewhere played a song half the group recognized and half didn't, the older vendors singing along under their breath without seeming to notice they were doing it.

Belle raised her camera without being asked, capturing the lights before the group had even settled on where to eat.

"You're always working," Rafael said.

"This isn't work. This is just liking how something looks."

"Feels like the same thing with you."

"Maybe," she admitted. "Doesn't make it less true."

---

They moved down the row slowly, sampling in small bites — kilawin from one cart, skewers charring over coals at another, a bowl of balbacua that Marco declared better than anything he'd had all tournament, tournament technically not having started its food category, a detail Rafael pointed out and Marco waved off entirely.

Near the end of the strip, a boy weighed out lansones and mangosteen into small plastic bags, the fruit cheaper than any of them expected. Miguel bought a bag without needing convincing, popping one open before they'd even walked another ten feet.

"Good?" Kai asked.

"Very good."

"Sharing?"

"Absolutely not."

He relented eventually, tossing Kai one piece and pointedly counting how many were left afterward, as if tracking a debt he fully intended to collect.

"You're keeping score?"

"I'm keeping inventory. Different thing."

"Sounds the same."

"It's not."

---

They ate standing up, plates of grilled meat and rice passed between them, Rafael narrating his durian conversion story to anyone within earshot who hadn't already heard it twice.

"And then I understood," he was saying to a vendor who clearly hadn't asked. "The smell is a test. Only the worthy pass."

"That's not what happened," Marco said.

"That's exactly what happened."

---

Later, walking back toward the bus that would return them to the billeting school, Kai's phone buzzed. Sofia, predictably.

Sofia: did you get it

Kai: got you something. not exactly a coconut.

Sofia: explain

Kai: you'll see when I'm home.

Sofia: that's not an answer

Kai: it's the only one you're getting

He smiled, pocketing the phone, the carved coconut cup wrapped carefully in his bag alongside a small bag of dried mangoes Marco had insisted everyone needed.

Coach Ramirez was waiting near the gate when they finally got back, arms crossed, doing his usual headcount even for something as ordinary as a free afternoon.

"Everyone in one piece?" he asked.

"Rafael discovered durian," Miguel said. "Emotionally, he's a different person now."

"As long as he's physically the same person, I don't need details."

Rafael opened his mouth to offer details anyway, then thought better of it under Coach's flat stare.

Tomorrow, training would resume. Tonight, Davao had been enough on its own.

End of Chapter 11