Chapter Text
Orm had been told three things about Professor Lingling before ever stepping foot in her class.
She was terrifying.
She could spot a wrong footnote from thirty paces.
She never forgot a face.
Which was unfortunate, given that Orm’s face, on that fateful day in second year, was stuck halfway between “deer in headlights” and “I might cry if she asks me a question.”
It wasn’t her fault. Ancient Siamese court politics were already way over Orm’s pay grade, and Lingling had walked into the lecture hall on the second minute of the hour silk blouse perfectly tucked, hair pinned so precisely it looked like it could survive a typhoon, expression neutral. Not cold, not warm. Just perfectly professional in the way that makes you immediately sit up straighter and regret every bad handwriting choice you’ve ever made.
Orm had been ready to hate her.
Except.
Except Lingling, halfway through explaining the dynastic quirks of King Rama II’s court, noticed a toppled pen on the front desk. She didn’t just pick it up she straightened the stack of papers it had scattered, set the pen parallel to the lecture notes, and moved on without missing a beat in her sentence.
Something about that tiny motion the care, the precision, the noticing burrowed into Orm’s brain and refused to leave.
“She’s scary,” Milk whispered from two seats over.
Orm, openly staring at their professor’s elegant hands as she wrote on the board, whispered back
“She’s perfect.”
Milk gave her a slow side-eye.
“Girl, do you like getting interrogated in public?”
Orm might have said yes. If by interrogated, Milk meant noticed.
The crush was ridiculous, of course. Professors were a different species, existing in offices filled with dusty volumes and decades old coffee mugs. Crush worthy in theory, not in practice.
Except again Orm caught Lingling in the cafeteria once, with a steaming paper cup clutched delicately while scanning a journal article like it was a mystery novel. The brows furrowed, lips pursed in thought and Orm realised she’d memorised the professor’s frown before her favourite celebrity’s smile.
Milk declared it hopeless. Orm declared it motivation. She was going to earn a conversation, someday.
Fast forward four years later, Orm thought she’d outgrown it. Lingling had faded into “charming academic memory” territory.
The lecture theatre was one of those high‑ceiling rooms designed to make students feel small and history feel important. The varnished wood smelled faintly of polish and dust. Even before she sat down, Orm could feel her pulse picking up.
The seminar title glowed on the projector screen:
"Material Culture & Romantic Correspondence in 18th Century Siam"
The title alone made her pay attention but so did the name on the timetable.
Professor Lingling Sirilak Kwong.
Orm had known that name since her second year, whispered in corridors like some academic legend. Strict. Brilliant. The kind of lecturer who could spend ten minutes dissecting a metaphor and somehow leave you feeling like you’d been personally cross‑examined.
She had always imagined Lingling slightly removed from ordinary life someone who lived between library stacks and diplomatic luncheons, her hair never out of place, her tone cool enough that even compliments felt like judgements.
Which was why Orm had specifically picked a seat dead centre, third row. Close enough to see, far enough not to look desperate
The back door opened and Lingling walked in.
She didn’t hurry. She never hurried. Navy suit jacket, crisp blouse, her hair swept up in that precision bun, with one immaculate strand curved at her temple like a signature.
She set her folder down, unhooked the microphone with smooth efficiency, and scanned the room. Assessing each face in seconds, filing names away.
Orm felt her gaze land briefly but directly on her.
For a heartbeat, there was a flicker in Lingling’s eyes. Orm saw it and didn’t yet realise Lingling recognised her surname. She knew that name from somewhere far closer than she’d expected. And now, here it was, attached to a student.
The seminar rolled on, Lingling guiding the room through the etiquette of historic letters: how a seal’s placement could signal affection or rebuke how metaphors wrapped entire diplomatic strategies in silk how “All Yours” might mean political possession instead of love.
Orm took notes furiously but also found herself mentally narrating an impossible plan
Find a reason to work together. Get close enough to see if Lingling’s voice changed when she wasn’t behind a microphone. Maybe even no, focus.
Near the end, Lingling set the microphone aside.
“I will require a research assistant for my current work on a private collection of royal letters. Attention to detail is essential,” she said, all precision.
“Structural translation experience is preferred.”
Before she could think, Orm’s hand shot up. “I’m interested, Professor!”
The sound bounced across the room. People turned.
Lingling’s brow tilted just a fraction. “Your name?”
Orm swallowed hard. “Orm Kornnaphat Sethratanapong.”
Lingling repeated it slowly, the way someone tastes a word they haven’t said aloud in years. “And you are in your final year of your master’s?”
“Yes,” Orm said too quickly. Her brain stalled for a second, then rebooted with catastrophic results
“I mean, I would like very much to work with you. For research purposes. And other mutually beneficial arrangements.”
There was a microscopic pause.
Behind her, Milk half‑strangled on a laugh. Junji muttered, “Did you just innuendo propose to your professor?”
Lingling held Orm’s eyes for another beat unreadable before moving on.
“See me after class.”
Orm survived the remainder of the session in a haze.
Out in the corridor afterwards, Milk and Jane descended on her like birds spotting shiny gossip.
“You volunteered like someone proposing in front of a flash mob.”
“The mutually beneficial arrangements bit? Dead. I’m dead.”
Orm fanned herself with her notebook.
“I panicked she has that face like she’s judging you and your ancestors, okay?”
Kao Supassara, who had been leaning nearby (and who happened to be Lingling’s colleague), barked a laugh.
“Well, you certainly made an impression. She almost never pauses when hearing a name, but she did with yours. Twice.”
Orm froze mid‑step. “Twice? What does that mean?”
Kao smirked but didn’t answer, just wandered off toward faculty offices.
The paper slip Lingling gave her after class sat warm in Orm’s palm: Archive Room 3. Nine a.m. Clearance from Kao.
As Lingling walked away through the side door, Orm thought, with a ridiculous certainty
Tomorrow isn’t just tomorrow.
It’s the start of something I will make happen.
The university’s history archive was less room and more “ancient temple of dust and secrets”, the kind that dared you to sneeze in case half the ceiling came down.
Tall mahogany shelves lined the walls, sunlight crawling through high windows, catching in motes that seemed older than the faculty itself.
Orm arrived ten minutes early everything about her screamed romcom disaster disguised as motivated grad student, overstuffed tote bag, water bottle the size of her forearm, and a half-sketch plan to see Lingling walk in and immediately think competent, endearing, dateable.
What Lingling saw when she did arrive, Orm on her knees after tripping over a chair, cardigan half-tangled in one leg of the desk.
Orm sprang up, hands flapping. “False alarm! Just enthusiasm.”
Lingling’s gaze did one slow sweep from the listing chair to Orm’s slightly winded face before she handed over a pristine pair of white cotton gloves.
“Try not to maim the artifacts as well.”
Orm took them like she’d been knighted.
“Noted though, Professor, I’d honestly rather maim your heart.”
Junji stage whispered to Lingling,
“This one’s dangerous.”
Lingling ignored her, moving to the main table with crisp precision.
They began cataloguing fragile sheets of correspondence between Queen Lingling Sirilak Kwong and Princess Orm Kornnaphat Sethratanapong.
It took five minutes for Orm to notice it.
Her pen halted mid-word. “Wait.”
Lingling looked up without looking up.
“Pause the dramatics, Miss Sethratanapong, finish the line.”
“No, no, no you don’t get it. That’s that’s my exact name. Down to the last syllable.”
Lingling approached, gloves smoothing the air like she could iron out Orm’s excitement.
“It’s a title. Before modern surname codification, the princess’s name was identical in house and province to yours. Common in upper provinces.”
Orm blinked at the page again, chaotic thoughts pinballing through her brain.
“This Queen wrote dozens of love-laced letters to Princess Orm Kornnaphat Sethratanapong for literal years. And here I am, pining after the reincarnation of that Queen who” she waved at Lingling like the letters were evidence“won’t even flirt back properly.”
Junji nearly snorted tea out her nose.“You’re jealous. Of yourself. In another life.”
Orm pressed a hand to her chest, deadly serious. “Not myself. A better me. She had the Queen obsessed. I have her supervising my paper structure.”
Lingling’s brow arched minutely, but enough to catch Orm’s spiralling.
“History and reality are separate, Miss Sethratanapong.”
Orm narrowed her eyes, leaning over the page dramatically. “We’ll see.”
Twenty minutes later, Lingling circled behind her to check a translation. Orm tilted the paper up fully aware of how close she was only for Junji to stroll past and sing, “Dating in the archives~”.
Lingling’s spine straightened instantly, mask back in place. “You missed one comma.”
Orm scribbled the comma down but added in the margin
Almost a moment. Blocked by Junji. Also jealous of Princess Me.
Junji was already in the tea cupboard, grinning. “You’re welcome.”
Orm sat back in her chair after Lingling glided away, her eyes still fixed on the neat slope of Lingling’s shoulders as she disappeared into the rows of cabinets.
Under her breath pitched so only Junji, still loitering by the teacup shelf, could hear she muttered
“It’s criminal. Absolutely criminal. Other Princess Me got relentless love letters, moon rearrangement threats, daily replies. Present Me gets lectured about commas and glove etiquette.”
Junji turned her head slowly, like she was adjusting a telescope toward a particularly unusual bird.
“You’re saying this as though you expect Professor Kwong, in this life, to start hand delivering poetry and krathongs to your apartment.”
Orm stabbed her pen into the notebook in something between defiance and doodling.
“Why not?! Past Queen Lingling was clearly a menace for romance. She sent entire fleets of letters every time Princess Me smiled at someone else. And she called her ‘All Yours’ like that wasn’t about to cause historical dehydration.”
Junji bit her lip to keep from laughing, glancing toward the doorway as Lingling’s footsteps approached again. “Maybe she’s just pacing herself?”
Orm’s eyes flicked up, narrowing with the focus of someone about to declare war on an abstract concept.
“Then I’ll accelerate the pace.”
Junji’s eyebrows went up, impressed but wary, but she couldn’t resist the poke:
“You know Lingling doesn’t date students, right? Code of conduct, faculty handbook, all that heavy paperwork you don’t read?”
Orm’s mouth curved like someone hearing a prophecy and deciding to rewrite it.
“Then I’ll make sure she wants to. And when she wants to, paperwork won’t stand a chance.”
Junji pressed her lips together look equal parts baffled and amused half covering her face with her teacup as Lingling stepped back into the room.
“Ready for more translations, Professor,” Orm said, voice pure academic politeness.
Lingling nodded, setting a folder down beside her without incident. But as she adjusted her gloves, her eyes dipped to Orm for half a second longer than necessary a flicker, a check-in, just enough for Orm’s internal crush radar to ping like sonar.
Orm bent her head to the page, smile hiding in the tilt of her mouth.
The war campaign had officially begun.
Lingling’s Unsent Letter #4
(Kept in her locked desk drawer, filed under “Miscellaneous Notes”)
From Lingling Sirilak Kwong
To Orm Kornnaphat Sethratanapong
It has only been several days since you arrived in my archive and already the rhythm of the work feels altered. You’ve thrown something unmeasured into my schedule not disorder exactly, but a colour I hadn’t planned for.
I have been a professor long enough to know the importance of distance. Yet I find myself looking up, more often than my own notes require, just to see what expression you’re wearing over those translations.
You tilt your head the same way the Princess in these letters was described to tilt hers a small echo through centuries. It’s absurd for a scholar to think such a thing and yet here I am, noting it every time.
When you smiled at discovering your name written in an 18th century hand, I almost told you the truth that I recognised it immediately when I first read your application, because I have studied these letters for half my life. Instead, I gave you gloves and kept my voice neutral.
You make neutrality difficult.
I told myself today’s translation notes were for your benefit, but they were partly for mine standing behind you in the sunlight from those high windows, tracing the slope of your shoulder through the cotton cardigan, watching your pen hover before landing, clean in its line. You miss commas, but you do not miss moments.
As your professor, I cannot send this. It will remain locked where I keep older things I cannot yet share.
But if the Princess in these letters could elicit dozens of confessions from her Queen without ever bending to rules, perhaps history will repeat itself.
You are interesting in ways a researcher should never admit about her student. And yet I am writing it down.
I will keep this until circumstance allows it to leave my hand.
— L.S.K.