It Started with a Kiss

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The Beginning

Part 1

Have you ever experienced heartbreak? That excruciating pain in your chest, the terrible ache that consumes your body and soul, makes you feel you can't breathe, and then, the hopelessness and desperation that follows?

I never knew how painful it could be until my first love confession was rejected and quite harshly as well. Prior to that, I had only known the sweet agony of longing heart and unfulfilled dreams that accompanies one's secret crush.

There is one person who I love the most in the world — his name is Kongpob Suthiluck. He is the one who commands my heart, but is very cold to me and has hurt me in many different ways several times, yet he is the main reason for me to continue living.

Even though it hurts, I simply can't imagine a world without Kongpob.

I still remember the first time I saw him on stage when I started going to SK High School. He walked out to give a speech to all the students, looking tall, charismatic and simply drop-dead gorgeous. And I was smitten right there and then. I can still see his dark eyes looking over us all, his straight nose, well-defined jaw and the mop of ebony black hair with the floppy fringe that fell slightly over the side of his face. And when he opened his mouth, that husky voice caressed my ears like the sweetest honey...and the brilliance of his speech.

Sigh...

I never believed in love at first sight until that very moment.

However, I never did dare to approach him because of our different social status. I mean, he was in the A class, class consisting of only the smartest students, and not only that, he was the top student in A class and his IQ is meant to be about 210 — that's like stratospheric.

As for me, well, I'm right at the other end in F class, the lowest class in school, and I'm only an average student in my class. As my dad always said, "my talents lie in areas other than book learning".

However, I'm still striving to discover where my talent lies. I still haven't found anything I'm good at.

Thank goodness my father has always been so understanding of me. It does make up to a certain extent for not having a mother. My mother died giving birth to me. You know, one hears of cases where fathers struggled and became to hate their children because their wives died in childbirth. But my father was different, he loved me more dearly than any other father I had seen and he means the world to me. I had once questioned him whether he ever hated me for what had happened to my mother, but he only chuckled, ruffled my raven hair gently and replied, "it's not possible for any father to hate their child. And it would be unfair to blame their child for the death of their mothers."

At that moment I realized how damn lucky I am to have such a loving father.

I still remember the humiliation that ate into my very soul when I first confessed my love for Kongpob Suthiluck — or at least sort of confessed. Well, I'll let you know the details and then you can decide if it really can be considered a confession or not.

After 2 years of crushing over him from afar, I had finally mustered up enough courage to write him a sweet letter expressing my love for him. With a thumping heart and extreme nervousness, I waited for him after school to give it to him. Just when he was stepping out of the corridor with another guy, Mike — I think he was the other genius guy who always got second place in school after Kongpob Suthiluck — I mustered up my courage to step up to him and pass him the letter that was sealed in my best blue floral envelope.

"Kongpob Suthiluck, would you p-please...please read this letter..." I stammered, my head lowered, hands trembling and heart threatening to beat out of my chest. To my utter shock, he simply frowned at me and told me coldly, "I'm not interested – I don't like stupid boys."

It wasn't the insult that cut into me heart. I know that my intelligence is definitely not one of my strong points. But what hurt the most was the frosty indifference with which he delivered his short reply and then totally ignored me, walked past me with the letter still in my hands mid-air, leaving me subject to the smirk of his friend, and jeers and scornful laughter of other students that had witnessed the embarrassing rejection. Within moments, the incident was reported throughout the entire school and everyone knew that idiotic Arthit Rojnapat from class F actually had the audacity to have a crush on Kongpob Suthiluck and confess...gosh, I was such an idiot.

And well, if my day wasn't miserable enough, they say disasters never occur singularly. The same day, there was a mild earthquake that rocked the city, and sadly our fragile Japanese style house was one of the "victims" and collapsed, completely destroyed.

I still remember how father and I ran out of our house when it was creaking dangerously, just in time to avoid being crushed. I saw the shocked and horrified look on my father's face as he looked at the ruins of our house. This was the house where he and mum stayed when they first got married and it was a remembrance of all their happy times together. However, he managed to revive his cheerful self and comforted me, since I was bawling like a baby.

"Where would we live, dad?" I sniffed, blinking at my dad through the tears, worried about our future.

"Don't worry, dear, I will arrange for us to stay with my best friend's house, while they get this area fixed up."

"Will they fix this place up again?" I looked at him for reassurance, feeling his deft fingers stroking my silky hair.

"Don't worry, Arthit. This place is insured. We'll definitely be able to get another place to stay. But it'll take some time to rebuilt it, so we have to stay at another place for a while."

Feeling absolutely miserable and defeated, I dragged myself to school the next day only to see a huge commotion in front of the main building and a huuuge colorful banner waving at the entrance of the school. I walked towards it out of curiosity and came to regret my decision bitterly.

One of my good friends, Max, was holding the huge-ass banner that advertised to the whole world that poor Arthit was left homeless because his house collapsed when the roof caved in during the earthquake, and asked for donations for him.

Ahh...poor guy, that must be terrible...

Hang on a second, how come the boy's name and circumstances are identical to mine?

0_0

0_0 Wait a minute!??

They were talking about me!

I wanted to kill him for putting me in such a humiliating position in front of the entire school, yet on the other hand, I knew he was trying to help me in his kind simple way.

Okay, there's no denying it, I am quite certain that Max has a crush on me, has had one for a while now – part of the reason could be because his IQ is even lower than mine. We had been close friends since we were in diapers and we always hung out together. Sadly, I didn't reciprocate his feelings, but he never gave up trying to win over my heart either. I must say, Max was the most persistent person I knew, in the best way possible.

Max welcomed me with his usual beam and waved the banner more enthusiastically, screaming for fellow students to give donations. To my horror, who had to come up at this point was none other than the infamous Kongpob Suthiluck. The arrogant genius who had publicly embarrassed me just the day before.

And still, I couldn't hate him for it.

Gosh, he looked so dreamy. So handsome, so strong, so...yummmyyyy!

"Hey it's all your fault!" Max was yelling loudly, pointing an accusing finger at Kongpob.

"Why is it my fault?" The cool expression on Kongpob's face didn't change and his tone was as icy as his glance towards Max and then to the banner in his hands. His lips twisted into a mocking smirk.

"You are a jinx that brought bad luck on our Arthit. He has been miserable ever since he had the misfortune of knowing you."

"Are you trying to blame the earthquake on me?" This time one of Kongpob's eyebrows lifted in disdainful amazement and his cold gaze fixated on me.

I bit my lower lip nervously, shifting my eyes to the ground. The gaze in his eyes was so dark and captivating, I felt a shiver running down my spine as my heartbeat sped up.

Why did he have such a strong affect on me, I couldn't fathom...

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I have given up trying to reason with the people in F class. Simply put, they belong on a different planet and are of a totally different species. This fellow, Max was it?, in particular is one of the extreme cases – how illogical can he get? Blaming the earthquake on me?

I focused my gaze on Arthit — the irritating stupid guy who had tried to give me a love letter yesterday. His eyes were downcast and his face was cherry red all the way to the tips of his ears. I guess he must have felt embarrassed having such an idiot for a friend — I would be ashamed too. But the imbecile went on and on screaming at me to help out.

Ugh, fine! I started digging into my pockets and came up with 5,000 bill.

"Okay, I'll donate. Will you let me pass now?" I spoke irritatingly, waving the money in front of the Max-guy, who acted every bit of that stupid baka's bodyguard.

But suddenly, Arthit came up in a flash as he pushed my outstretched hand away from the donation box. "I don't want your money. You're so arrogant. I regret having wasted my last two years having a crush on you!" His normally scared-looking large eyes were shooting angry sparks at me as he glared at me angrily.

I stared at him in slight awe. I never knew he had the guts or the spirit to be so defiant, and he looked kind of cute at the moment — his face was still red, but his big doe-like eyes were sparkling and his lips were formed into a small pout.

Damn, cute.

Wait, what the hell am I thinking?? Cute???

What the hell, Kongpob??

I shook my head at my stupid thoughts and seeing that he didn't want my money, I gave him one last look and whispered under my breath, knowing he could read my lips easily.

"Baka..."

My lips twisted into a small smirk when I saw his pale face flush red, before I turned around and walked to my class.

As I walked away, that Max guy was still screaming at me.

Sigh...I will never be able to understand these mentally inferior homo sapiens.

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"Kongpob!" That was mum calling me the moment I entered the house.

"Yes, ma?"

"Your dad's and my friend will be coming to stay with us for a while due to an unfortunate accident. And he has a son around your age." I could see her wink at me and I didn't like the suggestive look in her eyes.

"Mom–"

Before I could protest, I saw her looking disapprovingly at me and I bit my tongue, huffing angrily.

"Daniel will be sharing your room, so go make some room for him in your room. They are coming tomorrow..." Her unusually stern gaze convinced me that this was one of the few times when she meant what she said. There was no arguing with my mom when she had made her mind up about something.

I shot her my usual cool expressionless gaze, before going to help Daniel pack. I could see that Daniel was rather irritated at having to shift his stuff to my room too.

"Well, thank goodness I'm sharing a room with you and not that guy," he grumbled putting his stuff to the other side of my room, before sitting down by the computer behind the desk.

Seeing that he didn't need further help, I lied down on my bed and continued reading the horror fiction in English that I had begun reading recently. Stephen King is indeed a fantastic writer.

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I never realized that my Dad's friends were so rich. I was staring at a lovely modern style terrace house surrounded by a small garden. I felt positively shabby standing next to father carrying my small little suitcase. Suddenly, the door was flung open and a small bald man ran out and hugged my Dad.

"Jack!" He yelled happily as my father bear-hugged him back. A beautiful slim woman in her 40s ran out after him — goodness, she was actually taller than him but still shorter than my father.

"Welcome, Jack!" Her voice was kind and chirpy.

"Jack, how are you?" To my amazement they all held hands and did something like a little jig to express the extent of their delight at seeing each other. It was really heart-warming to see that such years-long friendship exists. I smiled at them until the woman stopped and looked at me with a warm welcoming smile.

"So this is Arthit, right? Wow, you really look beautiful just like your mum." She gave me an unexpected hug. "My name is Mary, but you can call me Auntie." She whispered to me. I liked her very much.

"Hi Auntie and Uncle," I said with a polite bow.

"Come you must meet my sons. I have two sons and one's your age." She was chattering merrily away as she led us inside. Then I heard her say, "Arthit, please meet my eldest son Kongpob and this is my second son, Daniel."

I paused slightly in my bow, eyes wide — how come he had the same name as Kongpob? As I straightened from my bow, my eyes traveled up freakishly long legs, a dark blue shirt and then an all too familiar yet amazingly handsome face.

I froze, my mouth open in pure shock.

Oh my god, it was Kongpob!

And I was staying with him in his house after refusing his help yesterday!

Oh god, no...

This is a nightmare!

Acting like his usual indifferent self, Kongpob had already turned to greet my Dad politely, not even looking at me. However, I swore I could see a small knowing smirk in the corner of his lips. Wait, was he amused by this situation???

Was this funny to him???

Ahhh, it probably was. Another thing he can make fun of me! Poor, miserable Arthit with no home to go to...

I looked at the younger son who was a miniature version of Kongpob. He gave me a cold look before ignoring me like his older brother had done and an unpleasant shiver ran down my spine. He was tiny, but he had the same intimidating aura as Kongpob and I was sure he could crush me whenever he pleased.

Pure embarrassment flooded my soul. My hands began to tremble and I found it hard to breathe.

I couldn't bear it anymore and quickly ran out of the house to get some fresh air. Anywhere, just staying anywhere else would be better than there.

I stood outside the house, gasping for air and looking confusedly up and down the road, not knowing which way to run.

Then, I heard footsteps approach me from behind.

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I've always thought the version of Arthit and Kongpob in "Itazura na kiss" would be super fun and romantic, so here is their crazy love story. It's going to be a simple, light ride filled with humor, heartbreak, feelings and as always, love.