It was just past midnight. The streets outside were quiet, the city lights flickered faintly through the curtains, and in the kitchen of their Quezon City home, Ion Perez was making chamomile tea for two. Vice Ganda had just stepped into their bedroom, still laughing from a TikTok video they had been watching together. It was one of those rare quiet nights — no cameras, no rehearsals, just two people trying to forget how famous they were.

Then the phone rang.

At first, it sounded ordinary. Vice’s ringtone — a remix of a pop song from the 2000s — danced through the house. Ion glanced toward the bedroom door, expecting the usual: a quick call from the manager or a reminder about a shoot.

But this call was different. Vice didn’t say anything at first. Just listened. Then walked out onto the balcony, barefoot and silent, the phone pressed tightly to their ear.

Ion followed, a bit concerned. From behind the glass door, he could only see Vice’s silhouette — still, tense, and then suddenly crouched, as if the weight of the words on the line had pulled them down.

It lasted seven minutes.

When Vice walked back in, they said nothing. Just passed Ion gently and went into the bathroom. But what came next was what shook Ion to his core: a voice message.

Vice had unknowingly left the phone unlocked. A voicemail played from the same number. And Ion, thinking it might be urgent, listened.

It was a voice neither of them had heard in months. A voice that once laughed with them, celebrated their milestones, and sat at their dinner table.

And it was sobbing.

“I made a mistake. I should have said something back then. Now it’s too late, isn’t it?”

The message was barely a minute long, but Ion didn’t make it to the end. By the time the voice said “I still think about you two every night”, Ion had already dropped to the floor, tears streaming down his face.

No one knew exactly who the caller was. But fans began speculating after Vice posted — and deleted — a cryptic Instagram story at 2:03 AM.

It showed nothing but their palm, open, with a small tattoo of a star. The caption? “Old stars don’t die. They just burn differently.”

That post was gone within five minutes. But it was long enough for fan accounts to capture it.

A former co-host? A family member? An ex-friend from Vice’s pre-fame years?

No one knew for sure. What was clear was that something personal, something unresolved, had clawed its way back into their life.

Ion, known for his composed and gentle nature, didn’t attend the following day’s shoot. When asked by a production assistant, Vice reportedly said, “He just needed to rest. We both did.”

But rest didn’t come easily.

In the days that followed, Vice Ganda was seen attending a private therapy session — alone. Ion was photographed waiting in the car, eyes behind dark shades, expression unreadable.

The mystery deepened.

Then, at a fan event three days later, a brave audience member asked Vice, “Are you okay?”

The comedian paused. Looked down at their hands. Then smiled faintly.

“I’m alive,” Vice said. “That’s more than I can say for the stories I keep burying.”

That one line was all it took. The internet exploded.

Reddit threads, fan groups, even major entertainment pages started analyzing every interaction. Was it an old friend who hurt them? A sibling they had a falling out with? Or perhaps someone from the industry who betrayed their trust?

But Vice and Ion refused to feed the noise. They didn’t explain. They didn’t clarify. They simply lived through the storm — and showed up, hand in hand, to the It’s Showtime studio a week later.

No one spoke of the call again.

But something had changed.

Vice began closing interviews with a new line: “Call someone you love tonight. Before the phone rings first.”