Chapter Text
The heat at Ratchaphruek University never truly slept. Even at eight in the morning, the air shimmered like it was trying to lift the world by the shoulders and shake it awake. Students rushed through the main courtyard in uneven waves: some with iced coffees, some still half-asleep, some pretending to be late, and some— like Lingling Kwong— who looked like time bent around them instead.
Everyone noticed Lingling before she opened her mouth.
Tourism students tended to be warm, social, polished— but Lingling made it look like an art form. It wasn’t just the way she walked, though her stride had the exact looseness of someone who never feared falling behind. It wasn’t just her eyes, though there was always something mischievous in them, like she carried a secret someone had confessed to her the night before. It was the whole aura— playful, charismatic, effortlessly magnetic— the kind that made people look twice, then smile without knowing why.
She was the heartbreaker of Ratchaphruek, but not because she set out to destroy anyone. She just didn’t have the patience for boring people or boring love. She flirted with the same ease other people breathed. People confessed to her weekly. Some cried. Some tried again. Some thanked her for the experience. Lingling never mocked them; she just never gave them more than she had.
Confidence had come easily to her, the kind that grows when people keep responding the way you expect them to. Over time, she learned how to carry herself so the story stayed consistent— charming, untouchable, in control. It wasn’t something she questioned; it worked, and that was enough.
But she wasn’t vapid. Anyone who assumed a pretty face and easy smile meant an empty head quickly learned otherwise.
Like now— striding through the hallway toward her morning Tourism class, iced matcha swinging in one hand, bag strap falling off one shoulder, hair slightly messed from her her walk outside— she still managed to fire off a rapid, witty explanation to a classmate about destination branding in Southeast Asia, citing examples she didn’t even have to look up.
Two second-year boys leaning against the wall watched her pass.
“P’Ling, you forgot your pen last time,” one said, lifting it like a peace offering.
“No, honey, you forgot you said you’d return it,” she shot back with a quick grin, plucking it from his fingers. The boy blushed; his friend snorted. Lingling winked at both, because symmetry was important.
People gravitated to her. Girls asked her for one-on-one tutorials. Guys tried to stand close to her. Professors alternately adored and feared her because she answered questions sharply but always with a smile that made it impossible to scold her properly.
She lived like a sparkler: bright, warm, quick, impossible to hold for long.
And today, she should’ve been fully in her element.
Except something caught her eye— someone, rather— and it disarmed her mid-stride.
Across the courtyard, outside the Faculty of Economics building, sat a girl Lingling had never seen before. Quiet. Composed. Back straight. A laptop open in front of her. Earphones in, but not the type that screamed “don’t talk to me.” More like “I don’t need anything from you.”
The girl’s hair was tied loosely, strands falling just barely out of place. She wore a crisp button-down, sleeves rolled neatly, not artfully. There was an elegance to her restraint— like she didn’t dress to impress anyone, yet somehow impressed everyone more because of it.
Lingling slowed, eyebrow lifting.
“Who’s she?” she asked the nearest classmate, interrupting her own sentence about tourism policy without apology.
Her friend followed her gaze. “Ah. That’s Orm.”
“Orm,” Lingling repeated, tasting the name. “And?”
“And she’s…” The friend bit her lip, searching for a diplomatic word. “…cold.”
Lingling laughed. “Cold is fine. Cold is fun.”
“I mean really cold. Like, even the Econ boys don’t try with her. And that’s saying something.”
“Why? She taken?”
“No. Just… unapproachable. Like a wall. No expression. No flirting. Doesn’t even entertain small talk.”
“Perfect,” Lingling murmured, already half-distracted by the sight of the girl again.
She liked interesting people.
Orm looked interesting.
No— not interesting.
Unintentionally beautiful in a way that annoyed Lingling because she knew the type.
The ones who weren’t performing. The ones who didn’t want attention. The ones who stayed quiet and therefore became the object of whispered fascination.
Students passing Orm gave her the kind of respectful nod usually reserved for brilliant seniors or campus legends. They didn’t flirt. They didn’t tease. They didn’t hover.
Lingling’s interest had been ignited because she couldn’t read her at first glance.
She wasn’t used to that. People usually reacted— smiled, stared, stumbled, tried. Orm did none of it, and the absence of response felt less like indifference and more like a challenge.
And that, of course, meant she had to.
Tourism class felt longer that morning. Not because the lecture dragged, but because Lingling’s mind kept drifting back to the girl from the courtyard. Orm. Wall-girl. Cold-girl. Beautiful-for-no-reason girl.
She found herself doodling the letters of her name on her notes and scowled at herself like she’d broken her own rules.
After class, she didn’t even pretend not to look for her again.
She found her exactly where she expected: seated on a stone bench outside the Economics building, surrounded by papers and a laptop, answering someone’s question with a tone so calm it was almost unnerving.
A first-year boy stood nervously in front of her.
“Uh, P’Orm, I just want to confirm if the pre-reading for tomorrow—”
“Page sixty-four to eighty,” Orm replied without looking up. She spoke like someone who valued answers, not interaction. Once the purpose of the exchange was fulfilled, her attention moved on without apology. Anything beyond that seemed, to her, unnecessary.
“O-okay. Thank you—”
“You’ll understand it better if you read the appendices too. But that’s up to you.”
The boy blinked like she’d spoken in code. Orm didn’t look at him again. Dismissed without cruelty, but clearly dismissed.
Lingling’s smile widened.
No wonder everyone said she was cold.
She wasn’t rude.
She was just… immune.
Not immune to emotion. But immune to other people’s expectations.
Lingling found that irresistibly irritating.
She approached.
“Hi,” she said, voice lilting lightly, the way she always opened her conversations with strangers she planned to charm.
Orm lifted her gaze for the first time.
Her eyes were sharp. Calm. Level. Orm didn’t look impressed or curious; she looked decided. The kind of look that made Lingling feel, inexplicably, like she’d arrived late to a conclusion already reached.
“Hello,” she said, deadpan but not unfriendly.
“You’re Orm, right?” Lingling leaned a little closer, like she was letting Orm in on something secret.
Orm’s eyes flicked to her iced coffee, then her bag, then her face— a quick, effective scan— before she nodded.
“And you’re Lingling,” she said simply.
Lingling almost choked on nothing.
“You know me?”
“Everyone knows you.”
Not a compliment. Not an insult. Just fact.
Lingling’s grin sharpened. “Is that so? And what do you know about me?”
Orm closed her laptop. “You have a reputation.”
Lingling leaned her weight onto one leg, playful. “Good or bad?”
“Depends on who you broke,” Orm said flatly.
Lingling blinked. Then laughed— delighted, not offended.
“Oh, you’re fun.”
“I’m studying,” Orm corrected, gathering her papers.
Lingling stepped closer. “Want company?”
“No.”
“Wow,” Lingling said, placing a hand dramatically on her chest. “No hesitation?”
“Was I supposed to hesitate?”
Most people stumbled at Lingling’s presence. Most softened. Most tried to win her over or let her win them.
Orm didn’t even try.
And that— finally, fully— hooked Lingling in a way she couldn’t pretend to resist.
“I’ll see you around then,” Lingling said, steps light as she backed away. “Don’t miss me too much.”
“I won’t,” Orm replied.
Lingling’s laugh followed her all the way across the courtyard. Lingling told herself it was a game because games had rules, and she understood rules. Being ignored was unacceptable; being unreadable was worse. If Orm was a wall, then Lingling would prove— to herself, if no one else— that no one at Ratchaphruek was immune to her presence.