In Love With An Idiot
Chapter 20: Dating
P'Erng and I finally understand each other now!
But we're not officially dating yet because I don't want the promotional period to end!
Having P'Erng courting me like this is absolutely wonderful. So wonderful, in fact, that Pong has been making sarcastic comments about it every single day.
“Look at you, playing hard to get! So, what did the boss send you today to win you over?”
“Cinema tickets! Hehe.”
That's right!
P'Erng sends me presents every single day!
A LINE MAN delivery driver arrives at half past eleven every morning, bringing all sorts of gifts from P'Erng. Some days it's snacks. Other days it's cute little things. I have absolutely no idea where P'Erng manages to find them all!
Today, he'd sent me tickets for honeymoon seats at the cinema. I'm not actually a die-hard superhero film fan. P'Erng's the one who's completely obsessed with them!
But I've been to see every instalment with him. Well, except the previous one, because we were separated at the time. I'd assumed P'Erng must have gone to see it with Milan. But apparently not!
He told me he'd been waiting for it to become available on a streaming service so we could watch it together. Lately, P'Erng and I have been going on dates at his flat every other day. And I absolutely refuse to give in and stay overnight!
No matter how hard P'Erng tries to persuade me!
That's simply not allowed. After all, we're not officially anything to each other yet. Actually, I'm not being that serious about it. I just want P'Erng to coax me a little!
Because P'Erng is soooo adorable when he's being affectionate!
He's nothing like a grumpy lion. He's more like a sweet, cuddly little kitten!
Does a thirty-year-old man really have to be this cute?!
“For fuck's sake, I'm going to be sick! Look at that sickening smile on your face! My spicy chicken's practically swimming in sugar now!”
“People who've never been in love wouldn't understand.”
“What the hell? I've got a girlfriend, you know!”
“Huh? You do?”
“Yeah. We've been together for a while.”
“WHAT?! Why have you never told me?!”
“You never asked, did you?”
Well, this was certainly brand-new information!
Pong, the idiot who never stopped teasing me about P'Erng, actually had a girlfriend!
Although I wasn't particularly surprised. He was reasonably handsome, after all. Not as handsome as P'Erng, obviously!
“Who is it?! Tell me! Please, please, please!”
“It's a bit difficult to explain... My girlfriend is, well, pretty famous.”
Pong looked uncomfortable, which only made me even more curious!
Was he secretly dating an actress?
A celebrity?
A singer?
An internet idol?
Aaaaah! I really wanted to know!
“Tell me! Tell me! I promise I won't tell anyone! Here, I'll share my cabbage with you! Please tell me!”
“Don't you dare offer me any more bloody cabbage! I used to be able to eat the stuff, but I'm starting to hate it now! At this rate, I'm going to develop a cabbage allergy!”
“Have you ever considered that you might die from pesticide residue in all that cabbage you keep eating?”
“Nope! I only eat organic cabbage. P'Erng buys it for me, so there's definitely no pesticide residue!”
“There you go, showing off your husband again!”
“Can you please stop breathing in P'Erng and breathing out P'Erng?! You're making me start to fall for the boss myself!”
“At this rate, I'll probably end up willing to offer my entire body to him!”
“P'Erng wouldn't want you! P'Erng loves me! Hehe.”
Pong pulled a thoroughly disgusted face. But I couldn't help it!
This was one thing I was extremely confident about!
My life was going unbelievably well at the moment. Out of nowhere, my debt had disappeared. I'd been given three and a half million baht. And now a handsome, wealthy man was courting me!
The only thing that still annoyed me was that my salary was just fifteen thousand baht a month. After spending two thousand baht on lottery tickets every month, there was hardly anything left!
“Anyway, who are you dating?! Stop changing the subject! Tell me!”
“You've got to keep this a secret, Pei. You're the only person who knows. The only one, seriously!”
Pong leaned forwards and lowered his voice to a whisper. Naturally, I leaned closer too. We couldn't risk the people at the next table overhearing such an important secret!
“I'm dating... Minnie.”
“Minnie? Your girlfriend's called Minnie?”
“Yeah! Shhh! Don't say too much! If the news gets out, Minnie will have a difficult time!”
“Is Minnie an actress?”
I felt as though I'd heard the name Minnie somewhere before. But I couldn't really remember. After all, the only celebrity I paid attention to was Milan!
Speaking of which, Milan has a new drama airing next month!
He plays the female lead's younger brother. Don't forget to watch it, everyone!
“She's a singer in a girl group.”
“Is there anything you need help voting for? I'm really good at voting, you know!”
“I vote for Milan all the time! Whatever awards he's nominated for, I vote for every single one!”
“Winning or losing doesn't matter. You've just got to keep fighting!”
“There are loads of different awards you can vote for. Korea has so many that I'm not entirely sure about them yet. We've only just started dating, you see.”
“But I really want my girlfriend to win a Daesang!”
“Isn't a Daesang a Korean award? What's that got to do with your girlfriend?”
I knew about the Daesang awards because Korean fandoms had once formed an alliance with Milan's fandom. We'd helped each other vote for our respective favourites. This was extremely serious business!
Practically a matter of national importance!
I'd voted so much that my fingers nearly seized up!
“Because my girlfriend's in idle! Look! Isn't she beautiful? She's so bloody cute! My heart just melts! My sweetheart!”
Pong pulled out his phone and showed me the photograph he'd set as his wallpaper. Then he started gushing about Minnie. Exactly the same way I gushed about Milan!
Well, now he wasn't allowed to pull disgusted faces whenever I talked about Milan!
Because he was doing precisely the same thing!
“You're completely delusional.”
“Mind your own business! And you've got to help me get concert tickets too!”
“I want the six-thousand-five-hundred-baht tickets. I can't afford anything more expensive!”
“Fuck's sake! When am I finally going to get a pay rise?! Then I could buy VIP tickets!”
I wanted to make sarcastic comments right back at him. But I actually felt more sympathy for him than anything else. Because the life of a Korean idol fan was far more difficult than mine!
Seeing your favourite idol in person was incredibly hard. Going to a concert was practically the only way to do it!
As someone with plenty of experience in fandoms, I decided to offer my friend some encouragement instead.
“Good luck, Pong! I'll help you book the tickets!”
“Have you got a light stick yet? You absolutely need one!”
“And you should follow the fan groups on X too, so you don't miss any news!”
“I've already been practising the songs! And I've been practising the dance routines too!”
“This time, I'm definitely going to see my girlfriend at her concert!”
“And you have to come with me!”
“Bloody hell! I can't afford a six-thousand-five-hundred-baht ticket!”
“The most expensive tickets for Milan's fan meetings are only two thousand baht!”
“I usually try to get the five-hundred-baht tickets, and I still don't manage to buy them in time!”
“Haah...”
“After everything I've done for our friendship, are you seriously going to abandon me and make me go alone?!”
“When you wanted someone to go to the cinema with you, I went!”
“When you needed someone to run out and buy magazines with Milan on the cover, I did that too!”
“Whenever you wanted someone to help increase the views on Milan's videos, I watched them!”
“And when you were drinking soft drinks to enter that competition to win a trip to Japan with Milan, I helped you drink them!”
“Even though you didn't win!”
“I gained two whole kilograms because of you, Pei!”
“Nggh...”
“All right, all right! Fine!”
“But... can't we get the two-thousand-baht tickets instead?”
“NO!”
“I practically risked giving myself diabetes for your Milan!”
“My future with Minnie nearly went down the drain before it even began!”
“You're talking as though you've actually got a chance with her now!”
Pong folded his arms and looked at me as though I were a clueless little child.
“A 0.001% chance!”
“Minnie might fall in love with me when she sees me waving my light stick at the concert!”
I didn't even know what to say anymore. He was even more delusional than I was when I fangirled over Milan!
P'Erng had returned to his original position at work. It might have looked as though P'Eurn had won because he'd successfully managed to get P'Erng back to work. But personally, I thought the two Araya brothers had ended up with a draw!
After all, P'Eurn still had to remain the tycoon. And... P'Erng had dumped quite a lot of additional work on him too!
I knew because we'd reached the time for our monthly departmental dinner again. This time, P'Erng had used his right to choose the restaurant and picked Japanese food. The conversation between the two brothers was still something nobody in their right mind would want to get involved in!
P'Eurn clearly hadn't given up trying to hand over the Chairman's position to P'Erng. But he couldn't say too much about it. After all, P'Erng might resign again!
“Pei, have some more fish. Isn't it your favourite?”
P'Eurn picked up a piece of fish with his chopsticks and moved to put it into my bowl. But P'Erng blocked his chopsticks with his own.
“I told you to stay away from Pei.”
And so a brand-new war had begun between P'Eurn and P'Erng. P'Erng didn't trust me to go off and talk to P'Eurn on my own anymore. Actually, he wasn't being entirely serious about it. He just wanted to be stubborn and give his older brother a taste of his own medicine!
“I haven't got rabies, you know. I've been vaccinated!”
P'Eurn twisted his chopsticks around P'Erng's and managed to drop the fish into my bowl anyway. As the person sitting between them, I was incredibly uncomfortable!
I wasn't angry with P'Eurn anymore. Because of the money... Ahem!
No, that's not it!
Because I'd finally seen how sincere P'Eurn really was!
“Pei, I've got some lucky lottery numbers for you this time. Inside information from Chofa Bank's merit-making ceremony!”
“Really?!”
P'Eurn put on a mysterious expression. Chofa Bank's annual merit-making ceremony was an enormous, spectacular event that I saw every year. After all, our condominium was directly opposite the bank. P'Eurn was always one of the people invited to attend because he was such an important customer. And there was something else that was impossible to miss.
The lottery vendors!
Every year, they'd set up their stalls right outside the bank. If I hadn't been worried about getting to work late, I would've crossed the road and bought some tickets myself!
“I've secretly bought some already. They're definitely going to win first prize!”
“Here, I've got a set of forty tickets. You can have them.”
“Are they really going to win, P'Eurn?”
“Of course! Zhen Yue whispered these numbers to me personally!”
“Really?!”
“Yeeees! And when you win, make sure you buy some shares in Araya, all right? I really want to sell them. I'll even give you a discount!”
And there it was!
End of story!
He was trying to find another way to escape his responsibilities!
So I immediately shoved the entire set of forty lottery tickets back into P'Eurn's hands. I might not have any particular grudge against P'Eurn anymore. But I was definitely on P'Erng's side!
“You really don't want them? If they win first prize, each ticket will be worth three million baht, you know, Pei!”
“P'Eurn isn't that lucky! You should just carry on being the tycoon!”
“Pei's perfectly happy with the money I've already got!”
P'Erng had already won the biggest prize. There was absolutely no way P'Eurn could win against him!
“P'Eurn, stop messing about! You've got to attend tomorrow's meeting too. No skipping it!”
“Otherwise, I'll sell the hospital!”
“Haah... Nobody will give me a break! Khun Nid, help me!”
“I'm not helping you! I'll prepare the meeting documents and your opening speech. And don't you dare arrive late!”
“Nobody loves me!”
P'Eurn looked as though his entire world had collapsed. He even said those words in the tune of some ridiculously old-fashioned song!
Once they'd finished teasing each other, they finally started talking about work. Actually, P'Eurn was very good at his job. He just didn't like doing it!
I thought perhaps P'Eurn simply wanted to hand the company over to P'Erng because P'Erng worked harder than he did. Maybe that was P'Eurn's way of showing love to his younger brother. But P'Erng loved his older brother so much that he refused to let P'Eurn give him the company!
No, I didn't come up with that explanation myself. Pong told me!
Hehe.
“Let's say I win the lottery with these tickets. What would you give me, Pei?”
“If you win the lottery, you'll already have loads of money! Are you seriously going to be stingy with Pei too, P'Eurn?”
They'd finally finished discussing work, only for P'Eurn to start teasing me again!
Sometimes P'Eurn behaved like a child who refused to grow up.
“Come on... How about this? If I win the lottery, we can all go on holiday to Khao Kho.”
“It's beautiful there. The weather's lovely, and there are cabbage farms!”
“P'Eurn, shut up.”
P'Erng was starting to get irritated!
So I quickly shovelled some rice into my mouth to escape the battlefield. Whenever things reached this dangerous, unpredictable stage, it was better to fill my stomach as quickly as possible. Otherwise, the two of them might start arguing, and I wouldn't get to finish my dinner!
Mmmm... This salmon was delicious!
“Khun Ta, you've been to look at land around there before, haven't you?”
“P'Eurn, piss off.”
“I'm only talking about Khao Kho! Why are you getting so angry, Erng? Unless... you're hiding something?”
“Isn't that right, Pei? Has my little brother been secretly seeing some girl in Phetchabun?”
“P'Erng has a secret girlfriend...?”
When I finally lifted my head from my rice bowl, everyone at the table was looking at me with amused expressions. Everyone except P'Erng, who looked thoroughly fed up with his older brother. Nggh!
P'Eurn had tricked me again!
“P'Eurn! Pei's getting angry now!”
“Oh, come on! Erng doesn't have a secret girlfriend!”
“Anyway, it's settled! We're going to Khao Kho!”
“We'll take Auntie Sri and Auntie Phon too. It'll be a family trip!”
“Khun Nid isn't invited.”
“Excuse me?! Why are you treating Nid like this?!”
See?!
This was exactly what P'Eurn was like!
As soon as he'd finished teasing me, he moved straight on to teasing Khun Nid!
I genuinely wanted to see who would eventually manage to tame P'Eurn. How could one person be so ridiculously stubborn?!
“But what if P'Eurn doesn't win the lottery?”
“Then I'll give you my shares!”
“P'Eurn, you're so lazy!”
“What? Have you only just realised that, Pei? I thought I'd made it fairly obvious!”
P'Erng sighed and slid a bowl of steamed egg custard towards me instead. I was getting tired of talking to P'Eurn too!
Honestly, if I ever saw him handing out his company shares for free, I wouldn't even be surprised. After work, I had to go to the cinema with P'Erng. He'd booked tickets for a late showing because he didn't like crowded places. The shopping centre was quite close to the company too. I was still worried about someone seeing us together.
It wasn't really a problem for me. But it might make P'Erng look bad.
“Nobody's paying any attention to us, Pei.”
“Pei's just worried people might gossip about P'Erng.”
I tried walking with my head lowered, wearing a baseball cap pulled down to hide my face. But P'Erng reached for me and pulled me closer so we could walk hand in hand.
“Then let them gossip.”
“Pei doesn't want people saying horrible things about P'Erng.”
“Let them say whatever they like. It's not as though I'm doing anything that affects my work.”
“This is my private life. Yours too. Ours.”
“Are you embarrassed to be seen with me, Pei?”
“Of course not! Pei's incredibly happy!”
“Then there's nothing to worry about.”
“Because no matter how much I love you, I'm still not going to make you the tycoon of Araya!”
P'Erng winked at me with a smile. He'd even managed to turn the conversation into another dig at P'Eurn!
But he was right. P'Erng would never give me some important executive position. Because I wouldn't be able to do the job!
And I'd feel incredibly uncomfortable too.
“Although I might have to sack you, Pei.”
“WHAAAAT?!”
“I'm worried someone might carry you off when I'm not looking.”
“Pei isn't made of gold or diamonds, you know! I'm not going to disappear anywhere!”
“I'm not convinced.”
“What if someone sends a handsome, sexy man to persuade you to run away and start a cabbage farm together?”
“How am I supposed to compete with that?”
“Nggh! P'Erng, are you angry about that too?!”
“You said you weren't angry with Pei back then!”
“I'm only joking.”
Wooooow!
If you're going to make jokes like that, you might as well kill me!
I immediately turned into a miserable, drooping little cabbage. I felt so guilty that I ended up letting P'Erng cuddle me throughout practically the entire film. He was hugging me so tightly that it felt as though he wanted to merge our bodies together!
As for the whole situation involving Milan and P'Erng, I was feeling much better about it now. I think I'd simply been so shocked when I first found out that my emotions became confused. Once I'd managed to sort through everything I was feeling, it really wasn't a problem anymore. Besides, Milan and I weren't exactly close friends or anything. I think I was actually much more comfortable being his fan than being his friend.
And most importantly... P'Erng had started getting upset whenever I mentioned Milan!
Somehow, the situation had completely reversed itself. Now P'Erng was the one getting jealous over Milan!
Because I'd set a photograph of Milan as my phone wallpaper.
Hehe.
The photograph from his latest photoshoot was just so cute!
I couldn't resist!
P'Erng didn't make a big fuss about it. But I'd lived with him for years. I knew that whenever he was unhappy about something, he became quiet. Very quiet. Extremely quiet!
P'Erng wasn't someone who sulked very often either. But when he did, making up with him was incredibly difficult!
So I decided it was better to avoid talking about Milan for a while. And I changed my phone wallpaper to Little Erng instead!
“Let's go to Khao Kho on Friday after work.”
“But the lottery results haven't even come out yet, P'Erng!”
“Just the two of us. You and me.”
“As for the bet with P'Eurn, we can always go again another time.”
“Come on a date with me, Pei.”
“We're not even officially together! How can P'Erng invite Pei to go away to another province alone with him?!”
I was only playing hard to get. Actually, I was incredibly embarrassed!
And really happy too!
Because it had been such a long time since I'd gone away anywhere with P'Erng. Not that we'd ever travelled anywhere else in Thailand together apart from the beach at Sattahip!
Hehe.
“I'll even allow you to bring Little Erng along as our chaperone.”
“Please come with me, Pei.”
“Come on a date with P'Erng.”
The grumpy lion had transformed into a clingy little kitten again!
“Okay!”
“But you're absolutely certain you haven't got some secret girlfriend waiting for you in Khao Kho, aren't you?”
“I'm certain.”
“P'Erng only loves Pei.”
Woooooow!
This was it!
My golden cabbage was genuinely A+++ grade!
Forget premium cabbage exported overseas!
This was cabbage so extraordinary that it deserved to be exported to aliens!
But I'm not selling him!
He's Pei's and Pei's alone!