Karen de los Reyes and AJ Eigenmann

Take a social-climbing girl whose English is so bad, it becomes the object of snickering in her barkada. Take a boy one could only describe as the tough rebel guy straight from the streets of America. In real life, their fates would never meet. She would probably think he was too crass to fit in the social circles in which she would like to be. He would shun her in a huff, and would probably go for a wilder (and possibly older) woman clad in tight leather pants and an equally snug white shirt. But such scenarios of opposite characters attracting each other and starting a whirlwind romance are definitely the stuff of movies. Think 10 Things I Hate About You. Or Rebel Without A Cause. Or even Beauty and the Beast. The idea that a simple girl can turn a bad boy into mush is definitely every girl’s fantasy.

Alas, Click allows such to happen. Weng, played by Karen de los Reyes (of the famed McDonald’s ad) and Josh, played by showbiz family scion AJ Eigenmann, connects in a sweet-as-sugar romance. As Karen explains, "At first, Weng is poor. Her mom is a public school teacher and her dad’s a jeepney driver. She tried hard to fit in with the Click barkada. Then her family gets rich because they win the lotto, and she treats everyone to Hong Kong. But she’s still loveless. And AJ’s character comes in, and he was loveless, too, because his partner at that time, Dyan Delfin, went to Canada. That’s where everything begins." Already it sounds like yet another daydream. Lonely boy and lonely girl take a trip together and somehow, the breath of foreign air and the taste of the exotic become an elixir for love.

Karen adds, "My character is a ‘great pretender’ and a social climber. AJ is a maangas na amboy. They connected because Weng had a lot of problems and AJ’s Josh was the one who was comforting her. Even though he’s maangas, he still has a heart." Imagine, your very own bad boy, complete with dark, brooding good looks. Mix in the right blend of emotions and sensitivity. Ah, isn’t it romantic?

And so, on Click, Weng, the hilarious girl with a penchant for silly pretention, laughs contentedly in the arms of her man, the converted bad boy Josh. They look into each others’ eyes with a gleam that’s familiar only to those who have experienced love for themselves. She of the long, dark hair and bumbling antics has turned the tough guy into a man with a goofy grin on his face, who is all too contented to publicly display his affection for his woman. It’s almost surreal.

So are there any sparks to the real-life alter-egos of Weng and Josh? Karen peers over her shades and wrinkles her nose. "I can’t tell. I don’t know. We’re friends," she says as a matter-of-factly, but also doesn’t hesitate to spew her admiration for her co-star. "Well, he’s cute," she says, laughing. And when asked who his long-time crush was, she smiles, "Me!"

As much as one tries, one cannot pry a straight answer to the question of AJ and Karen’s off-screen relationship. Their answers are vague, but do show a hint of admiration for each other, spawned, perhaps, from working together so much.