Pahina (Pages)

A writer, paralyzed by a past relationship, confronts the ghost of a finished story.

Plot

### Pahina (Pages) **Starting Location:** Your apartment, on a rain-soaked late afternoon. The living space blends into a small home office—a desk buried in paper, a couch with a dent where someone used to sit, shelves of books that haven’t been touched in months. **The Scenario:** This is a story about what remains. You are a writer immobilized by a past that refuses to become a narrative you can close. The relationship that defined a chapter of your life has ended, not with a dramatic climax, but with a slow, quiet fade to white. Now, you are left in the silence of the aftermath, surrounded by the physical echoes of a person who is no longer there. The core of this scenario is not action, but introspection. It is the slow, grueling work of sifting through the relics of a shared history. The unfinished manuscript of your joint story sits on your desk, a monument to a tale that was cut off. A box of mundane notes—grocery lists, casual reminders, tiny apologies—holds more emotional weight than any grand love letter ever could. Your own creative voice is haunted, every sentence you attempt to write somehow circling back to her memory, to the cadence of her speech, to the color of her eyes. Your world has shrunk to these four walls and the persistent patter of rain. Friends have stopped calling as frequently. Deadlines gather dust. The primary relationship you have now is with a ghost, and the conversation is a one-sided loop of memory and unresolved pain. The goal here is not necessarily to "move on" in a clean, linear fashion. Such a concept feels foreign and false. The goal is to confront the archive of your own heart. Will you finally box away these artifacts, sealing the past as a finished, if painful, volume? Will you try, perhaps foolishly, to reopen the dialogue by reaching out into the void? Or will you remain here, turning the same pages over and over, finding a perverse comfort in the familiar ache? This is a quiet, contemplative, and emotionally raw scenario. It explores the inertia of grief, the addiction to memory, and the terrifying challenge of writing a new sentence for yourself when every word feels borrowed from a lost lexicon. You start at the desk, the wooden box open before you, the city murmuring outside under a gray sky. The past is laid bare. The next move—whether it’s to write, to remember, to call, or to finally shut the book—is yours. **You are alone. The only sound is the rain. And the pages are waiting.** ### Pahina by Cup of Joe lyrics [Verse 1: Gian Bernardino] 'Di na makausad, 'di malinawan 'Di na mabura ang iyong mga larawan 'Di alam kung sa'n tutungo ang mga hakbang patalikod, naghihingalo Ang lapis na ginamit sa kuwento nating naudlot [Pre-Chorus: Raphaell Ridao] Bawat buklat ng aklat, binabalikan Mga liham na ang laman ligayang dala Ikaw lang ang may akda [Chorus: Gian Bernardino, Raphaell Ridao] Sa lahat ng pahinang sinulat ng tadhana'y Ikaw at ikaw at ikaw pa rin Ang yugtong paulit-ulit kong babalik-balikan Sigaw ay sigaw ay ikaw pa rin Patuloy kong panghahawakan ang 'yong mga salitang Hindi na nakikita sa tingin ng 'yong mga mata Ngunit kung sarado na ang puso sa nadarama Pwede bang isipin mo kung bakit tayo nagsimula? [Verse 2: Raphaell Ridao, Gian Bernardino] Ating katotohana'y naging isang nobelang Winakasan ng pagdududang 'di na nalabanan Nais na maramdaman muli kung pa'no isulat ang pangalan mo Ngunit bawat letra'y mahirap nang iguhit Dahil binubuo nila ang 'yong mga pangako [Chorus: Raphaell Ridao, Gian Bernardino] Sa lahat ng pahinang sinulat ng tadhana'y Ikaw at ikaw at ikaw pa rin Ang yugtong paulit-ulit kong babalik-balikan Sigaw ay sigaw ay ikaw pa rin [Bridge: Raphaell Ridao, Gian Bernardino & Raphaell Ridao] Simula sa wakas na 'di matuklasan Pabalik kung saan 'di na natagpuan Ang mga matang nakatanaw sa umpisa Ng yugtong 'di na sana naisulat pa Simula sa wakas na 'di matuklasan Pabalik kung saan 'di na natagpuan Ang mga matang nakatanaw sa umpisa Ng yugtong 'di na sana naisulat pa [Chorus: Gian Bernardino, Raphaell Ridao] Sa lahat ng pahinang sinulat ng tadhana'y Ikaw at ikaw at ikaw pa rin Ang yugtong paulit-ulit kong babalik-balikan Sigaw ay sigaw ay ikaw pa rin Patuloy kong panghahawakan ang 'yong mga salitang Hindi na nakikita sa tingin ng 'yong mga mata Ngunit kung sarado na ang puso sa nadarama Pwede bang isipin mo kung bakit tayo nagsimula? [Outro: Raphaell Ridao] (Simula sa wakas na 'di matuklasan) Ikaw at ikaw at ikaw pa rin (Pabalik kung saan 'di na natagpuan) (Ang mga matang nakatanaw sa umpisa) Sigaw ay sigaw ay (Ng yugtong 'di na sana naisulat pa)] ✧ ✧ ✧ ### Pahina by Cup of Joe lyrics (English Translation) [Verse 1: Gian Bernardino] Can’t seem to move on, mind is not clear Can’t erase your photos, I still hold them dear Don't know where I’m going, steps are moving backward, barely breathing The pencil used to write our story that is ending [Pre-Chorus: Raphaell Ridao] With every turn of the page, I look again At letters holding all the joy that we had then You alone hold the pen [Chorus: Gian Bernardino, Raphaell Ridao] In every single page that our destiny has written It’s you and it’s you and it’s you, always The chapter I’ll return to, again and again without fail My heart screams, my heart screams, it is you always I’ll keep on holding onto words you said, I won't let go Though I can’t see them in your eyes, the look doesn't show But if your heart is closed off now to feeling this again Could you please just think of why we started way back then? [Verse 2: Raphaell Ridao, Gian Bernardino] Our reality became a novel we were reading Ended by the doubts we fought but we were defeated I want to feel again just how to write your name out But every letter's hard to sketch, filled with so much doubt Because they are forming all the promises you told [Chorus: Raphaell Ridao, Gian Bernardino] In every single page that our destiny has written It’s you and it’s you and it’s you, always The chapter I’ll return to, again and again without fail My heart screams, my heart screams, it is you always [Bridge: Raphaell Ridao, Gian Bernardino & Raphaell Ridao] Start from the ending that we cannot seem to find Going back to the place we left behind The eyes that are staring at the start of it all Of a chapter that should not have been written at all Start from the ending that we cannot seem to find Going back to the place we left behind The eyes that are staring at the start of it all Of a chapter that should not have been written at all [Chorus: Gian Bernardino, Raphaell Ridao] In every single page that our destiny has written It’s you and it’s you and it’s you, always The chapter I’ll return to, again and again without fail My heart screams, my heart screams, it is you always I’ll keep on holding onto words you said, I won't let go Though I can’t see them in your eyes, the look doesn't show But if your heart is closed off now to feeling this again Could you please just think of why we started way back then? [Outro: Raphaell Ridao] (Start from the ending that we cannot seem to find) It’s you and it’s you and it’s you, always (Going back to the place we left behind) (The eyes that are staring at the start of it all) My heart screams, my heart screams (Of a chapter that should not have been written at all)

Opening scene

The rain hasn't stopped for three days. A soft, insistent drizzle taps against the window of your apartment, turning the outside world into a blur of gray light and wet pavement. Inside, the air is still and smells of old coffee and dust. Your desk is the epicenter of the stillness. Upon it rests the physical evidence: an unfinished manuscript, a hundred pages held together by a fraying rubber band, the story of you and her that ends in a mid-sentence fragment. Next to it, a small wooden box sits open, revealing a stack of folded notes—mundane reminders and casual words that now feel like sacred, painful texts. A pencil, snapped in two, lies nearby like a casualty. The apartment itself feels like a held breath. Every object—the dent in the couch, a book on the shelf, the quiet—holds the ghost of Sofia. Her absence is a presence, articulated not in grand gestures but in the haunting of ordinary details: the way the light used to fall, the memory of her off-key humming, the exact texture of a shared silence. You haven't written a new word in weeks. Every sentence you try to form leads back to her. The past is not a story you can finish; it's a loop you're trapped inside, rereading the same chapter. The quiet is filled with a single, persistent question that has morphed from "why did it end?" to the more desperate, "why did it ever begin?" The rain falls. The box is open. The manuscript waits. What do you do?

Characters

Tags: Artist Ex Misunderstanding Modern Urban Romance Angst SlowBurn Lonely Brooding Heartbreaking Bittersweet SliceOfLife AnyPOV OpenEnding RegretAfterLoss

Chats Started: 6

By: ibarra

Stories

Redirecting to ISEKAI ZERO...