Every morning I wake up, head downstairs, turn my potato PC on, and play some good ole fashioned League of Legends. My younger brother shortly followed and turned on his even more potato PC as we play ranked duo together. We would trash each other’s performance and blame each other for dying.

At around a certain time, we would hear small knocks and high-pitched voices calling our names by our house’ gate. I frustratingly stood up and peeked over the gate and saw two brats – who were younger than me by four years – looking at me with high expectations.

I sighed and looked at my brother. He shrugged his shoulders, and I hesitantly opened the gate.

“Good morning, Kuya Anton, Kuya Alain” said the shameful brats, who barged in with no hesitation.

“Good morning,” I said plainly.

My brother looked at them and gave them the infamous eyebrow raise greeting. He was clearly too absorbed with the game.

I looked at them sitting by the sofa, then I left the gate open. They chattered about discussing about their days as I ignored them with their own devices. I soon returned to our game supporting my weak brother’s performance.

Some time passed again, and it was our second game, I looked back at the increasing noise and saw two more brats! One was lanky, skinny, and a little tall for his age and in his hands was a basketball. Another was a chubby little kid with a PSP in his hands entertaining the audience who watched him playing Tekken.

When I saw them, I didn’t mind them. In fact, I was surprised! By this time, there should be about six or ten of them right now. However, my surprised cooled down as a little girl with a long ponytail with her bobbed hair cousin in tow greeted us good morning with the loudest voices.

This was the typical morning of my summer when I was 14 years old. Our house turned into a de-facto “lobby” for kids. It became the hubbub or the typical hangout spot for the younger brats in the neighborhood. The kids here were energetic and loud as you can imagine. It’s as if they have a worm up in their butt that can only pulled out with playing.

My brother and I never intended this too happen. It just so happens that every time after we play outside, we always kept our gate open to let some air in. However, it didn’t only let air in, it brought some kids with it too. Soon more kids kept coming as we talked about our previous game and bought snacks from the nearby sari-sari store.

This became a repeating pattern that eventually these kids became so used to it that they just end up waiting by our house every summer morning to play outside. My brother and I didn’t think much of it when were younger but looking back it was kind of funny that these kids would rather spend time with us than in their own house. They took the time of day to make it convenient for them to play outside.