Unlike American schools, where people have a different classmate per subject, Thai students have the same set for all of them until the end of the school year. The rumor of the foreign student transferring to their school swirled around at the beginning of the term.
The first thing Orm noticed was how beautiful the girl was. Her long and wavy black hair was always tied in a bun, but a strand always adorably escapes when noontime comes. Others say that the transferee is timid, almost lethargic with almost everything, but Orm finds the slow movement of the girl graceful and reticent, like an introvert at heart. Ling ling almost never talks to anyone as well; it's evident that she was having a hard time adapting to the Thai language. The transferee was only communicating with their teacher in English or broken Thai.
She wanted to talk to the girl. At first, she just introduced herself, but despite having an endless amount of confidence, like what her friends were saying to her, she found herself suddenly embarrassed and conscious of her English skills.
"Here's the book that you requested," Mae Koy said to her after dinner, and Orm beamed at her mother when she saw Basic English for Dummies. "I never thought that you'd even get serious with your study."
Orm playfully rolled her eyes at her mother. "I'm studying really well, you know."
Mae Koy just looked at her daughter unbelievably. As if she didn't know that her daughter spends time playing games with her best friend Becky or hanging out with her friends at school. So when her daughter asked her to buy a book, she was left stunned, to say the least. Orm just laughed at her mother's expression and kissed her good night before running up to her room.
It's so hard to learn English academically, so she found herself watching English series on Netflix and thought that it was better than almost anything. The additional book is just another piece of learning material that she wanted to explore. She needs all the help that she can get. This constant staring contest with the transferee is already making her head crazy.
She's thankful that Lingling sat at the back of the class because she's sure that she will just dig a hole in the transferee's head by staring at it endlessly because she finds herself unknowingly looking for the girl whenever lunch break starts. She even got her friends to hang out with her on the bleachers at the school just so she could secretly watch Lingling pass by.
