"Please"

One month in, and the shine of arrival had worn off. Nook moved like clockwork now. Her uniform fit differently. Her posture no longer shrank in crowded hallways. Her makeup, taught in a mandatory two-day crash course, held steady through ten-hour shifts. Her long black hair, once loose and wild from the wind of her village, was now shaped into a sleek ponytail like all the other girls.

She had learned how to clean a luxury suite in under seven minutes, how to fold towels into orchids, how to smile without showing teeth, and how to make eye contact that lasted just long enough to feel polite but never long enough to invite conversation. She no longer asked questions. Not silly ones at least.

The Golden Orchid was always spotless. Its lobbies gleamed. Its hallways smelled like lemongrass and citrus. In the dining rooms, crystal clinked and soft jazz played. Everything felt curated down to the temperature of the air. Wealthy guests from around the world drifted through it like they belonged to another planet. Elegant men in tailored suits, women who smelled like vanilla and power, sleek families who never made eye contact with staff.

Some guests smiled. Some were quiet. Some stared a little too long at the younger girls. Nook had noticed it. So had a few others. A glance that lingered. A comment in a language they barely understood. But no one said anything.

The girls had learned not to.

But the other girls, the ones with the blue ribbons, were different. Polished. Practiced. Quiet. Always watching, never gossiping. They spoke only when necessary. No one shared skin creams or talked about boys. The dorm halls were silent by nine. Each girl locked into her cubicle, single beds behind sliding doors, no windows, always cold. Guards walked the halls at night.

Some girls had gone missing. Two from the pink section. One from the blue. All after breaking a rule. One had left her cubicle past curfew. Another was caught whispering to a guest. The third? No one knew. Official word was they had been terminated. Sent home. But no one ever confirmed it. And none of the other girls ever saw them leave.

The staff quarters felt like a different country from the hotel's guest wings. Cramped. Fluorescent. Airless. Meals were scheduled and identical. Training sessions repeated. Sometimes, the girls passed each other in the narrow halls, tired and sunken like dead shadows.

Foen was the exception. Sort of. She had been assigned as Nook's mentor the day of orientation. At first, she said little. She showed Nook how to carry a tray without looking down. How to clear a table in five moves. How to disappear. Her voice was always soft but never friendly. Her face beautiful in a sharp, quiet way. High cheekbones. Almond-shaped eyes. Skin that caught the light just so. Her beauty was striking in that way that made men take second looks.

So was Nook's, though she did not yet see it. Her features were softer, rounder. Her eyes still carried something of the village in them. Wide. Observant. Her smile was slower to appear now, but when it did, it was gentle. She walked differently. Held things differently. But she was still learning.

That morning, she and Foen were assigned to the penthouse suites. The high-end rooms on the highest floor of the hotel. They always smelled like eucalyptus and static. Guests rarely spoke, but the service expectations were intense. Not a fingerprint on the glass, not a single hair in the sink, not a wrinkle in the robe.

"Room 39," Foen said, scanning her clipboard without looking up. "Guest requested citrus scent, linen refresh, full mirror wipe. No visible presence. In and out in under seven."

Nook nodded. "I'll prep the towels."

Foen glanced at her, then handed over the keycard. "Don't forget the corner fold. Housekeeping got flagged yesterday."

There wasn't judgment in her tone anymore. Just habit. Foen had become… familiar. In the quietest way possible. They worked together in silence, a practiced rhythm forming between them. It was something like trust, if you tilted your head enough.

After they reset the suite and shut the door behind them, Foen leaned back against the wall for a moment. The guest hallway was quiet. Nook looked over at her.

"You ever think about leaving?" she asked quietly.

Foen did not look at her.

"No," she said. Then added, "But I remember when I did."

Nook studied her. There was something about Foen that always felt half-hidden. She moved through the hotel like someone who had long since accepted its rules, but never stopped watching them. At just twenty-two, she wasn't much older than Nook, but she carried herself like someone who had already lived several lives. She was solemn, controlled, never flustered. She rarely laughed, and when she did, it was usually dry, almost sarcastic, like she was testing whether Nook could take a joke in this place. She had a way of replying to things with a shrug that said nothing and everything. Foen always seemed to know where cameras were, which guards were watching, which corridors to avoid. She spoke little, but her glances said more than full conversations.

Nook often wondered about her. How long she'd been here. What she had seen. What she was hiding. There was something protective in the way she moved too, small things, like blocking a guest's stare, or standing half a step ahead in an elevator. She made herself hard to read. Nook admired that. And envied it.

"What happens if someone tries?"

Foen looked up at her now. For a second, her lips parted like she might speak. Instead, she nodded toward the surveillance camera in the corner of the ceiling.

"We've got to go have dinner now. I'm starving," she said.

As they walked back through one of the gold-trimmed corridors that led to the staff wing, Foen slowed. A guest passed them. Tall. Foreign. His eyes lingered a second too long on Nook. Like a tiger sizing up it's prey.

Foen shifted slightly, stepping just enough to block the view. The man kept walking.

Nook felt her stomach knot. "Did you see…?"

"Keep your head down," Foen said. "And never be the last to leave a room after a cleanup."

"Never be the last to leave any room. Ever."

Nook nodded fast, almost too fast. "Yes… yes."

The words came out jumbled, caught somewhere between her throat and chest. Her voice had a tremble to it. Even now, standing in the hallway, she could still feel the prying eyes clinging to her face. The guest's smirk was gone but not forgotten. It lingered like something she stepped in and couldn't scrub off.

Foen didn't move at first. Then her hand reached out and wrapped gently around Nook's wrist. The contact was warm, dry, steady. The kind you give someone you need to hear you.

"No. I mean it," Foen continued. "Your orientation is almost done. They'll reassign you soon. You'll be with someone else. Someone who might not care whatever happens to you.Someone who doesn't care if you end up in a room alone."

Nook blinked at her. Foen's voice wasn't sharp. It was too smooth for that. But there was weight in it now. A low thrum of warning humming just beneath the calm.

"You finish cleaning, you leave. That's it. You do not wait. You don't dawdle. You don't fix the pillows again just to look busy."

She gave Nook's wrist a slight tug. Not rough, but firm enough to underline the point.

"And never," she said, softer this time, "never talk to the guests. I don't care if they act like gentlemen or smell like fresh cologne. I don't care if they offer you chocolate or tip you in smiles. You don't talk. You don't listen. You don't even think about being extra polite."

Nook's throat tightened. "But why?" she asked, the words small. Not rebellious, just searching.

Foen held her gaze for a long second, and in that stillness, Nook saw something she hadn't before. Not just warning, but pain. Deep, buried pain. The kind that shaped you without asking permission.

"Just listen to me," Foen said.

"Please."

It was the "please" that followed that shook something loose. It came out soft. Unforced. Like it had been waiting behind her teeth for weeks but never found its moment until now. And for the first time since she met her, Nook saw it. A faint shimmer in Foen's eyes. Not full tears, not yet, but something close. Something that didn't belong on a face so controlled.

Nook felt her chest pull. She didn't mean to do it. Her body moved before her thoughts could catch up. She stepped forward and hugged her as tightly as she could.The scent of cleaning chemicals clung to their uniforms, but beneath it, Nook could smell Foen's powdery warmth.

Foen didn't react right away. Her arms stayed by her sides like someone trying to pass through airport security without triggering the alarms. Her posture said this wasn't protocol, but her silence said she didn't mind.

And in that suspended moment, Nook felt it. The heartbeat. Slow, steady, grounded in someone who had seen too much and somehow survived it all without turning to stone.

"You're hugging me," Foen said flatly.

Her hands eventually moved. Not into a full embrace, but enough to lightly hold Nook's forearms. Like she was checking her temperature rather than returning the gesture.

"This is… a lot," Foen murmured.

"I know," Nook whispered.

"You're not going to cry, are you?"

"Not unless you do," Nook teased.

Foen gave a faint scoff. She stepped back before the silence stretched too far. She straightened her uniform and turned toward the elevators like nothing had happened. Like Nook hadn't just held her like a sister and accidentally made her feel something.

Nook looked at her. She was back to being unreadable again. But something had shifted. Not much. Just enough.

She followed after her, a few steps lighter. She didn't say anything. She didn't need to.

That night, Nook lay in her cubicle staring at the white ceiling. She could hear footsteps echo in the corridor outside her room but didn't dare take a look.

Her mind drifted.

She thought of the fields back home. The soft morning mist. The buzz of cicadas. The sound of her father coughing through the night. For months, she had skipped school to tend the paddies. She learned how to measure fertilizer and patch irrigation lines just well enough to keep the crops alive. But when the debts grew faster than the rice did, she stopped going to school entirely. Her dreams of flying those shiny planes that screamed through the farm skies would have to wait.

The hospital visits drained what little they had left. Her mother grew quiet. Her brothers angry. And after the funeral, the debt collectors came. Men with smiles that did not match their eyes. One left a broken window behind.

It was around then that Miss Alisa came. She wore lipstick and nice shoes, and spoke with confidence that did not belong in their village. She said there was a hotel in Bangkok looking for smart, capable girls. They would be trained. Given meals. Given uniforms. Paid well. She could send money home…

She remembered the morning she left. Her mother cried at the bus stop. Nook promised to write. Her little brother gave her his slingshot and told her to keep it hidden in her socks for protection.

They left at sunrise and reached Bangkok at dusk. The sky was pink-orange as the van crossed the Chao Phraya River, the sun glinting off the buildings like the whole city was made of mirrors.

She had never seen so many cars. So many lights. Motorbikes buzzing between traffic like insects. She remembered the rush of it. The glitter of midnight Bangkok through the van window. Street vendors under umbrellas. Couples holding hands. Neon signs in languages she couldn't read. The smell of grilled chicken, gasoline, and rain. She pressed her face to the glass, trying to see everything at once.

That was the last night she remembered feeling excited.

The Golden Orchid gleamed. But even its shine had shadows. And somewhere beneath all that polish, the hotel kept its secrets warm and breathing.