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The Summer That Never Ended

Summary:

Lingling is calm, composed, and twenty-two—just trying to finish her thesis in peace. Orm is loud, fifteen, and a little too bright for Lingling’s carefully quiet world. What starts as tutoring sessions turns into late-night noodles, shared hoodies, and a confession that comes too soon. Lingling tells herself it’s just a summer. But some feelings don’t listen to logic—and some goodbyes never sound like the end.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Chapter 1: It Was Never Just Science

Chapter Text

Bangkok, 2017

 

Milk’s internet was allegedly faster.

 

That’s what Lingling told her mom when she packed her laptop, three tote bags, and an emotional support cassette player with light headphones, and moved a few houses down into Milk’s guest room for the summer. A temporary thing, she said. Just until the thesis was finished. Just until the chaos calmed.

 

The real reason was quieter.

 

Less defensible.

 

Her brother’s twins were teething. Her father had recently discovered karaoke. Her mother had taken to blending papaya smoothies at 6:30 a.m. sharp, with the tenacity of a sports coach training for war.

 

Lingling needed peace.

 

Milk’s house had that.

 

Mostly.

 

It also had Orm.

 

Fifteen. Pale knees, bandaids, too much eyeliner for school. A fringe she cut herself. Loud socks that never matched. Milk’s cousin who lived next door, but seemed to exist everywhere at once—on Milk’s staircase, Milk’s balcony, Milk’s couch—chewing Pocky sticks like a debt collector chasing flavor.

 

Lingling met her on her second morning in the house. She had just sat down at the dining table with a thick binder of research papers when a loud voice yelled from the kitchen, “P’MILK, THERE’S NO ICE, YOUR HOUSE IS A HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATION.”

 

And then a blur.

 

Oversized hoodie. Strawberry hairclip. A phone with 6% battery and zero boundaries.

 

“I’m not Milk,” Lingling said, not looking up.

 

Orm paused. Eyed her. “Then who’re you?”

 

“Her friend.”

 

“You look like her thesis.”

 

Lingling blinked.

 

Orm snorted. “Boring and slightly dusty.”

 

Lingling considered replying. Instead, she sipped her iced americano and said, “The ice is in the lower freezer.”

 

From then on, Orm just appeared. Daily. A summer mosquito in human form. She dropped by with gossip. With her homework. With her playlist titled Songs That Make Me Feel Like a Thai Series Main Character.

 

She sat on the carpet while Lingling typed, flipping through magazines and sighing dramatically every time a male celebrity got married.

 

“You’re like a capybara,” Lingling said one afternoon, not unkindly.

 

Orm grinned, wide and full of teeth. “Then you’re that grumpy aunt who keeps shoving boiled eggs into my bowl.”

 

“I’m twenty-two.”

 

“Exactly,” Orm said, slapping her textbook shut. “Ancient.”

 

She called Lingling P’Ling the Robot.

 

Because Lingling didn’t yell. Because she didn’t even react when Orm asked her to do the YouTube trends. Because she always looked a little tired, even when she wasn’t. Because when Orm knocked over a can of Sprite and spilled it all over the study notes, Lingling didn’t scream—she just blinked, got a tissue, and said, “Try not to ruin my thesis with sugar.”

 

Because Lingling read too much and sighed like the world weighed differently on her shoulders.

 

Because she smiled when Orm made dumb jokes.

 

Not laughed.

 

Smiled.

 

And Orm hated how much she liked that.

 

She hated how it made her heart do weird fluttery things. Like it was folding origami behind her ribs.

 

Because Lingling was not meant to be interesting.

 

She was meant to be Milk’s calm, boring, thesis-obsessed friend.

 

But somehow—

 

She became something Orm couldn’t stop looking at.

 

Even when she tried.

 

Even when she told herself, It’s just a summer. It doesn’t mean anything.

 

But the thing was—

 

Lingling didn’t feel like summer.

 

She felt like something Orm might still remember years from now, long after the sunburn faded.

 

 


 

 

Milk cornered Lingling one humid afternoon between a thesis meltdown and what was meant to be a soul-healing 12-minute nap.

 

“Help her,” she said, dumping a stack of worn textbooks and crumpled worksheets into Lingling’s lap like she was loading a human printer.

 

Lingling blinked. “Help who.”

 

Milk gestured vaguely toward the hallway, where distant sounds of someone singing (badly) to Red Velvet echoed. “Her. Orm. She’s failing science.”

 

Lingling stared at her.

 

“Please,” Milk said. “She got a 28 on her last test.”

 

Lingling raised a brow. “That’s not a grade. That’s a blood pressure reading.”

 

“She said electrons are a ‘vibe’ and that the periodic table is ‘a gaslighting tool.’ I need her to graduate. Help her.”

 

Lingling sighed. “Orm can’t sit still for five minutes.”

 

“Then tie her to the chair.”

 

Lingling did not tie her to the chair.

 

But she considered it.

 

The first session was chaos in lowercase and bold.

 

Orm showed up barefoot, with one sock in her pocket and glitter stuck to her temple. She didn’t bring a pen. Stole Milk’s instead. Doodled flowers on her own palm and wrote Science is a scam in looping cursive across the top of the worksheet.

 

Lingling watched her with the calm judgment of someone grading karma on a bell curve.

 

“Okay,” Lingling said finally. “Let’s start with atoms.”

 

“Do we have to?” Orm groaned. “Why not start with something nice. Like… sea turtles.”

 

“This is science.”

 

“Sea turtles are science.”

 

Lingling stared at her.

 

Orm leaned forward. “P’Ling, do you believe in reincarnation?”

 

“...No.”

 

“Because I’m 90% sure I was a sea sponge in my past life. That’s why I’m dumb in this one.”

 

Lingling closed her eyes. Prayed to whichever god governed teenagers and Wi-Fi.

 

But she didn’t give up.

 

The second session, Orm brought cookies.

 

“Peace offering,” she said, stuffing one into her own mouth. “In case I destroy another pen.”

 

She did, in fact, break the pen. In half. Somehow without using force. Lingling didn’t ask questions. Just handed her a mechanical pencil and whispered something to herself that might’ve been a curse.

 

The third session, Orm tried.

 

Really tried.

 

Fumbled the difference between elements and compounds, forgot what “Na” stood for (“Nana?”), and got distracted halfway through by Lingling’s notes.

 

“Your handwriting’s weird,” she said suddenly.

 

Lingling looked up. “Weird?”

 

“Weirdly elegant,” Orm clarified, cheeks going a little pink. “Like, murder-mystery-writer elegant. Like you sign important documents and people cry.”

 

Lingling raised an eyebrow.

 

Orm immediately looked back at her worksheet. “Shut up. I’m trying to focus.”

 

The fourth session, Lingling gave her a pop quiz.

 

Orm rolled her eyes but took it.

 

Got seven out of ten.

 

“Holy shit,” she whispered when Lingling handed it back. “Am I… smart now?”

 

“No,” Lingling said dryly. “You just remember things better when you’re not chewing on your pencil.”

 

Orm beamed anyway. Lingling refused to admit—out loud, at least—that she was proud.

 

The fifth session, Orm came in late, hair damp from the rain, holding a can of iced green tea and two packs of gummy worms.

 

They sat at the table, windows open, breeze soft.

 

Halfway through balancing equations, Orm looked up.

 

“I kinda like this,” she said.

 

Lingling blinked. “Science?”

 

“No,” Orm said. “This.”

 

Lingling didn’t reply.

 

Just reached into her folder, pulled out a fresh worksheet, and passed it over.

 

It had color-coded notes, underlined instructions, and a stupid little doodle of a cat in the corner.

 

Orm grinned like she’d won something.

 

Lingling didn’t smile back.

 

But when Orm wasn’t looking, she did.

 

Just a little.

 

 


 

 

They started eating Mama noodles at midnight.

 

Not because they were hungry. Not really.

 

Just because it became a ritual. A rhythm. A reason to stay up a little longer.

 

Lingling would close her laptop, rub her temples, and stretch with the practiced elegance of someone pretending not to be tired.

 

And every time, without fail, Orm would perk up from the couch and say, “You hungry?”

 

Like she hadn’t been waiting for the cue all evening.

 

Lingling never said yes.

 

She just stood up. Grabbed two bowls. Boiled the water. Passed Orm the flavor packets she always forgot to tear neatly.

 

They sat in the backyard. Plastic chairs, mosquito coils, a battery-powered lamp flickering weakly beside them.

 

Steam curled up into the thick Bangkok night, blending with the scent of citronella and grass and the faint whir of Milk’s ancient standing fan.

 

Orm talked.

 

She always talked.

 

About nonsense. About how she was going to be a model someday—“Not like those tall ones. Just, y’know, face model. Jawline model. Something iconic.”

 

About how her science teacher was “probably a lizard in a wig.”

 

About boys at school—“boring, sweaty, loud, gross”—and how Instagram was a scam but also how she spent three hours scrolling through hair tutorials anyway.

 

Lingling listened.

 

Quietly. Softly.

 

With her chin in her palm and the noodle cup balanced on her knee.

 

She asked questions sometimes. Not many. Just enough to keep Orm’s words coming.

 

And when Orm said, half-joking, “You’ll be my manager someday, yeah?”—Lingling replied, “Only if you promise not to trip on stage.”

 

To which Orm had stood, chin high, and done her version of a model walk.

 

It was... something.

 

A dramatic strut across the tiled patio, hips swinging, expression deadly serious.

 

Until her foot hit a garden rock and she yelped, flailed, caught herself, and bowed.

 

Lingling threw a towel at her. “Idiot.”

 

Orm caught it. Grinned. “But your idiot, right?”

 

Lingling didn’t answer.

 

She just handed her another cup of iced green tea.

 

Didn’t meet her eyes.

 

Didn’t need to.

 

Another night, the aircon broke.

 

It wasn’t even dramatic—just a low whine, a shudder, then nothing but the damp cling of heat.

 

Orm groaned. Laid face-down on the floor like she was dying. “I’m melting.”

 

“Good,” Lingling said. “Maybe you’ll evaporate and I’ll get some peace.”

 

“Cruel,” Orm moaned. “You used to be kind.”

 

Lingling rolled her eyes. Left the room. Came back with a hoodie.

 

Her hoodie.

 

Faded navy, soft from years of laundry cycles.

 

The university crest on the front was cracked and peeling.

 

The cuffs frayed. The neckline stretched.

 

Orm sat up slowly. Took it without a word.

 

Pulled it over her head.

 

It drowned her. Swallowed her whole.

 

And Lingling stared—just for a second—at how the sleeves hung past her fingers.

 

At how the collar brushed her cheek.

 

At how Orm closed her eyes and sighed like she hadn’t breathed properly all day.

 

She wore it for three days straight.

 

Didn’t mention it. Didn’t joke.

 

Just showed up to their sessions in it.

 

Even when it was too warm.

 

Even when it smelled faintly like menthol and old textbooks.

 

Lingling didn’t ask for it back.

 

She couldn’t.

 

And Orm… Orm recorded one of their tutoring sessions on her phone.

 

Said it was so she could review the material later.

 

But when Milk caught her curled up in her room, earbuds in, phone screen dark, and asked what she was doing—Orm just muttered, “Homework.”

 

It wasn’t.

 

She was listening to Lingling say her name.

 

She’d memorized the timestamp.

 

Right before the lecture on chemical bonding.

 

Where Lingling had sighed, nudged her pencil back into her hand, and said softly,

 

“Orm… focus.”

 

She liked the way she said it.

 

Soft. Stern. A little tired.

 

Like Orm was a puzzle she hadn’t quite figured out yet.

 

Like Orm mattered enough to be reminded.

 

It didn’t help her study.

 

Not even a little.

 

But she replayed it anyway.

 

Because that moment—those two seconds—it made her feel seen.

 

Even if Lingling didn’t know it.

 

Even if it didn’t mean anything.

 

(Except it did.)

 

And she was starting to think…

 

Maybe she wasn’t the only one who felt it.

 

 


 

 

It started with thunder.

 

Not the kind that boomed and crashed, but the kind that growled low—like the sky was rolling over in its sleep, too tired to scream.

 

Rain came next.

 

Heavy. Slow. Relentless.

 

The kind of rain that soaked through the roof tiles and pooled at the edges of windows. Bangkok had no patience for soft rain. It always came hard or not at all.

 

The lights flickered at first.

 

Then died.

 

Milk wasn’t home. She had gone out with her girlfriend for a late dinner, left a LINE message with a dozen emojis and an apology that didn’t sound too sorry. Said she’d be back before midnight.

 

Lingling didn’t mind the silence. She welcomed it. The house felt gentler without background noise.

 

And then—

 

Orm appeared.

 

She always did.

 

“Power’s out,” she announced from the doorway, her voice a little too loud for the dark.

 

Lingling didn’t look up from her phone. “Yes. I noticed.”

 

“I brought backup,” Orm said, and dropped two half-melted ice pops on the bed between them.

 

Lingling raised an eyebrow.

 

Orm just grinned. “We eat them before they die.”

 

So they did.

 

They sat on Lingling’s bed in the guest room—cross-legged, side by side, backs against the wall, legs barely brushing.

 

The pops dripped onto napkins.

 

Orm licked her fingers, made a face. “Mango shouldn’t taste like soap.”

 

“It’s not soap,” Lingling said.

 

“Have you tasted it?”

 

Lingling didn’t answer.

 

Outside, the storm deepened. Rain lashed against the windows, the wind tossing leaves against the glass like someone desperate to get in.

 

The room smelled like mango, fabric softener, and damp air.

 

Orm’s hair was wet at the ends, curling against her cheek. Her cheeks flushed—either from the cold or the company.

 

She wore Lingling’s hoodie. Still. Like it had fused into her skin.

 

Her fingers picked at the frayed threads of the sleeve.

 

Fidgeting. Pausing. Thinking.

 

“Do you ever think about stars?” she asked suddenly.

 

Lingling blinked. “Stars?”

 

“Yeah. Like… out there.” Orm gestured vaguely toward the window, where lightning lit up the sky in flashes. “How we’re just… small. But we still burn.”

 

Lingling didn’t answer right away.

 

She looked at Orm instead.

 

At the curve of her cheek. The way her lashes cast soft shadows beneath her eyes. How her lips tugged inwards slightly—like she was scared she’d said something stupid.

 

“I think about them sometimes,” Lingling said softly.

 

Orm nodded. She didn’t smile.

 

She turned her head. Faced forward. Let the silence fall again.

 

Then—

 

She reached for Lingling’s hand.

 

Quick. Shy.

 

Fingers brushing against hers like an afterthought.

 

She held it. Gently. Barely.

 

Just for a second.

 

Lingling didn’t move.

 

Didn’t breathe.

 

And when Orm pulled away, she did it slowly. Like she was hoping Lingling would stop her.

 

She didn’t.

 

Orm sat very still. Her voice, when she spoke, was low. Soft. Quieter than thunder. “I like you.”

 

Lingling felt her chest go still.

 

“I mean—I more than like you.”

 

She turned then. Looked at her.

 

And Lingling saw it—

 

The tremble in her lips. The fear in her eyes. The stupid bravery of a girl who hadn’t learned yet how dangerous love could be.

 

She looked like she was waiting to be broken.

 

“Orm…” Lingling said.

 

She didn’t finish.

 

Orm smiled. Wobbly. Brave. “You’re gonna say I’m too young.”

 

Lingling didn’t deny it.

 

She just stared at her.

 

Her throat tight.

 

Her heart loud.

 

And she smiled.

 

Tight. Sad.

 

“You’re still a kid,” she whispered.

 

Orm nodded. Like she expected it.

 

Then leaned forward.

 

Not fast. Not dramatic.

 

Just… close.

 

And kissed her cheek.

 

Soft. Barely-there.

 

Lingling didn’t move.

 

Didn’t speak.

 

Didn’t blink.

 

She just sat there.

 

Still as rain.

 

And somewhere in the distance, thunder rolled like a sigh.

 

The ice pops melted.

 

The air thickened with something neither of them could name yet.

 

And Orm whispered, before leaving the room—

 

“You’ll see. I’ll grow up.”

 

Lingling didn’t say anything back.

 

But her hand stayed open on the bedsheet. Waiting.

 

Just a little too long.

 

 


 

 

Lingling was gone the next week.

 

No dramatic exit.

 

No teary hugs.

 

No whispered “take care” under her breath while Orm pretended not to cry.

 

Just... gone.

 

Milk said it casually, mouth full of watermelon, remote in one hand. “Ling moved back to her house. Something about needing her own desk for thesis revisions.”

 

Orm didn’t say anything.

 

Just nodded.

 

Tossed a grape into her mouth and missed.

 

It rolled under the couch.

 

She didn’t go looking for it.

 

Later that day, she wandered into the guest room, half by accident.

 

It still smelled faintly like Lingling.

 

Iced americano and sunscreen.

 

The window was half-open, the curtain swaying like it missed someone.

 

The bed was made. Neatly. Tightly. Not like how Ling used to leave it—pillows a mess, blanket half kicked off, notebooks buried under the covers.

 

Clothes were gone.

 

So was her charger. Her laptop. Her hair tie wrapped around the lamp switch.

 

Like she’d never been there at all.

 

Orm stared for a while.

 

Then backed out of the room slowly. Like it might bite.

 

She didn’t send a LINE.

 

Not right away.

 

She told herself it didn’t matter. That she was fine.

 

That Lingling would be back. Maybe tomorrow. Or the next day. Or after her thesis defense.

 

People came back. That was just what they did.

 

But the silence stretched.

 

And it stretched.

 

So she caved.

 

Scrolled through the stickers for too long. Almost sent a poop emoji out of spite. Settled on a crying cat holding a sign that said “Don’t go.”

 

Sent it.

 

Closed the app.

 

Opened it again in five minutes.

 

No reply.

 

Not even a read receipt.

 

She waited a day.

 

And then she just stopped wearing the hoodie Lingling lent her.

 

Folded it. Stuffed it in the back of her closet.

 

Didn’t want it near her anymore.

 

Didn’t want to smell that faint Lingling-scent that always made her chest ache like she’d swallowed a firecracker.

 

She stopped checking the backyard after midnight.

 

Didn’t make noodles anymore.

 

Didn’t buy green tea.

 

Didn’t say “You hungry?” to the empty air like she used to, just in case Lingling answered back.

 

 


 

 

One night, two months later, she was scrolling Milk’s Instagram while pretending to study for finals.

 

Her finger froze mid-scroll.

 

There it was.

 

Graduation day.

 

Milk and Lingling, side by side.

 

Caps crooked. Gowns wrinkled.

 

Milk flashing a peace sign. Lingling holding a bouquet of blue hydrangeas.

 

She looked—

 

Happy?

 

No.

 

Not unhappy.

 

Just... tired.

 

The kind of tired Orm recognized. The kind you feel when you're pretending not to miss something.

 

Lingling’s smile was polite. Distant.

 

A little too small.

 

Orm stared at the photo until the screen dimmed.

 

Her thumb hovered over the like button.

 

She didn’t press it.

 

Instead, she whispered. Not loud. Not soft.

 

More like a truth that had been sitting too long in her throat.

 

“I’ll grow up,” she said.

 

A pause.

 

A breath.

 

“Just wait.”

 

 


 

 

Outside, rain tapped lightly against the roof.

 

Orm pulled her blanket tighter around her shoulders. Lay back on her bed and stared at the ceiling.

 

She thought of Mama noodles.

 

Of stars.

 

Of someone who once said she was too young.

 

She wondered—

 

Was that the end?

 

Was that all she got?

 

A borrowed summer.

 

A quiet crush.

 

A cheek kiss she would replay until it turned dull with memory.

 

Or...

 

Was there still more?

 

Something left waiting in the space between their ages.

 

A sentence that hadn’t been finished.

 

A door that hadn’t fully closed.

 

She didn’t know.

 

But she’d grow up.

 

And one day—

 

She’d knock again.

 

Just to see if Lingling would open.

Chapter 2: Like We Were Always Meant To Return

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Bangkok, 2025

 

Orm didn’t just walk into a room.

 

She entered.

 

Shoulders squared. Hair sleek. Blazer sharp enough to cut the tension she never acknowledged. Her heels clicked against the floor like punctuation marks, as if her presence was the final word in whatever meeting she was about to dominate.

 

She didn’t smile often.

 

Didn’t need to.

 

When she did—brief, polite, closed-lip—it was the kind of smile that left people second-guessing themselves long after she’d walked away.

 

Clients loved her because she was efficient. Direct. No wasted breath.

 

Colleagues admired her from a distance.

 

Interns were terrified of her.

 

She didn’t do office birthdays. Skipped team lunches. Turned down offers for drinks with a cool “Thanks, but I’ve got reports to finalize.”

 

She became the benchmark.

 

The don’t-mess-with-her standard whispered over iced lattes.

 

And yet—

 

Her apartment was cluttered in places she never let anyone see.

 

A half-dead plant by the balcony.

 

Sticky notes with grocery reminders that were more doodles than lists. Some were still shaped like little stars.

 

And the hoodie.

 

Stuffed under her pillow.

 

Faded navy. Oversized. Smelled like rain, green tea, and time that refused to pass.

 

She didn’t wear it.

 

Not in public.

 

But sometimes—on Sunday nights, when the air felt heavier and the silence clung too hard—she’d put it on and sit cross-legged on the floor of her bedroom, eating cheap instant noodles and pretending she didn’t feel fifteen again.

 

Because the truth was—

 

She never became the model she swore she would. Not the jawline icon. Not the catwalk chaos Lingling once teased her about.

 

Life had other ideas.

 

Reality had gentler claws.

 

She chose the steady route. University. Internships. A corporate job with deadlines and meetings and just enough salary to call it a win.

 

No spotlight. No runway.

 

Just a desk. A title.

 

A quiet kind of power.

 

And every now and then—when the emails stopped and the coffee went cold—she’d wonder if that girl in the borrowed hoodie would be proud of her now.

 

Or if she'd simply laugh, the way she used to, and say, “Kinda hot for an office girl, though.”

 

And Orm—

 

Orm would laugh back.

 

Quietly.

 

Alone.

 

 


 

 

Lingling had never been messy.

 

Not once.

 

Not even as a child, according to her mother. Not even in college, when chaos was part of the culture. While others taped Polaroids to their bedroom walls and lived out of laundry baskets, Lingling color-coded her binders, ironed her bedsheets, folded her socks by color and thickness.

 

Her apartment now was clean. Organized. Not obsessively—but deliberately.

 

Shoes lined up in perfect pairs under the bench by the door. Cutlery arranged in quiet harmony—spoons facing right, forks facing left, chopsticks gently cradled in ceramic rests. Candles that were lit when company came, but otherwise remained pristine, untouched. Decorative, not functional. Just like most things around her.

 

The couch cushions always returned to their corners. The towels smelled faintly of lavender and order. Nothing was ever left out. No dishes in the sink. No coffee cups abandoned beside the bed.

 

A life curated.

 

Contained.

 

She used rose water on her face. Always double-cleansed. Had three types of sunscreen and remembered to reapply.

 

Her workspace was quiet. Her voice, even. Her text messages grammatically correct, down to the period at the end.

 

Even her silence was graceful.

 

She didn't raise her voice. Didn't panic. Even her heartbreak—when it happened—had the decency to show up as insomnia and quiet sighs, never tears.

 

Thirty looked good on her.

 

Sleek. Professional. Emotionally impenetrable.

 

She was the kind of woman whose life looked complete from the outside. The kind who had plans booked months in advance, who never missed a deadline, who returned calls even when she didn’t want to.

 

She managed teams. Celebrities. Crisis timelines. Influencer meltdowns. She was the person you wanted when your public image was seconds from imploding. Calm in the fire.

 

She always knew what to do.

 

Except, when she was alone.

 

She was dating Bam.

 

They shared rent, groceries, polite affection. Took turns buying eggs and bread. Laughed quietly at each other’s jokes, sometimes out of obligation, sometimes out of habit.

 

Bam was kind.

 

Stable.

 

She folded Lingling’s laundry without being asked. Bought her the soy milk she liked. Remembered to book pest control every quarter. She held Lingling’s hand in grocery aisles. Smiled at her like she meant it.

 

Lingling didn’t flinch from the touch.

 

But she didn’t lean into it, either.

 

Not anymore.

 

They had routines. A shared Spotify playlist. A calendar with color-coded reminders. A coffee machine that beeped every morning at 6:30, even on weekends.

 

But somewhere along the way, the joy went quiet.

 

Lingling still laughed, but not deeply.

 

Still slept, but not restfully.

 

Still woke up, but never really felt awake.

 

Her life wasn’t broken. Just… paused.

 

Like she was living inside parentheses.

 

People said she was lucky. To have made it. To be successful, respected, partnered. People said she had it all.

 

And maybe she did.

 

But sometimes, at night, when Bam had already drifted off and the city hummed faintly outside the windows, Lingling would lie on her back, staring at the ceiling. Counting the shadows.

 

She felt hollow then.

 

Like everything she built had shape, but no weight.

 

A beautiful shell.

 

A house with no echo.

 

And in those moments—when the silence pressed too hard against her chest, when her pulse felt faint under her fingers—she thought of Orm.

 

Of loud socks and mango popsicles.

 

Of mosquito bites and whispered constellations.

 

Of a voice that once said, “You’re still a kid,” but meant I’m scared to love you.

 

Of something unfinished.

 

Lingling had everything she was supposed to want.

 

But some nights, she couldn’t shake the feeling—

 

That she had closed the wrong door.

 

And then learned to live inside the hallway.

 

 


 

 

Lingling still used LINE.

 

Hadn’t changed her profile picture in years. It was still that candid from a café in Chiang Mai—sunlight on her shoulder, her eyes squinting slightly, half a smile, no filter. She used to hate how uncurated it was.

 

Now she couldn’t bring herself to replace it.

 

Her contact list had thinned over the years. People came and went—changed phones, changed numbers, changed usernames that no longer made sense. She archived the work chats. Muted the alumni groups. Deleted the ex she’d dated before Bam, the one with too many voice notes and no sense of closure.

 

But she kept one.

 

น้องออม 😒
(N'Orm)

 

It was still there. Untouched. Unedited.

 

The last message was a sticker.

 

A cat—wide-eyed, crying—holding a cardboard sign that said: “don’t go.”

 

Lingling never replied.

 

Not with a sticker. Not with a single word.

 

But she read it.

 

Once.

 

Then again.

 

Then again.

 

Then again.

 

A hundred times, maybe.

 

Sometimes after long meetings that left her too empty to speak.

 

Sometimes when she passed by a store selling green tea and remembered a night lit only by mosquito coils and Orm’s stupid half-jokes about sea turtles and science.

 

Sometimes in bed, beside Bam, when the silence between them got too still, too neat.

 

She’d open the chat. Scroll up. Pause on that sticker like it was a bruise.

 

Her thumb would hover. Her breath would stall.

 

She’d imagine what she might’ve said.

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

“I wanted to stay.”

 

“I was scared.”

 

“You mattered too much.”

 

But the words never made it past imagination.

 

Because she wasn’t brave then.

 

And she didn’t know how to be now.

 

She’d been many things in her life.

 

Efficient. Disciplined. Calm under pressure.

 

But never brave. Not when it counted. Not with her.

 

Not with Orm.

 

And yet—

 

All it took, even now, was a voice.

 

A voice that was too sharp, too amused.

 

A voice that slipped through the back of a crowd or off the screen of a commercial and made her stomach drop before her brain caught up.

 

Or a sound.

 

Rain tapping on the balcony railing.

 

And her body would freeze.

 

Her hands stilled on the keyboard. Her eyes flicking to the window. Her breath pausing like it expected something—someone—to come back in with damp hair and a crooked grin.

 

Sometimes she stared too long out the cab window.

 

At nothing.

 

At everything.

 

At a skyline that hadn’t changed, but somehow looked lonelier.

 

Muscle memory, maybe.

 

The kind that doesn’t fade.

 

The kind that remembers what it’s like to hold a hand for two seconds too long.

 

The kind that remembers the warmth of a hoodie she never asked to be returned.

 

The kind that still heard a voice in the quiet—

 

“I’ll grow up.”

 

“Just wait.”

 

She hadn’t believed her.

 

Not really.

 

Not when she was fifteen and too bold and too bright and too young to carry the weight of what Lingling was too afraid to want.

 

But now—eight years later—she wasn’t so sure.

 

Because sometimes, when Lingling looked at the ceiling before bed, or stirred her coffee absentmindedly, or walked past Milk’s old street—

 

She didn’t feel thirty.

 

She felt twenty-two again.

 

Still sitting in Milk’s guest room. Still hunched over a thesis she couldn’t finish. Still half-listening to a girl in mismatched socks ramble about Instagram and galaxies and why love was kind of like dying but fun.

 

Still wearing restraint like armor.

 

Still pretending she didn’t feel what she felt.

 

Still pretending she didn’t want to stay.

 

She hadn’t known it then.

 

But that was the first time she truly ached for something and chose to leave it behind.

 

Now—

 

She didn’t know what they were anymore.

 

She didn’t know if eight years of silence could be rewound.

 

If Orm had already burned the memories. Buried the sticker. Forgot how Lingling used to say her name only when she meant it.

 

But still—

 

She kept that chat.

 

Like a pressed flower between the pages of a book she never opened anymore.

 

Still waiting.

 

For a reason.

 

A flicker.

 

A permission.

 

A miracle.

 

Or maybe—

 

Just a hello.

 

Again.

 

 


 

 

Milk looked beautiful.

 

Not just bridal beautiful—but glowing. Soft. Like someone lit from the inside with too many compliments and not enough breath. Her white satin blazer clung to her like a second skin, cinched just right. Her makeup had smudged a little at the corners of her eyes, mascara clinging like the tears she kept laughing through. She looked like she’d been waiting her whole life for this and couldn’t believe it was finally here.

 

Love, ever the chaos goddess, wore white sneakers under layers of tulle that puffed like a defiant cloud. Her bouquet looked like it had been handpicked in the dark and tied together with mischief, dried eucalyptus, and the remains of a Pinterest board. But somehow—on her—it worked. It was ridiculous and sweet and messy in all the best ways.

 

They looked in love.

 

Unapologetically.

 

The kind of love that wrapped around everyone else like warm velvet and made strangers want to hug.

 

The kind of love that made Lingling feel old in a way she hadn’t expected.

 

She stood near the dessert table, a glass of white wine held with the delicacy of someone who wasn’t drinking it. The coconut cakes were starting to sag under the heat of fairy lights. The chocolate fountain had crusted at the edges. Someone from the quartet attempted a jazz cover of a song that should have stayed in 2012.

 

Her dress was forest green. Sleek. Backless. Tailored within a breath of perfection.

 

But she felt wrong in it.

 

Wrong here, maybe.

 

Out of place, or maybe too in place. Like she'd been playing the role too long, and the seams were finally showing.

 

Bam stood beside her. Lovely in a champagne gown. Her hand ghosted over Lingling’s lower back, light and casual and familiar. She was talking about the flower arrangements, or maybe the catering—Lingling wasn’t listening.

 

Because that was when it happened.

 

A shift.

 

In the air. In her lungs. In the static of her pulse.

 

She didn’t hear a door open.

 

She just felt it.

 

Orm.

 

She entered late, like a movie character crashing her own scene.

 

Gold satin flowed over her like water. Her skin glowed under the soft lights, shoulders bare, collarbones sharp. Her hair was swept into a low, slightly messy bun, with strands that had long stopped pretending to behave. She wore no jewelry. No gloss. Just herself.

 

But sharper.

 

Older.

 

And somehow… softer, too.

 

Lingling’s breath caught—sharp and involuntary. Her fingers tightened on the stem of her glass.

 

Beside her, Bam said something. Maybe about Love’s dress. Lingling blinked but didn’t hear a word.

 

Because Orm was scanning the room.

 

And then—

 

She found her.

 

Eyes locked.

 

A single beat.

 

Lingling didn’t smile.

 

Couldn’t.

 

And then Orm’s mouth twitched.

 

A smile.

 

Not the kind she remembered. Not the soft, bratty one that used to pull wide and loud across her face like an unmade bed.

 

This one was curated.

 

Polite. Cold. Distant.

 

The kind of smile you give someone you used to dream about, then trained yourself not to miss.

 

Except Lingling knew better.

 

Because she’d taught Orm how to fake that smile.

 

Orm turned.

 

Walked.

 

Not hurried. Not slow.

 

Her heels silent on the tile. Her posture calm. Untouched.

 

She passed by without a flicker. Without acknowledgment.

 

And Lingling—she didn’t call out.

 

Didn’t reach.

 

Her heart twisted, but her feet stayed rooted.

 

It took her another hour to find Orm again.

 

Not that she’d meant to look.

 

Not really.

 

But her eyes had a way of drifting.

 

Of searching corners.

 

Of scanning silhouettes like muscle memory.

 

She spotted her on the balcony.

 

Leaning against the railing. Wine glass in hand. Laughing at something Ying Anada had just said.

 

Orm’s hand brushed Ying’s wrist—light, like a habit. Her laughter rose. Her posture eased. She looked casual. Comfortable.

 

But Lingling saw it.

 

Even from across the room.

 

Even after eight years.

 

That laugh?

 

It didn’t touch her eyes.

 

It curved too early, ended too late. It sounded like a line read off a script she didn’t believe in anymore.

 

Fake.

 

Perfectly rehearsed.

 

Lingling stared. Let her wine sit untouched.

 

Next to her, Bam was deep in a conversation about table linens with one of Milk’s cousins.

 

And Lingling drifted.

 

Just for a moment.

 

Back to a girl in a borrowed hoodie.

 

Back to a bedroom with no lights and a storm outside, and a whisper she never dared answer.

 

Orm looked up.

 

Caught her.

 

Their eyes met across the crowd.

 

The air stilled.

 

Just a second.

 

But long enough.

 

Long enough to say—

 

I see you.

 

Orm’s smile faltered.

 

Lingling’s chest ached.

 

She looked away first.

 

Which was stupid.

 

Because she never used to look away.

 

But maybe that’s what heartbreak was.

 

The moment you realize the person you let go never really stopped being yours.

 

And that you might have to earn your way back.

 

 


 

 

The night rolled on.

 

Laughter curled up into the rafters. Glasses clinked. Someone sang off-key to a remix no one asked for.

 

The music inside had gone chaotic—Love’s cousin had hijacked the playlist again. 90s throwbacks boomed through the walls, bass-heavy and half-drunk. The ballroom pulsed like a heart trying to keep rhythm.

 

People were barefoot. Blurry. Happy.

 

Bam was three glasses in. Flushed. Loose-limbed. Her laugh too loud in Lingling’s ear as she tugged at her hand.

 

“Come dance,” she murmured. “Just for a little.”

 

Lingling smiled.

 

Polite. Tight. Hollow.

 

“I’ll get some air.”

 

She didn’t wait for a reply. Just turned.

 

Slipped out through the side door, heels clicking softly like a metronome breaking time.

 

Outside, the night breathed differently.

 

The back garden had emptied out. Fairy lights looped across the hedges like someone had tried to recreate a movie scene and ran out of budget halfway. The candles in glass jars were half-melted. The air smelled like lemongrass, wet earth, and wilting jasmine.

 

And someone was already there.

 

Of course.

 

Orm.

 

She stood by the railing, facing away from the house. Her gold satin dress shimmered under the soft light, clinging to her like second skin. Straps slipping slightly off her shoulders. Her hair was loose, slightly frizzy from the humidity, strands curling against the nape of her neck. Her back rose and fell slowly. Steady. Controlled.

 

In her hand, a plastic cup of water. Half-full. Gripped too tightly. Like it anchored her.

 

She didn’t look like she belonged here.

 

She looked like she belonged in memory.

 

In unfinished poems. In things people regret not saying out loud.

 

Lingling hovered in the doorway.

 

Then walked forward.

 

Her steps slow. Her breath slower.

 

Orm didn’t turn.

 

“Running away?” Lingling asked, voice softer than she meant it to be.

 

“From the wedding,” Orm replied, “or from you?”

 

A pause stretched long between them.

 

Lingling came to stand beside her.

 

Not close enough to touch.

 

But close enough to feel how far apart they’d grown.

 

“You’re not fifteen anymore,” Lingling said. A weak attempt at a joke. At a bridge.

 

Orm laughed once. Dry. Barely there. “Wow. That’s the opening line you rehearsed?”

 

“No,” Lingling started. “I—”

 

“You should’ve led with something funnier,” Orm cut in. “At least then I’d pretend I wasn’t waiting all night for this.”

 

Lingling flinched. Just a little.

 

The silence came back. Heavy. Full.

 

Crickets buzzed from somewhere in the hedges. Someone cheered inside. A champagne cork popped. The world kept celebrating.

 

Orm didn’t move.

 

Just stared straight ahead. Her voice dropped low.

 

“You know I waited, right?”

 

Lingling’s chest tightened.

 

“That whole summer. After you left. Every night I checked the backyard like a dog with memory issues.”

 

Lingling swallowed.

 

“I know,” she whispered.

 

“You didn’t even say goodbye,” Orm continued. “Not even a LINE. Not even a sticker.”

 

“I didn’t know what to say.”

 

Orm finally turned.

 

Her face was unreadable. Not angry. Not cruel.

 

Just… tired.

 

“You always knew what to say, P’Ling,” she said quietly. “That was kind of your whole thing.”

 

Lingling looked down at her hands. Palms open. Empty.

 

“I was scared.”

 

“Of what? Me?”

 

“No.” Lingling met her eyes. “Of how much I wanted to stay.”

 

That cracked something.

 

Orm blinked.

 

Once.

 

Twice.

 

Then her voice returned. Barely audible. “I wasn’t asking you to stay forever. I didn’t even know what forever was. I was fifteen, for fuck’s sake. All I knew was I liked you. I liked how you looked at me when I wasn’t trying. I liked how you never called me ‘too much.’ I liked your stupid science worksheets and the cat doodles in the corner. I liked sitting next to you and pretending I wasn’t hoping you’d reach for my hand again.”

 

Lingling couldn’t breathe.

 

“It wasn’t you,” she said. “It was… the timing.”

 

“Don’t.” Orm stepped back. “Don’t give me the clean version. Don’t make it sound like fate. It wasn’t. You left.”

 

Lingling bit the inside of her cheek.

 

The taste of iron bloomed behind her tongue.

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

The words dropped between them like something fragile.

 

Orm looked at her for a long time.

 

Longer than she should’ve.

 

Then—her voice barely steady:

 

“You left,” she said. “I lived.”

 

Lingling looked away. Eyes burning.

 

“I moved on,” Orm added quickly. “You should too.”

 

But her voice wobbled. Just a fraction.

 

Enough to betray the truth.

 

She set the cup of water down. Gently. Like it might break.

 

Then turned.

 

Walked past Lingling. Shoulder brushing lightly. On purpose or not, Lingling didn’t know.

 

“Enjoy the cake, P’Ling,” Orm said without looking back.

 

Lingling stood frozen.

 

Her fingers curled at her sides.

 

She wanted to run after her.

 

To call her name.

 

But she didn’t.

 

Again.

 

She watched the sway of Orm’s gold dress disappear into the door.

 

And for the second time in her life—

 

Lingling let her go.

 

For a beat, all she could hear was her own heartbeat, too loud, too slow.

 

She stood there.

 

In the middle of melting candles and fairy lights that didn’t twinkle as brightly anymore.

 

And finally admitted—

 

Maybe she was the one who’d never moved on.

 

And maybe it was time to stop pretending she ever had.

 

 


 

 

The texts started simple.

 

A week after the wedding.

 

Just after midnight.

 

Hope you’re doing well.

 

Lingling stared at the message for twenty-three minutes.

 

Then threw her phone under her pillow and pretended she’d never sent it.

 

She didn’t unsend it.

 

But she wished she had.

 

Two days later, she tried again.

 

Do you still like horror movies? There's one coming out soon. I heard it's bad. You’d love it.

 

Still no reply.

 

Not even a "read."

 

She stared at the screen until her eyes crossed. Until the words stopped looking like words and just started looking like things she used to be brave enough to say in person.

 

She didn’t know what else to type.

 

Didn’t know how to knock on a door she was the one who’d slammed shut.

 

Didn’t know if Orm was still angry.

 

Or worse—indifferent.

 

But then—

 

One night, when the sky looked too much like that night in 2017—when the stars blinked faintly between clouds and the city noise faded into background blur—

 

Her phone buzzed.

 

No words.

 

Just a photo.

 

A faded hoodie.

 

Her hoodie.

 

The same one from that summer. The same one she’d handed over without thinking. The one she’d never asked for back.

 

It looked older now. The navy more gray than blue. Wrists stretched out. Logo faded to a ghost of its former self.

 

But unmistakably, hers.

 

Lingling blinked once.

 

Twice.

 

Stared until the screen dimmed.

 

No caption. No emojis. No context.

 

Just that image.

 

And a timestamp that said “Read.”

 

She pressed her knuckles to her lips.

 

Whispered to the room, “Of course it still fits.”

 

And then cried a little like a clown with a face mask on and a rice cracker in her lap.

 

Because grief wasn’t always loud.

 

Sometimes it came quietly, in cotton sleeves and too-long silences.

 

Then came the accidents.

 

Or fate. Or destiny. Or Bangkok just being too damn small.

 

First: Supermarket. Tuesday evening.

 

Lingling reached for the last carton of soy milk—the only brand she drank.

 

Orm’s hand landed on it at the same time.

 

Fingers brushed.

 

They both froze.

 

Lingling blinked. “You still drink this stuff?”

 

Orm gave her a slow blink. “You still judge people for it?”

 

They stared.

 

A small, charged pause.

 

Then, like some long-lost choreography:

 

Both pulled their hands back at the same time.

 

“Take it,” Lingling said.

 

Orm shrugged. “We could share. Like divorced parents and custody.”

 

That startled a laugh out of Lingling—sharp, dry, unexpected.

 

They stood too long in that aisle.

 

Between dairy and overpriced granola.

 

The soy milk sat untouched.

 

Second: That Japanese place on Sukhumvit. Saturday.

 

Lingling was halfway into the restaurant with her coworkers when she saw her.

 

Orm. Corner booth. Alone.

 

Reading a book. Earbuds in. Salmon sashimi halfway to her mouth.

 

She looked up.

 

Locked eyes.

 

Removed one earbud like it was all rehearsed.

 

“You stalking me now?”

 

Lingling didn’t blink. “Yeah. I paid the chef to leak your sushi schedule.”

 

Orm cracked a grin. “Worth it?”

 

Lingling shrugged. “Haven’t decided yet.”

 

A pause.

 

The kind where something almost meaningful slips in through the cracks but doesn’t quite land.

 

Then Orm popped another piece of salmon into her mouth and went back to her book.

 

Lingling had never been more tempted to cancel her entire lunch meeting.

 

Third: Lumphini Park. Sunday morning.

 

Lingling was mid-jog. Sweat sticking to her shirt. Hair tied up. Old Thai pop songs pounding through her earbuds.

 

And then—chaos.

 

Orm.

 

Walking backward on the path, phone to her ear, gesturing wildly.

 

Still in that hoodie. Of course.

 

She nearly tripped over a tree root. Then narrowly missed a jogger. Then spotted Lingling.

 

They both stopped.

 

Panting.

 

Staring.

 

Neither of them pretending it was coincidence anymore.

 

“Running from your feelings or just cardio?” Lingling asked, hands on her hips.

 

Orm handed her a bottle of water wordlessly.

 

Lingling took it. Drank half. Handed it back.

 

Orm made a face. “Gross.”

 

Lingling smirked. “You kissed me once. You’ll survive.”

 

Orm choked on the water. “I was fifteen. It was the cheek. Don’t make it weird.”

 

“You were shaking,” Lingling teased. “You looked like a baby goat learning to walk.”

 

“I hope your next noodle cup never opens properly.”

 

They laughed.

 

Too loud.

 

Too long.

 

Startled two old men walking past.

 

But neither cared.

 

And for a moment—it didn’t feel like eight years had passed.

 

Just a blink.

 

Just a beat.

 

Just enough time to realize they were still orbiting the same stupid gravity.

 

 


 

 

Lingling started remembering things.

 

Not all at once.

 

They returned in soft edges—half-formed, sudden, unwelcome.

 

The way Orm used to call her P’Ling the Robot, like it was both an insult and an endearment. How she still climbed into her lap during horror movies anyway, yelping dramatically at every jumpscare and clutching her like she wasn’t the one who teased her the most.

 

How she’d say her name—Ling—when the room was dark and she thought Lingling was asleep. Soft. Just once. As if saying it out loud made her feel real.

 

Lingling remembered the weight of those moments.

 

The ones she told herself didn’t matter.

 

But they did.

 

She also started unlearning things.

 

Like the comfort of silence. It wasn’t comfort anymore. Just a holding cell for all the things she refused to confront.

 

The illusion of safety with Bam. The way it had always been… tidy. Predictable. No cracks. No noise.

 

But also no ache.

 

And the myth that time healed everything.

 

It didn’t.

 

Sometimes it just buried things deeper—until you didn’t realize you were walking on top of graves you never visited.

 

And grief? It grew roots in places she never even knew were fertile.

 

Bam noticed.

 

Of course she did.

 

She always had a quiet way of knowing things.

 

Smarter than people gave her credit for. Too gentle to say things before the other person was ready to hear them. But not stupid enough to pretend.

 

One night, Lingling came home late. The air was humid. Her blouse clung to her skin. Her hair smelled faintly of lemongrass and something floral—not her own perfume. Something subtler. Softer. Something… familiar.

 

She didn’t realize it until Bam leaned in while passing her a glass of water.

 

Didn’t say anything at the time.

 

Not until later.

 

They sat on the edge of their bed, a K-drama playing on mute. Wine glasses full. Room too quiet.

 

Bam didn’t look up.

 

She just said, her voice steady but tired, like someone gently removing a splinter:

 

“You’ve always looked at her differently.”

 

Lingling didn’t answer right away.

 

The words felt like a push. But also like a kindness.

 

She took a slow breath. “I—”

 

“You don’t have to explain.”

 

“I want to.”

 

Bam turned to face her then. Her face unreadable. Not angry. Just… disappointed in the kind of way that didn’t require raised voices.

 

“No,” she said. “You want to apologize. That’s not the same thing.”

 

Lingling blinked against the sting in her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

 

Bam’s lips curved—not into a smile. Just a quiet acceptance.

 

“Don’t be.”

 

Then she pulled the blanket up to her shoulder and turned away, curling toward the wall like someone gently closing the chapter herself.

 

Lingling stayed sitting.

 

Didn’t move.

 

Just stared at the outline of someone she once tried to love the right way.

 

Wondering when she started confusing stillness for peace.

 

And how long she’d been holding her breath in this relationship.

 

And when, exactly, she had started letting go.

 

 


 

 

The café was colder than necessary.

 

Too much air conditioning. Too many succulents arranged like they were trying too hard to be relaxed. The jazz—low and toothless—hummed from hidden speakers, more wallpaper than music. The kind of place where time passed slowly, but emotions ran faster under the surface. You could almost hear the silence between people if you listened hard enough.

 

Orm sat in the farthest corner. The seat that faced the window. Away from the door. Where she could see the sky shift but not be seen unless she wanted to be.

 

The hoodie sat in her lap like an old diary she hadn’t yet burned. Faded navy. Soft at the seams. Folded neat—but not too neat. Not like she didn’t still cling to it when no one was watching.

 

She hadn’t ordered anything.

 

Just water. Warm. Left untouched.

 

Her phone sat screen-down beside her elbow. She didn’t touch it either. Just drummed her fingers on the paper napkin in uneven rhythms. Paused. Started again. Like she was trying to keep time for something unspoken.

 

And then—

 

The door opened.

 

She didn’t look.

 

But she felt it.

 

That shift. The way the air thickened with memory. How the soft chime above the door suddenly rang louder than any jazz track. The kind of shift that only happens when someone you’ve spent years trying to forget enters a room before you're ready to remember.

 

Lingling walked in like she wasn’t sure she belonged.

 

Plain button-down. Dark jeans. A jacket she hadn’t worn in years but still fit like habit. Her leather watch was the same—the strap cracked, the buckle still loose from when Orm had once fastened it in the backseat of Milk’s car.

 

Her hair was tucked behind her ears, like she hadn’t known what else to do with it.

 

Her hands were empty.

 

Her face—unsure.

 

Like she’d come here not just to say something, but to see if there was still someone to say it to.

 

She spotted Orm.

 

Smiled. Small. Unsure.

 

The kind of smile you give when you’re afraid of being too late.

 

Orm didn’t smile back.

 

She nudged the empty chair across from her with her foot.

 

Lingling sat down slowly, carefully. Like the table might break under the weight of eight years’ worth of silence.

 

Neither of them spoke.

 

Lingling looked down at the hoodie. It sat between them like a memory neither one of them had agreed to unpack.

 

She reached for it. Then paused.

 

Orm pushed it forward. Just an inch.

 

“I’m not a kid,” she said.

 

Soft.

 

But firm.

 

Lingling’s fingers touched it like it might burn. She picked it up. Turned it over.

 

Her thumb brushed the seam on the collar. The fraying cuff. The tiny blue ink blot on the hem from when Orm had once pressed a pen too hard while pretending to be bored.

 

She didn’t smile.

 

Just exhaled. Long. Quiet.

 

“I used to think,” she said, voice steady but quiet, “that forgetting you was easier than remembering everything I never said.”

 

Orm looked down. Her fingers tangled in the hem of her sleeve.

 

Lingling looked up.

 

Her eyes were wet. Glassy but not breaking. Just barely holding together.

 

“I never stopped thinking about you,” she added. “Not once.”

 

Orm’s breath caught. The version of her that had walked in cool, composed, unreachable—that version cracked.

 

Then shattered.

 

“You could’ve called,” she whispered.

 

Lingling nodded. “I should’ve.”

 

“You could’ve said goodbye.”

 

Lingling’s jaw clenched. “I didn’t know how.”

 

Orm huffed a quiet laugh. It wasn’t funny.

 

“You could’ve lied. Said it was nothing. Like everyone else would’ve.”

 

Lingling’s voice barely made it across the table. “I didn’t want to lie to you.”

 

“Then why did you leave?” Orm asked again. And this time—she needed an answer. Not an excuse.

 

Lingling swallowed.

 

Because I was scared.

 

Because you were only fifteen and brave, and I was twenty-two and already tired.

 

Because I loved you and didn’t know how to carry it.

 

Because you made me feel like something I wasn’t sure I deserved to feel.

 

“I thought it was safer,” she said instead. “To disappear. To stop wanting something I thought I wasn’t supposed to want.”

 

Orm’s lips trembled. Just for a second.

 

Then she picked up the hoodie again. Held it like it might fall apart in her arms.

 

“I kept this,” she murmured. “Through everything. Through breakups and shitty apartments and nights when the world was too loud to sleep.”

 

Lingling’s voice cracked. “You hated science.”

 

Orm’s laugh was breathy. “I didn’t hate you.”

 

That silenced both of them.

 

The jazz still played. A distant clink of ceramic. The barista turned the steam wand on for too long. But the world outside this corner of the café felt distant.

 

Dreamlike.

 

Lingling reached forward.

 

Her fingers brushed Orm’s wrist. Barely. Just enough to say I’m here.

 

Orm didn’t pull back.

 

“I’m here now,” Lingling said.

 

A pause.

 

Orm closed her eyes.

 

“I said I’d grow up,” she whispered, her voice soft like she didn’t trust it. “But I never said I’d stop wanting you.”

 

Lingling closed her hand gently over Orm’s.

 

A warm palm on a worn memory.

 

And just like that—

 

The café disappeared.

 

It was just them again.

 

A girl who once left. A girl who never really let her.

 

And the air between them, finally—

 

filled with something more than what-ifs. Something bittersweet. Something soft. Something real.

 

 


 

 

Lingling ended things with Bam on a Thursday.

 

No fight. No drama. Just tea on the balcony, legs curled under her, and a long, overdue silence that finally gave her the courage to say:

 

“I haven’t looked at you the way I should’ve. Not for a while.”

 

Bam nodded once. No tears. Just the resignation of someone who had seen the truth a thousand times before it was spoken.

 

“I know,” she said.

 

Lingling breathed out. “I’m sorry.”

 

“You don’t have to be,” Bam replied, tucking her knees to her chest. “Just don’t lie to yourself anymore.”

 

They hugged before she left.

 

Lingling cried later—in the shower. Quietly. Not because she’d broken something.

 

But because she was finally ready to rebuild.

 

 


 

 

It was nearly midnight.

 

Bangkok’s sky held that kind of dark that didn’t feel heavy—just honest. The kind that made the city look softer somehow, like the buildings had stopped holding their breath.

 

Orm stood on her apartment balcony.

 

Barefoot. Baggy shirt. Hair in a messy bun, the same cheap claw clip holding it half-heartedly together. Her legs were curled beneath her on the faded floor mat she never bothered to wash. She was watering her plants—or what was left of them.

 

Most were dead. A few clung to life, thin stems leaning stubbornly toward nothing.

 

Like they didn’t know when to give up.

 

She tilted the watering can over a wilted basil stem, watched it droop further, then exhaled through her nose.

 

“Dramatic,” she muttered. “You’d get along with me.”

 

The watering can clinked against the pot.

 

Then the doorbell rang.

 

She blinked. Stilled.

 

She wasn’t expecting anyone. She never was.

 

Padding across the apartment, she cracked the door open—and there, framed by the flickering hallway light and Bangkok’s quiet hum—

 

Was Lingling.

 

Black T-shirt. Denim jacket. Slightly damp hair, like she’d walked through a drizzle without minding. She looked... hesitant. Nervous, even. Like she wasn’t sure if this was a mistake or a miracle. Maybe both.

 

In her hand: a plastic 7-Eleven bag.

 

“They were out of decent snacks,” Lingling said, voice lower than usual. “So you’re stuck with this.”

 

She lifted the bag sheepishly.

 

Inside: a cup of Mama noodles, two bottles of iced green tea, and a dented Bluetooth speaker that looked like it had survived the apocalypse.

 

“Also,” she added, eyes flicking down, “they don’t sell forgiveness over the counter, so… I improvised.”

 

Orm didn’t say anything.

 

Didn’t move.

 

So Lingling just stepped past her, as if she’d always belonged there. Walked through the living room like a ghost returning to the home she never stopped haunting.

 

She set everything on the balcony table with care. Almost ceremonial. Like she was offering something ancient back to the altar.

 

Orm stayed frozen in the doorway.

 

Then—after too long—she followed.

 

“What is this?” she asked, arms crossed tight over her chest, the barest twitch of a smile at the corners of her lips.

 

Lingling didn’t answer.

 

She sat. Cross-legged. Her jeans creased. Her hands slightly trembling as she pulled out the speaker. She turned the knob with slow fingers.

 

Click.

 

Then static.

 

Then—

 

“Okay, mitosis. Um… so the chromosomes, they… no, wait—Orm, stop laughing—can you just listen for a second—”

 

Orm stopped breathing.

 

It was Lingling’s voice. From 2017. Clumsy. Patient. Slightly exasperated in the way only she could be.

 

Orm stared at the speaker like it had punched her in the throat.

 

“I found it on my old laptop,” Lingling murmured. “Used to play it… on nights when I missed you.”

 

Orm didn’t look at her right away.

 

Her throat bobbed. Her voice barely held. “Didn’t know you recorded those sessions too… like I did.”

 

She laughed softly. A little choked. “Guess we were both secretly sentimental idiots.”

 

Lingling smiled. Soft. Vulnerable. No more walls. No more pretending.

 

“I tried to forget,” she said. “But nothing good ever came of that.”

 

Orm stepped closer.

 

Her fingers brushed Lingling’s. Then stilled. Then held.

 

“You’re here now,” she whispered.

 

Lingling nodded.

 

“I’ve done fixing my part to be here,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to be. Right here. With you.”

 

And that was enough.

 

Orm leaned in, hesitated for half a second—enough to say this isn’t just nostalgia—and then kissed her.

 

Finally.

 

It was soft. Familiar. Careful in the way first kisses aren’t supposed to be—but this one was eight years late, and they’d run out of rush long ago.

 

It didn’t need to be fireworks.

 

It needed to feel like home.

 

The speaker kept playing. Static, then a giggle. Then Orm’s laugh from 2017—high-pitched, slightly nasal, embarrassing.

 

Lingling pulled back just enough to murmur, “You sounded like a dolphin.”

 

Orm smacked her shoulder. “Shut up.”

 

They sank to the balcony floor. Cross-legged, knees brushing. Fairy lights buzzed weakly above them, casting a golden glow that didn’t quite reach the sky.

 

Lingling opened the noodle cup. Winced after the first bite. “This still tastes like regret.”

 

Orm snorted. “But you love it.”

 

Lingling sighed. “Yeah. And you.”

 

There was a pause. A hum.

 

Lingling reached over, tucked a loose strand of hair behind Orm’s ear.

 

Orm glanced down, cheeks slightly pink. “You’ve gotten sappy.”

 

Lingling tilted her head. “You’ve gotten pretty.”

 

Orm narrowed her eyes. “I’ve been pretty.”

 

Lingling smirked. “Right. You used to say you’d be a model. Face of Thailand or something.”

 

“I said jawline model. Get it right.”

 

“You ended up in advertising.”

 

Orm shrugged. “Same thing. Just fewer cameras.”

 

Lingling nodded, thoughtful. “You still do the walk?”

 

Orm groaned. “If you ask me to catwalk right now I will jump off this balcony.”

 

“You won’t,” Lingling said, too soft to be teasing. “You’ve got something to stay for now.”

 

A beat.

 

A smirk.

 

Orm shoved her lightly. “Ugh. Who let you get so smooth?”

 

Lingling grinned. “Eight years of practicing my apology.”

 

A laugh. A sigh. A shared sip of green tea.

 

They sat there long after the noodles were cold, after the speaker clicked off, after Bangkok settled into its slow, humming midnight breath.

 

And Orm—softly, lazily, head resting against Lingling’s shoulder—muttered:

 

“Next time, bring Pocky.”

 

Lingling kissed her temple.

 

“Next time, I’m staying.”

 

And she did.

Notes:

Hi! Of course I wouldn’t let you down by ending it at Chapter 1 😆
I actually finished Chapter 2 along with Chapter 1, but I revised it a lot to (hopefully) capture the atmosphere better. So here it is, I really hope it doesn’t disappoint! 🥹
Thank you so much for always reading and supporting my story 💕

Catch me on X: @igerible
Let’s connect there too!

Notes:

Hey hey! Hope you’re all doing well!
So here’s my new story. How is it? I’d love to hear your thoughts and please drop some kudos if you enjoyed it, I really appreciate the support 🥹

But… will y’all hate me if this ends up being a one chapter story only? 👉👈