Finding my way [Complete]

Chapter 27

Kong's POV

I fucked up. No, I had colossally fucked up. First, I went all caveman on P'Arthit and then I let my jealously take over and accuse him of sleeping with that devil. It was just so hard to keep my emotions in check around him.

I had knocked on his door hoping to have a heart to heart conversation. When he had responded to my kiss yesterday I took that as a really good sign. He wasn't disgusted with me, he might even like me slightly. I had an opening now to start the conversation that I desperately wanted to have.

But instead of the gorgeous face of P'Arthit, I saw an almost naked Mike inviting me to my P'Arthit's room. From then on it was just downhill. Mike obviously knew I was showing barely concealed jealously, and did and said everything possible to rile me up. Every time he called P'Arthit 'Ai'Oon' I wanted to wring his neck.

I needed to fix my mistake. I needed to talk to P'Arthit somehow and without his cell phone there was just one solution.

"Grandpa are you going to meet P'Arthit today?"

"Why should I tell you?"

"Take me with you."

"I already told you. This is my time. You want yours, ask him directly."

"I want to but I don't think he will agree to meet me. I messed up. Umm ... I ..uh.. I accused him of something."

"What?"

"Umm...uh...of...sleeping with Mike"

"Did he sleep with Mike?"

"Mike is his brother."

"Ah, makes so much sense now."

"So will you take me with you."

"Boy! I don't take anyone anywhere."

"...."

"What you do with your own feet is entirely upto you."

Yes! All I needed to do was manage to talk P'Arthit again. I was going to fix it. I just had to. There was no other choice. So I hung around the house keeping an eye on my grandpa.

A little after 11 he shrugged on his jacket and left the house. I started walking behind keeping a couple feet distance between us. Grandpa was all about technicality. As long as I didn't walk next to him or try to talk to him I knew he would lead me to P'Arthit.

We walked for about 20 minutes and I started looking around. This place looked really familiar, before I realized we were on the backside of our factory. I wanted to ask what we were doing here but I decided it was better to be silent for now.

Just a few steps away I could see P'Arthit sitting on the ground against the wall next to an empty chair on which grandpa sat down with a huff.

"Why did you bring him?"

"I didn't bring anyone. He followed me. What was I supposed to do?"

I was standing there utterly confused. P'Arthit had avoided even looking at me and was giving me his now famous cold treatments. I saw P'Arthit remove a sandwich from a bag and hand it to grandpa who grumbled about it being stale, but ended up eating the whole thing.

Neither of us said anything as if waiting for me to figure out the situation. I looked around trying to ascertain why they were meeting here at this time of the night. I asked with a frown, "P'Arthit, do you work here?"

He still didn't look at me but grandpa answered instead "Bingo!"

"You work at the factory?!?" I exclaimed. To say I was shocked was a massive understatement. "Since when?" It was again grandpa who answered all my questions.

"It's been over a year now, hasn't it Arthit?"

"You work here at nights?"

"Yup"

"Every night?"

"No he is here about 6 nights a week. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Definitely less when he is in the hospital."

"You have been working here at nights for a year? How did I not know about this? How long are you here every night? How have you been coming for your classes every day?"

"You see he is here from about 11 – 5 every night. I assume he sleeps in most of his classes and makes me help him with his homework. I should be given an award for making this moron pass engineering."

"Stop being so chatty Som." P'Arthit snapped while I was still staring wildly between him and grandpa. "I need to go for my rounds now." He took out a huge bright flashlight and started walking around the perimeter of the wall.

I slumped down on the ground in the spot P'Arthit had vacated. How was this possible? One whole year. How had I not noticed? How had nobody noticed? I could place all the clues together now that I knew the reason. He never came out to our drinking parties. He escaped away to sleep under the stadium every chance he got. All of us constantly teased him about loving to sleep too much since he fell asleep in atleast one class every day. The only time I have not seen dark circles on his face is right after he is sick.

"Grandpa, why is he working here?"

"Why are you asking me?"

"I don't think he will tell me even if I ask him"

"Maybe you should have been paying more attention then."

P'Arthit returned and sat down a little away and continued ignoring me. I knew I should apologize for everything that happened earlier but this new revelation had completely shocked me. I had behaved like such a brat to P'Arthit all the while he was attending school full time and working through the night. I was thinking back to the time I had actually considered being jealous of him and shame was washing over me in droves.

I just sat there silently thinking back to everything that transpired last year. All the times P'Arthit had showed up simply cause I asked him to when he could have been sleeping or studying.

Both of them had taken out books and were reading them without conversation. Is this how it was between them? Night after night, for months spending time together. Grandpa had called P'Arthit his friend. It made sense now. They knew so much more about each other than I could ever imagine.

Every once in a while P'Arthit would get up togo around the factory and come back to resume his book. Both of them ignored mefor the rest of the night and I sat there contemplating. As the night wore on Icould feel my eyes getting heavy and tried to fight sleep but it eventuallytook me to the dream world.