Chapter Text
Orm Sethratanapong had three things in abundance: money, confidence, and beauty.
At least, that was what everyone around her would say.
As the only daughter, with a younger brother, of one of the country's most influential families, Orm had grown up in a world where doors opened before she reached them, cars waited outside buildings with their engines running, and assistants existed largely to remember the things she had forgotten.
It was a comfortable life.
An obscenely comfortable life.
And Orm was very good at living it.
She was also very good at being busy.
Her days were usually divided between meetings at the family company, lunches she couldn't remember agreeing to, invitations she had forgotten accepting, and the occasional appearance at an event simply because her mother had reminded her that people noticed these things.
Orm had mastered the art of looking productive without ever appearing particularly rushed. She could spend an entire afternoon moving from one obligation to another while somehow maintaining the expression of someone who had all the time in the world.
Which was why, at two-thirty on a Saturday afternoon, Orm was sitting in the back of her black sedan, staring impatiently through the window at a sea of unmoving cars.
Her fingers tapped against the armrest.
Once. Twice. Three times.
She glanced at her phone. Then at the traffic. Then back at her phone.
-"Unbelievable," -she muttered.
The driver remained wisely silent.
Orm leaned her head against the window and sighed, watching the city crawl past her at an agonizing pace.
Well.
She was late. Very late.
Her phone buzzed again.
Namtan: Where are you???
Another message appeared almost immediately.
Namtan: It's MY birthday hoe. I am your bestfriend. You better get here quick.
Orm stared at the screen for a moment before sighing. Only Namtan could speak to her like this and somehow get away with it.
Her gaze drifted toward the empty space beside her.
Empty. Very, very empty.
Because she had completely forgotten to buy a present.
Not because she didn't care about Namtan. Quite the opposite. Namtan was one of her closest friends, someone Orm genuinely loved having in her life.
She had simply never stopped long enough to consider what constituted a meaningful birthday gift.
She should have told her assistant to buy something. But Namtan wasn't exactly the materialistic type. Expensive handbags, jewelry, designer clothes....none of that would mean much to her. And Orm knows Namtan wouldn't mind not receiving anything from her but Orm can't just show uo empty handed!!!! HELL.
Which, unfortunately, left Orm with absolutely no idea what to get her.
Her driver glanced at her through the rearview mirror.
-"Should we take another route, Miss Orm?"
Orm looked out at the endless line of cars ahead of them.
-"Unless you know how to make the cars in front of us disappear."
There was a brief pause.
-"I don't, unfortunately."
-"Then we're staying here."
Her driver gave a small nod, apparently accepting defeat. Orm leaned her head against the window.
She glanced at the clock. Then at the traffic. Then at her phone. Then back at the traffic.
Her expression slowly fell.
-"Shit. Now I don't even have time to buy a gift, at least a meaningful one for that idiot."
She needed something. Anything. Something that would at least prove she had tried.
Her eyes wandered lazily over the buildings lining the street, searching for anything that might save her from Namtan's birthday.
And then she saw it. A small flower shop tucked between two larger storefronts.
It looked new.
The windows were spotless, the sign was simple, and colorful bouquets were arranged neatly outside, bright against the otherwise dull stretch of the street.
Orm's eyes lit up.
Flowers. Namtan liked flowers.
No.
Namtan loved flowers.
Perfect.
Orm immediately sat up.
-"Pull over."
Her driver blinked.
-"Here?"
-"Yes."
He glanced at the traffic surrounding them.
-"But we're in traffic."
Orm was already reaching for the door handle.
-"Exactly. It's horrible. I'll walk."
He hesitated. Orm opened the door.
-"I'll be ten minutes."
-"You have your security—"
She looked back at him.
-"I'm buying flowers, not overthrowing a government."
And before he could come up with another argument, Orm stepped out of the car. The city noise swallowed her almost immediately.
She adjusted her sunglasses, glanced once at the flower shop, and walked toward it with the confidence of someone who had just successfully solved a crisis she had personally created.
A small bell above the door gave a soft ding when Orm pushed it open.
She took one step inside and stopped.
The shop smelled like fresh flowers. Roses. Lilies. Eucalyptus. Something sweet she couldn't quite identify. Sunlight streamed through the front windows, spilling across the small shop in warm afternoon light and making everything feel softer somehow.
It was quiet and peaceful. Nothing like the city outside, with its impatient horns and endless traffic.
Orm found herself smiling faintly.
Some of the tension in her shoulders seemed to dissolve without her permission. She hadn't realized how badly she needed a moment of quiet until she stepped into this place.
She took a slow breath then finally removed her sunglasses and that was when she saw HER.
A woman appeared from beneath the counter, a single rose in her hand. She stepped behind the counter and began arranging the flowers with careful, practiced movements, completely unaware that she had just gained an audience, as if she just didn't hear the ding of the bell earlier.
Black hair was pulled into a loose ponytail, with a few strands falling naturally across her forehead.
A plain white shirt, black wide-leg jeans and sneakers. Nothing extravagant. Nothing particularly striking. Nothing that should have made Orm stop breathing.
And yet... She was agonizingly pretty.
There was something about her that made Orm forget, for one very embarrassing moment, how to function. She simply stood there in the middle of the flower shop, staring.
The birthday. The traffic. The forgotten present. Namtan's increasingly impatient messages.
All of it disappeared from her mind.
For once in her life, Orm Sethratanapong....the heiress who could walk into a room full of executives twice her age without blinking, who could negotiate over millions without so much as raising an eyebrow....had absolutely nothing to say.
Because the woman standing behind the counter had just looked up. And Orm was completely, hopelessly taken aback by the beauty of the stranger in front of her.
Their eyes met and the woman smiled. It was a simple smile. A polite one, really. But Orm was not equipped to handle it. Because now that she was looking properly, she noticed everything.
The single mole resting delicately on her cheek. Her soft pink lips. The sharp bridge of her nose. The defined line of her jaw. And those eyes. Crescent-shaped when she smiled.
Orm noticed all of it.
In one look. One single, completely devastating look. Orm is damned. She is damned.
Her heart skipped a beat. She opened her mouth but nothing came out so she closed it and opened it again.
Still nothing. Excellent.
Orm had never been good at first impressions.
That was a lie.
Orm was actually excellent at first impressions.
She knew exactly how to walk into a room, exactly when to smile, exactly how long to hold someone's gaze, and precisely what to say to make people remember her.
She had been doing it her entire life. It was practically a skill. A survival mechanism, if anything.
But apparently, none of those skills applied when the woman standing in front of her was this pretty.
Because Orm was, quite literally, gay panicking.
Somewhere inside her head, approximately seventeen tiny versions of Orm were running around screaming.
One was pulling an emergency alarm. Another was apparently trying to find the nearest exit. A third had simply collapsed on the floor.
RED ALERT. RED ALERT. PRETTY WOMAN. A GODDESS.
Orm stared. The woman continued smiling patiently. And that was when Orm came to a horrifying realization.
Her greatest weakness was pretty women.
Or perhaps.... Just this woman.
Her long black hair. Those plump lips. That sharp jaw. Those stupidly pretty eyes—
Yeah.
Orm needed to stop. Immediately. Preferably before she embarrassed herself.
Unfortunately, the woman was still smiling at her. While Orm's brain had apparently decided to clock out for the afternoon.
-"Hi," -she finally managed. It came out much quieter than she had intended.
Ling Ling—the woman behind the counter—tilted her head slightly.
-"Hi."
Orm blinked.
-"Hi."
Orm wanted to slap herself. Why had she said it again? She cleared her throat.
-"I—" -Her voice cracked. Orm immediately stopped talking.
She could feel the tips of her ears growing warm, and judging by the faint twitch at the corner of Ling Ling's lips, she wasn't exactly hiding it very well.
Then Ling Ling laughed.
Softly. Not mockingly. Just a quiet, amused little laugh that somehow made Orm ten times more embarrassed.
Fantastic.
Absolutely fantastic.
Orm coughed lightly and straightened her posture, desperately attempting to recover whatever dignity she had left.
-"Sorry."
She finally snapped out of whatever strange trance she had fallen into and walked toward the counter.
There. This was better. She was back in control.
She could do this.
She stopped in front of the counter and looked at Ling Ling, forcing herself to maintain eye contact.
-"I'd like a bouquet, please." -Her voice was steady this time.
See? Perfectly normal. She was functioning again.
Ling Ling nodded with a polite smile.
-"Of course. Is it for a special occasion?"
-"Yeah. A present for someone."
Orm tried very hard not to stare at her, she didn't wanna seem like a creep. So, she suddenly found the color of the counter extremely fascinating. She studied it like she'd never seen wood before.
-"Do you have any preference?"
Orm shook her head.
-"No. Just... something nice."
Ling Ling smiled.
-"I can do that."
And then she disappeared toward the back of the shop.
Orm watched her leave.
Only then did she notice that the back of the shop wasn't empty.
There were a few other people there, moving buckets around, trimming stems, and rearranging flowers. Someone was carrying a box across the room while another worker carefully sorted through a collection of roses.
Now how did she miss all those details???
The place really did look brand new.
There were still unopened boxes stacked against one wall, a few empty shelves waiting to be filled, and the faint sense that everything was still being put together.
Orm slowly looked around.
The shop was small, simple but somehow charming. There was nothing particularly luxurious about it, and yet the entire place had a warmth to it that made Orm feel strangely comfortable.
Her eyes wandered back toward the rear of the shop.
Ling Ling was speaking to one of the other workers now, gesturing toward a collection of flowers as she gave instructions. Her hands moved naturally as she talked, completely at ease.
Orm watched. She shouldn't have been watching. She knew that.
She was supposed to be buying a bouquet for Namtan, not standing around admiring the florist. But apparently, knowing that and actually looking away were two entirely different things.
And Orm had never been particularly good at doing things she didn't want to do. Especially when the thing she was supposed to stop looking at was her.
A few minutes later, Ling Ling returned with a bouquet cradled carefully in her arms.
-"These are lilies," -she explained, adjusting a few of the stems with delicate fingers. -"I added some baby's breath and greenery around them. They're soft, but they still have a little character to them. I thought they'd work nicely as a present."
Orm stared at her. She heard the words. Technically. She simply didn't process any of them.
Because Ling Ling was standing right in front of her again, speaking directly to her in complete sentences, smiling at her as though this were the most normal interaction in the world. And somehow, she looked even prettier when she talked longer.
Orm could hear her own heartbeat.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
This was ridiculous. She was buying flowers. That was it.
She had bought flowers hundreds of times before. For birthdays. Events. Family gatherings. Random occasions when someone had sent something to the house and her assistant had handled the rest.
So why did it suddenly feel like she'd forgotten how to breathe?
Why couldn't she take her eyes off this woman?
Ling Ling continued explaining the meaning behind the different flowers in the bouquet, speaking with surprising seriousness about something Orm was fairly certain she had never thought twice about in her entire life.
Orm didn't hear a single word. Her attention had narrowed completely to the woman standing in front of her. The movement of her lips. The slight tilt of her head when she spoke. The way her fingers gently adjusted the stems.
It was almost hypnotic.
Ling Ling eventually finished explaining, apparently unaware of the intense stare Orm had been giving her the entire time.
She reached for a small card beside the register and picked up a pen. Then she looked back at Orm.
-"Flower for who, Miss?"
Orm froze. Her eyes remained fixed on Ling Ling. Her mind went completely blank.
She needed a name. Right.
A name.
Whose flowers were these again?
Oh.
Right.
Her best friend.
She had come here for her best friend.
Fuck.
-"Uh..." -Her mouth moved before her brain caught up. -"To my dear Namtan."
Ling Ling smiled politely.
-"Namtan. Alright. She's lucky to get such attention from you."
She lowered her gaze and began writing on the card.
Orm didn't register what Ling ling had just said. Because now she was watching the pen move across the paper.
The handwriting was elegant and neat. Almost annoyingly beautiful.
Of course it was. Even her handwriting was pretty.
Ling Ling finished writing and held the card out to her.
-"There you go."
Orm took it.
-"Thank you."
Ling Ling nodded.
-"Would you like to pay by cash or card?"
-"Card."
The answer came instantly. Orm was still looking at her. Probably too much. Definitely too much. But Ling Ling didn't seem bothered.
She simply gave Orm another small smile before turning toward the register.
Somehow, Orm paid. She wasn't entirely sure how. She remembered tapping her card. She remembered taking the bouquet. She remembered thanking Ling Ling one more time.
And then....
Ding.
The bell above the door rang.
Orm was outside. Standing on the pavement with a bouquet of lilies in her hands.
Her face was burning. Her heart was beating so hard she could feel it against her ribs. She stared at the flower shop behind her.
Then at the bouquet. Then back at the shop. She had walked in to buy Namtan a birthday present.
That was all. That had been the entire purpose of this little detour.
Yet somehow... Orm turned her head and looked through the glass one last time.
There she was.
Ling Ling stood behind the counter, quietly going about her work.
Orm's heart skipped again. She stared for another second.
Then another. And finally, under her breath—
-"Oh, fuck. I am so damned"