Work Text:
Lingling has spreadsheets. Orm has enthusiasm. Neither has impulse control.
When both girlfriends independently decide to plan the perfect Valentine's Day surprise, the result is two kitchen fires, one canceled dinner reservation, two hundred roses, a teddy bear the size of a car, and a broken window. Sometimes love isn't about perfect romantic gestures—it's about finding someone whose disasters match yours.
7:32 AM — The Planning Phase
Lingling Kwong woke up with a mission.
Today was Valentine's Day. Today, she would be the perfect girlfriend. Today, she would execute the most romantic, most thoughtful, most Instagram-worthy Valentine's surprise that Orm Kornnaphat had ever witnessed.
She sat up in bed, her dark hair falling across determined eyes. She had spreadsheets color-coded by priority. She had timers set with military precision. She had watched fourteen YouTube tutorials on how to make heart-shaped pancakes.
What could possibly go wrong?
Everything, as it turned out. Absolutely everything.
Across town, in her own apartment, Orm was having a similar awakening—except hers involved falling out of bed in her excitement, knocking over a glass of water, and spending the first ten minutes of Valentine's Day mopping her bedroom floor in heart-printed pajamas. Her blonde curls were already escaping their ponytail in wild directions around her face.
"Today," she announced to her reflection, pointing at herself with aggressive determination, "you are going to be romantic. You are going to be smooth. You are going to make Ling cry tears of joy."
Her reflection looked skeptical.
"Shut up," Orm told it. "I have a plan."
The plan, scribbled on the back of a receipt in handwriting that looked like a spider had dipped itself in ink and break-danced across the paper, read:
Cook breakfast Order breakfast pretend I cooked it
Flowers (NOT the ones that make her sneeze this time)
Teddy bear (BIG)
Romantic dinner reservation (call them back they hung up on me)
DON'T BE AWKWARD
Tell her she's pretty (at least 47 times)
Number five was underlined three times and circled twice.
9:15 AM — The Breakfast Incident
Lingling stood in her kitchen, surrounded by what could only be described as a flour explosion.
The ceiling had flour on it.
The ceiling.
"How," she whispered, staring at the white powder coating every surface like a very specific, very localized snowstorm. "How did this happen."
The heart-shaped pancake sat in the pan, if one could call it a pancake. It looked more like a geographical map of a country that didn't exist. A sad, burnt country with no tourism industry.
Her phone buzzed.
Orm 💕: Good morning baby!! Happy Valentine's Day!! 🥰💝✨
Orm 💕:I have surprises for you today!!!
Orm 💕: Many surprises
Orm 💕: So many
Orm 💕: You're not ready
Lingling looked at the pancake. The pancake, somehow, looked back.
Lingling: Good morning my love ❤️ I also have surprises
Lingling: I am so ready
Lingling: I was born ready
She was not ready. She had flour in her eyebrows.
The smoke alarm chose this moment to start screaming.
10:47 AM — The Flower Fiasco
Orm stood in the flower shop, sweating.
This should have been simple. Walk in. Buy flowers. Walk out. She had done this before. She was a functional adult human being who had successfully purchased goods and services on multiple occasions.
"So," the florist said, smiling patiently, "roses, then?"
"Yes," Orm said.
"Red?"
"Yes."
"How many?"
Orm's brain short-circuited. How many roses said 'I love you' without saying 'I have too much money and no concept of moderation'? Twelve? Twenty-four? One singular perfect rose like in the movies?
"How many do you have?" Orm asked.
The florist's smile became fixed. "We have... many roses."
"I'll take them."
"...All of them?"
Orm's mouth moved without permission from her brain. "All of them."
Twenty minutes later, she could not see over the mountain of roses in her arms. She could not, in fact, see at all. She navigated the sidewalk purely through echolocation and hope.
"Excuse me," she said to what she hoped was a person and not a mailbox.
It was a mailbox.
"Sorry," she told it, and continued on her journey.
11:30 AM — The Teddy Bear Situation
The teddy bear was, objectively, too large.
Orm had known this when she bought it. She had known this when the store employee had to help her carry it out. She had known this when it didn't fit in her car and she'd had to strap it to the roof like the world's most adorable hunting trophy.
She knew it now, as she stood in the elevator of Lingling's apartment building, pressed against the wall because the bear took up approximately 90% of the available space.
"Going up?" asked the elderly woman who had just stepped on.
"Yes," Orm squeaked from behind the bear's enormous fuzzy arm.
The woman looked at the bear. The bear, with its permanently sewn smile, looked back.
"Valentine's Day?" the woman guessed.
"Is it that obvious?"
"Sweetie, I can't see you. I can only see bear."
The elevator dinged. Wrong floor.
Three more people tried to get on, saw the situation, and elected to take the stairs.
12:15 PM — The Great Escape
Lingling had abandoned the breakfast plan.
The kitchen was a loss. She had contained the fire (small, brief, more of a fire-let really), cleaned what she could, and pivoted to Plan B: a romantic homemade lunch.
Plan B lasted approximately seven minutes before she set a dish towel on fire.
"WHY DOES EVERYTHING KEEP BURNING," she yelled at the universe.
The universe did not respond, but her phone did.
Orm 💕: Babe what's your favorite color
Lingling: Pink, why?
Orm 💕: No reason 😊
Orm 💕:Unrelated question
Orm 💕: How do you feel about large stuffed animals
Lingling: I love them???
Orm 💕: How large
Orm 💕: Like
Orm 💕: Hypothetically
Orm 💕: If one was taller than you
Lingling:Orm what did you do
Orm 💕: NOTHING
Orm 💕: I have to go bye love you!!
Lingling stared at her phone. Then at her destroyed kitchen. Then at the time.
She had four hours until their dinner reservation. Four hours to somehow produce a romantic gesture that didn't involve arson.
She grabbed her keys and ran.
1:45 PM — The Restaurant Situation
"What do you mean the reservation was canceled?"
The restaurant manager looked deeply uncomfortable. "Ma'am, someone called this morning and canceled."
"I didn't call this morning."
"Someone identifying themselves as—" he checked his notes "—'Lingling's assistant' called and said the reservation needed to be moved to tomorrow."
"I don't have an assistant!"
Lingling's eye twitched. Somewhere in the back of her mind, a theory was forming. A theory about well-meaning girlfriends who didn't know she had ALSO made a dinner reservation and had tried to "help" by making changes.
"Can we... un-cancel it?"
"We're fully booked. It's Valentine's Day."
Of course it was. Of course.
Lingling stepped outside and pulled out her phone.
Lingling: Orm.
Orm 💕: Yes my beautiful angel?
Lingling: Did you call any restaurants today?
A long pause.
Orm 💕: ...define "any"
Lingling: ORM
Orm 💕: I THOUGHT I WAS HELPING
Orm 💕: The person said there was a reservation conflict!!
Orm 💕: I was trying to be a good girlfriend!!
Orm 💕: Also I may have accidentally told them to cancel instead of confirm I panicked
Lingling: Our dinner reservation. You canceled our dinner reservation.
Orm 💕: I'M SORRY
Orm 💕: I'll fix it
Orm 💕: I am fixing it right now
Orm 💕: I am a problem-solving queen
Lingling: Do NOT make any more phone calls
Orm 💕: But
Lingling: NO MORE PHONE CALLS
2:30 PM — The Chase
Orm, naturally, made more phone calls.
She called seventeen restaurants. Sixteen of them laughed at her (one literally, which felt excessive and rude). The seventeenth put her on hold for forty-five minutes and then hung up.
She was now driving across the city with two hundred roses riding shotgun and a giant teddy bear strapped to her roof, looking for any restaurant that would take pity on her.
"Please," she said to the hostess of restaurant number eighteen. "Please. It's Valentine's Day. My girlfriend is going to kill me. She's very small but very scary when she's angry. She does this thing with her eyes—"
"Ma'am, we're booked."
"I will pay double."
"We're booked."
"Triple?"
The hostess's expression suggested Orm should leave before security was called.
She left.
In the parking lot, she leaned against her car and stared at the sky. The teddy bear loomed above her, silently judging.
"Don't look at me like that," she told it. "This is not my fault."
The bear continued its silent, fluffy judgment.
Her phone rang. Lingling.
"Hi baby," Orm said, trying to sound like someone who had any aspect of their life under control. "How's your day going?"
"Where are you?"
"Just... out. Running errands. Normal errands. Why?"
"Because I'm at your apartment and you're not here and there's smoke coming from under your door."
Orm's blood ran cold. "I'M SORRY WHAT?"
"Did you leave something on the stove?"
"I DON'T REMEMBER."
"ORM."
"I'M COMING I'M COMING I'M COMING."
3:00 PM — The Smoke
By the time Orm arrived, the fire department had already come and gone.
The damage was minimal—she had, in fact, left a pot of water boiling for what was going to be a romantic pasta dinner. The water had evaporated. The pot had begun to smoke. Lingling had broken in through the window (a story for another time) and handled the situation.
Lingling sat on Orm's couch, covered in soot, looking like a very disappointed Victorian orphan.
Orm stood in the doorway, holding two hundred roses, with a teddy bear the size of a compact car visible through the window.
They stared at each other.
"Hi," Orm said weakly.
"You almost burned your apartment down."
"But I didn't! Technically!"
"Because I broke in!"
"Which was very romantic of you!"
Lingling opened her mouth to argue, then closed it. "You have two hundred roses."
"Two hundred and twelve, actually. There was a sale."
"That's not how sales work."
"I know that now."
A long moment passed. Orm shuffled further into the apartment, leaving a trail of rose petals behind her like the world's most romantic Hansel and Gretel.
"I also got you a bear," she said.
"I saw."
"It's big."
"I saw."
Another pause.
"I set my kitchen on fire this morning," Lingling admitted quietly. "Twice."
Orm blinked. "What?"
"Pancakes. I was trying to make heart-shaped pancakes. I've never made pancakes before. I don't know why I thought today was the day to start."
"Oh my god."
"There's flour on my ceiling."
"Babe—"
"The ceiling, Orm."
They looked at each other across the sea of roses, two disasters in human form, covered in soot and flour and the physical evidence of their catastrophically failed romantic gestures.
Orm started laughing first.
It burst out of her like a dam breaking—loud, honking, completely undignified laughter that made her double over and nearly drop two hundred dollars worth of flowers.
Lingling tried to hold it together. She really did. She pressed her lips into a thin line and stared at the ceiling and thought about serious things like taxes and global warming.
Then Orm snorted, and it was over.
They laughed until they cried, until Lingling slid off the couch and onto the floor, until Orm had to set down the roses because she couldn't breathe, until the giant teddy bear outside the window seemed to be watching them with bemused concern.
"I ruined everything," Orm wheezed. "I canceled our reservation. I almost committed arson. I bought a bear that won't fit through any door."
"I set multiple fires. I couldn't make a single pancake. I had a plan. I had spreadsheets."
"Spreadsheets?"
"I'm a planner! I plan!"
"I love you so much."
The words hung in the air, suddenly soft, suddenly serious. Orm was still half-laughing, tears streaming down her face, surrounded by roses and chaos and the lingering smell of smoke.
Lingling looked at her—really looked at her—and felt her heart do something complicated in her chest.
"You know," she said softly, "I think this is why we work. You're all heart and enthusiasm, and I'm all planning and precision, but when we both try to be romantic, we just create chaos together."
Orm's laughter subsided into a soft smile. "We're both disasters, just different flavors."
"Exactly," Lingling nodded. "And somehow our disasters complement each other."
"Come here," Orm said, reaching for her.
Lingling crossed the room, stepping over roses, kicking aside petals, until she was standing in front of Orm. Then she dropped to her knees so they were eye level, both of them ridiculous, both of them a mess.
"Hi," Lingling said softly.
"Hi."
"Happy Valentine's Day."
"It's been a disaster."
"The best disaster."
Orm reached out and brushed a bit of flour from Lingling's hair. Then another. Then gave up because there was probably an entire bakery's worth in there.
"We could order pizza," she said.
"Pizza?"
"Pizza. Watch a movie. Not set anything on fire."
Lingling's face lit up. "That sounds perfect, actually."
"The bear stays outside though."
"But—"
"Lingling."
"Fine. But can we at least take a picture with it first? For Instagram?"
Orm sighed the sigh of someone deeply in love with an absolute menace. "One picture."
"Three pictures."
"One."
"Two?"
"I'm already regretting this relationship."
"No you're not."
"No," Orm admitted, smiling despite herself. "I'm not."
6:00 PM — The Resolution
They took seven pictures with the bear.
Then they ordered pizza—two larges, one with everything, one with just cheese because Lingling was picky—and curled up on the couch with every blanket Lingling owned.
The roses had been divided into approximately thirty vases, cups, and one pasta pot that would never be used for pasta again. They covered every available surface of the apartment, making it look less like a home and more like a very aggressive botanical garden.
"I can't believe I bought this many flowers," Lingling muttered, looking around.
"You said there was a sale."
"I lied. There was no sale. The florist just looked at me with sad eyes when I tried to leave with only a dozen and I panicked."
"You are such a disaster."
"I'm your disaster."
Orm pulled her closer, tucking Lingling against her side. The pizza sat open on the coffee table. Some terrible romantic comedy played on the TV, neither of them really watching it.
"Can I tell you something?" Lingling asked.
"Hm?"
"This is actually my favorite Valentine's Day ever."
Orm looked down at her. "You have extremely low standards."
"I'm serious! Look—" Lingling gestured around them, at the roses and the mess and the lingering chaos of the day. "We spent all day trying to be perfect for each other and we both completely failed, and somehow that's... I don't know. It's us. It's very us."
"Our love language is mutual catastrophe?"
"Our love language is trying really hard and accidentally committing crimes."
"Breaking into your apartment wasn't a crime. It was... an emergency intervention."
"You climbed through my window."
"The door was locked!"
"Ling, you used a credit card to pop the screen out. That's breaking and entering."
"It's only breaking and entering if we press charges, and we're not going to press charges, so technically—"
Orm kissed her.
It was the only reliable way to win arguments with Lingling, who could and would debate semantics until the heat death of the universe. One moment she was talking about the legal definition of breaking and entering, and the next moment Orm's hand was on her jaw and her lips were otherwise occupied.
When they broke apart, Lingling looked slightly dazed.
"That's cheating," she said.
"That's strategy."
"You can't just kiss me every time you're losing an argument."
"Watch me."
They grinned at each other, soft and stupid and completely in love.
Outside, the giant teddy bear sat in Lingling's parking spot, watching over the night like a fuzzy, cotton-stuffed guardian angel. Tomorrow they would have to figure out what to do with it—Lingling was already planning to donate it to a children's hospital, a decision that Orm would later describe as "the only sensible thing you've done all day."
But that was tomorrow.
Tonight, there was pizza getting cold and a movie playing that neither of them cared about and rose petals in places rose petals should never be and the lingering smell of smoke mixing with the overwhelming scent of flowers.
It was a mess. It was chaos. It was absolutely, perfectly, ridiculously them.
"Hey," Lingling said.
"Hey."
"I love you. Like, a lot. An embarrassing amount. A 'set multiple fires and break into your apartment' amount."
"I love you too. A 'buy two hundred roses and a bear the size of a car' amount."
"That's concerning."
"You started it."
"I did not—"
Lingling kissed her this time, because two could play at that game, and because she could, and because it was Valentine's Day and they were disasters and nothing had gone according to plan and somehow that had made everything perfect.
When they finally pulled apart, Orm's eyes were bright.
"Same time next year?" she asked.
"Absolutely not. Next year we're staying in bed all day."
"That's boring."
"That's safe."
"Where's the fun in safe?"
Lingling considered this. "You make a valid point. Fine. Next year we'll try again."
"Really?"
"On one condition."
"Anything."
"No more bears."
Orm pouted. "But—"
"No more bears, Orm."
"What about medium-sized bears?"
"No."
"Small bears?"
"I will accept one small bear."
"Deal."
They shook on it, very seriously, like they were negotiating a business contract and not the acceptable limits of stuffed animal purchasing.
Then they went back to not watching the movie, eating cold pizza, and being exactly who they were: two people who loved each other enough to set things on fire, buy too many roses, and make an absolute mess of the most romantic day of the year.
And honestly?
That was better than any spreadsheet could have planned for.
EPILOGUE — 11:47 PM
Lingling 💕: babe
Lingling 💕:babe are you awake
Orm: I'm literally next to you. Why are you texting me.
Lingling 💕: because i wanted to say happy valentine's day one more time
Lingling 💕: before midnight
Lingling 💕: happy valentine's day ❤️
Orm: You are ridiculous and I love you.
Orm: Happy Valentine's Day. ❤️
Lingling 💕: 🥰🥰🥰
Lingling 💕: also the bear is staring at me through the window
Orm: Go to sleep, Lingling.
Lingling 💕: it's watching us
Orm: SLEEP.
Lingling 💕: i think it's plotting something
Orm: I'm turning off your phone.
Lingling 💕: YOU CAN'T DO THAT
Orm: Watch me.
Lingling 💕: this is a violation of my rights
Lingling 💕: orm
Lingling 💕: ORM
[Read 11:52 PM]
THE END 🌹🧸🔥
Happy Valentine's Day 💗