Chapter Text
Paris.
6.20 a.m.
Lingling’s alarm rang, but she was already awake.
That wasn’t unusual anymore, lately, she was lucky to get more than four hours of sleep.
She stepped into the bathroom and took a cold shower, hoping it would shake off the exhaustion she’d been carrying for days.
Today mattered. At 2.30, she had the biggest presentation of her career.
She had packed the night before, carefully placing her navy suit in its dedicated garment bag. It had been tailored specifically for the occasion; she had picked it up four days ago.
Her assistant could have handled it, but she preferred to do it herself. She needed to be sure everything was perfect. Just like she had imagined.
And it was.
She looked good. Ravishing, even.
Not that she’d ever say that out loud except to her mirror but that doesn’t count.
To avoid wrinkling the suit, she wore a casual outfit for the train ride, simple black pants, a white shirt, and flat white shoes.
There was still plenty of time for her traditional motivational speech in front of the mirror, and to run through her speech at least twice, if she speed-ran it.
A few streets away.
9.05 a.m.
Orm groaned as she rolled out of bed, her whole-body aching.
I should’ve booked a nicer hotel, she thought. It’s not like she couldn’t afford it, but this one was walking distance from the train station.
Waking up early had never been her strong suit.
Honestly, she kind of liked the adrenaline rush of almost missing her train.
And if she ever did miss it... well, that was just another adventure. She liked those.
She got dressed, shoved her stuff back into her backpack with no real system, and left the room.
She handed the key card to the front desk like it had personally offended her by slowing her down.
Walking seemed smarter than a cab. Paris traffic was brutal at this hour, and the station was only twelve minutes away.
Maybe ten if she hustled.
Her train was scheduled to leave at 9.39.
Plenty of time.
9.35 a.m.
Lingling had been sitting in her seat for the last twenty minutes, hoping no one would sit in front of her.
She glanced at her watch and thought, They’re too late now anyway.
That thought was soon interrupted by the soft ding of the door opening.
She closed her eyes for a moment, silently hoping it wasn’t her seat neighbor. The train car was packed, except for that one seat.
Movement made her look up.
Her eyes landed on a jaw-dropping young woman, carrying what looked like her entire house on her back.
Lingling tapped the side of her earbuds to disable the noise cancellation, just as the blonde stepped closer.
She lifted a hesitant finger to get her attention, looking slightly flustered.
“Sorry, hi! Uhm… I’m really sorry to bother you,” the girl said, breathless. “I’m supposed to be sitting in front of you, but I get motion sick when I’m facing backwards. Like, really sick, the whole spinning-head, cold-sweat, nausea kind of thing. Would you mind switching seats?”
Her voice was fast, full of warmth and nervous energy. A little chaotic, but honest.
Lingling blinked. She didn’t answer right away.
“I thought I picked the right seat when I booked it, like I swear I triple-checked, but I guess my brain wasn’t fully awake or… I don’t know. I just messed it up. I always mess something up when I travel. Anyway, sorry again! I know it’s super annoying to ask.”
Lingling stared a second longer, barely registering her words,
too distracted by how pretty she was.
And by how adorably she rambled.
The way her hands moved slightly when she talked, the nervous rush in her voice, the fact that she clearly didn’t know how to stop once she’d started, it should’ve been annoying.
It wasn’t.
It was... cute. Disarming, even.
Lingling forced herself to nod.
You’re not in high school. Get a grip.
“Yeah… yeah, no worries,” she said at last, voice even and composed.
“Oh my god, thank you! Seriously, thank you so, so much!”
The girl beamed with visible relief. “You’re saving me from three hours of regret and probably vomiting into my tote bag. Not to be dramatic or anything.”
She let out a small laugh, then hoisted her bag onto the rack and stepped aside for Lingling to switch.
As Lingling sat down, she allowed herself a discreet glance.
Pearly white skin, amber eyes, beautiful, hard to miss. She was gorgeous.
Sneakers and a backpack that looked like it had seen several countries.
Definitely backpacking.
Why do I want to talk to her so badly?
She cleared her throat.
“Hey… uhm… I couldn’t help noticing your bag. Are you, on a backpacking trip?”
Jesus. Get it together. You’re thirty, Lingling. Not a teenage boy.
“Yeah! I am,” the girl said, instantly lighting up. “Well, kind of. I’ve been traveling for, like, six and a half months now. I started in Nepal and the countries around it, then moved on to Europe. I started in London, but it was way too cold, so I went to Greece, which was amazing. Then I passed through Italy, Rome, Florence, Naples, and after that, Switzerland. It was beautiful but also ridiculously expensive. And then Paris… which I thought I’d stay in for a while, but honestly? It’s just too hot now.”
She barely paused for breath.
“So then I met this guy in a hostel, I think he was Canadian? Or Belgian? and he told me the southwest of France was super chill and underrated. So, I was like, why not? I booked this train yesterday, and here I am. Same train as you … almost missed it too, I slept in because the hotel mattress was like a rock.”
She grinned sheepishly.
“Sorry, I talk a lot when I’m nervous. Or when I’ve had caffeine. Or... yeah, just always, I guess.”
Lingling drank in every word, completely absorbed by the gorgeous blonde woman in front of her.
She found herself staring, not just at her eyes, but at her lips as they moved with each part of her story.
She didn’t hear a single word.
Not really.
Noticing the sudden silence, Orm fidgeted. The other woman hadn’t responded. She was just... staring. Not rudely, but intensely, and weirdly quiet.
“Sooo… um… I’m guessing you’re not going on holiday?” she asked, trying to break the silence with a half-smile.
The question pulled Lingling out of her daze.
“Right, no, no holidays for me,” she said, blinking as if she had just surfaced from underwater. “But my body definitely needs one.”
She glanced at her watch.
10.02.
“I’m actually on a business trip. I’m supposed to have a pretty important presentation in four hours… that I still haven’t finished.”
She gave a weak chuckle, more at herself than anything.
“The speech part is ready, but the actual slides are…” She paused, searching for the right word. “A mess. It kind of looks like an eighty-year-old who discovered PowerPoint two years ago put it together.”
Orm chuckled, bright, genuine, and almost musical.
Lingling blinked again.
I want to hear that sound again.
It’s the greatest melody I’ve ever heard.
The train hostess appeared a few minutes later, pushing the beverage cart down the aisle.
“Bonjour, Mesdemoiselles. Vous avez une boisson chaude ainsi qu’une boisson froide grâce à votre billet business. Que puis-je vous servir ?”
(Hello, ladies. You’re entitled to a hot drink and a cold drink with your business ticket. What can I get you?)
Orm looked up, then turned to Lingling, eyes wide, slight panic in her expression.
She had only understood the bonjour.
“Umhhh…”
Without missing a beat, Lingling responded in flawless French.
“Bonjour. Puis-je avoir un expresso ainsi qu’un verre d’eau, s’il vous plaît ?”
(Hello. May I have an espresso and a glass of water, please?)
She turned to Orm and added, softly,
“She’s asking if you’d like a hot drink and a cold one, it’s included with your ticket.”
“Right! Yeah, sure, pff, I totally understood that,” Orm said, nodding dramatically, clearly lying.
Then she turned to the hostess with her best effort, and said in hesitant but determined French,
“Bonjour… un café au lait, s’il vous plaît,” (Hello… a coffee with milk, please) followed by a sheepish smile.
The hostess gave a kind nod and tapped their choices on the tablet.
Lingling glanced sideways, amused.
Orm whispered, “I feel like I just passed a test I didn’t study for.”
Lingling’s lips curved, just slightly.
“You did well,” she said. “Good accent.”
“Liar.”
“Maybe a little.”
A couple of minutes passed.
Then Orm leaned slightly toward her and said,
“Are we not going to talk about how perfect your French sounds?”
Lingling looked up, eyebrows slightly raised, the tension in her posture dropping just a bit.
She gave a small shrug, casually.
“I’ve been in France for five years,” she said. “I stayed after my master’s in tourism and… never left.”
There was a hint of a proud smile on her lips, brief, almost involuntary.
“Thank you, though. It’s not the hardest language to learn, but it’s definitely a tongue twister sometimes.”
Orm smiled at her response.
“So you’ve just… built a whole life here?”
Lingling hesitated, her gaze drifting to the window for a second before coming back to Orm.
“I guess I have,” she said. “It wasn’t really the plan. But I got offered a job right after graduation. And then… everything just fell into place. Apartment, routine, friends. The usual.”
Orm tilted her head, curious.
“Do you like it? Living here, I mean?”
Lingling paused. That question landed somewhere deeper than expected.
“Yes. I think I do,” she said slowly. “It’s beautiful. Predictable. Structured.”
She stopped herself from saying easy.
Orm nodded, clearly listening, not just politely, but fully.
“Sounds kind of ideal,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve lived anywhere long enough to feel that.”
Lingling’s lips curved slightly.
“Maybe you will, eventually.”
Orm shrugged, grinning.
“Maybe. But first I have to survive this train ride without embarrassing myself again.”
“You’re doing fine,” Lingling said, before she could stop herself.
Their eyes met for a second too long.
Lingling looked away first.
The hostess returned with their drinks.
Lingling accepted her espresso and glass of water with a polite nod, thanking her in French.
Orm, still trying to look composed, took her own cup and said carefully,
“Merci beaucoup.”
She turned back to Lingling with a little smirk.
“I’m basically fluent now.”
Lingling’s mouth twitched, almost a smile.
But before she could reply, the train gave a sudden jolt.
Not dramatic, just enough to make everything shift slightly.
Orm gasped as her cup wobbled. She reached out instinctively to catch it, and her hand landed on Lingling’s.
Fingers on fingers.
Warmth. Pressure.
Brief. Accidental.
But very real.
“Wow, okay,” Orm said, pulling her hand back, flustered. “That was the train, I swear. I’m not usually that grabby.”
Lingling didn’t move right away. She glanced down at her hand, then up at Orm.
Her expression stayed composed, but something had softened in her eyes.
“I figured,” she said simply, lifting her cup.
Orm let out a small, nervous laugh and took a sip of her coffee, pretending not to feel the weight of the moment.
But the warmth lingered, not from the drink.
The hostess rolled away with the cart, leaving behind the quiet clinking of cups and the low hum of the train.
Orm cradled her coffee, took a sip, then glanced at Lingling with a thoughtful tilt of the head.
“You know,” she said, “we’ve had like three almost-intimate moments, and I still don’t know your name.”
Lingling looked up, slightly amused.
“You’re counting the hand thing as intimate?”
“Oh, absolutely,” Orm replied. “That was cinematic.”
Lingling’s lips quirked, just barely.
Orm reached out automatically to offer her hand, but as her eyes met Lingling’s, she got momentarily distracted by the glint in them, misjudging the distance and bumping her hand against the back of the laptop.
“Oh my God,” she muttered, laughing under her breath. “That was supposed to be a handshake, not a hardware assault.”
Lingling chuckled, the sound low and genuine.
She reached out, taking Orm’s hand properly this time.
“Lingling.”
Orm grinned. “Beautiful name. I’m Orm.”
Their hands lingered, not quite long enough to be weird.
Just long enough to feel... real.
Lingling let go first, but her fingers seemed slower than her intention.
“Nice to officially meet you,” Orm said.
Lingling nodded with a smile, but didn’t look away right away.
Then she glanced down at her screen again, the spell breaking, gently, but not entirely, trying to refocus.
She clicked through slides with tight lips and furrowed brows.
A tiny sigh escaped her. Then another.
Orm tried to glance over, curious.
Lingling let out a third sigh, sharper this time, and whispered something under her breath in what sounded like half-English, half-murder.
“You okay?” Orm asked, leaning a little closer.
“I’m fine,” Lingling replied too quickly. “It’s just, this layout is a disaster. The color palette is wrong, the text alignment is off, and the charts look like they were made by a bored teenager in 2003.”
She clicked something. Another sigh.
“I can’t get it to look... clean. Professional.”
Orm paused.
Then, with a shrug so casual it could almost be innocent, she said,
“Well... I might actually be able to help with that.”
Lingling looked up, surprised. “You… You do presentations?”
Orm grinned.
“Fun fact, I once had a job where I basically lived inside PowerPoint. It was like Stockholm Syndrome, but with templates.”
Lingling blinked.
“You’re joking.”
“Nope. I can do transitions, animations, clean formatting. I even know how to fix SmartArt without breaking into tears. I have... a very niche set of skills.”
Lingling hesitated.
She almost said no, purely out of instinct.
But she looked at her screen again.
Then at Orm.
Then back at her screen.
“You seriously wouldn’t mind?”
Orm raised her brows.
“Lingling, I once spent six hours designing a pie chart that nobody even looked at. Helping you would honestly be a joy. And I kind of missed this, so yeah, definitely still showing signs of Stockholm Syndrome.”
Lingling stared at her for a second, as if trying to figure out whether she was real.
Then she tilted the screen slightly toward Orm.
“Okay,” she said. “Show me what you’ve got.”
Orm pretended to roll up her sleeves of her imaginary long sleeve blouse like she was preparing for battle, professional one.
“Okay. First of all, the font has to go,” she said, already clicking through menus. “This one’s giving government pamphlet, and not in a charming way.”
She switched to something cleaner, modern. Adjusted the line spacing. Resized the title block.
Lingling watched silently at first, arms crossed, half in analyst mode, half in disbelief.
“And this chart,” Orm went on, pointing. “Is technically fine, but we could make it easier to read. More visual. What are you trying to say with it?”
Lingling blinked, forced to switch from passive observation to active thought.
“Uh, just that the eco-certified hotels saw a twenty-six percent increase in bookings compared to the others.”
Orm nodded. “Great stat. But it’s buried. Let’s make it pop.”
She started building a simple but bold graphic, explaining what she was doing as she worked.
Lingling found herself leaning slightly forward, coffee forgotten.
She wasn’t just watching Orm fix slides.
She was watching her speak, with clarity, with enthusiasm, with a strange kind of confidence that made Lingling forget about the train, the time, the work.
“I haven’t had this much fun since I redesigned an onboarding doc with cat gifs for a tech startup,” Orm said, grinning. “They didn’t use it, but I loved it.”
Lingling let out a quiet laugh, genuine, and startling in its own way.
Then she caught herself.
Her eyes flicked toward the back of her computer.
Focus. Work. Stop smiling like that.
You let her in for five minutes, she told herself. And she’s already everywhere.
“Do you want me to stop?” Orm asked suddenly, glancing up. “You’re really quiet. I don’t want to hijack your whole vibe.”
Lingling met her gaze and felt something shift in her chest.
But instead, she looked back at Orm and said,
“No,” she said, more softly than she meant to.
“I… I’m just fascinated,” she added, almost in awe.
“Maybe I should hire you as my personal PowerPoint expert. Or, I don’t know… best partner for business trips?”
That last part hung in the air longer than it should have.
Orm glanced up from the screen, smile still there, but her expression softer now.
And Lingling… looked down again.
That last part hung in the air longer than it should have.
Orm glanced up from the screen, smile still there, but different now. Slower. Warmer.
She tilted her head slightly.
“Careful,” she said. “That almost sounded like flirting.”
Lingling didn’t look away.
Not yet.
“What if it is?” she replied, a sudden spark of confidence in her voice. Clear. Bare.
And she raised one eyebrow, just slightly.
Before Orm could react, a chime rang softly through the carriage.
“Mesdames et messieurs, le train en provenance de Paris Montparnasse et à destination de Saint-Jean-de-Luz fera son prochain arrêt à Bordeaux dans quinze minutes.”
(Ladies and gentlemen, the train from Paris Montparnasse to Saint-Jean-de-Luz will make its next stop in Bordeaux in fifteen minutes.)
The voice faded, but the air between them didn’t.
Orm leaned back slowly, her eyes still on Lingling.
“Bordeaux already?” she said. “Time really does fly when the company’s unexpectedly excellent.”
Lingling let out a soft breath, one that might’ve been a laugh if it weren’t so controlled.
She reached for her cup again, but didn’t break eye contact.
“I’m getting off at Bordeaux,” she said casually.
Then, after a beat,
“What about you?”
Orm shrugged, glancing briefly toward the window before returning her gaze to Lingling.
“Didn’t really check, to be honest. I just hopped on the first southbound train and figured I’d decide on the way.”
Lingling tilted her head, considering her words, then let them fall, careful but deliberate.
“Well... if you’re not in a rush to be somewhere else, I could show you around a bit. It’s a beautiful city.”
A pause.
“And I think you’d make a great partner for getting lost in it.”
Orm’s lips curved, amused.
“So now I’m not just your PowerPoint expert, or your business trip partner, I’m your co-adventurer too?”
Lingling’s expression stayed composed, but her eyes, impossibly, smiled.
“Temporary hire,” she said.
“Trial period.”
Orm leaned forward, resting her arms on the table between them.
“I tend to over-perform in trial periods.”
Still holding Lingling’s gaze, with something that looked suspiciously like a challenge, Orm turned her laptop around and presented her masterpiece.
Lingling looked down, took the laptop gently in her hands, and began to scroll.
Her eyes widened with every slide. Clean lines. Balanced colors. Thoughtful visuals. It was… perfect. Better than she would’ve done herself that’s for sure.
She looked back up, stunned.
“You just saved my entire day. Seriously. I don’t know how I can repay you.”
Orm leaned back with a grin that tried, and failed, to be modest.
“Well… you did say you’d show me around Bordeaux.”
She paused.
“So maybe you repay me with a nice dinner. I’m sure we can find something there, something good. So you can enjoy my awkward company even more.”
Lingling opened her mouth to answer, but didn’t, not right away.
She looked at Orm for a second too long. Then down at the laptop again. Then back up.
A small smile tugged at the corner of her lips, one she didn’t bother to hide this time.
“I could do that,” she said, voice low.
A pause.
“But don’t expect me to make it easy.”
Orm raised an eyebrow, delighted.
“Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it.”
The train slowed with a gentle jolt, then glided into Bordeaux station under the midday sun.
They stood, brushing off invisible wrinkles, gathering laptops and coffee cups. The easy rhythm they’d found in conversation didn’t quite transfer to motion, not yet, and their movements felt full of unsaid things.
In the narrow corridor near the luggage racks, Orm leaned forward to spot her backpack on the overhead shelf.
Just as she reached up on her tiptoes, the suitcase above shifted, barely, but enough.
“Watch out,”
Lingling reacted before thinking.
She stepped in fast, arm lifting above Orm’s head, catching the bag with one firm hand. Her other instinctively came to rest beside Orm’s shoulder, close to the wall.
For a second, she was hovering over her.
The weight of the bag.
The heat of proximity.
The press of her arm, almost encircling.
Trapping, but not harshly. Not really.
Orm’s breath caught.
She looked up.
Lingling was already looking down.
A pause.
A breath.
Then her gaze dropped, not far, just barely,
to Orm’s lips.
Orm noticed.
And she didn’t move.
The moment was interrupted as someone behind them cleared their throat, politely, but firmly.
They both straightened. Lingling cleared her own throat, almost at the same time.
No words. Just a flicker of breath between them.
Orm reached up and grabbed her backpack. Lingling took hold of her own suitcase.
---
The sun hit them as they stepped onto the platform, sharp and golden.
Lingling led the way with quiet assurance, her suitcase gliding behind her. Orm followed, adjusting her backpack with a light bounce in her step.
Just outside the station, a man in a black suit stood beside a sleek black car, holding a small sign that read,
L. Kwong
As they approached, he smiled politely and stepped forward.
“Bonjour, Mesdames,” he said, then glanced briefly at Orm.
“Vous avez besoin que je prenne votre valise… ou le sac de votre femme ?”
(Do you need me to take your suitcase… or your wife’s bag?)
Lingling froze for half a second.
Then she recovered, and replied quickly and clearly,
“Non merci, ça ira. Je vais les prendre moi-même.”
(No thank you, that’s alright. I’ll carry them myself.)
Orm, catching only the word femme, gave the driver a polite smile, then followed Lingling toward the car.
They slid into the back seat together. Lingling adjusted her handbag on her lap and fastened her seatbelt a little too carefully, her movements sharp, controlled.
Orm glanced sideways.
“You okay?” she asked. “You seem… flustered.”
Lingling inhaled slowly, then turned her head just enough to meet her eyes.
“He thought you were my wife,” she said, carefully.
“And you just smiled like it was nothing.”
Orm blinked.
Then grinned, wide and unapologetic.
“Well. I mean. I could’ve looked offended, but that would’ve been a lie.”
Lingling looked away again, out the window, but not before Orm caught the soft, unmistakable curve of her lips.
The car rolled forward, soft jazz humming from the speakers, the city unfolding slowly outside.
Between them, their hands rested on the leather seat. Not touching. Just... there.
Lingling shifted slightly. Her fingers moved, almost imperceptibly, and the tip of her pinky brushed against Orm’s.
Orm felt it.
But said nothing.
She didn’t move her hand away, either.
And neither of them looked down.