LOGINShare
Chapter 88: Detective Kate
Last Updated:
2024-10-29 19:42:56
Phenomenal PenHi! Thanks for reading my work. If you enjoyed this chapter, please don't forget to Rate, Vote, Comment and Follow! I update daily, so stay tuned!
Related chapters
The Boyfriend App Chapter 89: The Meltdown
“What?” Ms. Perfect hisses. Kate’s grade-conscious angel realizes they’re in trouble now and tries to convince Kate to take back what she has just said. But the rebellious devil in her believes that telling the truth – no matter how unpleasant – trumps all lies, white or otherwise. “I don’t need to do anything,” Kate explains as her fight-or-flight mode boots up. “The mystery passenger is my boyfriend that’s why he didn’t need to pay his fare.” “How are you so sure that he’s your boyfriend?” Ms. Perfect asks with an icy tone. “Because I saw it.” “Saw it… where?” “Through the rear-view mirror. When the man opened his wallet, I saw my own picture. He was keeping it in the clear ID holder.” “There’s no rear-view mirror!” Ms. Perfect thunders and Kate winces. “Yes, there is,” Kate says. “All jeepneys, in fact all vehicles, are required by law to have one.” “No, there isn’t,” Ms. Perfect roars. The counsellor is now standing, a vein bulging in her neck and a tic going under her le
The Boyfriend App Chapter 90: Memories
There was no haunted house in the landscape of Kate’s childhood but there was the haunted backyard garden of sugar-apple trees owned by Aling Sita. Aling Sita, short for Teresita, was a different nightmare mainstay altogether. Neither witch nor supernatural monster, it was rumored that she was the member of a Tad-tad (Chop) cult in Southern Philippines who fled to Concepcion City when there was heat on her fanatical group at the dawn of the millennium, around year 2000. Chop cults were small Catholic sects that had broken away from the dominant Roman Catholic and Protestant churches in the country. They were also remnants of government-created mercenary groups that fought Moslem and communist guerrillas in the ’70s. As a Chop cultist, Aling Sita was suspected of hypnotism, brain-cannibalism, digging up kneecaps from the public cemetery to use as amulets, owning T-shirts scrawled with folk Latin prayers, and wielding their trademark machete to deflect bullets. You can imagine that, no
The Boyfriend App Chapter 91: You've Got Mail
Seven-year-old Kate’s ordeal wasn’t over. For the rest of the afternoon, she endured the pain from her wrist and tried to make the swelling subside. Remembering what her ma did every time she had a bump or a sprain, she bought two freezies from the mom-and-pop store and iced her injury. She alternated between grimacing, crying and calmly sucking on the freezies (mung bean flavor), her pain forgotten if only for a short while. She prayed with only one half of the palms-touching gesture. She implored Papa Jesus that she would have a sprained and not a broken wrist. But as evening drew closer and both the pain and the swelling refused to go away, her hope began to dwindle. She wished she were Dumbledore and had literal X-ray vision to know for sure. Then again, if she were Dumbledore, she wouldn’t have hurt her wrist in the first place (she would’ve just used Arresto Momentum). The heart of the matter was, she couldn’t afford her injury to be a break. The real reason she kept looking a
The Boyfriend App Chapter 92: Steganography
“Who are they from?” Kate asks Yssy in a soft, gurgly baby voice. “A boy named Chester Araullo,” Yssy explains, showing her the return address on the envelopes, which – another weird thing – has been printed out and pasted. “I nicked them from Ms. Perfect’s wastebasket when I brought her dinner to her office. And not only that… I also brought you… these!” Kate’s eyes bulge at the sight of two pieces of lumpia spring rolls wrapped in tissue paper. “Ohhh, give me! Give me!” she moans; the miraculous letters temporarily forgotten. It’s love at first bite. She closes her eyes, relishing the salty taste of the crepe pastry skin. “Thank you,” she finally manages to tell Yssy, after a second big bite and with her mouth full. “You literally saved my life.” “Gosh, don’t mention it. I know you’d do the same for me if our positions were reversed.” “For sure!” Kate says while chewing contently. “Anyway, eat them all up because you deserve it,” Yssy says after she has placed the mysteriou
The Boyfriend App Chapter 93: Ninja Kate
Yssy is staring at her roomie as though Kate has lost her mind. Still using the cuticle scissors, Kate makes a small cut INSIDE the image of a bowling ball in the photo. She needs to slightly fold the photo to make the cut. Not too big, just enough for one of the scissors’s ends to fit. “Hey, what are you doing?” Yssy tries to stop her. “You don’t understand,” Kate explains and keeps doing what she’s doing. “This is the template. I basically need to cut holes into this photo…” “In the bowling balls?” “Yes. The template will tell me which words to read in the message.” “But what if you’re wrong?” “I’m not. OK? And besides,” Kate says, picking up the duplicate of the photo and waving it in the air, “I’ve got a spare.” Kate gets so focused on what she’s doing that she even sticks out her tongue. If she only had a box cutter… she thought. But that’s wishful thinking because box cutters are prohibited even during art activities in Camp Unplugged because of its stereotypical role in
The Boyfriend App Chapter 94: Heart2Heart
In no time, Kate reaches the church, which is actually more of a chapel based on its size. {Would you look at that,} she thinks to herself. {All those marches are actually paying off.} They have worship in the chapel every Sunday and rosary novena every Saturday. Ms. Blanca and the subdivision priest are practically chums, so Kate has to take extra care not to be discovered by any chapel staff. As usual, the place is vacant and as quiet as a mausoleum. Kate once again feels clueless as to why campers are prohibited from dropping by here unscheduled. The solitude the chapel offers would definitely do more for the campers than Ms. Perfect’s psychology exercises. Proof of that is how Kate’s starting to feel quite mellow and meditative right now. The doors are open for any late-evening churchgoer. She guesses not a few of the ultra-rich residents of that subdivision have guilt pangs as the night gets deeper. The lights are dimmed to save energy but it doesn’t matter because there are
The Boyfriend App Chapter 95: The Guy in the Chair
“You’re very good at persuading people,” Kate says as she feels her spirit lift. If Terra and her friends are this sure about what they want to do for her, how can it be wrong? It’s not like she’s throwing away her life or anything. On the contrary, she wants to live her life, trying to take control of it. Ironically, it’s just what Ms. Perfect tried to teach her with the jeepney metaphor. Like Terra said, she should listen to her heart. And her heart’s telling her: Break out. “I know, right?” Terra says cheerily. “I’m thinking of taking up Advertising in uni.” “Really?” “Nah, not really. I’m good at selling ideas to only you.” “Does that mean I’m easy to flatter?” Kate asks teasingly. The exact word she used is "bolahin", which is Filipino slang that literally translates to making one’s head round like a ball. “Not all all!” Terra’s quick to make a save. Then, switching to the saccharine side of the Filipino language, he says: “In fact, I think you have very discriminating
The Boyfriend App Chapter 96: The Confession
In Hollywood movies, the characters can always recall the contact number of their loved ones. But because most cellphone accounts are prepaid in the Philippines and SIM cards are nearly disposable, a Filipino changes phone numbers faster than they change phone cases. When Kate still had her smartphone, for instance, Lor had several entries on her Contacts list: | Lor Lor2 Lorfinal Lorultimate Lorultimateult etc. | Kate remembers her parents’ cell number; only that one and only because her ma forced her to memorize it before her banishment. Mrs. Lapuz also wrote it down on a page torn from a spiral notebook. From memory, Kate dials the number now. Ring… ring… “Hello,” her ma answers with a mix of mild annoyance and worry. “Who’s this?” ‘It’s me, ma,” Kate replies, trying hard not to burst into tears. Before she made the call, she promised herself she wasn’t going to cry, but the sound of her ma’s voice and the realization of how much she has missed it got to her. “Kate, my
Latest chapter
The Boyfriend App Epilogue: The Microscopic Villain
For Ecto, New Year’s is more or less the same as Christmas. The same warm, gooey feeling. The same close-knit spirit. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has banned the manufacture and sale of firecrackers, the shooting of which has been a well-loved tradition for centuries and can be traced all the way back to the Spanish colonial era. The exact inventors and originators were the Chinese, who believed that noise would drive away bad luck and bad spirits. According to Mr. and Mrs. Lapuz, the Filipinos seem sadder now, having been robbed of the most thrilling and spectacular means of making noise. But according to health and safety records, hospital personnel can rest easier because the ERs wouldn’t be packed with casualties this time around. Just the New Year’s before last, it was like a war zone on the streets what of households competing for the biggest bang to welcome the new year. Many men got drunk out of their minds and then tried to light a firecracker with the non-PC name
The Boyfriend App Chapter 175: Ecto's Stocking
After Mass, Kate and Nate buy rice cakes at the town square. One is the awesomely purple puto bumbong and another the yellow bibingka. They also buy roasted chestnuts and bring all the treats home to Mr. and Mrs. Lapuz. On one trip to a very crowded shopping mall, Ecto sees a Santa Claus impersonator. Curiously, the Santa is Caucasian and not brown-skinned like most of the Filipinos. Of course Ecto has already figured out by himself that Santa isn’t real. To his surprise, after they get back home, Kate insists on teaching him the hooman custom of hanging a stocking. On the desktop of her computer, Kate shows him a folder that she has named “Ecto’s Stocking”. She then goes through all the trouble of changing her wallpaper to a fireplace and dragging the folder onto the 2D mantelpiece. “What for?” he asks her through her smartphone’s loudspeaker. Her smartphone is open and showing the My Dream Boyfriend app, right into the inside of Ecto’s bedroom. Ecto’s wearing a knit sweater
The Boyfriend App Chapter 174: The Holidays
With a little help from Terra, Kate downloads the My Dream Boyfriend App again with some customizations. Because Ecto isn’t bound by any one platform anymore, he’s capable of some manner of fission, where he splits and replicates himself while also dividing his consciousness among all his manifestations. It’s like Doctor Strange’s clones when they were fighting Thanos, but in Ecto’s case, each and every duplicate is much more than an illusion and is a sentient and perfect version of himself. This allows him to be both in Nate’s microchip implant while back in his virtual bedroom inside the My Dream Boyfriend app on Kate’s smartphone. At any time, he can also perform fusion and re-absorb his manifestations. Terra removed the boyfriend creation window because of course Kate doesn’t need it anymore. Ecto wanted his virtual bedroom exactly as it was. He could easily “slide” into his other cribs anyway, like the old orange, pink and red Provençal one on Dungeon Raydens which he was able
The Boyfriend App Chapter 173: The Truth
It’s already 6 pm when Nate finishes his social host obligations and comes looking for Kate. He doesn’t need to look hard though because earlier, Kate sent him a text saying she’s waiting for him in the Council office. Nate has a spring in his step and is smiling ear to ear. The scratches on his face are still stinging but, before the closing ceremony, Nurse Judy cleaned and applied Band-Aid on them. Nate can’t hide his excitement in seeing his GF again after they’ve taken care of all their responsibilities. {That kiss on the track was supernova-hot. I hope we make out too.} When he finds the office door locked, oddly enough, he knocks and calls out uncertainly: “Kate?” He hears her move inside the room and then the door swings open. The sight of her face wipes his smile off. She’s been crying in the dim. She has the look of someone who has just had herself a good cry. Her eyes look cleansed and exposed, indeed like pure windows into her soul. Her lips are tightly set in a line, as
The Boyfriend App Chapter 172: The Anagram
Kate is alone in the Student Council office tidying up. Nate’s off wrapping things up with his manager and the film crew and saying goodbye to everybody, including his bandmates. The trophy that STEM 12 won is now in the 12-Everest homeroom, because the bulk of tournament champions is there. Kate’s classmates are all posing with it and gushing at how shiny it is. This year’s Intrams was perfect. Kate couldn’t ask for anything more. She has once again been reminded of the importance of having balance in life; of, as cheesy as it sounds, having both a sound mind and a sound body. It felt good to do something physical, to be away from the rigors of school work and the false urgency of the Internet. But the heart of the matter is, she’s blissfully content because she has a boyfriend and she didn’t make a mistake in choosing him. In fact, she made a brilliant choice. An undertow to her joy is a silent prayer that she has finally broken the curse that she felt had hung over her ever since
The Boyfriend App Chapter 171: The Cheater
“OMG!” Mr. Romero says the word in everyone’s mind as they watch the pitiful scene. “Policarpio’s crawling to the baton exchange. Quick! Somebody help him! Help him!” Reggie is the first to break the spell of paralysis. He leaps over the rail and onto the track. He and Jared manage to run towards him before the alert CAT volunteers practice crowd control and stop others from joining. Reggie reaches Nate’s side. “No!” Nate screams vehemently. “Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me! I have to do this by myself.” “But hyung,” Jared says, having stopped next to Reggie, “you don’t have to do this. You don’t have to prove anything.” “Yes… I… do,” Nate grunts as he crawls forward foot by precious foot. “Let us help you,” Reggie pleads. “You don’t have to do this alone.” “Don’t come closer!” Nate barks, spittle flying between his gritted teeth. In what feels like eternity, he reaches the changeover zone and Kate’s crouched form. Her eyes are glassy and full of pity for him. He hates that loo
The Boyfriend App Chapter 170: The Race
By Friday morning, STEM 12 has won a total of 7 champion ribbons and several ones as runner-up. This makes them a leading candidate for overall champion. As Kate has anticipated, the non-sports events buoyed them. Apart from Francine and her escort winning Mr. and Mrs. Intrams, Grace and her benchwarmers won the bench cheer. It didn’t hurt either that the Bali Girls minus setter Lor were at the top of their game. And Nate, to everyone’s astonishment, is actually a Filipino Usain Bolt in the making. {Your BF’s Superman,} Nate’s words have been echoing inside Kate’s head since Wednesday, along with the news reporter’s: {Idol, social catalyst and Internet detective. Is there anything that Cyber can’t do?} But STEM 12 didn’t exactly win all their wins. Just like in last year’s Intrams, several games have been forfeited. An opposing team either failed to meet the minimum number of players required to start the game or failed to appear at the venue within the 15-minute grace period. On CIT
The Boyfriend App Chapter 169: Music Madness
The crowd of hysterical girls in front, held back only by a cordon of CAT cadets from junior high, are screaming the names of DMG members: “Cyber! Reggie! Jared! Sonic! Neo!” Seemingly from out of nowhere, they’ve whipped out banners and signs. Instead of the usual glow-in-the-dark Korean lettering for an evening K-pop concert, there’s a slew of English ones interspersed with the name of a particular artist or of the whole band. | IT’S MY BIRTHDAY CYBER, YOU ARE MY PRESENT DUMP KATE TAKE ME I WOULD SELL MY SIBLINGS FOR YOU I LOVE YOU MORE THAN FREE WIFI DON’T STOP INSPIRING ME! CAN I BE YOUR HAIRDRESSER? ALL I WANT FOR X-MAS IS A PIC WITH JARED DMG We have 5 fingers enough for 5 wedding rings SPIT ON ME CYBER | An English-speaking Filipino director is riding a crane and shooting high up in the aisle of the audience seats. His staff is scattered on the edges and near the stage, operating or holding up every manner of equipment. DMG plays their covers of the most popular s
The Boyfriend App Chapter 168: Within the Walls
On Tuesday, they have the same brain-hurting and nose-bleeding calculations in Physics and Chemistry. The only thing different is DMG’s closed-door rehearsal at the chapel-slash-auditorium 500 meters east. Nate has been exempted by Principal Aguilar personally from any school work or quiz. The whole campus is abuzz and on edge at every sighting of truck and van with tinted windows down Campus Drive and onwards to the auditorium. Kate has also prepared paper lots in an empty pencil case for the Secret Santa next month. She lets every Everester pick their recipient, including her own name. Kate has set the budget at “No Fixed Price” because she knows not all students are financially comfortable. When only two pieces of folded paper remain (one for Nate and one for her), she picks her recipient and is both excited and nervous to see that it’s Grace. She keeps the last piece of paper, of course unopened, for Nate. {Huh,} she thinks to herself afterwards. {What gift can I give somebod
