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Orm had always maintained a very specific, deeply held philosophy about the universe: it was completely, unequivocally full of shit.
More specifically, the rules governing soulmates were full of shit.
For twenty-four years, Orm’s tongue had served exactly two purposes: articulating her very loud, very chaotic thoughts to anyone in her immediate vicinity, and preventing her from choking on her own saliva. It was a purely functional muscle. It could sense temperature—she knew if a soup was going to burn her palate or if an ice cube was freezing her cheek—and it could sense texture. She knew the crunch of a cracker, the rubbery resistance of boiled meat, the mushiness of overcooked rice.
But flavor? Taste? That was an absolute, gaping void.
If she had to describe her twenty-four years of culinary existence in a single word, it would be bland. A desolate, gray landscape of mastication. She couldn't even offer a proper metaphor because she literally had no frame of reference. People who had found their soulmates talked about "sweetness" like it was a symphony, or "spiciness" like a thrilling roller coaster ride. To Orm, putting sugar on her tongue felt exactly the same as putting sand on it, just with a finer grit.
Eating was a chore. It was fuel. It was the annoying thing her biological vessel required three times a day to prevent her from passing out over her AutoCAD blueprints. The social divide in Bangkok was painfully obvious: the 'Tasters'—those lucky, starry-eyed bastards who had bumped into their soulmates and unlocked the vibrant world of flavor—crowded the Michelin-starred street food stalls in Yaowarat, moaning over Pad Thai and Tom Yum. The 'Blands'—the lonely, searching masses like Orm—usually opted for whatever nutrient-dense sludge or cheap convenience store sandwiches they could swallow the fastest.
Orm was a fiercely independent, highly capable engineer. She had chestnut hair that rarely stayed in its messy bun, warm eyes that usually sparkled with mischief, and a personality that filled a room the moment she tripped over the threshold. She didn't need a soulmate to complete her.
But god, she just wanted to know what a damn mango tasted like.
It was a sweltering Tuesday afternoon in Bangkok. The air outside the sleek glass walls of the engineering firm was thick enough to swim in, but inside the corporate cafeteria, the air conditioning was blasting at its usual arctic levels.
Orm was exhausted. The morning had been a blur of chaotic structural meetings, misplaced blueprints, and a minor disagreement with the architectural team over load-bearing columns. Her stomach gave a hollow, rumbling complaint. Fuel time.
She shuffled over to the refrigerated display case near the cashier. The glass was fogged with condensation. Inside sat rows of identical, sad-looking triangles wrapped in tight plastic. She grabbed one at random, squinting at the label: Classic Chicken & Mayo.
She paid her forty baht, slumped into a plastic chair at an empty table near the floor-to-ceiling windows, and peeled back the plastic. The bread felt slightly damp against her fingers—a tactile warning she usually ignored. She took a massive, unceremonious bite, staring blankly at a spreadsheet on her phone.
Cold. Slightly squishy. A bit of crunch from what she assumed was lettuce. The usual routine.
She swallowed. Took another bite. Chewed.
And then, the universe shifted on its axis.
It didn’t happen slowly. It hit her like a ten-ton truck of sensory data. First, a violent, aggressive wave of saltiness practically assaulted her taste buds. Her eyes widened, her brain completely short-circuiting as foreign electrical signals fired from her mouth to her cerebral cortex. Then, right on the heels of the salt, came a bizarre, sickly sweetness—a synthetic, gloopy tang that she realized, with mounting horror, was the mayonnaise.
Underneath that was a subtle, musty note. The bread wasn't just damp; it tasted like the concept of a damp cardboard box that had been left in a basement. The chicken was somehow both flavorless and aggressively metallic.
Orm froze, her jaw locked in the middle of a chew. Her eyes were as wide as dinner plates.
What is this? she thought, panic and absolute awe warring in her chest. What the hell is happening inside my mouth?
She took a sharp breath through her nose, and the flavor compounded. The salt. The sweet tang. The cardboard.
I can taste. The realization hit her so hard she dropped her phone onto the table with a loud clatter.
I can taste. I CAN TASTE.
According to the laws of biology, physics, and cosmic romance, this meant only one thing: her soulmate was in the immediate vicinity. Her soulmate, the other half of her spiritual being, the person she was destined to spend the rest of her life with, was breathing the same air as her.
A wave of profound, sweeping emotion washed over Orm. A twenty-four-year wait was over. The gray world had exploded into color. It was beautiful. It was poetic. It was everything the romantic novels promised.
And then a second, much stronger realization hit her.
Holy shit, this sandwich tastes absolutely vile.
Unable to contain the sheer, unadulterated garbage fire currently occupying her palate, Orm gagged. She slapped a hand over her mouth, looking frantically around for a napkin, before ultimately grabbing her iced water and chugging it to wash down the culinary abomination. The water—which usually just felt wet and cold—now had a crisp, clean, almost mineral bite to it that felt like salvation.
She gasped for air, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, coughing lightly. A few coworkers from the IT department at the next table shot her weird looks.
"Everything okay, P'Orm?" one of the junior devs asked, eyeing her suspiciously.
"Never better, Nong," Orm wheezed, staring in horror at the half-eaten sandwich sitting innocuously on the plastic wrapper. It looked so innocent. It was a weapon of mass destruction. "Just... contemplating the duality of man and mayonnaise."
She pushed the sandwich away as if it were radioactive. She had done it. She had found her soulmate. And the very first thing she had ever tasted in her entire life was a cheap, oxidized, soggy, cafeteria chicken sandwich.
Thanks for the fairytale ending, universe, she thought bitterly, though a wild, manic grin was already spreading across her face.
She could taste.
The initial shock of the terrible sandwich wore off, replaced immediately by the buzzing, frantic energy of an engineer presented with a complex problem to solve.
If she could taste, her soulmate was close. And according to the lore, the proximity effect meant they had to be relatively nearby—usually within the same building—for the bond to initially snap into place. Once the bond was established, the "taste radius" would grow, but for this first spark, they were definitely under the same roof.
Orm stood up abruptly, her chair scraping loudly against the linoleum. She planted her hands on her hips and surveyed the cafeteria. It was a bustling Friday. Hundreds of employees from various departments were eating, chatting, and scrolling on their phones.
She needed to approach this logically. She needed parameters.
Parameter 1: Time of Employment. Orm had been working at this Bangkok branch for exactly four years. Up until this morning, when she drank her usual nutrient shake (which she now suspected probably tasted like chalk), her world was bland. Therefore, her soulmate could not be someone who had been working here for the past four years. If it were, the spark would have happened at the water cooler three years ago.
Goodbye, 75% of the company, Orm thought, mentally crossing out the familiar faces of P'Som from HR, the entire IT department, and the grumpy senior architects.
Parameter 2: The Proximity Rule. It had to be someone who entered her orbital sphere today. Specifically, within the last few hours.
She tapped her chin, her eyes narrowing as she scanned the room. Today was the first of the month. It was Orientation Day for new hires and transfers. HR had sent out a memo this morning—which Orm had mostly skimmed—welcoming the new blood to the Bangkok office.
There were only three notable new arrivals working on her floor or directly interacting with her department today. Three suspects. Three candidates for the person who had doomed her to experience the atrocity of the cold chicken sandwich.
She mentally pulled up the dossier on each of them.
Candidate 1: “Gina” Yeena Salas
Orm’s eyes drifted toward a table near the potted ferns. Sitting there, looking thoroughly overwhelmed by a stack of orientation folders, was Gina. She was a newly joined Marketing Executive. They were the same age, and they had bumped into each other by the elevators that morning.
Gina was striking, with sharp, expressive features that reminded Orm of a famous Thai actress. When they had bumped into each other, Gina had dropped her iced tea, gasped loudly, and apologized in a rapid-fire string of sentences that perfectly matched Orm's own chaotic energy. They had locked eyes, laughed about the spilled tea, and Orm had felt an immediate sense of camaraderie.
Could Gina be the one? When they bumped into each other, had the spark been ignited? Orm hadn't eaten anything right at that moment, so she wouldn't have noticed the taste until now at lunch. It was highly plausible. Gina seemed loud, fun, and exactly the kind of person who could keep up with Orm's frantic pace.
Candidate 2: “Earth” Pirapat Watthanasetsiri
Orm’s gaze pivoted to the center of the room. It was hard to miss Earth. He was surrounded by a gaggle of female employees from logistics and administration, all of whom seemed to be leaning in slightly closer than professional courtesy dictated.
Earth was the new Senior Executive from the Finance Department. The office gossip mill (which Orm was a proud contributing member of) had been buzzing about him for weeks. He had been poached from a rival firm because of his supposedly ruthless financial skills, but no one was talking about his spreadsheets today. They were talking about his boyish, devastatingly charming smile.
He was handsome. Objectively, mathematically handsome. Broad shoulders, warm aura, and a laugh that actually sounded musical. Orm had passed by him in the hallway earlier, and he had flashed her a polite, crinkly-eyed smile that made her heart do a completely involuntary flutter.
Was it Earth? The handsome, swoon-worthy finance bro? It would certainly fit the narrative of a romance novel. Girl meets charming boy, boy smiles, girl can suddenly taste the terrible cafeteria food. It was a strong possibility.
Candidate 3: “Lingling” Sirilak Kwong
Orm’s eyes moved to the VIP corner of the cafeteria—the quiet, elevated booths usually reserved for management. Sitting alone, sipping a small cup of coffee with the serene grace of a monarch surveying her lands, was Lingling Kwong.
Lingling wasn't exactly a new hire; she was the newly promoted Project Manager transferred from the Hong Kong branch to oversee the massive new commercial complex Orm’s engineering team was building.
Orm had attended the brief introductory meeting that morning. When Lingling walked into the room, the temperature seemed to drop five degrees. She was, for lack of a better word, breathtaking. Elegant, poised, dressed in a sharply tailored blazer that screamed authority, with striking features that commanded absolute attention. She spoke quietly, but everyone in the room strained to listen.
Orm had spent the entire meeting slouched in her chair, feeling like a messy, uncoordinated toddler next to Lingling’s immaculate presence. Lingling was serious. She didn't take nonsense. And Orm, by her own cheerful admission, was approximately 90% nonsense on any given day.
Orm watched Lingling take a slow, deliberate sip of her coffee. Her expression didn't change. She looked perfectly composed, reading a document on her tablet.
No, Orm decided immediately, mentally crossing Lingling off the list with a thick red marker. Absolutely not.
Orm firmly believed that the soulmate bond was a two-way street. When Orm got her taste, her soulmate had to have gotten theirs, too. If Lingling had suddenly gained the ability to taste for the first time while drinking that dark, intense-looking coffee, surely she would have reacted? She would have gasped, or dropped the cup, or at least blinked rapidly in shock. But Lingling looked like she was drinking tap water. Cool, unaffected, and completely out of Orm's league.
Besides, the universe wouldn't be so cruel as to pair a chaotic, loudmouth engineer with an intimidating, elegant ice queen from Hong Kong. They would kill each other within a week.
So, that left two candidates. Gina, the frantic marketing girl, or Earth, the charming finance playboy.
For the rest of the day, Orm was a live wire.
She bought a bag of incredibly spicy prawn chips from the 7-Eleven downstairs, retreating to a quiet stairwell to eat them. The explosion of chili, garlic, and savory prawn flavor practically brought tears to her eyes. It was magnificent. It was painful. It was the best thing she had ever experienced.
She spent the afternoon sneaking glances at Gina and Earth, waiting for one of them to make a move. The lore dictated that when soulmates realized who each other were, there was an unspoken pull. A moment of recognition. Surely, whoever it was had tasted their lunch today, realized what happened, and was currently deducing the exact same list of suspects.
Orm waited for the dramatic tap on the shoulder. She waited for Earth to lean against her cubicle with that boyish smile and say, "So, how was your lunch?" She waited for Gina to pop up over the partition and scream, "OH MY GOD, CAN YOU TASTE THE COFFEE TOO?!"
Friday came and went. Nothing.
Orm went home for the weekend. The moment she stepped off the Skytrain, miles away from the office, she bought a mango smoothie from a street vendor. She took a sip.
Cold. Thick. Bland.
The taste was gone. The radius had broken.
She spent Saturday and Sunday oscillating between extreme frustration and absolute despair. She had tasted the promised land (and it tasted like spicy prawn chips), and now she was back in the gray void. She survived the weekend on plain rice and spite.
Monday morning arrived. Orm marched into the office building, swiped her security badge, and headed straight for the cafeteria. She bought a small carton of strawberry milk, popped the straw, and took a sip.
Instantly, a wave of artificial, sugary, fruity sweetness flooded her tongue.
They're here, she thought, her pulse spiking. The connection was re-established. They were in the building.
She spent all of Monday on high alert. She made excuses to walk past the Marketing department, lingering near Gina’s desk. Gina smiled warmly, offered her a bland-looking cracker, but said nothing about soulmates.
She purposefully dropped her pen near the Finance department. Earth picked it up, handed it back with a smile that made Orm's knees a little weak, and smooth-talked her about the weather. But no grand confession.
By Tuesday afternoon, exactly forty-eight hours after the Chicken Sandwich Incident, Orm’s patience had completely evaporated.
She sat at her desk, aggressively chewing a piece of peppermint gum (which tasted so intensely minty it felt like a blizzard in her mouth). She glared at her computer screen.
This was ridiculous. Why wasn't anyone stepping forward? Were they cowards? Were they in denial? Did they taste their lunch on Friday, realize it was the loud, messy engineer, and decide to politely ignore the universe's cosmic mandate?
"Fine," Orm muttered under her breath, furiously clicking her mouse. "If you want to play hide and seek, we'll play hide and seek."
If her soulmate lacked the courage to step up and claim the chaotic bundle of joy that was Orm, she would just have to force their hand. She was an engineer. She solved problems. She built bridges, calculated load stresses, and dismantled obstacles. Finding a cowardly soulmate out of a lineup of two people would be a walk in the park.
She pulled out a fresh, yellow legal pad and clicked her pen.
At the top, in bold, aggressive letters, she wrote: OPERATION: FLAVOR TOWN.
Underneath, she wrote: Suspect 1: Gina. Action Plan: Flirt aggressively. Test chemistry. Observe reactions to strong-smelling foods.
Suspect 2: Earth. Action Plan: Accept his inevitable charming advances. Secure a dinner date. Monitor his eating habits closely.
She looked at the bottom of the page. A brief image of Lingling Kwong, staring coolly over her coffee cup, flashed in Orm's mind. A tiny shiver ran down Orm's spine, entirely unrelated to the freezing air conditioning.
Orm aggressively scribbled out the bottom of the page, ensuring Lingling wasn't even an afterthought on the list.
She had a plan. She had two suspects. And she was going to get her happily ever after, even if she had to drag her soulmate to it kicking and screaming.
Wednesday morning arrived in Bangkok with its usual suffocating humidity and the chaotic symphony of gridlocked traffic on Sukhumvit Road. For the first twenty-four years of her life, Orm had navigated this sensory overload with a singular focus: get from point A to point B without melting into a puddle of sweat.
But today, Orm was a woman on a mission, and she had a new superpower—conditional as it might be.
She stood on the pavement just outside her office building, the towering glass structure gleaming in the morning sun. She was currently holding a small, clear plastic bag of sliced green mango, purchased from a street vendor near the BTS Asok station. Accompanying the pale green slices was a tiny packet of prik kluea—a potent mixture of sugar, salt, and crushed red chili flakes.
Orm stared at the fruit like it was an unexploded bomb.
She needed a baseline. The lore of the soulmate connection was a topic thoroughly documented on Reddit threads, whispered in high school bathrooms, and analyzed in terrible romantic comedies. The prevailing scientific theory—or at least, the most popular urban legend—was the "Proximity Activation." When you find your soulmate, the connection doesn't just permanently switch on forever immediately. For the first few weeks, the sensory link was tethered to physical proximity. You had to be near them to taste anything. Only after a significant emotional milestone (a confession, a kiss, a declaration of love, the internet varied wildly on this point) did the bond lock in permanently, allowing both parties to taste regardless of distance.
Orm had tested this theory thoroughly. At her apartment last night, her dinner of instant noodles tasted like warm, squishy rubber bands. Her morning coffee tasted like hot, brown water.
She took a deep breath, dipped a slice of green mango into the chili salt, and popped it into her mouth while standing on the sidewalk.
Nothing. It was crunchy, cold, and entirely devoid of flavor.
She nodded to herself, a mad scientist confirming her hypothesis. She swallowed the flavorless fruit, wiped her hands, and took a step toward the revolving glass doors of the office building.
The moment she crossed the threshold, the air conditioning hit her face, and simultaneously, a nuclear explosion went off inside her mouth.
The delayed flavor of the green mango and chili salt struck her taste buds with the force of a freight train. It was so intensely, agonizingly sour that her jaw locked up. Her eyes watered instantly. But that wasn't all—the saltiness was sharp and aggressive, the sugar was a cloying wave, and the chili flakes practically ignited a small bonfire on the back of her tongue.
"Holy mother of—!" Orm gasped, clapping a hand over her mouth and doubling over right in the middle of the lobby.
A security guard gave her a concerned look, but Orm just waved him off, coughing, tears streaming down her face, a massive, unhinged grin stretching across her lips.
Suspect is on the premises, her brain supplied happily, even as her tongue burned.
She practically skipped to the elevators. Operation: Flavor Town was officially a go. Suspect Number 1: “Gina” Yeena Salas from Marketing.
The 15th floor of the building belonged to the Marketing and Public Relations department. It was a stark contrast to the 9th floor, where Orm’s engineering team resided. Engineering was a chaotic landscape of overflowing trash cans, massive rolls of architectural blueprints, half-dismantled prototypes, and people who looked like they hadn't slept since 2022.
Marketing, on the other hand, was an oasis of aesthetic perfection. The lighting was softer, the desks were minimalist, and there were actual, living plants that someone remembered to water. The air smelled vaguely of expensive diffusers—which Orm could actually smell now, detecting notes of lavender and eucalyptus that made her want to sneeze.
Orm strode out of the elevator, adjusting her collar. She had spent an embarrassing amount of time in front of the mirror that morning trying to look casual yet devastatingly attractive. She had opted for a crisp white button-down shirt, sleeves rolled up to the forearms to show off a very faint, almost non-existent bicep, and tailored slacks. She ran a hand through her messy chestnut hair, hoping it looked "effortlessly tousled" rather than "electrocuted."
She spotted Gina immediately. The new Marketing Executive was at her desk, intensely focused on a dual-monitor setup, furiously typing. She wore a stylish, bright yellow blazer that perfectly complemented her sharp, expressive features.
Orm took a deep breath. Alright, Orm. Channel your inner casanova. Be smooth. Be charming. Find out if she can taste the mango.
She sauntered over, trying to perfect a confident, relaxed swagger. It was going well until her foot caught the edge of a remarkably plush rug near the printer station.
Orm stumbled forward, arms flailing wildly to catch her balance. She pitched toward Gina's cubicle, managing to slap her hands onto the partition just in time to stop herself from face-planting onto Gina’s keyboard.
The loud smack of Orm’s hands on the desk made Gina jump three feet in the air, spinning around in her ergonomic chair with a tiny, high-pitched shriek.
Orm hung over the partition, breathless, her hair falling into her eyes. She froze, staring at wide-eyed Gina.
Smooth. Very smooth, idiot, Orm’s internal monologue screamed.
"Uh," Orm said, clearing her throat and desperately trying to salvage the situation. She slowly slid into a leaning position against the cubicle wall, crossing one arm over the other in what she hoped was a suave manner. "I meant to do that. It’s an icebreaker. Engineering tactic. Stress-testing the structural integrity of your desk."
Gina stared at her for a long, silent moment. Her dark eyes blinked once. Twice. And then, a massive, booming laugh erupted from her chest. It was loud, completely unselfconscious, and echoed across the quiet marketing floor.
"Are you okay?" Gina snorted, covering her mouth as she giggled. "You looked like a baby giraffe learning to walk."
Orm felt her ears turn red, but a grin broke through. "A very handsome baby giraffe, I hope."
Gina leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms and surveying Orm with amusement. "You're the girl from the elevators! The one who made me spill my tea on Monday."
"Orm," she said, extending a hand over the partition. "Engineer, chaos bringer, and apologizer for spilled teas. You're Gina, right?"
"Guilty as charged," Gina said, shaking Orm's hand. Her grip was firm and friendly. "To what do I owe the pleasure of an engineer invading the aesthetic floor? Did the air conditioning break again? Because if so, I claim first dibs on the desk fan."
"No, no maintenance issues," Orm said, flashing her warmest smile. She leaned in a little closer, trying to inject some magnetic chemistry into the air. She lowered her voice slightly. "I just realized we didn't get a proper introduction the other day. And, you know, I couldn't help but notice you from across the cafeteria. Figured it was a crime not to come say hi to the prettiest new hire in the building."
It was a cheesy line. It was a line Orm had literally googled the night before under the search query: How to flirt with women without sounding like a creep. Gina’s eyebrows shot up. She looked at Orm, then looked around the space behind her, then pointed a finger at her own chest. "Wait. Are you hitting on me?"
"I am actively trying to," Orm admitted, deciding honesty was the best policy when the suave act was clearly failing. "Is it working?"
Gina let out another loud snort, slapping her knee. "Oh my god, you are hilarious. You look like you're sweating. Are you sweating?"
"It's very warm under these lights!" Orm protested, pulling at her collar, laughing despite herself. The romantic tension was absolutely nonexistent. There were no sparks. There was no magnetic pull. There was just the undeniable feeling that she was talking to a mirror reflection of her own goofy personality.
"Okay, okay, Romeo, I appreciate the effort," Gina chuckled, rolling her chair closer to the partition. "I'll give you a B-minus for the execution, but an A-plus for the confidence."
"I'll take it," Orm said. She liked Gina. She liked her a lot. But she still needed to execute the test. The charm offensive might have failed to produce butterflies, but science required empirical data.
Orm reached into her pocket and pulled out the small plastic bag of green mango and the packet of prik kluea. She placed it on the edge of Gina's desk.
"Peace offering," Orm said casually. "I brought snacks. Have you eaten anything since you got here this morning?"
"Just a plain bagel," Gina said, eyeing the bag. "Texture was decent, honestly. Good chew. But you know how it is."
You know how it is—the universal code of the Blands.
"Right," Orm said, her heart beating a little faster. If Gina was her soulmate, that bagel should have tasted like something. But maybe the bond hadn't fully synced for Gina yet? Maybe she needed a catalyst. Something powerful. "Well, try this. I got it from the vendor downstairs. Supposed to be the best crunch in the city."
Gina didn't hesitate. She opened the bag, pulled out a thick, pale green slice of mango, and eagerly ripped open the little packet of chili, sugar, and salt. She practically coated the mango in the powder until it was dusted red and white.
Orm watched her with the intensity of a hawk stalking a field mouse. She held her breath.
Here it comes, Orm thought. The moment of truth. She’s going to bite into it, the sourness is going to hit her, the chili is going to burn, and she's going to realize I'm the one.
Gina tossed the heavily coated mango slice into her mouth.
Orm leaned in, her eyes wide.
Gina chewed.
Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.
Her expression remained perfectly blank. Serene, even. She swallowed, licked her lips, and reached into the bag for another piece.
"You weren't kidding," Gina said cheerfully, coating the second piece in chili salt. "The crunch on this is spectacular. Very crisp. The vendor knows how to pick them. Thanks, Orm!"
Orm stared. She stared at Gina’s perfectly calm face. She stared at the red chili flakes clinging to Gina’s fingers. She mentally recalled the absolute agony her own tongue had experienced just fifteen minutes prior from a much smaller amount of that exact same powder.
"You..." Orm started, her voice coming out a little raspy. "You don't feel... anything? In your mouth?"
Gina paused, a slice of mango halfway to her lips. She gave Orm a confused look. "Feel anything? I mean, the sugar crystals have a nice grit to them. Adds to the texture profile. Why? Is there a pit in this one?"
She couldn't taste it.
Gina couldn't taste a single damn thing.
The realization washed over Orm like a bucket of lukewarm water. It wasn't disappointment, exactly. In fact, as she looked at Gina—who was currently trying to balance a pencil on her upper lip while chewing the mango—Orm felt a profound sense of relief. Gina was amazing, but they possessed the exact same chaotic, single-brain-cell energy. If they dated, their apartment would burn down within a week, and they would probably starve to death because neither of them would be serious enough to remember to pay the electric bill.
"Nope," Orm said, letting out a massive exhale, her shoulders dropping as the tension left her body. She leaned fully onto the partition, dropping the suave act entirely. "No pit. Just... checking the quality."
Gina ate the second piece, dusting her hands off. She looked at Orm, her eyes softening with a sudden, knowing empathy. "Hey. You're trying to spark it, aren't you?"
Orm blinked. "Spark what?"
"The bond," Gina said quietly, leaning closer so the adjacent cubicles wouldn't hear. "The soulmate thing. That's why you came up here trying to spit game, right? You're a Bland, I'm a Bland, we're both single, and we're both in the same building. You were testing to see if I was the one."
Orm opened her mouth to deny it, but closed it again. There was no point in lying. Well, she had to lie about her status—she couldn't reveal she was a newly minted Taster just yet, not until she found the culprit—but she could admit to the investigation.
"Yeah," Orm sighed, running a hand over her face. "Yeah, I was. Sorry if that was weird. I just... I'm twenty-four, Gina. I'm so tired of eating cardboard. I thought maybe, since we bumped into each other on Monday, there might be a chance."
Gina smiled with a genuinely warm, sweet expression. She reached over and patted Orm’s arm. "Don't apologize, Orm! Honestly, it's flattering. And trust me, I get it. If I thought flirting with an engineer would finally let me taste whatever the hell a strawberry is supposed to be, I would have been down in your department yesterday reciting pickup lines from a manual."
Orm laughed, a real, unforced laugh this time. "You want to taste a strawberry?"
"My mom's a Taster," Gina said, her eyes getting a little dreamy. "She met my dad in college. She bakes these strawberry tarts all the time. She always closes her eyes when she eats them and goes, 'Oh, the tartness, the sweet jam!' And I'm just sitting there chewing on what feels like warm, wet sponge cake, pretending to agree. It's torture."
"I totally understand," Orm lied smoothly, actively suppressing the memory of the intensely sweet strawberry milk she had drunk on Monday. "My roommate is a Taster. He won't shut up about 'umami.' I don't even know what that means. It sounds made up. It sounds like a martial art."
Gina threw her head back and laughed loudly again. "Right?! Umami! What a fake word. Honestly, Orm, I'm a little bummed it's not you. You're cute, you're funny, and you brought me snacks. You'd make a great soulmate for someone."
"You too, Gina," Orm smiled. "But hey, silver lining? I think I just made a really awesome friend."
"Besties automatically," Gina agreed, offering her hand for a high-five, which Orm slapped enthusiastically. "Plus, now we can be wing-women for each other in this godforsaken building. Have you seen the roster of people who work here? We have options, Orm. We just have to be strategic."
Orm’s mind instantly clicked back into gear. Strategic. "Speaking of options," Orm said casually, leaning her chin on her hand. "Have you interacted much with the other new guy? Earth? The finance guy?"
Gina’s eyes lit up with the universal fire of office gossip. She pulled her chair even closer, practically pressing against the partition. "Earth Pirapat? Oh, honey. Everyone has interacted with Earth. He made sure of it."
"Really?" Orm asked, her detective instincts flaring. Suspect Number 2 was coming into focus. "What's the tea?"
"He's gorgeous, obviously," Gina whispered, looking around dramatically as if the finance department had spies in the potted plants. "Like, magazine cover gorgeous. He came down to marketing yesterday to drop off some budget projection files. He spent twenty minutes just chatting with the girls in PR. Smiled at everyone, remembered everyone's names. He actually brought a box of doughnuts for the floor."
"Doughnuts?" Orm zeroed in on the detail. "Did he eat one?"
"I think so?" Gina frowned, trying to recall. "Yeah, he took a glazed one. Why?"
"Did he... react to it? Like, gasp or anything?" Orm pressed, her pulse quickening. If Earth ate a doughnut and suddenly gained the ability to taste, it would have reacted.
Gina looked at Orm like she was slightly crazy. "He said, 'Mmm, good texture.' Orm, I think he's a Bland too. Unless he's a Taster who already found his soulmate, but his HR file says he's single."
Good texture. The battle cry of the oblivious Bland.
Orm bit her lip. If Earth were a Bland, and he didn't react to the doughnut yesterday... did that mean he wasn't the one either? But wait. If Orm wasn't in the immediate vicinity when he ate the doughnut, maybe the proximity bond hadn't triggered for him at that exact moment. They worked on different floors. The bond was strongest when they were physically close in these early days. She needed to be right next to him when he ate something.
"He's definitely a flirt," Gina continued, oblivious to Orm's frantic internal calculations. "He asked P'Fah from accounting out for drinks on his first day. And I heard he was making eyes at the receptionists. He's a charmer, but he casts a wide net, you know?"
Orm frowned slightly. A playboy. Well, that complicated the romantic narrative, but it didn't change the science. A soulmate was a soulmate, regardless of their flirting habits. If it were Earth, she would deal with his wide net later. First, she needed proof.
"What about the new Project Manager?" Gina asked suddenly, visibly shuddering. "The transfer from Hong Kong? Have you seen her?"
The image of Sirilak Kwong, sitting in the VIP booth with her piercing eyes and aura of absolute authority, flashed into Orm’s mind. A strange, unbidden flutter happened in Orm’s stomach, which she immediately diagnosed as indigestion from the spicy mango.
"Lingling Kwong," Orm muttered, crossing her arms. "Yeah, I've seen her. My department is building the project she's managing. I have to be in meetings with her starting next week."
"Good luck, soldier," Gina said solemnly, giving Orm a mock salute. "I had to deliver a marketing brief to her office yesterday. I swear the temperature in the room dropped ten degrees. She didn't even look up from her laptop. Just said, 'Leave it on the desk. Ensure the font is Arial, size 11.' I almost apologized for breathing her air."
Orm laughed, though it sounded a bit hollow. "She's... intense. Definitely not soulmate material. Whoever her soulmate is, they're going to need a very thick winter coat to survive that ice."
"Or a blowtorch," Gina joked.
"Right. A blowtorch." Orm looked at the clock on the wall. Her lunch break was approaching. It was time to initiate Phase Two of Operation: Flavor Town.
"Hey, Gina," Orm said, standing up straight and brushing non-existent dust off her trousers. "It was great officially meeting you. Let's get lunch soon, yeah? We can go to that new place that serves the really crunchy fried chicken."
"Only if we can complain about how bland it is the entire time," Gina beamed.
"Deal."
Orm turned and headed back toward the elevators, her mind buzzing with strategy. Suspect 1 was officially eliminated. The investigation was narrowing.
As she waited for the elevator to arrive, she pulled out her phone and opened the company directory. She scrolled past the C-suite executives, past HR, and found the Finance department.
Pirapat Watthanasetsiri. His corporate headshot was ridiculously handsome. He looked like he belonged in a dramatic television series, not a sterile cubicle.
Orm tapped her chin. How to approach the charming finance playboy? She couldn't just offer him a spicy mango. He was too smooth for that. She needed to match his game. She needed to let him approach her, and then she needed to secure a controlled environment. A dinner date.
The elevator doors pinged open. Orm stepped inside, hitting the button for the 9th floor.
She might be chaotic, she might be a loudmouth engineer who tripped over rugs, but she was going to get a date with Earth Pirapat. She was going to take him to the most flavorful, spice-heavy, sweet-and-sour restaurant in Bangkok.
And if he didn't cry from the chili paste, she was going to have to face the terrifying, impossible reality that she was running out of suspects.
Target locked, Orm thought, watching the floor numbers descend. Prepare yourself, Earth. You're about to get hit by a hurricane.
If Orm’s approach to Gina had been a clumsy, impromptu stumble over a plush rug, her approach to Pirapat Watthanasetsiri was going to be a highly calculated, surgically precise tactical strike.
She was an engineer, after all. She didn't rely on luck; she relied on blueprints, stress tests, and controlled environments. Earth was Suspect Number 2. He was the charming, devastatingly handsome finance executive who cast a wide net. To catch a fish like that, Orm couldn't just swim into the net—she had to become the shiniest, most irresistible lure in the water.
Thursday morning was dedicated entirely to reconnaissance. Orm discovered, through a highly confidential exchange of information (trading a functioning stapler to a gossipy HR intern named Bow), that Earth took his coffee breaks at exactly 10:15 AM and 3:30 PM at the high-end espresso machine on the 12th floor.
The 12th floor was neutral territory—mostly corporate compliance and legal, meaning neither of them had a home-turf advantage.
At 3:25 PM, Orm deployed.
She had dressed specifically for this encounter. She wore a tailored, dark green jumpsuit that was professional enough for a construction site visit but fitted enough to scream 'I have my life together.' She even spent five minutes taming her chestnut hair into a sleek ponytail, sacrificing her usual chaotic bun for the sake of aerodynamic flirting.
She arrived at the 12th-floor breakroom at 3:28 PM. It was empty. The espresso machine, a gleaming, terrifying Italian contraption with too many dials, hummed quietly. Orm grabbed a paper cup, pretended to study the bean hopper, and waited.
At exactly 3:30 PM, the glass doors swung open, and Earth walked in.
The rumors, Orm had to admit, were entirely accurate. The man was offensively attractive. He wore a crisp, light blue dress shirt, the top two buttons undone, the sleeves rolled up to reveal an expensive-looking watch on a tanned, muscular wrist. But it wasn't just his physical proportions; it was his aura. He walked with a relaxed, liquid confidence, radiating the kind of effortless charm that usually belonged to romantic leads in prime-time Thai dramas.
"Oh," Earth said, pausing as he saw her. The famous, boyish, crinkly-eyed smile bloomed across his face. It was like someone had suddenly turned on a spotlight in the breakroom. "Hello there."
"Hi," Orm said, leaning casually against the counter. She mentally reviewed her script. Act aloof. Be witty. Do not trip over your own feet. "Just trying to figure out if you need a pilot's license to operate this machine."
Earth laughed, a rich, melodic sound that made a traitorous little flutter erupt in Orm's chest. He walked over, closing the distance between them with smooth, measured steps. The scent of an expensive, woodsy cologne washed over her.
"It's intimidating, isn't it?" he said, standing just a fraction of an inch closer than a standard coworker might. He reached past her—a calculated move that forced Orm to breathe in his cologne again—and tapped a few buttons on the digital display. "The trick is to ignore ninety percent of the dials. It's all just steam and pressure. I'm Earth, by the way. Finance."
"Orm. Engineering," she replied, extending a hand.
Earth took it. His handshake was warm and firm, and his thumb subtly, deliberately brushed against her knuckles before he let go. It was a microscopic gesture, but it sent a tiny jolt of electricity up Orm's arm.
Okay, Orm thought, her eyes widening slightly. The man has game.
"Engineering," Earth repeated, leaning his hip against the counter as the espresso machine began to grind beans with a loud mechanical roar. He tilted his head, studying her with warm, brown eyes. "That explains the jumpsuit. Very utilitarian chic. You look like you could build a skyscraper and then immediately go to a very trendy cocktail bar."
Orm blinked. That was... actually a fantastic compliment. It was specific, flattering, and tailored exactly to her current outfit.
"I prefer bridges, actually," Orm parried, feeling a genuine smile tug at her lips. "Skyscrapers are just vertical boxes. Bridges are about connecting two separate things over a void. It's more poetic."
Earth’s eyebrows shot up in genuine surprise. The practiced, charming facade seemed to slip for a fraction of a second, replaced by real interest. "A poetic engineer. That's a rare combination, Khun Orm. Most of the structural guys I deal with just yell at me about budget constraints."
"Oh, I can yell about budget constraints too," Orm assured him, crossing her arms. "Give me half an hour and a spreadsheet, and I'll complain about the cost of rebar until you cry."
Earth laughed again, louder this time. "I'll take my chances. Actually, I was looking over the preliminary estimates for the new commercial complex. The one the new Hong Kong transfer is managing?"
"Khun Lingling's project," Orm nodded, aggressively ignoring the tiny, unexplainable shiver that ran down her spine at the mention of the ice queen's name. "Yes, I'm on the primary structural team for that."
"It's a massive undertaking," Earth said, his tone shifting effortlessly from flirtatious to professional, yet maintaining that magnetic undercurrent. "I might need someone to walk me through the structural phasing so I understand where the capital is flowing. Do you think a poetic engineer could find the time to educate a humble finance guy?"
Orm stared at him. He was smooth. He was gentle. He was looking at her like she was the only person in the room, his complete attention focused entirely on her words. It was intoxicating. For a brief, dizzying moment, Orm forgot about the cold chicken sandwich. She forgot about the green mango. She just felt like a woman standing in front of a very handsome man who perfectly matched her conversational wavelength.
Could he be the one? she thought, her heart executing a hopeful little somersault. Could the universe actually be this kind? "I think," Orm said, her voice dropping a register as she took a calculated step forward, "that if you want a private tutoring session on structural phasing, you're going to have to bribe me with dinner."
Earth’s smile widened, transforming into something incredibly dangerous. "Is that a challenge, Khun Orm?"
"It’s a requirement," she shot back, feeling a surge of adrenaline. She was doing it. She was flirting with the office heartthrob, and she was winning. "I have highly specific culinary demands."
"Name the place," Earth said, grabbing his freshly brewed espresso. "Anywhere in Bangkok. You name it, I'll book it for tomorrow night."
"Baan Somtum in Sathorn," Orm said immediately. It was a restaurant famous for its aggressively spicy, incredibly flavorful Isan cuisine. It was the ultimate testing ground. If Earth was her soulmate, the moment they sat down together, the food would explode with taste. If he wasn't, she would be chewing on spicy, rubbery papaya while he sweated through his shirt. "Tomorrow. Seven PM."
"Sathorn. Seven PM. Spicy papaya salad," Earth repeated, his eyes crinkling. "It’s a date, Khun Orm. I'll see you then."
He gave her one last, lingering look that felt like a physical touch, and then turned and walked out of the breakroom.
Orm stood there for a full minute, listening to the hum of the espresso machine. She let out a long, shaky exhale, pressing a hand to her chest.
Operation: Flavor Town is a go, she thought triumphantly. And frankly, even if he isn't my soulmate, this is going to be a fantastic ego boost.
Friday evening descended over Bangkok, painting the sky in vibrant shades of bruised purple and smoggy orange. The city's legendary traffic was at a standstill, red taillights bleeding together along Sathorn Road.
Orm had left work early to prepare. If this was the night she permanently unlocked her sense of taste, she wanted to look immaculate. She spent an hour agonizing over her wardrobe, eventually settling on a sleek, off-the-shoulder black dress that struck the perfect balance between 'casual Friday' and 'I am about to meet my destiny.'
She arrived at Baan Somtum at 6:45 PM. The restaurant was buzzing with energy, the air thick with the smell of roasting meats, pungent fish sauce, and searing chilies. Orm inhaled deeply. According to the proximity rule, her taste (and the associated nuances of smell) should activate as soon as Earth arrives. Right now, the air just smelled vaguely warm and wet to her.
She requested a table by the window, ordered a glass of iced water, and waited.
At 6:55 PM, she saw a sleek, dark gray Mercedes pull up to the valet stand outside the large glass windows. Earth stepped out.
Orm felt a triumphant smirk form on her lips. He looked incredible. He was wearing a dark navy blazer over a crisp white t-shirt, managing to look both incredibly wealthy and effortlessly casual. He handed his keys to the valet, adjusted his watch, and turned toward the restaurant entrance.
Orm raised a hand to catch his attention through the window.
But Earth didn't look at the window. He was looking at a woman walking out of the restaurant.
Orm’s hand froze in mid-air.
The woman was beautiful—tall, with cascading dark hair, wearing a sleek designer dress. Orm recognized her vaguely; she worked in Public Relations, a few floors below Marketing. P'Fah, if Orm recalled correctly from Gina’s gossip session.
Orm watched through the glass, her smile slowly dissolving.
Earth stopped P'Fah on the sidewalk. He didn't just say hello. He stepped directly into her personal space, his posture shifting into that same relaxed, liquid confidence he had displayed in the breakroom. Orm couldn't hear what he was saying through the thick glass, but she didn't need to. The body language was deafening.
Earth smiled—the exact same boyish, crinkly-eyed smile he had given Orm. He tilted his head, listening to whatever P'Fah was saying with intense, laser-focused attention. And then, the clincher. He reached out and gently, deliberately brushed a stray lock of hair behind P'Fah’s ear.
It was a microscopic gesture. A deliberate, electric touch. Exactly like the thumb against Orm’s knuckles.
P'Fah visibly melted, giggling and playfully slapping Earth’s arm. Earth laughed—that rich, melodic sound Orm had swooned over yesterday—and then pulled out his phone, clearly typing in a number.
Orm sat in her chair, the iced water forgotten in her hand. A cold, heavy stone plummeted into her stomach.
It wasn't that she expected Earth to be madly in love with her. They had spoken for exactly five minutes. But there was a difference between a natural flirt and a rehearsed routine.
The head tilt. The intense eye contact. The tiny, calculated physical touch. It was a script. He wasn't connecting with her wavelength in the breakroom; he was running a subroutine. He was a machine designed to dispense charm, and Orm was just the next customer in line.
She watched as Earth waved goodbye to P'Fah, tucked his phone into his pocket, and finally walked into the restaurant.
He spotted Orm immediately. The spotlight smile turned on, aimed directly at her. He navigated through the tables, his eyes locked onto hers, radiating that magnetic aura.
Twenty-four hours ago, Orm would have swooned. Now, she just felt tired.
"Khun Orm," Earth said, arriving at the table. He looked her up and down, his eyes darkening appreciatively. "You look absolutely stunning. I almost feel underdressed."
It was the perfect line. It was smooth, flattering, and expertly delivered.
"Hi, Earth," Orm said, her voice flat. She didn't stand up. She didn't return the smile.
Earth’s perfectly calibrated charm faltered for a microsecond. He blinked, clearly registering the sudden drop in temperature, but quickly recovered, sliding into the chair opposite her.
"Traffic was a nightmare," he said smoothly, picking up the menu. "But looking at you, I'd say the drive was worth it. Have you ordered yet? I'm entirely in your hands for the food. I hope you show me no mercy with the spices."
Orm stared at him. She looked at his handsome face, his perfectly styled hair, his expensive watch. He was Suspect Number 2. He was half of her remaining hope for a flavorful life. If he was her soulmate, sitting this close to him, the food they were about to eat would taste like fireworks.
But as she looked at him, a profound realization washed over her.
I don't care.
It was a quiet, absolute thought. Even if the universe, in its infinite, twisted wisdom, had bound her soul to Pirapat Watthanasetsiri, she didn't want him.
Orm was chaotic. She was loud. She tripped over rugs and yelled about structural columns and ate cheap sandwiches from the cafeteria. But when she gave someone her attention, it was entirely, fiercely genuine. She didn't have a script. She didn't rehearse her charm.
The idea of being spiritually tethered to a man who treated romance like a copy-paste email template repulsed her more than a lifetime of eating cardboard. She wanted a soulmate who looked at her—messy, unhinged Orm—and saw her, not a target to be conquered with a crinkly-eyed smile and a calculated knuckle-brush.
"Actually," Orm said, placing her hands flat on the table. "I haven't ordered."
Earth looked up from the menu, sensing the shift in her tone. "Is everything okay? You seem a little... quiet. Did the structural column budget finally break you?"
He tried to recall their inside joke from yesterday. It was a good effort, but to Orm, it just sounded hollow.
"Earth," Orm said slowly, leaning back in her chair. "You're a very handsome man. And you're very, very smooth."
Earth chuckled, a modest, self-deprecating sound. "I don't know about smooth—"
"You are," Orm interrupted softly. "You have the eye contact down to a science. You know exactly how to stand to make a woman feel like she's the center of the room. You did it to me yesterday, and you just did it to P'Fah from PR on the sidewalk two minutes ago."
Earth froze. The charming smile vanished instantly, replaced by a look of sheer, deer-in-the-headlights panic. For the first time since she had met him, he looked genuinely flustered.
"Orm, I—" he started, his smooth voice suddenly catching. "That wasn't... I mean, P'Fah and I are just—"
"You don't need to explain," Orm said, raising a hand. Surprisingly, she wasn't angry. She just felt a profound sense of closure. "You're single, you're handsome, you can flirt with whoever you want. But I'm an engineer, Earth. I look for structural integrity. I look for a solid foundation. And honestly? Your foundation is made of papier-mache and really good cologne."
Earth sat back, his jaw tightening. The facade had completely crumbled. He looked embarrassed, a flush creeping up his neck. "That's... quite an assessment."
"It's nothing personal," Orm said, picking up her small designer purse from the empty chair. "But I think we both know this isn't going to work. You're looking for an audience, and I'm looking for a partner."
She stood up.
"You're leaving?" Earth asked, sounding genuinely shocked. He probably hadn't been walked out on in years.
"Yeah," Orm sighed. "I suddenly lost my appetite."
She pulled a five-hundred baht note from her purse and tossed it onto the table to cover her water and whatever Earth decided to order.
"Enjoy the papaya salad," Orm said, giving him a small, polite nod. "Tell them to make it extra spicy. It builds character."
Orm turned and walked out of the restaurant, the heavy glass doors swinging shut behind her, cutting off the noise and the nonexistent smells of the bustling dining room.
She stepped out into the humid Bangkok night. The traffic was still terrible. The smog was still thick.
She walked toward the BTS Skytrain station, her heels clicking rhythmically on the concrete. She pulled out her phone and opened the note-taking app.
OPERATION: FLAVOR TOWN.
Suspect 1: Gina. Eliminated. Shared brain cell, zero sparks.
Suspect 2: Earth. Eliminated. Serial flirt. Foundationally unsound. Would rather eat drywall.
Orm stared at the screen. The cursor blinked steadily at the bottom of the page.
There were no more suspects.
She had scoured the new hires. She had tested the proximity rule. She had put herself out there, risked embarrassment, and even worn a dress that required complicated undergarments. And she had nothing to show for it but a shattered illusion and a stomach that was rumbling loudly.
The realization hit her with the crushing weight of a collapsed steel beam.
She was wrong. The universe hadn't brought her soulmate into her life on the day she tasted that horrible chicken sandwich. It must have been a fluke. A biological glitch. A cruel, momentary cosmic joke. Maybe someone had walked past the cafeteria, triggered the bond for ten seconds, and then immediately transferred to a branch in Chiang Mai.
Whoever it was, they were gone.
Orm stopped at a street vendor near the station stairs. An elderly woman was grilling pork skewers over charcoal.
"Two, please," Orm mumbled, handing over a few coins.
She took the skewers, walked over to a quiet bench away from the streetlights, and sat down. She looked at the glistening, slightly charred meat. It looked beautiful. It looked like it should taste like heaven—sweet marinade, smoky fat, savory pork.
She took a bite.
It was warm. It was chewy. It felt like a warm pencil eraser.
Orm chewed mechanically, staring blankly at the traffic rushing by on Sathorn Road.
"That's it, then," she whispered to the empty air, tossing the remaining skewer into a nearby trash bin. "I give up."
She was done playing detective. She was done hoping for a spark. She was twenty-four years old, she was a fantastic engineer, and she was going to live the rest of her life in the gray, bland void. It was fine. She had survived this long. She didn't need the universe to hand her a soulmate.
She would go to work on Monday. She would focus entirely on the massive new commercial complex project. She would sit in meetings with the terrifying, elegant Sirilak Kwong from Hong Kong, she would build structural supports, and she would never, ever think about soulmates again.
Orm stood up, squared her shoulders, and marched up the stairs to the Skytrain.
Operation: Flavor Town was officially aborted.
Giving up on your destiny was surprisingly liberating, but it came with one massive, infuriating side effect: the universe apparently refused to let Orm quit in peace.
Two weeks had passed since the disastrous, five-minute non-date with Earth Pirapat. Two weeks since Orm had officially retired her detective badge, shredded the "Operation: Flavor Town" document, and accepted her fate as a permanent resident of the Bland demographic. She had thrown herself into her work with a manic, obsessive energy. If she couldn't experience the complex flavor profile of a Tom Yum soup, she was going to calculate the sheer stress capacity of steel I-beams until her eyes bled.
But the universe, or her biology, was mocking her.
Because her soulmate—whoever this cowardly, elusive phantom was—was still in the building. And they moved around. A lot.
Orm had developed a theory she called the "Cruel Glitch." According to her highly unscientific observations, the proximity radius of a newly sparked soulmate bond wasn't a perfect, static circle. It was more like a terrible, fluctuating Wi-Fi signal.
For instance, last Tuesday, Orm had been standing by the massive, large-format printer on the 9th floor, chewing absentmindedly on a piece of dried mango that tasted like an old shoe insole. Suddenly, for exactly fourteen seconds, a burst of tart, sugary, tropical sunshine exploded across her tongue. She had gasped, dropped her architectural blueprints, and spun around like a paranoid meerkat. The hallway was empty. Then, just as quickly as it arrived, the flavor vanished, leaving the shoe insole behind.
It happened at the water cooler. It happened in the elevator lobby. It happened while she was aggressively brushing her teeth in the women's restroom on the 10th floor (the sudden, violent shock of intense peppermint almost made her swallow a mouthful of foam).
"They're haunting me," Orm whispered furiously to Gina one afternoon over lunch. They had maintained their fast friendship, bonded by a mutual appreciation for office gossip and a shared inability to taste their food.
Gina took a bite of her flavorless pad thai. "Who? The ghost of the building?"
"My soulmate," Orm grumbled, stabbing a piece of tofu with her fork. "They're just... floating around. Pinging my taste buds and then running away. It's psychological warfare, Gina. They know who I am, they know we sparked, and they're actively avoiding me while simultaneously pacing the floors just to torture my sensory receptors."
"Maybe they work in logistics," Gina offered helpfully. "They move around the building delivering packages? Ooh, or maybe it's one of the cleaning staff? P'Chai from maintenance is single and has a very nice mustache."
Orm shuddered. "I don't care if it's the CEO. If they don't have the guts to come say hello, they are dead to me. I'm ignoring the glitches."
But ignoring the glitches was easier said than done, especially when the glitches seemed to coincide with a very strange, entirely separate phenomenon: the sudden, inexplicable omnipresence of Sirilak Kwong.
The Hong Kong-Thai Project Manager was an enigma wrapped in an impeccably tailored blazer. Lingling was the apex predator of the corporate food chain. She rarely left the executive suites on the 15th floor unless summoned by the Board of Directors, and her reputation as an ice-cold, hyper-competent taskmaster preceded her down every hallway.
Yet, for some bizarre reason, over the past two weeks, Orm kept spotting her.
It started in the cafeteria. Orm was sitting alone at her usual table near the floor-to-ceiling windows, aggressively chewing on a handful of spicy prawn chips in the desperate hope of a glitch. She happened to glance up, and there, three tables away, sat Lingling.
Lingling wasn't looking at a spreadsheet. She wasn't reviewing a contract. She was staring, with intense, unblinking focus, directly at Orm.
Orm froze, a prawn chip halfway to her mouth. For a wild, terrifying second, their eyes locked. Lingling's eyes were dark, fathomless, and held an expression Orm couldn't even begin to decipher. It wasn't the cold dismissal she gave to underperforming contractors. It was something heavier. Something almost... analyzing.
Oh god, Orm panicked internally. Did I forget to submit the structural load reports? Is she calculating how much it will cost to terminate my contract? Do I have chili powder on my nose?
Before Orm could even attempt a polite, terrified smile, Lingling smoothly dropped her gaze to her tablet, picked up her coffee cup, and took a sip with elegant indifference.
Delusional, Orm told herself, quickly wiping her nose just in case. You are entirely delusional. The woman was just spacing out. You just happened to be in her line of sight.
But then it happened again.
Three days later, Orm was waiting for the elevator on the ground floor, humming a loud pop-punk song under her breath and rhythmically tapping her foot against the marble tiles. The hair tie holding her messy bun had snapped, leaving her chestnut hair to cascade wildly over her shoulders.
She felt a prickle on the back of her neck—the unmistakable sensation of being watched.
She turned her head. There, standing behind a massive, decorative marble pillar about twenty feet away, was Lingling. She was half-concealed by the stone, holding a sleek leather portfolio. And she was watching Orm.
The moment Orm turned, Lingling smoothly pivoted on her heel, her dark hair swishing flawlessly over her shoulder, and walked briskly toward the emergency stairwell, disappearing from sight.
"What the hell?" Orm muttered to the empty lobby. Was the Project Manager evaluating her posture? Was this a secret corporate audit on employee professionalism? Because if so, Orm knew she was failing miserably.
She completely wrote it off. It was pure coincidence. The building was large, but not infinite. People bumped into each other. And honestly, Orm's ego wasn't large enough to assume that the most beautiful, intimidating woman in the company had any vested interest in a chaotic engineer who spilled coffee on her own blueprints at least twice a week.
Orm firmly placed Lingling Kwong into the mental box labeled: Terrifying Superiors to Avoid at All Costs.
And then, the universe struck its final, most devastating blow.
"You want me to what?" Orm croaked, staring across the desk at her department head, P'Somchai.
P'Somchai sighed, rubbing his temples. He looked like a man who had been awake for three days on a diet of black coffee and stress. "You heard me, Orm. You are being promoted to Lead Structural Engineer for the Sukhumvit Complex."
Orm’s jaw practically hit the floor. The Sukhumvit Complex was the company's crown jewel—a multi-billion-baht commercial and residential mega-project. It was the project.
"P'Somchai, with all due respect, I'm twenty-four!" Orm protested, her hands flying up to grip her messy hair. "I've been here four years! I usually handle the secondary retail parks. I calculate loads for grocery stores! You want me to lead the structural team for a sixty-story skyscraper and a subterranean mall?"
"You're brilliant, Orm, and you know it," P'Somchai said firmly. "Your load distribution algorithms are the best in the department. But more importantly, Khun Lingling specifically requested you."
The air in the room seemed to vanish. "She... what?"
"Khun Lingling," P'Somchai repeated, leaning forward. "She reviewed your previous project files over the weekend. She sent an email to the board this morning stating that your innovative approach to subterranean stress points is exactly what the Sukhumvit project needs. She wants you as her direct engineering liaison."
Orm felt the blood drain from her face. She requested me? The woman who had been staring at her in the cafeteria? The woman who lurked behind pillars?
"P'Somchai," Orm whispered, sheer terror lacing her voice. "She is going to eat me alive. I am nonsense. I am a walking disaster hazard. She wears Armani, and I am currently wearing mismatched socks because my washing machine is broken. We are not compatible. I will ruin the company."
"You will be fine," P'Somchai said, waving a dismissive hand. "Khun Lingling is demanding, yes. She expects perfection. Just... try to be slightly less yourself, Orm. Bottle the chaos. Present the genius. Your first one-on-one briefing with her is in twenty minutes on the 15th floor. Do not be late."
Orm stumbled out of the office feeling like she was walking to the gallows.
She spent nineteen of her twenty minutes in the restroom, frantically trying to tame her hair, tucking her shirt in with trembling fingers, and giving herself a highly aggressive pep talk in the mirror. You are a professional. You understand tensile strength better than anyone. You will not make a fool of yourself in front of the ice queen.
Exactly on the dot, Orm stepped off the elevator onto the 15th floor. The air up here was different. It smelled like wealth, expensive jasmine diffusers, and quiet authority.
She approached the heavy oak door with the gold plaque that read: Sirilak Kwong - Senior Project Manager. Orm took a deep breath, raised her knuckle, and knocked twice.
"Come in," a smooth, authoritative voice called from inside.
Orm opened the door and stepped into the lion's den. The office was vast, with floor-to-ceiling windows offering a panoramic view of the Bangkok skyline. It was meticulously organized. No stray papers. No empty coffee cups.
Lingling sat behind a massive, sleek glass desk. She was wearing a perfectly tailored, dove-gray suit. A pair of thin, silver-rimmed reading glasses perched on the bridge of her nose, making her look both incredibly intellectual and devastatingly attractive.
Orm swallowed hard. Do not stare. Do not look at her jawline. Look at the blueprints.
Lingling looked up, sliding the glasses off her face and placing them gently on the desk. Her dark eyes locked onto Orm.
"Khun Orm," Lingling said softly. Her voice lacked the harsh, clipped edge she usually used in board meetings. It was quiet, steady, and strangely resonant. "Please, have a seat."
Orm scurried over to the plush leather chair opposite the desk and sat down, keeping her knees pressed tightly together, a leather-bound notebook clutched to her chest like a shield.
"Thank you, Khun Lingling," Orm squeaked. She cleared her throat, trying to find an octave that didn't make her sound like a frightened mouse. "Thank you for the... the opportunity. P'Somchai told me you requested me."
"I did," Lingling confirmed, leaning back slightly in her chair. Her gaze slowly swept over Orm, taking in the tightly tucked shirt, the rigid posture, and the white-knuckled grip on the notebook. A tiny, almost imperceptible softening happened around the corners of Lingling's eyes. "Your work on the Bang Na retail park was exceptional. You found a way to reduce steel consumption by twelve percent without compromising the structural integrity of the subterranean parking levels. It was brilliant."
Orm blinked, completely thrown off guard. She had expected a list of demands. She had expected to be scolded for her messy desk on the 9th floor. She had not expected genuine, highly specific praise from the most intimidating woman in the building.
"I... uh, well, you know. Math," Orm blabbered elegantly. "It's just numbers. You move them around until the building doesn't fall down."
Lingling’s lips twitched. It was a microscopic movement, but Orm swore it looked like the ghost of an amused smile.
"Math," Lingling repeated softly. "Indeed."
Lingling stood up, her movements fluid and graceful. She walked over to a small, hidden mini-fridge built into the sleek cabinetry. "I imagine P'Somchai's office was rather stressful. Would you care for a drink before we begin reviewing the phasing schedules?"
"Water is fine, thank you," Orm said rigidly.
Lingling paused, her hand on the fridge handle. She looked over her shoulder at Orm. "Are you sure? I noticed you favor the strawberry milk from the cafeteria on Monday mornings. I took the liberty of having some stocked up here. I find the cafeteria refrigerators tend to freeze the milk if placed too close to the back."
Orm’s brain flatlined.
She noticed what I drink? Orm’s internal monologue screamed, completely short-circuiting. She knows my schedule? She bought strawberry milk for me?!
"Strawberry milk would be wonderful. Thank you," Orm managed to say, her voice barely a whisper.
Lingling retrieved a small pink carton, popped a paper straw into it, and walked back to the desk, placing it gently in front of Orm with a small napkin underneath so the condensation wouldn't ruin the glass surface.
"Thank you," Orm repeated, feeling her cheeks burn. She took a sip.
Instantly, a wave of artificial, sweet, fruity flavor coated her tongue. The taste "glitch" was back. Because of course it was. Her phantom soulmate was probably walking down the hallway outside Lingling's office right at this exact moment, perfectly timing their stroll to humiliate Orm. But the taste was so grounding, so pleasantly sweet, that Orm let out a quiet sigh, her rigid shoulders dropping a fraction of an inch.
Lingling watched her take the sip, her dark eyes tracking the movement of Orm's throat. For a second, the cool, composed Project Manager looked entirely captivated. Then, she blinked, shook her head slightly, and pulled a thick stack of blueprints toward her.
"Let's begin," Lingling said, her tone returning to a professional baseline.
And so, the dynamic began.
Over the next two weeks, Orm's life became inexorably tethered to Sirilak Kwong. They were a study in absolute contrasts. Fire and ice. Chaos and order.
At first, Orm was terrified of making a mistake. But as the days bled into late evenings poring over structural schematics, Orm began to see the cracks in Lingling's icy facade.
Lingling wasn't mean; she was just fiercely focused. And underneath that terrifying competence was an astonishing level of thoughtfulness.
When Orm inevitably started bouncing her leg anxiously during three-hour budget meetings, Lingling would quietly slide a small bowl of hard candies across the table toward her without breaking eye contact with the finance directors. Whenever they had to stay past 7 PM, Lingling always ordered dinner, and miraculously, she always ordered exactly what Orm was craving—pad kra pao, spicy som tum, rich green curry—even though Orm never voiced her preferences.
The turning point came on a humid Thursday night. They were doing a site visit at the Sukhumvit excavation zone. The massive pit was illuminated by glaring yellow floodlights, the air thick with the smell of diesel and excavated earth.
Orm was in her element. She wore a bright yellow hard hat, a reflective vest over her jeans, and heavy steel-toed boots. She was practically vibrating with energy, marching along the uneven dirt ridges, pointing excitedly at the massive concrete retaining walls and shouting over the roar of a nearby generator.
"See, Khun Lingling?" Orm yelled, gesturing wildly with a rolled-up blueprint. "If we shift the load-bearing columns on sector 4G just two meters to the west, we can bypass the bedrock fault line entirely! It saves us a week of drilling, and structurally, it's actually ten percent sounder because the weight distribution anchors directly into the primary subterranean slab!"
Orm turned around, out of breath, grinning wildly.
Lingling was standing a few feet behind her. She was wearing a hard hat, too, though somehow she managed to make the bulky plastic look like a high-fashion accessory. Her reflective vest was neatly zipped.
Lingling wasn't looking at the retaining walls. She wasn't looking at the bedrock fault line. She was looking at Orm.
The glaring yellow floodlights cast deep shadows across Lingling's face, but her eyes were bright, reflecting the construction lights. The expression on her face was completely unguarded. It was a look of pure, unadulterated awe.
Orm's breath hitched in her throat. The loud roar of the generator seemed to fade into white noise.
Lingling took a step forward, navigating the uneven dirt until she was standing just inches away from Orm. The proximity was sudden and electric. Orm could smell her—that subtle, elegant scent of jasmine and white tea cutting right through the smell of diesel and dirt.
Simultaneously, a sharp, metallic tang of earth, rain, and dust hit the back of Orm's tongue. The glitch. The taste was back, stronger than it had been in days.
"You are..." Lingling started, her voice barely audible over the machinery. She looked at Orm’s bright, excited eyes, the smudge of dirt on her cheek, the chaotic strands of hair escaping her hard hat. Lingling raised a hand, her fingers hesitating in the air for an agonizing second, before she gently tucked a stray lock of chestnut hair behind Orm’s ear.
Orm’s heart stopped. Literally stopped. It slammed against her ribs like a trapped bird.
The touch was feather-light, but it sent a shockwave of heat straight down Orm's spine. It wasn't the calculated, rehearsed touch Earth had used. It was hesitant. It was reverent.
"You are brilliant, Orm," Lingling whispered, her voice dropping to a husky register that made Orm's knees feel suddenly unstable. "Absolutely brilliant."
For a moment, they just stood there in the bottom of a construction pit, staring at each other. Orm felt a gravitational pull so strong she thought she might physically tip forward into Lingling's arms. Her mind was a chaotic whirlwind. Oh my god. Her eyes. Her voice. Her hand.
Then, a worker shouted something from a nearby scaffolding, breaking the spell.
Lingling blinked rapidly, her hand dropping to her side as if she had been burned. She cleared her throat, adjusting her hard hat, the impenetrable, cool mask slamming back into place with terrifying speed.
"Yes. Good," Lingling said crisply, looking away and staring intensely at a completely random pile of dirt. "Draft the adjustment for sector 4G. Send it to my desk by tomorrow morning."
Lingling turned and walked briskly toward the site elevator, leaving Orm standing frozen in the dirt, her chest heaving, her skin burning where Lingling's fingers had brushed against her.
Oh no, Orm thought, absolute panic washing over her. Oh no, no, no.
She was doomed.
Later that night, lying in her bed and staring at her ceiling, Orm faced the horrifying, inescapable truth. She had a crush. A massive, insurmountable, earth-shattering work crush on her terrifying, elegant Project Manager.
It was a disaster. Lingling was everything Orm was not. Lingling was classical music; Orm was a car alarm. Lingling was an intricate Swiss watch; Orm was a digital clock blinking 12:00 after a power outage.
Orm rolled over and groaned into her pillow.
For a brief, insane second, a thought drifted into her chaotic mind: What if... what if she's the one? What if she's the reason the taste keeps glitching?
Orm immediately squashed the thought with aggressive prejudice.
It was impossible. It was scientifically, logically, and romantically impossible.
Firstly, the soulmate bond was a two-way street. Orm had spent hours sitting mere feet away from Lingling, drinking sweet tea and eating intensely flavored foods. Lingling never once reacted. Lingling never gasped, never looked surprised, never showed any indication that she was suddenly experiencing the miracle of flavor. She just ate her salad and drank her coffee with the same composed, serene elegance she applied to everything else.
Secondly, Orm was fully convinced that even if the universe made mistakes, it didn't make typos that big. Soulmates were supposed to complement each other. The universe wouldn't pair a striking, brilliant, flawless woman like Sirilak Kwong with a loud, messy engineer who currently had a laundry pile the size of a small mountain in the corner of her bedroom.
No, the "glitches" of taste were just that—glitches. Her real soulmate, the cowardly phantom, was probably just some IT guy who happened to share the same elevator bank as the executive suites.
Lingling staring at her in the cafeteria? Just spacing out. Lingling lurking behind a pillar? A coincidence. Lingling tucking the hair behind her ear at the construction site? A moment of professional camaraderie heavily misinterpreted by Orm's touch-starved brain.
Orm squeezed her eyes shut. She would just have to suffer in silence. She would be a professional. She would suppress this crush, continue to be the best engineer she could be, and ignore the agonizing flutter in her chest every time she smelled jasmine and white tea.
She was Orm. She was tough. She didn't need a soulmate, and she certainly didn't need to entertain delusional fantasies about the Goddess of Project Management.
But god, Orm thought, drifting off to sleep with the phantom taste of dirt and metallic rain lingering in her memory, she is so incredibly beautiful.
Sirilak Kwong did not believe in chaos.
Throughout her twenty-six years of existence, Lingling had cultivated a life of immaculate, impenetrable order. She was an architect of control. In Hong Kong, she had climbed the corporate ladder by treating every variable in her life as an equation that could be balanced, solved, and filed away. She controlled her expressions, her career trajectory, and her perfectly tailored wardrobe.
She had also fully, logically accepted her status as a 'Bland.'
To Lingling, the inability to taste was not a tragedy; it was a biological efficiency. Food was mere sustenance, a physical requirement that didn't demand emotional investment. While others wept over the elusive dream of finding a soulmate just to experience the flavor of a mango, Lingling reviewed profit margins and optimized supply chains. Love, like flavor, seemed messy, unpredictable, and entirely disruptive to a well-calibrated life.
And then, she transferred to Bangkok. And the universe, with a profound sense of irony, introduced her to Orm.
The collapse of Lingling’s orderly universe occurred at exactly 8:14 AM on her very first day at the Bangkok branch.
She had arrived early, navigating the sprawling, humid city with her usual stoic grace. She stopped at an artisanal café in the lobby of the office building, ordering a piccolo latte. It was a habit born of aesthetic preference rather than culinary desire—she enjoyed the warmth of the small cup and the contrast of the dark espresso against the pale milk.
She stood near the elevator banks, holding the small cup, reviewing a digital orientation schedule on her tablet.
She took a sip.
What happened next was not a gradual shift. It was a violent, magnificent sensory detonation.
First came an aggressive, earthy bitterness that practically vibrated against the back of her tongue, so dark and rich it felt like a physical weight. But before her brain could even register the shock, a wave of luxurious, velvety creaminess washed over it, mellowing the bite of the espresso into a symphony of roasted nuts, caramel, and warmth.
Lingling’s breath caught in her throat. Her perfectly manicured fingers tightened convulsively around the tiny cardboard cup. Her eyes went wide, the digital tablet momentarily forgotten.
Taste. The legendary, mythical concept of flavor was exploding in her mouth. The biological lock had been broken. The spark had ignited.
Her heart hammered against her ribs—a rare, terrifying sensation of lost control. She immediately looked up, her dark eyes scanning the bustling lobby to find the source of this seismic shift. According to the laws of the universe, her soulmate had just entered her immediate vicinity.
And there she was.
Bursting through the revolving glass doors like a colorful, chaotic hurricane was a girl. She had a cascade of messy chestnut hair, warm, frantic eyes, and was currently attempting to juggle a massive cardboard tube of architectural blueprints, a half-zipped backpack, and a cell phone clamped between her ear and shoulder.
"I know, I know, I'm late!" the girl was yelling into her phone, her voice carrying across the marble lobby. "The Skytrain broke down! Yes, literally broke! Tell P'Somchai to stall the meeting, I am running!"
She was a disaster. She was loud, uncoordinated, and entirely devoid of the polished elegance Lingling usually surrounded herself with. As the girl sprinted past Lingling toward the elevators, the heavy cardboard tube swung wildly, missing Lingling’s nose by a mere inch.
"Sorry! Sorry, excuse me, structural emergency coming through!" the girl yelped, throwing a brilliant, breathless, apologetic smile over her shoulder as she squeezed through the closing elevator doors.
Lingling stood frozen. The elevator doors shut, leaving only the faint scent of rain and vanilla in the girl's wake.
Lingling took another slow, trembling sip of her piccolo latte. The bitterness. The cream. It was real.
Her soulmate—the person the universe had flawlessly calculated to be her perfect, spiritual counterpart—was a woman who yelled in public and used architectural blueprints as a blunt-force weapon.
Lingling swallowed the coffee, her mind racing. An hour later, during the departmental orientation, Lingling sat at the head of the boardroom table. Her new assistant, a very nervous young man, was running through the introductions of the key personnel from the engineering department.
"...and under the primary structural division, we have our lead junior engineer," the assistant said, gesturing to the far end of the table.
There she was. The hurricane from the lobby. She was slouched in her chair, nervously clicking a pen, a smudge of something that looked suspiciously like ink on her left cheek.
"Khun Orm Kornaphat," the assistant announced.
Orm offered a quick, somewhat crooked wave to the room, her warm eyes briefly meeting Lingling's before darting away in sheer intimidation.
Orm. Lingling repeated the name in the absolute privacy of her own mind. Orm Kornaphat. The equation of Lingling's life had a new, massive, unsolvable variable.
For a woman used to decisive action, Lingling's approach to finding her soulmate was paralyzingly cowardly.
She did not step forward. She did not introduce herself. She did not walk up to Orm, cup of coffee in hand, and declare their cosmic bond.
Lingling was, for the first time in her life, terrified. She watched Orm from afar. She observed the way Orm filled a room, the way her laughter echoed down the hallways, the way she passionately argued with contractors over load-bearing physics. Orm was a sunbeam—bright, hot, and impossible to contain. Lingling felt like a creature of the shade. If she stepped into that light too quickly, she feared she might burn, or worse, she might cast a shadow over Orm's brilliance.
How does one introduce oneself to a sunbeam when they have only ever known the cold?
So, Lingling lurked. She optimized her schedule to cross paths with Orm. She learned Orm's habits, her coffee breaks, her frantic rushes to the printer.
Two days later, on Friday, Lingling sat in the VIP booth of the cafeteria. She had a dark Americano in front of her. She was already accustomed to the taste—the harsh, acidic bite of black coffee was her new normal.
She watched from across the room as Orm sat down with a cheap, plastic-wrapped chicken sandwich. Lingling’s pulse elevated slightly. The proximity bond was active. Whatever Orm was about to taste, Lingling would feel the echo of it, though Lingling's own active eating usually masked Orm's specific flavors.
Orm took a bite.
Lingling watched from behind the rim of her coffee cup as Orm completely short-circuited. Orm froze, her eyes widening to comical proportions. She gagged, grabbed her water, and started coughing, staring at the sandwich in absolute horror.
Lingling’s chest tightened with a sudden, overwhelming surge of affection. She tasted it, Lingling realized. She finally tasted it.
Lingling had to exert every ounce of her legendary willpower to remain seated. She wanted to walk over, take the vile sandwich out of Orm's hands, and take her to a five-star restaurant to let her taste real food. But she couldn't. Not yet. She watched Orm's frantic, manic energy as she scanned the room, clearly trying to deduce who had triggered the bond.
When Orm's eyes swept over the VIP booth, Lingling forcefully smoothed her expression into a mask of pure, unbothered ice. She took a slow, deliberate sip of her coffee, feigning complete ignorance. She watched Orm visually eliminate her from the suspect list.
It stung, a tiny prick to Lingling's ego, but it was necessary. Lingling needed time to figure out how to approach this without scaring the engineer away.
Lingling’s strategy of patient observation worked perfectly, right up until Pirapat Watthanasetsiri decided to exist.
Lingling was aware of Earth. He was the golden boy of the Finance department, known for his aggressive charm and his high turnover rate of romantic conquests. He was entirely irrelevant to Lingling's world until he stepped into Orm's.
It began in the 12th-floor breakroom. Lingling had been walking past the glass doors, holding a file, when she saw them. Orm, dressed in a stunning dark green jumpsuit, was leaning against the counter. And Earth, standing entirely too close to her, flashing that rehearsed, predatory smile.
Lingling stopped dead in her tracks, hiding just out of sight behind a frosted glass partition.
She watched Earth lean in. She watched him touch Orm's hand over the espresso machine. The sheer, unadulterated fury that spiked in Lingling's chest was so violently intense it practically made her dizzy. It was an alien emotion. Lingling did not do jealousy. Jealousy was a useless emotion for the insecure.
Yet, as she watched Orm smile and agree to a dinner date at Baan Somtum, Lingling wanted to shatter the espresso machine into a million pieces.
She walked back to her office, her posture terrifyingly rigid, the temperature around her seemingly dropping below freezing. She sat at her desk, pulled up the corporate directory, and opened the Finance department's latest budget proposals—the ones Earth was responsible for.
Over the next four hours, Lingling meticulously, ruthlessly dismantled his spreadsheets. She found every minute error, every optimistic projection, every slightly padded expense, and highlighted them in glaring, angry red. She sent the file back to the CFO with a politely scathing note questioning Earth's competence.
It was petty. It was unprofessional. It was incredibly satisfying.
The next evening—the night of the date—Lingling stayed late at the office. She couldn't concentrate. She paced the floor, her mind conjuring images of Earth smiling at Orm, Earth buying Orm spicy papaya salad, Earth triggering the soulmate bond, and stealing the revelation that rightfully belonged to Lingling.
But on Monday, Orm returned to work looking entirely unimpressed. There were no starry eyes. There was no whispered gossip about a new corporate power couple. Through the grapevine (Lingling had subtly commanded her assistant to gather intel), Lingling learned that Orm had walked out on the date after five minutes.
Lingling let out a breath she felt she had been holding for three days.
Earth had failed. But Lingling realized she could no longer afford to wait in the shadows. If she didn't act, someone else might catch Orm's eye. She needed to pull Orm into her orbit. She needed control.
"Promote her to my direct liaison," Lingling commanded the Head of Engineering, P'Somchai. "Her load distribution algorithms are unparalleled."
It was a brilliant excuse. It was true—Orm was a savant when it came to structural stress—but it was entirely a maneuver designed to force proximity.
When Orm walked into Lingling's office for the first time, looking absolutely terrified, clutching her notebook like a shield, Lingling felt a profound crack in her own armor. Orm was so beautiful, so vibrant, and so painfully intimidated.
Lingling offered her strawberry milk. She had noticed Orm drinking it on Mondays. It was a tiny olive branch, a silent declaration of I see you.
Working with Orm was a daily exercise in exquisite torture. Lingling loved the chaos. She loved the way Orm's mind worked, the rapid-fire way she solved complex engineering problems, the way she passionately defended her designs. Every time Orm bounced her leg, Lingling wanted to reach under the table and place a calming hand on her knee. Every time they worked late, Lingling ordered the most flavorful, aromatic foods, hoping the proximity bond would glitch and give Orm a taste of the spices, even if Lingling couldn't explain why.
The dam nearly broke at the construction site.
Standing in the dirt, surrounded by floodlights and heavy machinery, Orm had turned to her, eyes blazing with excitement about a bedrock fault line. She had dirt on her cheek. She was radiant.
Before Lingling's brain could calculate the risk, her body moved. She reached out and tucked a stray, chaotic lock of hair behind Orm's ear.
The moment her fingers brushed Orm's skin, a jolt of pure electricity surged up Lingling's arm. Orm's breath hitched. They stared at each other, the air between them suddenly heavy, thick, and charged with an undeniable, terrifying gravity.
Lingling saw the panic in Orm's eyes, mirroring her own internal terror. If she kissed her now, in the dirt, it would be undeniable. But Lingling was a coward. She panicked. She threw her icy mask back on, gave a clipped, professional order, and practically fled the scene.
She spent the entire weekend castigating herself for her weakness and her fear. She couldn't keep doing this. She couldn't keep Orm at arm's length while simultaneously tethering their professional lives together. The push and pull were going to break them both.
She needed to confess. She needed a controlled environment, undeniable proof, and she needed to execute it flawlessly.
It was Friday night, 9:30 PM. The 15th floor was a tomb. The sleek glass corridors were dark, save for the glow of the security lights and the bright fluorescent rectangle of Lingling's office door.
Inside, the atmosphere was thick with tension. They had been grinding through the final phase-three budget revisions for six hours straight. The massive glass desk was completely covered in blueprints, financial printouts, and half-empty water bottles.
Orm was sitting on the floor—she had abandoned the plush leather chair two hours ago, claiming she needed "grounding energy" to do math. She was surrounded by papers, her hair pulled into a knot so messy it defied the laws of physics, aggressively chewing on the end of a red pen.
"If we allocate three million from the aesthetic landscaping budget into the subterranean reinforcement," Orm muttered, scribbling furiously on a notepad, "we can afford the higher-grade steel for the western column. But the architects are going to throw a tantrum."
"Let them throw a tantrum," Lingling said quietly from her chair. She wasn't looking at the spreadsheets. She was looking at Orm. "Structural integrity supersedes ornamental shrubs."
Orm let out a loud groan, dropping her pen and falling backward until she was lying flat on the carpet, staring up at the ceiling. "I'm so tired, Khun Lingling. My brain feels like it's been put through a blender. And I'm starving. I'm so hungry I could eat one of these blueprints, and frankly, it would probably taste the same as whatever is in the vending machine downstairs."
Lingling’s heart did a strange, heavy thump in her chest.
This is it, a voice whispered in Lingling's mind. No more hiding. No more perfectly calculated variables. Blow the equation up.
"You're hungry?" Lingling asked, her voice dangerously soft.
"Ravenous," Orm complained to the ceiling, throwing an arm over her eyes. "But it's fine. I'll just survive on spite and water until I get home to my flavorless rice."
Lingling smoothly opened the bottom drawer of her desk. This drawer didn't hold files. It was her personal stash—the items she had acquired over the past month as she explored her newly awakened sense of taste.
She reached past the imported chocolates, past the artisanal fruit snacks, and pulled out a sleek, black tin box she had brought back from a business trip to Scandinavia years ago, long before she could taste. It was authentic, double-salted Finnish salmiakki—salted black licorice.
Lingling had tried one a week ago out of curiosity. It was, without a doubt, the most aggressive, shocking, violently distinct flavor profile on the planet. It was overwhelmingly salty, sharply astringent, deeply bitter, and finished with a bizarre, medicinal sweetness. It was the kind of flavor you could not ignore. It was a flavor that demanded your absolute attention.
"I have a snack, if you'd like," Lingling said smoothly, opening the tin. The sharp smell of aniseed filled the space around the desk.
"Really?" Orm asked, not moving her arm from her eyes. "What is it?"
"A European candy," Lingling replied. "Imported."
"Pass," Orm sighed. "Candy is just... hard texture. Usually, it hurts my teeth. Thanks, though."
Lingling smiled. It was a small, predatory, deeply affectionate smile.
Perfect.
If Orm didn't eat it, but Lingling did, and they were the only two people within a hundred yards... the proximity glitch wouldn't just be a glitch. It would be an undeniable geographic lock.
Lingling picked up a small, diamond-shaped piece of the pitch-black licorice. She looked at Orm, who was still lying oblivious on the floor.
Lingling placed the candy on her tongue.
The reaction was instantaneous. The sheer volume of ammonium chloride hit Lingling's taste buds like a battery acid explosion. Her eyes watered immediately, her jaw clenching against the overwhelmingly sharp, salty bitterness. It was intense. It was terrible. It was magnificent.
On the floor, Orm suddenly went completely rigid.
For two full seconds, there was absolute silence in the office. Then, Orm let out a sound that was half-gasp, half-strangled scream.
She shot up from the floor like she had been electrocuted, clapping both hands over her mouth. Her eyes were wide, panicked, and darting wildly around the room.
"What the—" Orm choked out, her voice muffled behind her hands. She gagged slightly, her face contorting in sheer horror. "What is that?! Oh my god, what is in my mouth?!"
Lingling sat perfectly still behind her desk. She slowly, deliberately chewed the licorice, feeling the intense flavor radiate through her skull, watching Orm with dark, unblinking eyes.
"Salt," Orm babbled frantically, staggering to her feet, spitting phantom flavors into a napkin she grabbed from the desk. "Salt and... medicine? And... dirt?! Oh my god, it tastes like salted poison!"
Orm frantically grabbed her water bottle and chugged half of it, panting. She wiped her mouth, looking around the empty, dimly lit office.
"The glitch," Orm muttered wildly, her hands gripping her hair. "The glitch is back. But... it's just us."
Orm froze.
Her chaotic, brilliant, highly analytical engineer's brain finally caught up to the variables.
Variable 1: She was experiencing the most intense, specific flavor of her life.
Variable 2: The proximity rule dictated her soulmate had to be within a few dozen feet.
Variable 3: It was 9:30 PM on a Friday. The floor was completely locked down. The security guards were on the ground floor.
Variable 4: Sirilak Kwong was sitting directly across from her, quietly chewing.
Orm slowly, mechanically turned her head. Her wide, terrified, beautiful eyes locked onto Lingling.
Lingling didn't look away. She picked up the black tin of salmiakki and pushed it across the glass desk toward Orm.
"It's salted licorice," Lingling said. Her voice was steady, but her heart was pounding a frantic rhythm against her ribs. "A bit of an acquired taste, I admit. But undeniable."
Orm stared at the tin. She stared at Lingling. She looked at the door. She looked back at Lingling.
The silence stretched, thick and suffocating. Lingling held her breath, bracing herself for the rejection, for the anger, for Orm to run out the door and demand a transfer.
Orm's jaw slowly dropped open. Her chest heaved as she took a deep, shuddering breath.
And then, Orm Kornaphat, the chaotic, brilliant, entirely unhinged engineer, shattered the silence.
"HOLY SHIT!" Orm screamed, her voice echoing off the glass walls. She slammed both hands down onto the desk, leaning over the blueprints, her face inches from Lingling's. "NO FUCKING WAY!"
Lingling blinked, slightly taken aback by the volume. "Orm, I—"
"NO WAY!" Orm yelled again, completely ignoring professional decorum, her eyes wide with a mixture of absolute shock and manic delight. "NO FUCKING WAY MY SOULMATE IS THIS HOT!"
Lingling’s perfectly composed mask shattered entirely. Her lips parted in shock, and then, a sudden, genuine, bright laugh burst from her chest.
Orm was practically vibrating, pointing a trembling finger at Lingling. "You! It was you! You were the coffee in the lobby! You were the weird glitch by the printer! You... you let me think I was crazy for a month! And you're... you're Sirilak Kwong! You wear Armani! I wear mismatched socks! What is the universe smoking?!"
"I assure you," Lingling said, her voice rich with a warmth she had never allowed herself to express, standing up from her chair and leaning across the desk to meet Orm's chaotic energy, "the universe's calculations are absolutely flawless."
Orm stared at her, the reality of the situation finally crashing over her. The frantic energy slowly ebbed, replaced by a deep, awestruck flush creeping up her neck. She looked at Lingling's eyes, the soft curve of her smile, and the distance between them.
"You can taste," Orm whispered, the sheer wonder in her voice breaking Lingling's heart in the best possible way.
"Everything," Lingling whispered back, her gaze dropping briefly to Orm's lips. "Since the moment you almost hit me in the face with your blueprints."
"I am going to murder you for making me wait," Orm declared, though she was smiling so hard her eyes crinkled. "But first..."
Orm reached across the desk, her fingers trembling slightly, and boldly picked up a piece of the black, salted licorice from the tin. She held it up, her eyes locked with Lingling's.
"Together?" Orm asked.
Lingling smiled, a devoted, entirely captivated smile. She picked up a piece of her own. "Together."
They placed the candy on their tongues. The violent, terrible, beautiful shock of salt and bitter aniseed exploded in their mouths simultaneously.
Orm groaned, her face contorting, but she didn't spit it out. She chewed, laughing through the sensory assault, her warm eyes sparkling under the fluorescent lights. Lingling chewed with her, feeling the flavor amplify, echoing back and forth between them through a bond that was finally, permanently, gloriously locked.
Order had been completely destroyed. Chaos had won. And Lingling had never felt more perfectly balanced in her entire life.
The taste of salted licorice was, objectively speaking, an atrocity. It was a violent, abrasive assault on the senses that tasted like someone had scraped the bottom of a rusty barge and covered it in concentrated ocean water and cough syrup.
Yet, as Orm stood in the middle of the executive office on the fifteenth floor, her mouth burning with the intense, astringent flavor of salmiakki, she had never tasted anything sweeter.
The silence that followed Orm's spectacularly unhinged, high-decibel realization ("NO FUCKING WAY MY SOULMATE IS THIS HOT!") hung in the air, heavy and vibrating with a strange, new electricity. Lingling was still standing behind the glass desk, her usually immaculate, terrifying composure thoroughly shattered by a bright, genuine, devastatingly beautiful laugh.
Orm swallowed the remains of the terrible candy, her chest heaving, her mind desperately trying to categorize the influx of data.
Sirilak Kwong. The Project Manager. The Ice Queen from Hong Kong. The woman who wore tailored Armani suits and struck fear into the hearts of senior contractors.
"You," Orm breathed, pointing an accusing, trembling finger across the desk. Her engineer's brain was frantically rewinding the past month, connecting the dots with horrifying clarity. "You knew. You knew the whole time. The coffee in the lobby on your first day. That was you."
"A piccolo latte, to be exact," Lingling replied smoothly. The icy mask was gone entirely. In its place was a look of such intense, focused devotion that it made Orm's knees feel structurally unsound. "It tasted like roasted heaven, and it coincided exactly with you sprinting through the lobby and nearly concussing me with a cardboard tube of blueprints."
Orm groaned, burying her face in her hands. "Oh my god. I almost assaulted my soulmate on day one."
"It was memorable," Lingling teased, stepping out from behind the desk. She moved with that same feline grace, but the intimidating edge was gone, replaced by a magnetic, undeniable pull. She stopped just a foot away from Orm.
Orm peeked through her fingers. Up close, Lingling's eyes weren't just dark; they were warm, deep, and currently sparkling with profound amusement.
"Explain yourself," Orm demanded, dropping her hands to her hips, trying to muster some semblance of outrage to cover her violently blushing cheeks. "You let me run around this building for a month! I was conducting interrogations! I had a suspect list! I went on a date with Earth Pirapat, for god's sake! Why didn't you say anything?"
At the mention of Earth, Lingling's expression darkened slightly, a flash of possessive annoyance crossing her features. It was a micro-expression, but Orm caught it.
"I am... accustomed to a certain level of control, Orm," Lingling said quietly, her voice dropping to that husky register that sent shivers down Orm's spine. "My life in Hong Kong was perfectly calibrated. When the bond sparked, and I saw you—so bright, so chaotic, so full of life—I was terrified. I didn't know how to approach a sunbeam without casting a shadow."
Orm blinked, her faux outrage evaporating instantly. "You? Terrified of me? I'm ninety percent nonsense, Khun Lingling. You're... you."
"Yes. And I wanted you," Lingling said. The blunt, absolute straightforwardness of the statement hit Orm like a physical blow. Lingling took a half-step closer, entirely invading Orm's personal space. The scent of jasmine and white tea flooded Orm's newly awakened senses. "But I didn't just want the universe to force us together because of a biological mandate. I watched you. I requested you for this project. I wanted to earn your attention."
"You certainly earned my terror," Orm muttered, though she was leaning in, instinctively drawn to the warmth radiating from the other woman.
"I apologize for the terror," Lingling murmured, lifting a hand. This time, she didn't hesitate. She cupped Orm's cheek, her thumb gently brushing across Orm's cheekbone. The touch sent a cascade of sparks through Orm's nervous system. "But I realized tonight that my patience has completely evaporated. Especially after watching that finance executive try to execute his rehearsed charm on you."
"Earth was a disaster," Orm assured her, her breath catching as Lingling's thumb traced her jawline. "He's an actor. I wanted someone real."
"I am incredibly real, Orm," Lingling said, her gaze dropping to Orm's lips before rising back to meet her eyes. The intensity in Lingling's stare was unhinged, a far cry from the cool professional. "And I am done waiting. I don't want to just be the person who can taste your food with you. I want to be your girlfriend. I want to hold your hand in the corporate cafeteria while everyone stares. I want to kiss you in the elevator. I want the entire engineering and finance departments to know exactly who you belong to."
Orm's brain effectively short-circuited. The sheer, overwhelming possessiveness in Lingling's declaration was dizzying.
"That's... that's a lot of HR violations," Orm squeaked, her heart hammering against her ribs.
"I am the Senior Project Manager," Lingling whispered, leaning in until their noses were almost brushing. "They are terrified of me.”
Orm let out a helpless, breathless laugh. The whiplash was astronomical. The most composed woman in the building was currently outlining a manifesto of public affection. And Orm, to her absolute shock, was entirely, wholeheartedly on board.
"Okay," Orm breathed, her hands tentatively coming up to rest on Lingling's waist. The fabric of the Armani blazer was incredibly soft.
Lingling smiled—a triumphant, devastating smile—and leaned in. But before their lips could meet, Orm suddenly turned her head, coughing violently as a delayed wave of salted licorice hit the back of her throat.
"Oh my god," Orm choked, tears springing to her eyes. "I'm sorry. The mood is ruined. My mouth tastes like a chemical spill."
Lingling threw her head back and laughed, a loud, bell-like sound that echoed through the empty office. She didn't pull away. Instead, she wrapped her arms around Orm's shoulders, pulling her into a tight, secure hug.
"We have the rest of our lives for the mood, Orm," Lingling promised, burying her face in Orm's chaotic, messy hair. "Tonight, we survive the salmiakki."
The adjustment period over the next few weeks was nothing short of psychological whiplash.
Orm quickly discovered that Sirilak Kwong possessed a duality that was frankly unfair to the rest of the human race.
In public, Lingling maintained her impenetrable, terrifying persona. She was the Ice Queen. The Goddess of Project Management.
It was a Tuesday afternoon, three weeks after the licorice incident. They were in the main boardroom on the 15th floor. P'Somchai was sweating through his shirt as he presented a budget update. Earth Pirapat was sitting across the table, looking his usual suave, charming self, trying to argue for a reduction in the raw materials budget to satisfy the CFO.
"With all due respect, Khun Lingling," Earth said, deploying his crinkly-eyed smile, aiming it directly at the head of the table. "If we switch to the secondary supplier for the steel, we save twelve percent on the quarter. It's a pragmatic financial pivot."
Lingling sat at the head of the table, her posture perfectly straight, her hands folded neatly over her tablet. She wore a sharp navy blue suit, her hair pulled back into a severe, elegant bun. She looked like a monarch about to execute a traitor.
"A pragmatic pivot that sacrifices structural integrity, Khun Pirapat," Lingling's voice cut through the air like a surgical scalpel. The room temperature plummeted. "The secondary supplier's tensile strength variance is unacceptable for a subterranean foundation of this magnitude. If you had bothered to review the engineering stress reports filed by Khun Orm, rather than merely glancing at the bottom line, you would know this."
Earth's charming smile faltered, a slight flush of embarrassment creeping up his neck.
Orm, sitting three seats down, actively bit the inside of her cheek to stop herself from grinning.
"Furthermore," Lingling continued, her dark eyes locking onto Earth with absolute zero warmth. "I will not compromise the safety of a billion-baht project for your quarterly bonuses. The primary supplier remains. The budget will be adjusted elsewhere. Am I understood?"
"Yes, Khun Lingling," Earth mumbled, looking thoroughly chastised.
"Excellent. Meeting adjourned," Lingling announced, standing up in one fluid motion.
The executives practically scrambled over each other to escape the freezing atmosphere of the boardroom. Orm gathered her blueprints, her heart swelling with an absurd amount of pride. That terrifying, brilliant woman was hers.
As Orm turned to leave, her phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out.
Message from: The Ice Queen ❄️ Stay behind. Five minutes.
Orm lingered in the hallway until the last of the finance team entered the elevators. She checked over her shoulder, feeling like a spy in a corporate espionage thriller, before slipping back into Lingling's private office.
The moment the heavy oak door clicked shut and the lock engaged, the atmosphere shifted so violently Orm nearly got dizzy.
Lingling was standing by the floor-to-ceiling windows, her severe posture instantly melting. The moment she saw Orm, she let out a soft, dramatic sigh, shedding her tailored blazer and tossing it unceremoniously onto the plush sofa.
"Finally," Lingling whined, a sound so profoundly uncharacteristic of the Project Manager that Orm still wasn't entirely used to it.
Lingling crossed the room in three strides, wrapping her arms securely around Orm's waist and burying her face in the crook of Orm's neck. She inhaled deeply, practically melting against Orm's body like a clingy, affection-starved koala.
"You were so mean to Earth," Orm teased, wrapping her arms around Lingling's shoulders and running her fingers through the perfectly styled hair, intentionally messing it up.
"He deserved it," Lingling mumbled against Orm's collarbone, her voice muffled and slightly bratty. "He was looking at you during the presentation. I saw him. He glanced at you three times."
"He was looking at my charts, Ling," Orm laughed, tilting her head to give Lingling better access to her neck. Lingling immediately pressed a soft, lingering kiss just below Orm's jawline, sending a shiver of electricity down Orm's spine.
"He was looking at your charts because you drew them," Lingling argued, her hands tightening possessively on Orm's waist. She pulled back slightly, looking up at Orm with an exaggerated pout that was absolutely lethal. "And you didn't look at me enough. You spent twenty minutes staring at P'Somchai."
"P'Somchai was speaking!" Orm protested, completely melting into a puddle under Lingling's dark, demanding eyes.
"I don't care," Lingling said, stepping into Orm's space and backing her gently against the heavy wooden door. "When we are in a room, you look at me. You are my lead engineer. And my girlfriend. You should be admiring me."
Orm's breath hitched. The transition from the terrifying corporate overlord to this devoted, needy, incredibly affectionate woman was a daily miracle. In public, Lingling commanded the room. But behind closed doors, Lingling belonged entirely, completely to Orm. And Lingling made sure Orm knew it.
"I admire you constantly," Orm whispered, her chaotic energy completely subdued by the sheer weight of Lingling's adoration. "I'm admiring you right now."
"Show me," Lingling challenged softly, her gaze dropping to Orm's lips.
Orm didn't need to be told twice. She leaned in, capturing Lingling's lips in a slow, deep kiss. The taste of mint and Lingling's dark coffee exploded on Orm's tongue. The soulmate bond, now permanently locked, turned every kiss into a sensory masterpiece. It wasn't just physical; it was an emotional tether, a vibrant burst of flavor and feeling that resonated in Orm's chest.
Lingling hummed into the kiss, her hands sliding up Orm's back, pulling her flush against her body. She was demanding, passionate, and completely uninhibited.
When they finally broke apart, both of them breathing heavily, Lingling rested her forehead against Orm's, a soft, content smile gracing her lips.
"Better," Lingling declared softly.
Orm grinned, resting her hands on Lingling's chest. "You are an absolute brat, Sirilak."
"Only for you, Kornaphat," Lingling whispered back, stealing another quick peck. "Now, gather your things. It's Friday night. We have an experiment to conduct at my apartment."
The experiment, as it turned out, was an exercise in culinary masochism.
Lingling's penthouse apartment overlooking the Chao Phraya River was exactly what Orm expected: sleek, minimalist, painfully expensive, and impeccably clean.
But tonight, the massive marble kitchen island was covered in chaos.
"This is a terrible idea," Orm said, staring at the spread in front of them.
Now that their bond was fully activated and unrestricted by proximity, the entire world of flavor was available to them. They had spent the past three weeks indulging in everything. They had cried over the complex beauty of a perfect Tom Yum Goong. They had marveled at the bizarre texture and pungent glory of durian. They had eaten their weight in mango sticky rice.
But tonight was about finding the boundaries. Tonight was the Extreme Taste Limits Test.
Arranged on the marble counter were slices of raw lemon, a bowl of intense sour candies imported from Japan, a jar of fermented shrimp paste, a bottle of incredibly potent hot sauce, and, sitting innocently in a small ceramic dish, a mound of pale green paste.
"Wasabi," Orm stated, pointing a trembling finger at the green paste. "My friend Gina told me about this. She said her roommate ate a spoonful of it on a dare, and he literally thought he was having a stroke. She called it 'burn spicy.' Not chili spicy. Brain spicy."
Lingling was standing on the other side of the island, wearing a silk robe over her loungewear, looking entirely too elegant for a woman about to torture her taste buds. She had a small pair of chopsticks in her hand.
"It's a chemical reaction," Lingling explained calmly, though her eyes danced with anticipation. "The allyl isothiocyanate in the horseradish creates a vapor that travels up the nasal passages. It's not a temperature burn; it's a sensory shock. It clears the sinuses."
"It clears the soul, Lingling!" Orm protested, crossing her arms defensively. "I am a delicate flower. My spice tolerance is practically non-existent. Yesterday, I thought the black pepper on my carbonara was a bit aggressive."
"You are a coward, Orm Kornaphat," Lingling teased, a wicked smile playing on her lips. "Where is the brave engineer who yells at contractors over steel tensile strength? Are you going to let a pulverized root defeat you?"
Orm's competitive streak, which was vast and easily manipulated, flared instantly. She slammed her hands down on the marble.
"I am not a coward," Orm declared. "I am an explorer of the flavor frontier. Hand me the chopsticks."
Lingling laughed, passing a pair of sleek, silver chopsticks to Orm. "We do it together. A small amount on a piece of sashimi."
Lingling prepared two small plates. On each, she placed a beautiful, translucent slice of yellowtail sashimi. Then, with surgical precision, she dabbed a remarkably generous portion of the green wasabi paste onto the center of the fish.
Orm stared at the green blob. It looked like radioactive playdough.
"That is not a small amount, Ling," Orm observed, her voice squeaking slightly. "That is a lethal dose."
"We are testing limits, darling," Lingling said smoothly, picking up her plate. "On the count of three."
Orm grabbed her plate, her hands actually shaking. She looked at Lingling. Lingling looked back, her expression a mix of absolute devotion and mischievous sadism.
"One," Lingling counted.
Orm picked up the sashimi with her chopsticks.
"Two."
Orm squeezed her eyes shut, preemptively bracing for impact.
"Three."
They both shoved the sashimi into their mouths.
For the first second and a half, Orm felt nothing, but the cool, buttery texture of the fish and the salty tang of the soy sauce Lingling had drizzled over it.
Oh, this isn't bad at all, Orm thought confidently. Gina was exaggerating. It's just slightly—
And then, the vapor hit.
It didn't happen in her mouth. It happened directly behind her eyes. A violent, searing, electrified explosion of agonizing heat shot up her nasal cavity, punching straight into her frontal lobe. It felt like someone had shoved a firework up her nose and detonated it.
Orm's eyes snapped open, immediately flooding with tears. She froze, completely paralyzed by the sheer, overwhelming sensory violence. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't think. The entire world was just green, burning agony.
Across the island, Lingling was faring slightly better, but only barely.
Lingling's eyes were wide and watering profusely. She chewed rapidly, her usually pale cheeks flushing a deep, vibrant red. She slapped a hand over her mouth, letting out a harsh, muffled cough. She squeezed her eyes shut, taking short, sharp breaths through her teeth, her knuckles turning white as she gripped the edge of the marble counter.
But Lingling swallowed. She survived. She opened her tear-filled eyes, letting out a long, shaky exhale, a victorious, slightly pained smile on her face.
"Fascinating," Lingling choked out, her voice raspy. "Incredibly... aggressive."
Orm did not find it fascinating. Orm was currently dying.
Orm let out a sound that resembled a dying pterodactyl. She spat the remaining fish into a napkin, abandoning all dignity. The fire in her sinuses was spreading, setting her brain on edge.
"MILK!" Orm screamed, her voice completely distorted. She scrambled around the kitchen island, her socks slipping wildly on the polished hardwood floor. "LINGLING, WHERE IS THE COW JUICE! SAVE ME!"
Lingling, still recovering from her own wasabi shock, started laughing hysterically. "Fridge! Bottom shelf!"
Orm practically dove at the massive, stainless-steel refrigerator. She yanked the door open, her eyes streaming with tears, her nose running, her entire face a portrait of unadulterated regret. She bypassed the expensive sparkling water and imported juices, zeroing in on a familiar pink carton.
Lingling always kept strawberry milk stocked for her.
Orm ripped the carton open, didn't bother with a glass or a straw, and tilted it back, chugging the sweet, artificial pink liquid like a man dying of thirst in the Sahara.
The cold, thick sweetness washed over her tongue, coating her throat and slowly, mercifully, beginning to neutralize the nuclear fallout in her nasal passages.
Orm collapsed against the open refrigerator door, sliding down until she was sitting on the floor, the half-empty carton of strawberry milk clutched to her chest. She was panting, a single tear tracking through the dusting of panic-sweat on her forehead.
"I saw the light," Orm wheezed to the ceiling. "I saw my ancestors. They told me I was an idiot."
Footsteps padded softly across the floor. Lingling appeared in Orm's line of sight, crouching down in front of her. The silk robe pooled elegantly around her. Lingling's eyes were still slightly red, but the amusement on her face was radiant.
"You are incredibly dramatic," Lingling whispered, reaching out with a soft thumb to wipe the tear from Orm's cheek.
"You tried to assassinate me," Orm accused weakly, taking another small sip of the milk.
"I tried to expand your horizons," Lingling corrected gently. She leaned in closer, her knees boxing Orm in against the fridge. The cool air from the open door washed over them, a stark contrast to the lingering heat in Orm's system.
Lingling reached out and gently took the milk carton from Orm's hands, setting it on the floor beside them.
"You have a milk mustache," Lingling murmured, her gaze dropping to Orm's lips.
"It's a badge of honor," Orm defended, though she couldn't stop the dopey smile spreading across her face. "I went to war with a root vegetable and survived."
"My brave engineer," Lingling said softly.
Lingling didn't bother finding a napkin. She leaned in, tilting Orm's chin up, and pressed her lips to Orm's.
The kiss was an absolute sensory explosion.
Through the soulmate bond, the flavors compounded and intertwined. Orm tasted the sweet, artificial, comforting strawberry milk that lingered on her own lips. But underneath it, cutting through the sweetness, was the sharp, lingering ghost of the wasabi on Lingling's breath—a spicy, electric tang that sent a jolt straight to Orm's heart.
It was chaotic. It was sweet, burning, messy, and entirely profound. It was the taste of an elegant, terrifying Ice Queen who morphed into a devoted, affectionate lover behind closed doors. It was the taste of a loud, unhinged engineer who tripped over rugs but grounded the most complex structures in the city.
It was the taste of them.
Lingling deepened the kiss, her hands threading into Orm's messy hair, pulling her flush against her. Orm wrapped her arms around Lingling's neck, kissing back with every ounce of the fierce, chaotic energy she possessed.
When they finally broke apart, the air conditioning from the open fridge chilling their heated skin, Orm was out of breath and utterly, hopelessly in love.
Orm looked into Lingling's dark, shining eyes, a wide, goofy grin spreading across her face.
"So," Orm whispered, her voice raspy. "What are we tasting next?"
Lingling smiled, a soft, devoted expression that she reserved only for Orm.
"Everything," Lingling promised.
THE END.