Chapter Text
Orm slipped into the Monday meeting a few minutes late, iced coffee in hand, looking entirely too pleased with herself for someone disturbing a room full of already irritable adults. She dropped into the chair beside Lingling without apology, crossed her legs, and took a slow sip as if daring anyone to comment.
Lingling didn’t speak, but her raised eyebrow landed with the force of a full paragraph. She flipped her page with a controlled, almost dismissive snap, as if refusing to dignify Orm’s theatrics with even a sigh. Her expression stayed cool, flat, and faintly dismissive. Still, Orm spotted the tiny twitch at the corner of Lingling’s mouth and felt a flicker of triumph she would never admit to.
Across the table, a senior associate cleared his throat with all the ceremony of someone far too proud to be leading a routine meeting.
“Now that everyone is here…” His gaze slid pointedly to Orm, who answered with a dazzling smile and another sip of her drink, which only seemed to annoy him further - an outcome she considered a win.
“Firstly, let’s run through last week’s progress,” he continued. “I’ll start with the case brief draft. Lingling, great work with a refined structure. Very clean.”
Orm frowned before she could stop herself. Her work. Her entire outline - proofread, fine-tuned, polished, and now magically credited as someone else’s. She pushed her pen cap on with a click, forcing her face into its default expression of amused detachment.
“Actually,” she began lightly, “I-”
“Well, let’s keep moving,” the senior associate interrupted, already turning to the next bullet as if she were background noise to him.
A few people nodded, not maliciously - just afraid to show any signs of disobedience towards their superior.
It was a small moment, the kind that evaporated quickly unless you were the one it cut. Orm had already smirked, ready to deliver a court-worthy complaint, but then suddenly Lingling shifted beside her. Barely. A slight change in her posture, a minute inhale.
When she spoke, her voice was steady, the kind that belonged to someone not prone to theatrics, yet every word cut sharper than any outburst Orm could have mustered.
“Just to clarify,” she said, eyes fixed on the agenda, “the structure came from Orm’s draft. I only adjusted formatting and tightened a few transitions.”
The meeting lead paused. Blinked. “Right,” he said, clearly wishing she hadn’t said anything. “Well. Good teamwork then.”
Orm leaned back in her chair, folding her arms with exaggerated precision. She kicked the leg of the chair under the table once, softly, and let her fingers drum impatiently. Every tiny motion screamed: I could’ve managed perfectly well myself.
Lingling didn’t look at her. Didn’t even acknowledge the moment. She simply folded her hands, expression set in mild annoyance - as though defending Orm had been an unfortunate administrative burden.
The meeting dragged on. Slides, updates, meaningless discussions about timelines that would inevitably be ignored. Orm doodled in her notebook - mostly squiggles, occasionally a rude caricature of the speaker.
When the briefing finally adjourned, chairs screeched back and the room dissolved into small clusters of chatter. Orm rose, gathering her things with more flourish than necessary. Lingling stood more reservedly, smoothing her blazer with a practiced gesture.
As Orm started toward the door, Lingling spoke without looking at her.
“You should finish the next section of the brief and personally hand it in before the afternoon check-in.”
Orm blinked. “Are you giving me homework?”
Lingling’s exhale was soft and thin. “I’m reminding you so no one pretends it was someone else’s idea again.”
Orm froze for half a second - just long enough for the confusion to register before she buried it under a layer of bravado.
“I knew you were paying attention,” she said, grin reappearing like it lived in her pocket. “I’m flattered, really.”
Lingling closed her laptop with a click sharp enough to shut the conversation down.
“Don’t start.”
“Too late,” Orm chirped, slipping past her with a small, triumphant bounce in her step.
She barely made it to her desk before slumping into her chair with a theatrical groan, tugging her iced coffee closer as if it was a lifeline. She let her fingers linger over the keyboard, staring at the blank document, though she wasn’t really thinking about the work. Not yet.
From across the room, Lingling’s eyes followed her. Orm caught the glance - not quite a glare, not quite a check - but the subtle weight behind it was enough to make her shift slightly in her chair. A small thrill ran through her: ling was watching her. Annoying. Intriguing. Infuriating.
Orm tapped her pen against the desk. Tap. Tap. Tap. Loud enough to be heard, quiet enough to claim innocence if called out. She hummed a soft, tuneless melody and grinned at the corner of her screen as if sharing a private joke with herself.
Lingling, meanwhile, opened her own laptop with careful precision, her fingers moving across the keys like a conductor directing an orchestra. No distractions. No humming. No tapping. Just exact, measured movement and a faint crease between her brows.
Orm leaned back, letting her chair tilt slightly.
“You don’t relax, do you?” she asked casually, not looking at Lingling, letting her words float over like a challenge.
Lingling’s single glance was enough.
“No.” Flat. Cold. Final.
She returned to her screen as if Orm hadn’t spoken at all.
Orm huffed, annoyed but not surprised. She muttered under her breath, more to herself than anyone else, “Figure that one out, why don’t you…”
Then Lingling clicked her laptop shut, the sound slicing through the quiet office like a sharp exhale. She stood, smoothing her blazer with deliberate care, and gave Orm a look somewhere between irritation and precision.
“Make sure the next section is done properly,” she said, calm but cutting. “And try not to make it seem generic - people should know it’s your work.”
Orm’s jaw tightened. She opened her mouth, then closed it, letting the words die in her throat. Lingling didn’t wait for a response. She walked out, steps deliberate, leaving Orm staring after her, simmering.
Orm slumped further in her chair, muttering a string of complaints to no one, her frustration turning inward. The tension didn’t fade; it only grew heavier. Lingling had not just ignored her - she’d disarmed her, silenced her, and left her exposed.
And Orm hated it.
By five-thirty, most of the office had cleared out. Orm remained at her desk, hammering through the proposal with the kind of focused spite that only surfaced when she had something to prove.
Her phone buzzed. A text from her mother: Dinner Sunday? Your father wants to discuss the…
Orm ignored it without reading past the first line.
She glanced around the empty office - the scattered coffee cups, the humming computers left on standby, the faint smell of printer ink. This was what she'd chosen. This fluorescent purgatory over corner offices and family legacies and the suffocating weight of expectations she'd never asked for.
Some days she wondered if she'd made the right call.
Most days she was too tired to wonder anything at all.
Her cursor blinked on the screen. She typed another sentence, then another, building something from nothing because that was the only way to prove it was hers.
Across the floor, a light remained on in the glass-walled conference room. Lingling sat alone, papers spread before her, reading glasses perched on her nose - a detail Orm had never noticed before. She looked smaller somehow. Less armored. Orm watched for a moment longer than she should have.
Then she turned back to her screen and kept typing.
The announcement came on Wednesday, delivered via a company-wide email with all the warmth of a legal summons.
As part of our ongoing strategic realignment of Mr. Henderson’s case, Miss Sirilak Kwong will be assigned as the primary attorney overseeing the case. Kornnaphat Sethratanapong will support her in a secondary capacity, ensuring continuity across all related workstreams.
Effective immediately, please direct all communications regarding Mr. Henderson’s matter to Miss Sirilak Kwong, copying Kornnaphat Sethratanapong as appropriate.
Orm read the email three times, certain she'd hallucinated.
Working under Lingling? Surely her eyes were playing tricks. They had always worked side-by-side, shoulder-to-shoulder - not as partners, but as rivals who circled each other with grudging respect and sharpened teeth. The idea that she’d now be expected to fall in line, to wait for direction instead of giving it, tightened every muscle in her body in silent rebellion.
“Support her in a secondary capacity,” she muttered under her breath as she stormed into the elevator. “What does that even mean? Hold her briefcase? Take notes? Fetch her coffee? Absolutely not.”
She pushed back from her desk and marched toward the elevators, punching the button with more force than necessary. She needed air. She needed space. She needed to scream into a void that wouldn't judge her.
The stairwell door swung open just as she reached for it.
Lingling stood on the other side, poised posture - as if nothing could shake her composure.
They stared at each other.
"I'm quitting," Orm said accusingly.
“You won’t," Lingling replied flatly.
Neither moved.
The stairwell echoed with the distant hum of ventilation. Somewhere below, a door slammed. Above, footsteps retreated into silence.
“How the hell would you know that?!” Orm finally said.
Lingling's eye twitched. "You can't quit. Not if you have something to prove."
Orm's jaw tightened. She wanted to ask how Lingling knew that. She wanted to demand what gave her the right to see through her so easily.
Instead, she said: "Why would they make me work with you? I hate it."
"I’m not exactly thrilled either.”
"Good."
"Good."
They stood there, neither leaving, neither staying, caught in the amber of mutual stubbornness.
Orm's phone buzzed again. Another text she wouldn't read. Another expectation she was running from.
Lingling's gaze flickered to the phone, then back to Orm's face - a split-second observation that felt like being catalogued.
"The Henderson case is a career-maker," Lingling said, voice careful. "If we pull it off."
"If being the operative word."
"You're annoying. Not incompetent."
Orm blinked. "Was that a compliment?"
"It was an observation." Lingling smoothed her blazer - that same practiced gesture, armour clicking into place. "I expect you in the conference room at eight tomorrow. Don't be late."
She brushed past Orm and disappeared down the hallway, footsteps measured and precise.
Orm remained in the stairwell doorway, heart beating faster than it should, irritation and something sharper warring in her chest.
She wasn't going to quit.
Neither was Lingling going to back down.
And somehow, inexplicably, infuriatingly, that meant they would have to spend more time with each other.