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Part 21

I was practicing tennis half-heartedly and in pain, my 'wounds' not fully healed from Kongpob Suthiluck's attack the day before. If it wasn't bad enough that I was suffering from severe depression, I heard Jessica's insinuating voice.

"Why Arthit, you're not looking too good for someone who's dating!"

Dating???

My head shot up and I stared at her in surprise. What on earth was she talking about?

"So tell me how's it going with Mike? Don't be shy..."

Of all hypocrites! Now she's acting like she's my best friend.

"There's nothing going on between me and Mike," I could barely force the words out through clenched teeth.

"Really? That's not what I've heard from everyone ... ..." before she finished her sentence, May and Aya jumped on me, appearing from nowhere. How did they always manage to appear from thin air?

"When did this start Arthit???"

"How could you keep this from us, aren't we suppose to be best friends???"

Sigh...That explained the whispers and the weird glances that I have been receiving since stepping into the tennis court today. However, I was too down to even ponder about the reason for everyone's behaviour.

My face flushed with annoyance. "There's nothing going on between me and Mike! I'm going to kill the person who spread the rumors!" I yelled in angry frustration. May and Aya backed away from me with worried looks.

"Ok, ok calm down!"

I kicked the wall in anger and then started hopping around in pain, holding my foot. What a dumb move...

Half an hour later, I found myself watching Mike and Kongpob Suthiluck playing against each other with Jessica seated herself next to me. I have no idea why she merrily placed herself next to me, however, I was too polite to kick her off the chair though I would loved to.

Mike, that stubborn baka, could not resist challenging Kongpob Suthiluck to a match yet again. I felt the familiar ache in my heart again as I gazed at Kongpob Suthiluck's serious expression as he focused on the match. He looked so endearing as he focused on Mike, gripping his racket firmly in one hand as he bounced the tennis ball with the other. Sweat was starting to glisten on his forehead and I longed, for an instance, to be the one wiping his sweat for him...

"Go Kongpob, go!" Jessica was cheering for Kongpob extremely loudly next to me, irritating the heck out of me. It was obvious that Mike was losing – Kongpob didn't need any further support from Jessica, but Mike did.

"You should be cheering for Mike since he is losing," I told her. To my horror, she immediately shrieked out, "Mike, Arthit wants you to do your best!" I was praying that no one heard her, but unfortunately the heavens did not answer my prayers (yet again!). Mike may not have heard it since he was at the further end of the tennis court, but Kongpob Suthiluck evidently did. And he threw an ice cold glance in my direction, I noticed that his hand had tightened around his tennis racket with unnecessary force, and a muscle in his cheek was twitching spasmodically...

He looked extremely pissed off all of a sudden.

And then everyone watched in fascination as Kongpob Suthiluck showed us for the first time the stuff that he was made of. We thought that he had played well before, but it was obvious that he had only been toying with all his opponents. Seriously, his incredible speed, placement and the power of his strokes were incredible. It appeared almost as if the tennis ball moved at his will. He held nothing back as he smashed the tennis ball repeatedly towards Mike.

I felt sorry for Mike as he stood there helplessly, completely unable to return Kongpob Suthiluck's powerful smashes. As he tried, the tennis balls whizzed past his racket and slammed into his body. Even from a distance, we could see large bruises starting to appear on his skin where the balls landed. Mike yelped in pain when a tennis ball smashed into his knee and he fell. Mercilessly, Kongpob Suthiluck hit another three balls to him – that was all that was needed for him to win the match. Not surprisingly, all three balls landed on target.

We were all still staring in shock when Kongpob Suthiluck simply threw Mike another contemptuous look, and went to collect his belongings from the side of the courts. Mike remained on the ground where he fell, not attempting to move.

A slight frown ceased my forehead, this wasn't the Kongpob Suthiluck I knew. The person I knew would have deemed it below his dignity to attack someone so far beneath him with everything he had – he would never have injured Mike deliberately. This was an angry and frustrated Kongpob Suthiluck I had never seen before. I wondered why was he acting like this all of a sudden? What triggered his anger towards Mike?

Recalling how embarrassed I felt when I injured my ankle and could not move from the court, I went up and helped Mike to his feet. Fortunately, he had not twisted anything, but was only sore and bruised.

"Ooo! Look at the loving couple..." Whistles, cheers and claps resounded as we both frowned and tried to tell the noisy audience to shut up.

"There's nothing going on between us!" Mike tried to explain.

"That's right! I'm just helping him, because he's my friend..." I added resolutely.

"We're only friends," he chorused.

At this point, Kongpob Suthiluck who was walking out of the court paused and he turned around. I flinched and then bravely lifted up my eyes to his face, expecting a replay of last night's insults. To my surprise, there was no reprimand or scathing remark - I only wished there had been. What happened next was far worse. His face was expressionless and his dark eyes looked past me at Jessica who was standing slightly behind me.

"Jessica, are you free this afternoon?" His words hit me with the force of a blow. I must have looked as shocked as I felt.

"Of course," Jessica was beaming at him, her satisfied grin threatening to split her face.

"Want to go catch a movie?"

"Sure thing!"

"I'll go and change. Meet you outside the school gates in fifteen minutes," without a backward glance, he walked off in the direction of the toilets. Jessica was almost crowing in delight.

"Excuse me," she said to me with a malicious grin. "I need to prepare for my DATE with Kongpob." She walked off humming happily.

Mike and I turned to each other – I wondered if my face was as pale as his at this new turn of events.

"It's all your fault," he told me, removing his arm from my shoulder that he had been using as a clutch.

"No, it's yours..." we both frowned at each other and then sighed.

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Once again, Mike and I were hiding behind a bush as Kongpob Suthiluck and Jessica stopped to look at the movie posters. We were tailing them on their date, wanting to keep an eye on them to ensure that nothing could happen between the both of them. Somehow, the amusement that I felt at the familiarity of being in such a situation was almost totally overwhelmed by the bleakness of reality. Mike snuck closer to them as they both went to buy movie tickets. He returned soon, holding two tickets as well.

"We're sitting directly behind them," he told me with a wry smile. Thank goodness I was working in "cooperation" with him. He's been the brain behind our "date-wrecking" plans. I would have been bawling hopelessly into my pillow at home if not for all his ingenuous ideas. Face it Arthit, you haven't the brains or guts to do things like this yourself.

Thanks to us, Jessica probably had the worst time of her life during the movie. Mike and I were watching her like hawks instead of the movie screen. Confident that Kongpob Suthiluck would never initiate anything, we focused our attention on each and every one of her attempts to get closer to him. So strange incidents happened to them. For instance, when she tried to hold his hand, a shower of popcorn landed between them making her squeal. Then, as she inched closer to Kongpob, Mike started swearing in a coarse voice and told her to "stop moving your @$^*& head, you are blocking my view you #^&@$^&". Then we kept kicking her chair, making noises etc. Finally, she couldn't take it anymore.

"You..." She started to turn around to yell at us when Kongpob Suthiluck said calmly, "Don't look for trouble. Just forget it." So she had no option but to sit back down obediently even though I could tell that she was seething with anger. We high-fived each other in darkness, totally pleased with ourselves for completely foiling her attempt to make a move on Kongpob Suthiluck.

"So tell me Kongpob, what type of girl do you like?"

I held my breath and leant as closely to both of them as I could, trying to hear everything from the next table. We were in a café because this was where Jessica and Kongpob Suthiluck went after the movie.

"Well, she must be pretty, have a good figure, be intelligent and she has to know how to cook," Kongpob Suthiluck rattled off and I felt my heart sink at each of his criteria. Now I know why Kongpob Suthiluck has never indicated that he liked me. How could I meet any of his requirements? If that wasn't enough, I heard a snort from Mike who obviously felt the same way and wasn't polite enough to keep his views to himself.

"Just give up Arthit, Kongpob will never like you," he smirked as I glared at him. I knew he was trying to retaliate because Jessica had been telling Kongpob Suthiluck (of her own free-will) what she was looking for in Mr Right and I had commented to Mike that he would never be able to win her heart. I was speaking the truth – there was no way Mike could be classified as being extremely intelligent, mature, capable, excelling in studies and sports, as well as being highly intelligent. I had to admit that he was being just as truthful as me. However, as we all know only too well, the truth hurts.

A lot.

After the cafe, we were following them around as they walked through a shopping center. Jessica went to buy something. I heaved a sigh of relief and quickly pounced on this extremely smart-looking shirt that I saw and immediately imagined Kongpob in it. It was navy blue with dark red checkers and unusual buttons made it stand out. Even Sudou had to admit that it looked good. I quickly paid for it... Ah well, there goes my entire month's allowance but it's worth it. I can already imagine how gorgeous Kongpob Suthiluck will look in it. I sighed dreamily...

We left the shop when I suddenly saw Kongpob Suthiluck putting his arm around Jessica and pulling her to his side. I stood there frozen for a moment, not seeing the truck that barely missed hitting Jessica. I could only repeatedly picture Kongpob Suthiluck's arm around Jessica.

All the energy drained from me – what had started off almost as a game – had suddenly taken on a serious note. As long as I felt that Kongpob Suthiluck wasn't serious about Jessica, I could still 'spy' on them. However enough was enough, that simple gesture tore me wide apart and made me realize that perhaps Jessica really is the right one for Kongpob.

I give up! The pain of Kongpob Suthiluck being close to another girl is too great to bear...

"Mike, I've had enough, I'm leaving," my voice sounded weak to my ears as I turned blindly, my vision starting to blur from tears.

In a matter of seconds I collided with something huge, yet soft. I lifted up my head and froze. This completely obese man with a huge stain on his shirt was standing directly in my path, scowling fiercely at me. His hand lifted threateningly as I cowered.

"You stupid, you made me spill my drink." His fat sausage of a finger pointed to the orange spot that was spreading on his light blue shirt. "You better pay me back for this shirt!" He shook his finger at me threateningly now as I took a couple of steps back in a panic. He followed me as he frowned even more fiercely. My legs felt like jelly and I shut my eyes in a panic as his fingers clenched into a fist, waiting for the blow to hit me...

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