Never Judge

On the way home from the Mor Co. Tech Hub site, Cedric frowned as he recalled what those bullies had done to him in University.

Carlo, Jun, Ben, Dennis, and Kevin were at the top of the food chain back in university. They were top athletes coming from extremely wealthy families. They looked at everyone that was poor as less than them and not worth their time. 

Usually the five of them never fought and got along on everything, there was however one thing that they all wanted, but only one person could have, Adrianna Hernandez. At the time they were all freshmen in university and Adrianna had not yet met Cedric, Adrianna was still single and religiously following her family's wishes. 

When all five boys approached her, all asking her out on dates, the Hernandez family was extremely excited. Adrianna had managed to attract the eye of almost every single eligible bachelor aside from the five princes. 

Cedric on the other hand was a poor kid that worked part time as a busboy in a popular coffee chain. One day when he was cleaning tables a little dirt got on Kevin's bag. When the young man saw this he began shouting at Cedric, threatening to have him fired. Cedric tried to reason at first but Kevin would not have it. Either Cedric paid for the bag or paid for it through forms of service. 

Since Cedric had no money at the time he chose to be their personal assistant while they were at university. The boys would ask him to do everything, from tying their shoelaces, to buying them condoms and delivering it to them in a hotel. Sometimes when they were mad they would turn Cedric into their human punching bag. 

Cedric had tried numerous times to complain the five boys to the school and to the police, unfortunately they had extremely powerful backers so everytime Cedric would complain he would just suffer even more. This is how he truly realized that your skills are not enough, sometimes a person's standing in society was all that mattered.

One day Ben discovered that Adrianna Hernandez was single, not wanting the others to get a head of him, he ordered Cedric to buy flowers and give it to Adrianna. Not wanting any trouble, Cedric complied.

Cedric stood outside Adrianna's classroom holding the flowers Ben had asked him to buy. 

When Adrianna finally stepped out he handed Adrianna the flowers and read Ben's message.

Just as he was about to leave a hand pulled him back.

"Are you alright?" Adrianna asked. Cedric was speechless. He was shocked that such a pretty woman spoke to him. He was poor and was used to being overlooked by people. He had struggled with this fact all throughout his poverty training, from being their heir of a rich family that was waited on hand and foot to someone that was practically invisible. 

"Yeah. Anyway that's Ben's message, you should go and date him, he's a real big shot." Cedric told Adrianna as he turned to leave. A real big shot, hah! Wait till they find out who he really was, he was going to pay them a thousand fold for how they treated him.

"Wait." Adrianna called out again. Cedric stopped and sighed. Talking to this girl was going to get him into more trouble. 

"What's your name?" Adrianna asked. Cedric was surprised that she wanted to know his name, girls like her were supposed to avoid him. He was poor and they were rich.

"Are you sure you should be talking to me?' Cedric asked in a cold demeanor. "Trust me Adrianna, I'm not on the same level as you."

"Why does that matter? I think you're nice." Adrianna said with a sweet smile. "So now you need to tell me your name and give me your number." Adrianna approached him and handed him her phone.

Cedric took it and typed his name and number. He didn't know why he placed his real name and number, something told him that he should. 

"Oh great, look. All the girls are going crazy over them again." Adrianna said, rolling her eyes. 

Cedric turned to see his childhood friends Ray, Alexi, and Ram walking around not paying mind to the many eyes that followed them and the girls that tried to speak to them. He wanted to laugh at them but he knew it would look stupid.

"I don't see what girls see in them. They're just rich." Adrianna said as she looked at her phone. Cedric saw her smile as she looked at his name. 

"Well I guess Cedric, I'll call you." Adrianna said as she walked to the trashcan and threw away the flowers Ben had given.

The next day, Cedric was eating his lunch when Ben came in and picked him up by the collar.

"You useless, imbecile." Ben shouted. "I'm not the laughing stock of the whole university. What the hell did you tell her?" Ben asked as everyone began to turn their attention to Cedric.

"Nothing. Three of the four princes did pass by before she threw it away though." Cedric said as he came up with an excuse as to why Adrianna threw away the flowers Ben gave.

"Ugh, those assholes, if they weren't in the same school as us things would be so much easier." Ben slowly placed Cedric back down. "Make sure she gets my number." Ben ordered before leaving.

Cedric's phone immediately buzzed as soon as Ben left. It was a message from Ray, his best friend. 'Want me to have someone beat that a-hole up?' Even if they were still in University, Ray was already part of the underground and he had even managed to drag their other friend, Alexi along.

'No help allowed, remember?' Cedric quickly replied back before shoving his beaten up phone into his pocket and heading into class. 

A few days later Cedric saw an unknown number calling him, thinking it was one of the people who liked to order him around he dropped the call. After a few minutes a message came in.

'Hey Cedric, it's me, Adrianna. I heard about what happened. Can you come out to have coffee?' the message from Adrianna said.

After that coffee date with Adrianna they hangout quite often, unfortunately this meant that the boys got even more mad at Cedric. Aside from playing pranks they would do things to him, such as make it seem like he cheated or violated the rules in school. 

After the first time they tried to get him expelled Cedric became extra careful ensuring that there was a reliable witness or that the professor was always around. At first he wanted to stop hanging out with Adrianna, it wasn't just the bullies, it was her friends too, they didn't like him. 

He would often send messages to Ray, Ram, and Alexi, telling them about how he wanted to stop being friends with Adrianna, but the boys discouraged him. Cedric too felt that something drew him to Adrianna, it's why he never really let go. His friends often offered to do something to help, but he constantly reminded them that they weren't allowed to help.

At one point Ray, Ram, and Alexi were so frustrated that they decided to beat up the five boys. They made it seem like they had offended them so that there was a valid reason for beating up Cedric's bullies. 

After their conflict with the three they began being quiet, too afraid to do anything that would offend them.