The thin line [Complete]

Chapter 10

Kong's POV

I had a vague little dream about cars and spaceships swirling through my brain when I was snapped awake with the loud banging on my front door as if someone wanted to break down the offending slab of wood. I cursed under my breath while I marched towards the door. If Mike was back because he forgot something I was going to happily murder him.

Except instead of Mike I saw a very grumpy looking P'Arthit standing on the threshold of my apartment with a raised fist to continue tormenting my door. And before I could even open my mouth to say anything he nudged me aside to enter my room and walked around me in circles while he kept running his gaze over me several times.

Oh God! I think he has officially lost his marbles!

"P'Arthit what exactly are you doing?"

"What were you doing?"

"Umm....sleeping?"

"Are you sure?"

"P' it is barely 6 in the morning. What else could I be possibly doing?"

"I just ran into Mike. He didn't look like he was doing any type of sleeping."

"Oookay....what does that have to do with me?"

"My question is when this Mike was at your apartment obviously not asleep, what were you upto?"

"Up until now I was going through what I had assumed was a pretty pleasant dream. But thinking back it couldn't have been that nice since I wasn't plotting your murder. P'Arthit, is this a new form of your torture? You do realize I know where you live too. And I generally wake up a lot earlier than you."

"You dimwit, of course I am not torturing you. I am checking up on you."

"Huh?"

"I am trying to make sure you are alright."

"Huh?"

"Don't you have anything smarter to say?"

"I am trying to comprehend what exactly you think I am in danger of at 5 in the morning while I am trying to get some very well earned sleep."

"Mike."

"Ok I think you are going to get an annoying reaction again. Huh?"

"I don't trust your friend Mike."

"I know you don't like him, but did you really need to wake up this early and pester me about him? P'Preet isn't even remotely around us right now."

"Not Preet you idiot. I am talking about you."

"Huh? What the fuck are you talking about?"

"What were Mike and you doing?"

"Umm....sleeping?"

"Just sleeping?"

"P' are you by any chance sleeping walking? Cause you are literally not making any sense right now."

"So nothing happened?"

"What exactly were you suspecting was happening?"

"Nothing.....nothing. You can go back to sleep now."

"Are you sure you are feeling ok?"

"Yeah I am fine. Off to bed now."

Then he simply turned around and walked out the apartment, slamming the door behind him.

What the fuck was that?

I am not entirely sure if I am either too stupid or too sleepy to understand what just went on or if P'Arthit is coming up with new novel techniques to make my life hell. First showing up to the movie theatre when he explicitly told me to buzz off, then dragging me off to the office for endless hours while he actively came up with things for me to do that were clearly out of my job description. And ofcourse banging down my door before a reasonable hour was anywhere around and spouting non-stop something regarding Mike and danger and what not.

Yeah, he was definitely getting weirder by the day. Honestly, I am still very much trying to figure out what he has against me. It was like he had decided to hate me before I had ever opened my mouth. And every week he proved to me over and over again that he had no qualms about clearly showing me his dislike. In fact if I didn't have the trump card about his secret crush on P'Preet in my back pocket I am sure our never ending battle would continue to all eternity.

Although, once he realizes what I am really upto, I have a feeling we will go back to our old games, and he might come after me with a new vengeance. Not that I won't deserve it of course. Cause I was truly being quite evil. But c'mon it was just so, so much fun.

He will find out of course. Sooner or later he will become more than aware what was going on and I pray everyday from the bottom of my heart that I am around to see his expression when it dawns on him that he shouldn't have been trusting me.

Thankfully, he didn't haunt my door for the rest of Sunday. But truthfully just the idea that he lived so close to me sent shivers down my spine. Every single time I heard even a soft scuffle outside my door I jumped right to imagining his standing there holding an axe, having figured out the truth, ready to chop me up into perfect little inch pieces. Which inherently led to me ruining any remaining of my weekend, I figured I need to up my game slightly if I needed to enjoy this game more than I already was.

So when Monday rolled around I was keeping a fairly close eye on P'Arthit, except everytime I turned to look at him I saw him staring straight at me with squinty eyes, which would obviously lead me to snap my head back to my computer and continue pretending to work while I was immensely aware of his eyes boring a hole into the back of my skull. Why exactly has he been this weird lately? It definitely crosses the normal levels of scrutiny. Did he already figure out everything? Nah! That couldn't be. He would be throttling my neck by now if he actually knew.

It wasn't until the day ended without him once taking his eyes off of me and me managing to barely get any reasonable work done I could finally walk up to P'Preet and P'Arthit and get more of my plan rolling.

"P'Preet are you about to head out for home now?"

"Yup. Over the years I have realized over working on a Monday never leads to good results."

"I concur. Why don't you let P'Arthit take you home. P' you are heading out too right?"

"Uh...I....ummm...."

I cocked my eyebrow at him while he was stuttering his way around not escorting his potential love interest. Honestly, he is the worst I have ever seen when it comes to making any moves at all. If I wasn't actively working against him right now, I swear I would love to give him some basic tips. They wouldn't involve any complex equations. All he needed to do was not be his normal, awkward self and he would do just fine. But since I have absolutely no intention of truly helping him, I suspect he is going to end up an old, wrinkled virgin if he doesn't get his act together.

And the two of us continued looking at him expectantly while he kept staring at us behaving like a deer caught between headlights when he finally shook his head and gave us the most unexpected response.

"Ummm....sorry Preet. I can't. I need to take Kongpob home."

What?

"Huh?"

"I promised Kong I will take him home tonight."

Say what now?

And before I knew what was going on he had grabbed my wrist and marched us towards his car, which led to an oddly silent car ride that made next to no sense. Shouldn't he be jumping through circus hoops to spend more time with P'Preet instead of dragging me to his car.

It wasn't until we were near our apartment did he finally he finally break his silence.

"I want a new deal."

"I thought our original deal was working out just fine. I mean as much as I can say your non- attempts at wooing P'Preet are working."

"I don't care about that anymore. I want a new deal."

"What deal?"

"I won't hassle you anymore if you promise me one thing."

"What?"

"Stay away from Mike."