The thin line [Complete]

Chapter 4

          
Arthit's POV

Now I already know what everyone's impression of me is. I am the big, bad wolf who has made it my life's mission to make Kongpob's miserable. While this handsome, charming young man is being treated like Cinderella by the evil step-mom aka me. What I am pretty sure he hasn't introduced in the discourse as of now is that he is no saint himself.

I won't obviously lie and say that I don't have an intense, inherent hatred for him. I do. And I have had it for years now. Actually several years before I had ever even laid eyes on him I had already made up my mind about it. Why? That isn't completely relevant as of now. Someday when we have more time we might go through my reasons. But trust me when I say, it's rock solid. So two years ago when I heard we was joining the company I was already antsy about us potentially working together. What I hadn't expected was that Mr. Royalty would sashay his way over to me and tell me how to do my job on his very first month out of college. And then repeated it every single week for an entire year.

Now I am not a complete monster. I understand that's his job. I also understand I am supposed to hate him for doing his job. What I am completely not cool with is the fact that he is probably the only person in the entire company who has honed in on my crush on Preet. And he very conveniently uses it against me every single chance he gets. To the point that last year for a couple months he would head to our office specifically to reject my budgets, end up perched against Preet's table for a good 20 minutes. Hand the papers to her instead and throw me a wide smile on the way out, very well knowing that I wasn't really going to throw a temper tantrum at her.

And when he was finally handed to me to be a part of my department, I almost burst with glee. Finally! Now I would have him directly under my nose all day, every day. I was so excited to finally whip his butt into being a model employee instead of the spoiled, rich CEO's son that was all too comfortable with ordering me around. But little did I know, that with him also comes his entourage. In fact my department had more or less turned into a free for all train station where women of all age, size, shapes, and departments regularly came to flirt with him. This is the production floor dammit, not your favorite hangout bar. Does no one consider how dangerous the equipment in my department is? There are like three thousand ways people can get maimed while they flutter their eyelashes at him.

If only he wasn't encouraging them I would have left him alone. But the more he grinned at them the more my frustration kept boiling over. In fact once when the sixth stray of the day had found her way towards his desk I had no option to send him away so that the rest of us could finally get any work done. Except what did the jerk do when I told him to grab coffee for the department? Yeah, you guessed it. Purposely took Preet with him to 'help' carry the coffees, which very effectively turned into a weird date for them since I didn't see either of their faces for the next four hours.

Please someone tell me how am I possibly supposed to not want to strangle him every chance I see him when he does everything under the sun to rub me the wrong way. Sure, maybe some of the pranks I play are childish. But it's not like he is above being petty himself. Did I mention he once had a six foot tall teddy bear, complete with a large red heart, delivered to me at work from a 'secret admirer'. And it sat next to my desk all day, with the entire freaking company having dropped by to check out my embarrassment. I don't think I will ever live down the teasing I received from my subordinates. 

So let's not get all overly emotional about his woes, since he dishes out a lot more than he receives, and I am supposed to be his god damn boss. Hence, I wasn't even slightly beat up about sending him on a wild goose chase at the wrong address for the documents. In fact I even gladly drained his fuel tank knowing full well the brat could more than afford a taxi ride back. All I have to do now is pay close attention to what he is going to do in retaliation. Cause there was no way he was going to let it slide. Like I had any doubt that he was the reason why I had sneezed my lungs out today. And I was perfectly satisfied with my stupid prank up until the point of the unexpected rain. That was obviously not part of the plan, and I was almost tempted to call him to make sure he got home alright. Almost. But I wasn't so eager to show him my caring side any time soon.

Still I actually let out a relieved sigh when I saw him walk in the office the next morning seemingly in one piece. And since it is almost guaranteed that something was incoming from his side, I decided it was better to be closer to him than not. So I headed towards my machine and puttered around it waiting for the shoe to drop.

Now if I were to be completely honest, I would atleast accept that he wasn't a complete ditz. Rich and spoiled he might be, but he actually was a reasonably smart man. More than reasonably. He was much brighter than I would have given him credit. Which was also one of the reasons I hadn't fired him the second day he was transferred to my department. So when I saw him make a few hundred mistakes in the short span that I looked over his shoulder basically told me all I needed to know. Pranking him was one thing, but I didn't want him to fall sick. And as soon as I confirmed it I sent him right home. Do you people believe me now that I am no monster? But what does that jerk do? Drag Preet from right under my nose to serve as his personal chauffeur.

"Arthit, can you do me a favor please?"

"Of course Preet. Anything you need."

"Can you drop by Kong's place after work and drop off some fruits and soup? I promised to see him tonight but I forgot I have a previous engagement."

"Huh? Why do any of us need to drop anything off to him. He is a grown man. He can take care of himself."

"I am sure he can. But he is also sick. And I want him to have some soup. So can you please help me out or do I need to go myself?"

"No, no, no. I will go drop it off."

"You had better. I will call him to make sure you didn't purposely skip."

"Fine, fine. I said I will go didn't I?"

"Of course you will. I don't even know why you are throwing such a big fuss. By the way why didn't you tell me you were neighbors?"

"Neighbors? Who?"

"You and Kong. Both of you live in the same building. Didn't you know?"