Open Rice. The rice. Where is the rice?

[Angelo Dela Cruz]

Angelo was hungry. He was so hungry. Sometimes it felt like the school was keeping him hungry on purpose. Why would they do this to him? It was so unfair. He just wanted some good old rice so he could feel full for once and not be sooooo... weak during the day. He wasn't even going to complain that there were virtually no Filipino dishes on the menu, he could make do with whatever meat they were serving on the table. But rice. Come on. He'd gone from having it at least three times a day to like what? Every three? Five? Seven days? This was just... He couldn't. He was so hungry. It didn't help that Astronomy ran late last night so it felt like he didn't have much sleep at all. And then had a class this morning. And now it was lunchtime and the first thing he saw when he entered the Great Hall was there was still no rice. "Packing shet na yaaaan," he cried out loudly in frustration as he marched towards the Hufflepuff table. He could cuss, not like anyone here understood anyway, he was getting tired of having to speak English day in and day out and he hadn't even managed to come home for Christmas and New Year because plane tickets cost an arm and a leg so he could only go every end of year so he hadn't even seen his mum in like forever. And so he continued to vent as he sat down. Loudly. "Rice lang! Mahirap ba magsaing?! Ako na! Ako nalang magsasaing! Mahal ba bigas?! Gusto ko lang naman ng kanin," he lamented, relief flooding him when he could finally rant out in his own language for once. "You! How much is rice in this country?! Do you not have rice?!" Okay so maybe he was getting a little bit hysterical. But he was lacking sleep, lacking food, and homesick. So did he care? No. Not really.​

*This f***ing sh*t
*Just rice! Is it that hard to cook rice?! I'll do it! I'll cook the rice! Is rice that expensive?! I just want rice

 

[Aaron Dela Cruz]

Aaron jumped when he suddenly heard someone shouting in Filipino, and turned from where he was eating his chicken. He figured it must be Angelo, but he couldn’t see from here and so he stood up, leaving his chicken where it was and heading over to where he had heard it come from. “Ah! Buboy calm down huh?” He kind of got it though, he’d missed rice recently too, but maybe wasn’t as used to eating it as Angelo, since his mum was Iranian and she did’nt always make rice. Sometimes when Jenny was cooking he would have rice all day, but it wasn’t that often since his mum liked cooking. His dad always wanted the beef though so they had a lot of beef. He sighed as he slipped onto the bench next to the other boy, reaching out to pat him on the back. “Alam ko, man, ang hirap,” he said, shaking his head in commiseration. Rice was life a lot of the time and it really did kind of suck that they didn’t have rice as an option, because it would have been nice. And he was homesick a lot of the time because he didn’t see anything or smell anything that he was used to back home. “I swear, feeling ko feeling nila na potatoes lang ‘yung carbs na kailangan natin. Mash, chips, roast—pero asan ‘yung kanin, ha? Where’s the justice?”

*I know, man, it's hard
*I swear, I feel like they think that potatoes are the only carbs we need. Mash, chips, roast - but where's the rice, huh?​