Never Judge

Monday rolled in pretty quickly as Al, Eric, and Cara, ran from where the car had dropped them off to get on a bus.

Due to there being three of them now, Ray had heightened security around the bus stop and the school.

No one knew that three very important people now attended their school.

"Wait!" Al shouted as he spotted the bus about to leave.

Luckily the bus driver already recognized him at that point and stopped for him and his companions.

They quickly hopped on, panting as they tried to catch their breath.

"Friends of yours?" The bus driver asked, a little bit too nosy for Al's tastes.

"My cousin and my friend." Al said with a nod as he gestured for Cara to walk ahead and find a seat.

"I told you those contacts looked more plain." Cara called out, practically whispering as they found three empty seats at the end of the bus.

"Yeah, you're right, these attract less attention." Eric said as he looked at himself through the front camera of his phone.

"You look very vain." Al chuckled as he noticed his cousin looking at himself from different angles.

His hair had been dyed to a dark brown color and he now wore dark brown contacts to match it as well.

"Smile!" Eric suddenly said as he turned the camera to catch Cara and Al in the frame.

Cara was much faster to react as she smiled, while Al maintained his annoyed expression, unable to react in time.

"You're not allowed to post that." Al reminded Eric.

He knew that his cousin maintained a few social media pages that showed a glimpse into his and his mother's life.

He rarely posted photos of his own face, but provided his father's fans and his own a glimpse of how Erich Chan Sr.'s son and wife now lived.

It made them happy to see that the mother and son were happy despite the sad and tragic end to Eric's life.

"I won't, calm down. I'm just sending it to the family chats." Eric said with a grin as he sent the photos.

He also snapped a few vague ones of the passing scenery, most likely for him to post later on.

It didn't show his face or the fact that he was in a bus, so he knew that Al wouldn't complain.

'Good luck boys!' The first message came in, it was from Al's father.

'Try not to break too many hearts.' It was from Eric's uncle Miguel this time.

"Your family seems quite close." Cara commented as she noticed Al's and Eric's phones continuously buzzing at all the messages.

"They are just excited." Al said with a sigh as he glanced at Eric.

His cousin was now just watching the scenery go by, it was probably the first time Eric had been on a bus in the Capital.

It was also probably the first time that he was getting some peace.

"Eric hasn't lived an ordinary life, he's always been in the shadow of his own dad." Al explained as he leaned back in his seat.

"Eric Chan, the actor?" Cara asked, clarifying who his father was.

"He'll go by his mother's maiden name in school, Sebastian. Eric Sebastian." Al explained as they began to chat about school.

Eric had a lot of questions. He had to explain to Cara that he has never been to a normal school before.

​ He always had private tutors or went to schools with much smaller class sizes due to the fact that he and his mom moved around a lot.

To Al's surprise, Cara excitedly spoke about their school. It was as if she was never looked down at or bullied in school.

She was so animated in telling her story that they almost missed their stop for school.

It was the first time that Al actually felt nervous.

He was worried that someone would be able to recognize Eric. That one of their teachers was a big fan of his father and would be able to see the similarity between the two.

"You alright?" Eric asked Al as they walked from the bus stop to school.

Cara was walking ahead of them with a spring in her step, clearly happy to be going to school with two friends.

"Just worried." Al simply answered.

"Calm down, if there was any danger with me going to school with you your dad would have stopped us." Eric told his cousin as he tried to calm Al down.

Unable to relax, Al simply nodded, much to Eric's disappointment.

The walk from the bus stop to the school's campus was a quiet one with Cara occasionally telling Eric about school and Al nodding in agreement.

Al couldn't help but worry about what they were headed into. Eric was not like him or Emilio who had never been seen in public.

The last time photos of Al surfaced was when he was three.

When they arrived at school it was clear that Al and Eric walking together caught almost every girl in school's attention.

"Seems like you're popular." Eric teased as he tried his best not to look directly at any of the girls.

He simply scanned his surroundings, observing the other students and the school.

"More popular with you next to me, cousin." Al grinned as he placed his hands in his pockets and continued to walk.

Al walked with a grim and dangerous aura around him, something that for some reason girls seemed to fawn over.

Eric was quite the contrast standing next to him. He was smiling and clearly had a bubbly personality, as if he wanted to be everyone's friend.

"You guys are so slow." Cara complained as she called shouted back to Eric and Al, making both of them smile and laugh.

Cara couldn't help but notice the jealous glares of the girls watching them. It seemed that her being friends with both boys now made her the target of their jealousy.

"Let's take Eric to the principal's office first." Al said as he dragged his cousin in a rush.

As they quickly ran by, Al could see girls whispering and snapping photos of them. He knew that this was not going to end well.