The first time they almost met, neither of them noticed.
Loop 2 for Lingling, Loop 1 for Orm.
After You Dessert Café, Siam Paragon, 10:12 a.m.
Lingling sat at the narrow window counter on the second floor, the one that looked straight down onto the fountain court. Black hoodie up, headphones around her neck like a collar, iced Thai tea sweating a ring onto the marble table. She had come here for the same reason she went anywhere these days: to watch the world repeat itself and prove it wasn't.
Same barista with the undercut called her order: "One Thai tea, less sweet, no pearls, for P'Ling!" Same salaryman beside her checked his Rolex at exactly 10:14. Same little girl dropped her strawberry toast at 10:17 and started wailing.
Lingling opened her notebook (plain black Moleskine, the one she had bought yesterday that was now inexplicably blank again) and wrote in precise block letters:
Loop 2 December 2, 2023 10:12 a.m. After You, 2nd floor Nothing has changed except me.
She underlined the last line twice.
Across the café, near the pastel-pink dessert display, Orm burst in like someone had opened a window in July. Sunflower dress wrinkled from sleeping in it, hair twisted into a messy knot, cheeks flushed from running. She ordered in a rush ("One honey-toast tower, extra ice-cream, and a mango sticky rice to go, please, I'm starving!") then spun around looking for a seat.
There was only one free stool. Right next to Lingling.
Orm hesitated. The woman in black looked… severe. Beautiful in a way that felt dangerous, like a knife left on display. But the stool was free and her legs were jelly.
"Khrap/kha, is this seat taken?" Orm asked, voice bright enough to cut glass.
Lingling looked up. For one heartbeat the world narrowed to brown eyes and a crooked front tooth.
Then the moment snapped. Lingling shook her head once, short. "Not taken."
Orm plopped down, knees knocking the underside of the counter. "Thanks! I swear this place is busier every time I come. Like the whole city decided to eat dessert for breakfast."
Lingling made a small sound that might have been agreement. She went back to her notebook.
Orm's honey toast arrived looking like a small edible skyscraper. She attacked it with the enthusiasm of someone who had died and been reborn hungry ever since. Ice-cream dripped onto her wrist; she licked it off without shame.
Lingling watched from the corner of her eye and felt something ache behind her ribs.
At 10:23 the café speakers switched songs. The playlist was always the same: Thai indie, a little J-pop, then, at exactly this minute, the 1981 City Pop classic "Plastic Love" by Mariya Takeuchi.
The synth intro shimmered through the room like neon rain.
Orm's head snapped up. "I love this song," she said to no one and everyone.
Lingling's pen stopped moving.
Orm started humming along, off-key but earnest, swaying on the stool. Halfway through the first verse she turned to Lingling without warning.
"Do you know it? Mariya Takeuchi? My mom played this nonstop when I was little. I thought the singer was Thai for years because the chorus sounds like luk thung."
Lingling stared. The girl's mouth curved exactly the way the laugh on Side A curved.
"I… know it," Lingling managed. Her voice came out rough.
Orm beamed. "It's my reset song. Every time life goes wrong I play this and pretend I'm in a montage." She laughed, the same bright, breathless laugh from the tape, and Lingling's heart performed an illegal drum fill.
Orm stuck out her hand, sticky with honey. "I'm Orm."
Lingling looked at the hand like it might explode. Then, slowly, she took it. The contact was warm, electric, gone too soon.
"Lingling," she said.
Orm's eyes widened. "P'Ling?"
Lingling went very still.
Orm blinked. "Sorry, I—don't know why I said that. It just… fit." She laughed again, embarrassed now. "Weird, right?"
Before Lingling could answer, Orm's phone buzzed angrily on the counter. She glanced at the screen and groaned.
"Shoot, I'm late again. Story of my life." She shoved the rest of the mango sticky rice into a paper box, grabbed her bag, and hopped off the stool. "Nice meeting you, P'Ling! Maybe I'll see you in the next montage!"
She dashed away, sunflower dress flaring like a firework.
Lingling sat frozen, staring at the empty space where warmth had been.
In her notebook she wrote, hand shaking:
10:27 a.m. She called me P'Ling. She laughed like the tape. She left.
At 10:31 the little girl dropped her toast again. The salaryman checked his Rolex. The song ended and restarted from the top, because of course it did.
Lingling closed the notebook, stood, and followed the direction Orm had gone.
She didn't know why. Only that the day had seventy-two hours and she had just wasted fifteen of them breathing the same air as the girl on Side A.
Loop 3 began the same way, but this time Lingling arrived at After You at 9:45 a.m. and claimed the window seat with religious devotion. She watched the door like a sniper.
Orm arrived at 10:11, one minute earlier than last time, hair slightly less chaotic.
Lingling's heart tried to exit through her throat.
This time when Orm asked about the stool, Lingling answered before the question finished. "It's free. Sit."
Orm blinked, surprised, then grinned. "Thanks, P'Ling."
Again. She said it again.
They talked longer this loop. Orm told her about the night shoot, about forgetting lines, about the director who threatened to replace her with a cardboard cut-out. Lingling listened more than she spoke, storing every word like tracks on a hard disk.
When "Plastic Love" came on, Orm lit up the same way. This time she dragged Lingling into singing the chorus, terrible harmony, laughter louder than the music.
At 10:42 Orm had to leave again. Same phone call, same groan.
But before she ran, she scribbled something on a napkin and pressed it into Lingling's hand.
"For the next montage," she said, and disappeared.
The napkin had a doodle of a cassette tape wearing a sunflower crown and ten digits underneath.
Lingling stared at it until the ink blurred.
Loop 4. Loop 5. Loop 6.
Each reset, Lingling arrived earlier. Each time, Orm arrived slightly earlier too, as if the loop was nudging them closer.
They shared honey toast. Orm fed Lingling a piece of mango and laughed when Lingling blushed dark red. Lingling learned that Orm hated horror movies but watched them anyway, that she cried at commercials with dogs, she wanted to act but was terrified she wasn't good enough.
Lingling told her, voice barely audible, that she mixed sound for dramas and spent most nights alone with machines that didn't talk back.
Orm reached across the table and squeezed her wrist. "Then talk to me instead."
By Loop 9 they had memorized each other's orders. Orm arrived with two iced Thai teas, one less sweet for Lingling. They sat knee-to-knee because the café was "mysteriously" fuller every reset.
"Plastic Love" still played at 10:23, but now they sang it together, soft, foreheads almost touching.
At 11:59 Orm's phone buzzed. She stared at the screen like it had betrayed her.
"I don't want to go," she whispered.
Lingling's heart cracked open. "Then don't."
Orm looked up, eyes shining with something dangerous hope. "You make it sound so easy."
They sat in silence while the café moved around them. Outside the window, clouds stacked like old vinyl sleeves.
Orm stood slowly. "Same time tomorrow?"
Lingling wanted to scream that there would be no tomorrow, only another today, forever. Instead she nodded.
Orm leaned in, quick as a heartbeat, and kissed Lingling's cheek, soft, warm, smelling of honey and mango.
"See you in the next montage, P'Ling."
She left.
Lingling touched her cheek and felt the world tilt.
That afternoon she walked the city in a daze, notebook filling with frantic observations:
She kisses like she's scared it's the last time. She doesn't know it might be. I'm running out of Decembers.
Evening found her back at Pratunam, standing in front of the cassette stall. The old man was awake for once, smoking a fresh cigarette.
Lingling held up the tape. "Who sold you this?"
The old man shrugged. "Girl with a camera. Japanese. Paid me to keep two copies on the table every night. Said someone would need them."
Lingling's blood went cold.
"Every night?"
"Every night this month," he said, and went back to sleep he went.
She looked down at the cassette in her hand. The purple handwriting seemed to shimmer.
Somewhere across the city, Orm was probably falling asleep to the sound of Lingling's voice telling her to drive safe.
And somewhere else, a woman with a Super 8 camera was counting how many times the two of them would almost fall in love before one of them broke.
Lingling slipped the headphones on, pressed PLAY, and let the laugh on Side A drown the city.
Tomorrow, Loop 10, she would arrive at 9:00 a.m. sharp.
She would order two honey toasts.
She would tell Orm the truth.
Or she would kiss her first and figure out the rest later.
Either way, the song was almost over, and the tape was starting to stretch.