Chapter 5

                                    

                                          
Arthit's POV
                          
I am a full blown, bonafide idiot. It should infact be illegal to be this dumb. No 29 year old should ever grow up to be this much of a moron. How did I ever manage to qualify enough to actually be allowed to carry a gun. Be in charge of public safety when I go around doing stupid, impulsive shit.
                          
Back to my place?
                          
Seriously?
                          
What the fuck was I thinking?
                          
Well, I clearly wasn't. And I don't think my brain has worked correctly for about ten days now, since the blasted boy has walked into the station and trampled right over my rationality.
                          
I get following my gut instinct to scrutinize Kongpob a little deeper than a cursory interview. I even get why I decided to rashly follow him that very first day. Probably a seriously stupid thing to do, but I can even justify in my head why I had screamed out his name when I saw a gun pointed at him and made sure I personally escorted him home without any more adventures for the night.
                          
Where my brain had completely decided to spaz out was when I gave him my personal number. What the fuck Arthit? That was so, so, so not cool. He is a suspect for heaven's sake. I should not have been encouraging any interaction outside of when I was grilling him for information. And as if that wasn't dumb enough, I spent the rest of my night staring at my phone actually expecting him to call. 
                          
Why did I think he would call? What would he even say if he did? What would I say?
                          
This was so magnanimously moronic and yet....yet...I am the bloody idiot who woke up first thing in the morning and drove straight to his apartment. Parking in the shadows, keeping my gaze peeled at the building exit. Why exactly was the lead investigator of the most high profile murder case in the country conducting surveillance on a kinda sorta suspect was a question both my boss and my colleagues have asked more than once. And I will tell them as soon as I figure it out myself.
                          
But as much as my mind was not following logic, the one thing I knew beyond a doubt was that someone was out to get Kongpob. And based on everything I have studied about him there doesn't seem like there was anything special enough about him that would warrant someone to try and shoot him. And the more I read into case the more this angle confused me.
                          
What was about this boy that made Martin go back to that shitty restaurant every single night? And then made the murderer hunt him down right after. Did he truly witness something even he may not have realized?
                          
And then there was the case of motive. Which we still had no idea about. Martin had retired over a decade ago. Had turned into a super eccentric philanthropist who was almost universally beloved. And even though he was swimming in money, he had no kids of his own, he had publicly willed all of his money to the rest of his family. He apparently didn't poke his nose in any of the company business. He was known to quite regularly wander off on the streets to eat or shop or ramble with random tourists and no one even batted an eye. From all the reports I had read this crazy old rich man didn't have any enemies that anyone could name. And even more weird was the fact was that the murderer had a gazillion different opportunities all these years. So why now? And why here? And then why target Kongpob?
                          
That is exactly what I have thought over and over again for more than a week now where I have spent endless hours lurking outside Kongpob's apartment, or wait for his classes to end when he ran to the catch the bus to his job, and then continued reading report after report while I waited for midnight to strike before I would quietly trudge behind him till he reached home. And then repeat the cycle all over again the next day.
                          
I think I may be starting to see why the crazy man was hanging around Kongpob. The kid was overworked, underpaid, and clearly struggling to find his feet under him. The number of holes in his clothes just increasing every day and yet there was always this calming serenity in his smile. 
                          
After watching him struggle endlessly every single day and yet managing to charm the people around him effortlessly gave me this weird itch of wanting to get to know him better. And by that I didn't mean telling Knott to dig up his deepest secrets. But rather to know what he was as a person. What made him tick. What made him laugh. If he got tired at the end of his long day. If he was scared about everything going on around him. Even though I followed him for nearly every waking moment these weren't the things I was ever going to find out about him.­ And although I can bet my life that Martin's murder had something to do with him in some way I haven't figured out yet, I also realize I am probably wasting my very precious time stalking him, when any of my underlings could easily accomplish the same.
                          
I was this close to giving up my weird obsession and call Knott to send someone to replace me when I saw him walk out his campus, his head once again poured into his phone, barely paying attention to his surroundings. What the hell does he keep doing on his phone anyway? I have literally all his phone records and he has no calls or messages from anyone. 
                          
And only if he wasn't so distracted on his phone he would see the car racing straight at him. That he was literally moments away from turning into mush if he didn't get out of the way. I swear that was the fastest I have ever sprinted in my life. Reaching him the very last second  before pulling him out of the path of disaster. My heart racing with the intense adrenaline rush at watching Kongpob directly in the face of danger so soon again.
                          
A whole 3 hours later and my pulse has still not relaxed, even though I have more than guaranteed he is all patched up, keeping his weight off his leg, making sure he was comfortable with his crutches, my mind racing in full speed trying to figure how to keep the boy safe now that threat on his life was a lot more immediate, when we come face to face with a rather fortuitous eviction notice.
                          
So what do I do next? Set him up in police sponsored protected housing with full time security detail? Nope. Call in immediately to the station and take him to my boss to figure out what to do next? Not a chance in hell. Rent a discrete motel room and make sure no one but me know his whereabouts? Well, that actually didn't sound like such a bad idea.
                          
Instead I find myself outside my apartment, standing next to the boy I seem to have a weird obsession for, who seems to find something to smile about even while he is getting stitched up, wondering how the hell was moving Kongpob into my personal apartment not going to blow up spectacularly in my face.
                          
Let me reiterate. 
                          
I am a full blown, bonafide idiot.
                          


                          


                          
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