Ube Halaya Confessions

Mina Santos learned early that some truths needed stirring.

Not because they were fragile, exactly. Because if you left them alone too long, they stuck to the bottom and burned, and then everyone could taste the bitterness, even if nobody said it out loud.

On Saturday night, Lola Maring set the biggest pot on the stove with a thud that felt like punctuation. Mina took her place beside it with a wooden spoon and a resigned sigh.

“Medium-low,” Lola commanded. “And do not stop.”

“It’s ube halaya,” Mina said. “I know.”

“You know how to talk,” Lola replied. “We are seeing if you know how to listen.”

Mina rolled her eyes and poured in the coconut milk. The grated ube followed, turning the liquid a pale lavender at first, then darker as it warmed, like twilight deciding to commit.

Condensed milk went in next, thick and sweet. Mina began to stir, slow circles that dragged against the pot’s bottom with the steady resistance of something that would not be rushed.

From the living room, her brother Javi called, “If you quit stirring, does it become ube tragedy?”

“Javi,” their mother warned, voice bright with the particular cheer of someone who had been fielding relatives’ texts all day.

Mina ignored them all. She was good at ignoring. She’d practised for sixteen years.

Except lately she kept failing at it in one specific situation: the empty desk beside her in AP English that was no longer empty.

Eli Park sat there now. Quiet. Neat. A little too pretty in a way Mina refused to think about too long.

Lola’s gaze slid to Mina’s face like she was reading a menu. “You are stirring like you are angry.”

“I’m not angry,” Mina lied.

Lola made a sound that meant: I have survived war, immigration, and your mother as a teenager. Do not play with me.

Mina stirred harder.

“Who?” Lola asked simply.

Mina’s grip tightened. “No one.”

Lola looked unimpressed by the concept of “no one.” “No one has a name.”

Mina’s heart did that traitorous leap again, the one that made her feel like she was trying to sprint while holding a tray of drinks.

“It’s… a person from school,” Mina admitted, because Lola was going to hold the silence hostage until she got something.

Lola’s eyes softened, almost. “Boy?”

Mina stared at the pot. “Maybe.”

“Maybe,” Lola repeated, tasting the word. “You are old enough for maybe.”

Mina opened her mouth, then closed it. The ube bubbled once, a small pop like a warning.

“Stir,” Lola said, and Mina obeyed.

Sunday meant the community centre festival: booths, dancing, and enough aunties to form a small government. Mina’s family ran the dessert table every year, and this year Lola had declared Mina the official keeper of the ube.

“This is your job,” Lola had said. “And also your lesson.”

Mina hadn’t asked what the lesson was. She suspected it was something like: if you can handle heat and expectation at the same time, you can handle life.

She wasn’t sure she believed that. But she believed in Lola.

By the time the halaya turned glossy and thick, Mina’s arm was shaking and her patience had been sanded down into something smooth. Lola stirred in butter at the end, the scent blooming warm and nutty.

“Good,” Lola said, finally approving. “Now you glaze the top with a little honey.”

Mina blinked. “Honey?”

Lola’s mouth curved. “Just a little. Sweetness should shine. But it must not shout.”

Mina thought of Eli’s laugh, quiet but somehow everywhere. She brushed honey over the surface and tried not to overthink the metaphor.

The next morning the community centre was already alive when Mina arrived. Paper lanterns swayed overhead. Someone tested the microphone, the sound popping and echoing. The air carried the comfort of shared food: fried dough, grilled meat, sweet rice, spice and sugar making treaties.

Mina set out the ube halaya in neat squares, violet blocks topped with toasted coconut. She arranged sample cups with the solemn care of someone handling evidence.

Tessa Alvarez slid in beside her wearing a bright skirt and a grin that meant she knew something she shouldn’t.

“I saw him,” Tessa whispered.

Mina didn’t look up. “Who.”

Tessa’s grin widened. “You’re so bad at lying. Eli. He’s here with his mum. Korean booth. Honey cookies.”

“Yakgwa,” Mina said automatically.

Tessa blinked. “How do you know that?”

Mina finally looked up. “I have eyes. Also, Lola watches cooking videos like they’re sacred texts.”

Tessa hummed, delighted. “Sure. And you definitely don’t have a crush.”

“I’m working,” Mina said, and then immediately regretted it, because Tessa took that as a challenge.

“You can work and still be a person,” Tessa said. “A person who likes a person.”

Mina’s cheeks warmed. “Please go be loud somewhere else.”

Tessa floated away, victorious.

Mina served aunties and toddlers and teenagers who tried to take free samples like they were participating in a heist. She smiled. She made change. She kept her eyes off the entrance like that would stop her heart from watching anyway.

Then Eli appeared at the edge of her table, holding a small paper plate with yakgwa on it. He looked around like he was trying to move carefully through a world that belonged to everyone at once.

When his gaze met Mina’s, his face brightened, subtle but undeniable.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi,” Mina answered, and her voice didn’t squeak, which felt like a win.

Eli nodded toward the ube. “This is yours, right?”

“Family recipe,” Mina said. “Well. Mostly. Lola says recipes are like relatives. They change depending on who’s telling the story.”

Eli smiled. “That’s a good way to put it.”

Mina handed him a sample cup before she could second-guess. “Try.”

He took a bite.

Mina watched his expression with the intensity of someone waiting for exam results.

Eli’s eyes widened a little. He swallowed and looked back at her. “Wow. It’s… really smooth.”

“Because you stir it forever,” Mina said, relieved.

Eli laughed softly. “That tracks.”

He glanced toward her line, then back at her, lowering his voice. “Are you stuck here all day?”

“Probably,” Mina said. “But I can take breaks. In theory.”

Eli nodded as if filing that away. “Okay.”

Mina hated that “okay” made her feel like a door had opened.

Eli lifted his plate slightly. “My mum made yakgwa. Do you want one?”

Mina hesitated, then nodded. He offered her a cookie, warm and glossy with honey. Their fingers brushed, quick and accidental, and Mina’s skin lit up like she’d been touched by a spark.

She took a bite. Crisp outside, tender inside, sweet with sesame and ginger.

“This is incredible,” Mina said honestly.

Eli’s shoulders relaxed. “She’ll be happy.”

Mina swallowed, then asked, because she was tired of being the only one making silent guesses, “Do you cook?”

“A little,” Eli admitted. “My mum works late sometimes. I make rice, soup, stuff like that.”

Mina nodded. “Lola says if you can cook, you can survive anything.”

Eli’s mouth curved. “My mum says if you can cook, you can make friends.”

The hall’s noise drifted around them, but the moment between them felt oddly quiet, like the sound had stepped back out of respect.

Eli looked at her, then down at the ube, then back at her again. “You said… you write food reviews?”

Mina froze. “I… mentioned it once.”

“I looked it up,” Eli said quickly, then winced like he realised how that sounded. “Not in a creepy way. I just… I was curious. MidnightPalate is you, right?”

Mina’s cheeks went hot. “Oh my god.”

Eli held up his hands. “I swear I’m normal. I just… liked how you wrote. You make food sound like it matters.”

Mina’s throat tightened. She stared at him, suddenly too aware of her own heartbeat.

“Food does matter,” she said quietly. “It’s how my family… stays close.”

Eli nodded. “Yeah. Same.”

He hesitated, then added, softer, “And I like how you’re honest. Even when it’s uncomfortable.”

Mina felt the ube-halfluffed courage from last night rise in her chest. Stirred truth, glossy and warm.

“Honest?” she repeated, trying not to laugh from nerves.

Eli’s eyes held hers. “Like… you care. You don’t pretend you don’t.”

Mina’s fingers curled around the edge of the table. She could retreat into teasing. Into jokes. Into busyness.

Or she could try, just once, to say the thing before it burned.

“I do care,” Mina admitted. “I just… overthink it.”

Eli’s smile was small and relieved. “Me too.”

For a second, Mina forgot how to breathe. Then she said, “Do you want to… walk around later? When my mum covers the table?”

Eli blinked, and then his dimples appeared, like punctuation she’d been waiting for.

“Yeah,” he said. “I want that.”

Mina’s shoulders loosened, like she’d been braced for impact and realised she didn’t have to be.

Eli glanced toward the stage where a dance group was lining up. “Also,” he added, voice dropping, “if you ever want someone to taste-test your experiments… I volunteer.”

Mina snorted, grateful for the humour. “Taste-testing comes with responsibilities.”

“I can handle responsibility,” Eli said, then paused and corrected himself with a grin. “Probably.”

Mina laughed, and it came out real.

Across the hall, Lola watched them over the dessert table like a hawk pretending to be casual. When Mina looked up, Lola lifted her eyebrows once, as if to say: I saw. I am not surprised. Also, do not embarrass yourself.

Mina looked back at Eli and felt something settle inside her, not certainty, but a gentle beginning.

Maybe didn’t have to be terrifying.

Maybe could be warm.

Like honey on ube. Sweetness that didn’t shout, but still shone.

Later, when Mina finally stepped away from the table, Eli was waiting near the booths, holding two little cups of barley tea like he’d planned it. He handed her one without ceremony.

Mina took it, smiling. “Is this your idea of supervision?”

Eli’s grin softened. “Hydration is important.”

Mina rolled her eyes, but she liked him more for it, which was unfair.

They walked together under paper lantern light, past music and laughter, past elders and kids and food stalls offering comfort in every language. Mina felt, for the first time in a while, like she belonged in her own life, not just her family’s plans for it.

At the end of the row of booths, Eli slowed. “Can I ask you something?”

Mina’s stomach flipped. “Okay.”

Eli looked nervous, which made Mina feel braver. “Will you… teach me how to make ube halaya?”

Mina laughed. “It takes forever.”

“I know,” Eli said. “That’s kind of the point, right?”

Mina stared at him, and the world sharpened around the edges.

“Fine,” she said. “But you have to stir the whole time. No breaks.”

Eli nodded solemnly. “I promise.”

Mina’s smile crept in again, impossible to stop. “Deal.”

And for once, the truth didn’t burn. It just warmed, slow and steady, like dessert thickening into something worth sharing.