Chapter 1

August 2012

It was mid-afternoon inside one of the largest malls in the metropolis of Manila. Given that it was a holiday, almost all the floors of the mall were crowded of people. It was a mix of people really: families, group of friends, students, workmates. Each of them has their own respective reasons to be in the mall at that fateful afternoon.

On the ground floor of the mall was the video and music store. The store had seen its peak earlier in the day, and at this time, only a few people were in. It was a mix of people shopping or glancing through the available records or videos.

One of those people glancing through the videos was Brian Fernandez, a senior manager in one of the biggest travel agencies in Manila. Well, used to be one, that is. It was his first week after he left his work, and he had a list of things to do urgently.

Brian is a mid-height, mid 20’s yuppie who loves to go to the gym to de-stress. As such, he is pretty well built and very conscious with his health and fitness. A lot of people like him, not only because of his personality but also, because of his physical appearance. He is very handsome, fair-skinned due to his Chinese blood. He was half-chinese, with a Chinese Mom and a Filipino Father.

After starting the day in the gym and finishing most of the errands he had to do, he decided to pass by the video and music store in the mall, where his gym was also located. He was about to leave for the United States in a couple of days time, and was hoping to get to buy a couple of Country and Alternative CDS to add up to his collection.

He had been glancing through a couple of CDs in the racks, and already had a couple of CDs at hand. Brian was excited since the recently released album of his favourite country group was finally available to be purchased. He turned to his right and started walking towards the direction of the cashier.

Before he reached the cashier, he ended up passing by the local OPM CD shelves and immediately took notice of a CD placed towards the end of the rack. He stopped on his tracks and walked back to where the CD was located.

Brian picked it up and looked at it, raising it up to the level of his chin. He smiled as he looked at the album, before sighing. The CD was from a famous Filipino-American recording star that went back to the Philippines to record an album with one of the recording companies in the country. It is one of the better selling records for the OPM genre in the past weeks.

Most of the songs were ballads, even if the recording star is known to perform different genres of music in his concerts. Brian is not really interested with Ballads, but this CD, somehow, took his interest.

He read the title of the album: “The Promise”

***

June 1999

It was a beautiful yet gloomy Monday afternoon. It had been raining hard the whole day, and even if it was almost 6 in the evening, there still were a couple of students stuck at school, waiting for their ride. One of them was a 13 year old Brian Fernandez. In his teens, Brian was already handsome and fair-skinned, yet he was far from the gym-buffed yuppie that he was.

The 13 year old Brian Fernandez was slim, half-chinese kid, wearing glasses. At this time, he would wear the white polo shirt and grey trousers, which his school is known to be using. The white polo shirt had the school’s emblem in it’s left breast pocket.

Currently, Brian was on his 7^th grade in the school, and was very studious. He consistently was doing well with his subjects in class. To his male classmates, that was what all he was - a studious, “I can approach and he will help me with homework” geek.

To his female classmates however, Brian was different. Yes, they still approach him for help on his homework, yet beneath it, they actually were trying to find a way for him to notice them. For the girls, they already had noticed how handsome Brian was – beneath his facade of being a geek.

A couple of hours have already passed and Brian was watching the students around him being fetched by their parents one by one. He was scheduled to be picked up by his family’s driver that afternoon. However, Brian’s father had sent him a message on his cellular phone that the driver would be picking him up late as Brian’s father needed to go to an urgent meeting in the southern part of the metropolis.

As such, Brian had no choice but to wait, and wait, and wait. The minutes passed, and it was already around 6:45 in the evening. A couple of minutes ago, he received another message from his father that the meeting was going to take longer and for Brian to just take a cab home.

However, given that no one expected the day to be rainy, Brian had no umbrella or jacket with him so he had no choice but to wait. After watching all of the other students get fetched by their parents or drivers, he was left alone in the pick-up area of the school near it’s administration building.

Bored with nothing else to do, Brian leaned on the railing behind the bench and slouched a bit. He had strongly been wishing for the rain to finally stop so he could go home. It had been almost six hours since he last ate, and he was starting to get really hungry. The rain was too hard though for him to even try to run through it. He was left with no other choice.

For some time, Brian heard nothing around his environment but the sound of the hard rain. He had his cellular phone on his right arm, hoping that a message or a call from his father would come in, but none did. Brian let out a loud sigh of despair, being the only release that he can do.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, he heard someone talk to him.

“You okay, bro?”

Brian looked to his right then to his left, trying to find where the voice came from. When he looked to his left, he saw a schoolmate of him walking towards him, his backpack hanging on his shoulders.

The boy was almost as tall as Brian, and was a bit tanned. The boy had a lot more mass in his body, given that he would play Basketball a lot after school. The girls at school found the boy attractive, and Brian remembers that this boy would have a clique around him most of the time.

Even if he had seen the boy around the school, but they really did not know each other. Brian spent most of his time studying a lot, and he didn’t really have a lot of friends at the time. He had his best friend who was studying at another school, and some acquaintances, but what was it. He was okay with it though, since he spent a lot of his time with books and music.

“Not really.” Brian replied, his tone sounding very tired and exhausted.

His schoolmate chuckled. Being just a couple of steps away from the bench Brian was in, the boy threw his backpack onto the bench before standing beside Brian.

“Mind if I sit beside you?”

Brian looked up to the boy, and shrugged his shoulder. This was the first time this boy had approached him ever. He was trying to figure out why the boy wanted to sit beside him, but decided on otherwise. After all, they were the only two kids left at the school; might as well keep themselves company.

“Sure. No prob.” replied Brian.

“Thanks.” the boy promptly replied, before finally sitting beside Brian. Similar to Brian, the boy slouched on to the bench, and leaned his arms on it.

For some time, the two boys were silent. Given that this was the first time that they spoke, they really didn’t know what to talk about. All throughout that time, Brian kept looking at his phone, unlocking it, hoping there was a message from his father. Yet, there was no reply.

The boy beside Brian noticed Brian’s actions, and became curious. “Are you waiting for someone?”

Brian sighed, as he placed his cellular phone on his bag, which was in the middle of him and the boy. “Yeah, my dad. He was supposed to pick me up earlier, but they said I’d need to take a cab home. Unfortunately, I can’t since it’s raining.”

“Well, that sucks.” the boy replied, which made Brian laugh a bit. “Same here, bro. I stayed back at the courts, playing ball, when I noticed the rain isn’t stopping. I realized I need to go home already, or else I’ll have to sleep here.”

Then there was silence again between the two. Brian really would like to keep conversing with the boy keeping him company, but he really wanted to go home already. The boy, meanwhile, knew they’d probably be stuck here for a while so might as well not keep his new found friend alone.

“What’s your name, by the way?” the boy asked

“Huh?” Brian asked back, his thought still on kept on his wanting to go home.

The boy grinned. “I know your name tag says your last name is Fernandez,” the boy started, pointing towards the name tag on top of Brian’s left pocket. “but I don’t think you’d want me to address you as such.”

Brian was slightly embarrassed, though chuckled a bit at his friend’s candor. “Oh sorry. It’s Brian, Brian Fernandez.”

“Now, you have a name!” the boy remarked, chuckling back “Marc. Marc Santos.”

Brian looked towards the name tag on Marc’s polo shirt, and wondered “So, what’s the Z in your name tag mean?”

Marc placed down his arms, and held his name tag up for him to look at. “Oh, that.” he said, as he sat back “Whole name’s Zander Marc Santos, but rather just be called Marc.”

“Oh.” Brian said, as he looked at Marc, nodding his head.

Out of nowhere, Marc reached over his left hand towards Brian. “Nice meeting you, Marc.”

Brian saw Marc’s action, and reached back his hand, the two shaking hands. “Nice meeting you too, Brian. Thanks for accompanying me.”

Marc smiled, as they both sat back onto the bench. “No problem. It seems we’re the only ones stuck here so might as well keep you company.”

“Yeah.” Brian agreed.

“Where do you live anyway, bro?”

“At South Executive Village, Westwood drive.” answered Brian, as he looked at Marc.

Marc’s expression turned to disbelief, then a bit of excitement. “Really?! I live there too – same street.”

Brian had a surprised look on his face. “Really?”

“Yeah!” Marc exclaimed, facing Brian a bit “I’m at 20211 Westwood.”

Brian grinned when he heard the address that Marc gave. It was the house at the left of theirs. “Whoah. I’m at 20213 Westwood.”

“Really?!” Marc exclaimed, with a smile beaming with the excitement that he had “Cool! We just moved in last week.”

“Oh, so they’re the family that just moved in.”  Brian thought, as he silently uttered an “Ah!” in acknowledgement to what Marc said.

“Nice, bro. We’re neighbours!” Marc exclaimed again as he reached out his hand again toward Brian, “We’re going to be good friends, bro!”

Brian smiled as he reached out to shake Marc’s hand. Instead of the regular handshake though, Brian and Marc ended doing a quick handshake, then pumped their fist together.

“Yeah, that’d be nice.” Brian smiled, as he looked at the excited Marc, still with the big smile on his face.

From out of nowhere, the two boys heard three honks from a car, and saw a black car park in front of them. Marc suddenly reached for his backpack, and stood up. “Oh, that’s my drive home.”

Marc moved a step away, when he looked back at Brian, who was watching him leave. “Hey, Bri. Why don’t we have our driver take us both home. Anyway, we’re neighbours.”

Brian felt relieved upon hearing that. He really did not have any plans being left out to be the only student in the school at this time. He smiled back, as he placed his cell phone in his pants’ pocket, and got his back.

“Sure!” replied Brian as he stood up from the bench, and stood beside Marc.

“Great!  Let’s go!”