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"This could only mean one thing."

"What?" I couldn't help but ask.

"Kongpob doesn't like you anymore."

As Nam said those words, somehow, she was looking at me accusingly. "What? I didn't do anything. I was even trying to be friends with him." I defended myself.

She shook her head. "Do you think a guy wouldn't give up after putting up with you and your terrible treatment? Hello, you practically blew up every time you talked to him." She remarked with a raised brow. "Now it's going to be much harder to continue with our plan. But don't worry, we'll still go on. It's just that I thought we could start a few steps ahead of step 1, but I guess not."

Was it me or was Nam more eager about this than me? "Yah, you seem more excited than me to seduce Kongpob." I commented as we walked out of the bathroom together.

"Well, I don't know about you, but I really want to get even with Jessica, after everything she did to me." She remarked with a determined look. "Don't you?"

She was right. Jessica really needed to learn a lesson. And the only way for her to do that was by experiencing what it was like to have someone ruin things for her, the way she did to others. "Good point. So what are we going to do?" I asked her, knowing this was her line of expertise.

"Hmm...since you said Kongpob wants you to stay away from him, then it wouldn't be easy for you to get close to him. We're going to need someone's help." She fell silent for a while, deep in thought, before suddenly, she took out her cell phone and dialed someone's number.

"Who are you calling?" I asked her with a raised brow.

She grinned in reply. "Who else could help us but Joss."

Knowing Joss, I doubted that he would go against Kongpob. He was practically Kongpob's other half. "Are you crazy?! Joss would never help us, he'll just rat us out." I told her as I tried to take her cell phone from her.

She cancelled the call but moved the phone out of my reach. "Yah, don't you trust me?" She asked me with widened eyes. "I can get Joss to help us, okay? And if I end up failing, I'll be your slave for a week."

Why was she so confident about it? Unless... "Wait a minute, something's going on between you and Joss, isn't there?" I asked her suspiciously. She gave me an innocent smile, but I knew her too well to believe that. "You guys are dating, aren't you?"

"No, we're not, technically. We've just been...talking...a lot." She answered with a small blush on her cheeks. Then she started dialing again. "Now stop interrupting me while I call him, okay?"

I wasn't going to interrupt her anymore, but like Nam always did, she made sure I couldn't by moving a few meters away from me as she talked. Or maybe it was because she didn't want me to hear her talking all sweetly to Joss. Whatever the reason was, it caused me to stand a few steps away on my own, looking like a loner. Luckily, someone took the chance to call me so I instantly answered.

"Arthit? Where are you? I have some news for you." May spoke a mile a minute.

"I'm in the hallway a few meters away from the bathroom near our classroom."

After hearing that, she said that she would go to me and hanged up. Sure enough, after a few minutes, she appeared just as Nam was hanging up on Joss. She and Nam approached me together. When they reached me, it was Nam who spoke first. "We're all set. Joss is going to make sure that he and Kongpob will have lunch with us tomorrow."

"Great." I replied to her, making May's eyes grow wide in surprise. "What's the matter?" I asked her.

"Since when has having lunch with Kongpob sound "good" to you?" She remarked, touching my forehead to see if I was sick or something. "Are you feeling alright? You're a bit hot, I think."

"I'm feeling fine." I answered her with a chuckle.

"Something fishy is going on. First, I see Daniel acting weird, now you are, too. What's this, am I in a different dimension right now?" she exclaimed with a frown. She looked at me, waiting for an explanation.

But instead of answering her, I found myself asking about Daniel. "What's wrong with Daniel?" I asked her, unable to hide my worry in my voice.

May frowned once again. "Well, earlier, he entered the cafeteria looking like the whole world just crashed down on him. And he didn't even realize I was there. He just went ahead and pulled Michael out of his seat to talk somewhere else. Only when Michael told him to acknowledge my presence did he turn to me and greeted me half-heartedly. Then he asked permission for the two of them to talk in private so I just left them." She narrated in detail. "Actually, that's the news I was talking about."

He's probably just being dramatic so you'd pity him." Nam commented quickly, but her comment once again surprised May.

"What do you mean?" she asked Nam, looking confused.

I decided to answer this time. "May, there's something I learned about Daniel earlier today. He's not who we thought he is." I started, checking my watch for the time. "Unfortunately, it's about time for class so I'll just tell you after school, okay? Let's walk home together. Wait for us outside."

May shook her head. "No, you know how I hate waiting. Just tell me now, I'm sure it's not going to take too long." She argued, but then the bell rang, signaling the start of afternoon classes. Looking disappointed, she gave in with a sigh. "Fine, I'll just wait for you guys later. Just don't be late!"

Nam and I assured her that we wouldn't be, before we rushed to class.

When we got there, Nam and I were about to take our usual seats but just as I did, someone suddenly pushed past me and took the seat before I could. I was going to tell the person that it was my seat but the guy looked pretty pissed so I decided not to. I just waved at Nam and tried to look for another seat.

But there was a big problem — there were only two vacant seats left. And these were the seats beside Daniel and Michael. I knew that both of those seats would make me extremely uncomfortable, since Michael was a close, if not the closest, friend of Daniel. But then, it would be harder to face Daniel than his friend so I chose the worse of the worst and sat next to Michael.

"Hey Arthit!" Michael greeted me brightly. He was probably pretending not to know about what Daniel had done to me. But it didn't fool me. I was sure that he of all people knew about it. Being Daniel's best friend, there was no way he wouldn't know.

"I know that you know what's going on between Daniel and me, don't you?" I responded icily. I took out my notebook and started scanning it so I wouldn't have to look at him. I didn't like to look at the person I was talking to whenever I felt transparent. For some reason, I was afraid that that person would learn some things about me that even I didn't know of, and I hated that.

Daniel didn't budge at my cold remark. "What do you mean?" he asked, still in his cheerful tone.

"What I mean is that you already know about Daniel and his deceiving plan yet you still didn't warn me. I really thought you were a nice guy, Michael. That's why I introduced you to May. But now I've changed my mind." I let out, shutting my notebook as I finally found the strength to face him.

He must really like May, because at the mention of her name, he suddenly turned serious. "That's not true. I just found out about it earlier. I had no idea he was involved in something like that. If I did, I wouldn't have just warned you, I would've convinced him to stop. But I couldn't because he didn't tell me about it before, okay?" He spoke in a very serious tone.

After those words, I couldn't doubt him. I saw and felt the sincerity in his face and eyes and realized that Michael, of all people, was always the naive one, but also very honest with me. Suddenly, I felt so foolish in accusing him of being as bad person. He couldn't possibly be, even after trying to set Daniel and May up together, even though he liked May. "I'm sorry, it's just that I feel so stupid for not having realized that I was being set up." I apologized in a low tone as the teacher finally entered the room.

Hearing my apology, he took out a piece of paper and wrote something. Then he gave it to me. "If you're stupid, then what do you call me? I am very close to him and yet I also didn't realize it. I guess we were both played by the player, so don't feel stupid because I'd be even more stupid."

Seriously, I knew that Michael was trying to make me feel better and I had to admit, it was working. "Well, okay, so maybe we're both not stupid. It's probably just because he's just a good actor. I mean, how else could he have convinced you and me, right?"

When he read that, he once again went into a serious mode and started writing something in response. "I don't know, Arthit...but something tells me he wasn't acting the whole time... See, when he told me about it, he said that it wasn't an act to him. And he is never able to lie to my face. This means...Daniel really likes you."

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