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bbillkins · 1 year

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Through The Window Through The Mirror

Pairing(s): None, Oh-Aew x Hoon, Teh x Q if you squint Genres: self reflection, wedding, yearning, in love with best friend Warnings: adult humour, swearing, suggestive content, smoking/juuling Rating: 16+ Wc: 5.5k

“No one answer the phone! Only Teh answers the phone” Ma Sui shouted out from another room in the house above the ringing.

“Ma, I already said they would email or call my cell—“ Teh hollered back, picking up the phone from its base and putting it to his ear “Hello?”

It was the florist—let me correct that; it was one of the florists. Clutching the phone between his shoulder and his ear Teh took down his wedding planner from a dark wooden shelf that sat near the phone. The printed silk cover adorned with a liana and hibiscus border stared up at him, he didn’t pause to absent-mindedly stroke one of the names printed on the fabric as he often did. Listening to the florist's complaints he frowned, “No, we need clivia for the rehearsal dinner—yes—there will be people to help…Yes, it is on an island further off of Phuket. Yep, exactly…Great—and when are the lilies and crane flowers coming in for the brunch on Sunday?”

He made notes; messy scribbles on the page marking down expected arrival times next to the vendor’s name in the wedding planner. One of the people sitting at the table in the room got up from his chair, Teh could just glimpse them out of the corner of his eye: he paid them no heed, focusing on the voice at the other end of the line. The warmth of another form pressed against him for a moment, he felt a hand brush his waist and an ardent kiss pressed to his cheek.

“I love you,” Oh-aew hummed to his childhood best friend, the grin on his comely mouth could be heard in his words.

He lithely floated through the house as though he were an enchanting sprite, touching the panoply that nestled in its place on shelves and countertops, undoubtedly in Teh’s mind increasing the object’s value to have been touched by Oh-aew’s divine fingers. The willowy groom-to-be looked and behaved as though this were already his home, in spite of the fact that he had never lived here and never would. But old habits were difficult to curb, and Oh-aew had been part of and treated as one of the family in this house long before he was set to legally become a member of said family. Years of playdates and sleepovers with Teh through their childhood and teen years had blossomed into Oh-aew loitering in their manse during school holidays to catch a glimpse of Teh’s older, more attractive brother.

Hoon sat at their sturdy wooden table that shined from where Teh had waxed it the week before at Ma Sui’s instruction; he was reading the paper that his mother had left there, its pages crinkled from where it had gotten damp this morning before being brought inside. Teacups were scattered on the table from where the family had sat around having tea: Hoon had just gotten off from work and Oh-aew was waiting for him at the Saetan house to greet him before Aew was due in at work. Hoon’s lightly gelled obsidian-coloured hair was perfectly styled as always, his facial hair trim and precise (“Just as I like it,” Oh-aew would declare) as he fondly glanced up from the paper at his fiancé’s voice.

With a nearly imperceptible motion, Teh shifted his left shoulder further towards the side table and shelves in front of him as he felt Oh-aew preparing to leave.

“You’re so lucky, my darling; I’ve got no siblings to help with all this dreaded planning,” Aew pouted to his fiancé.

“What do you mean? You’ve got Teh and Q wrapped around your fingers and planning this whole weekend! Teh’s my brother and I practically have to ask you if I can borrow him,” the older man’s chastisements were coquettish and melodic.

“Rightly so! He’s been my best friend for nearly fifteen years, but I have to hand him over to you as your best man simply because the two of you share half of your DNA— And that damn Q, some best man he is; three days before my wedding and he still hasn’t flown in from Bangkok.” Aew huffed in return. Teh heard them kiss.

“Okay, I’m off—I’ll call you about dinner tonight. Oh! And, Teh, don’t forget about the tent tomorrow at the resort—Hoon and I are working, but Mom is there and I’ll try to be home as early as possible.”

Teh nodded in acknowledgment and waved his best friend off, still jotting down floral arrangement notes from his phone call as he heard the other two exchange ‘I love yous’ and ‘goodbyes’. After hanging up the phone he closed the wedding planner, this time hesitating a little longer to gaze at the names printed on its cover: Hoon & Oh-Aew. It felt surreal. Looking back on the last fifteen years: late childhood, adolescence, the Great Conundrum that was the better part of a half-decade journey realizing that he was A) madly in love with his best friend, and B) not as straight as he’d originally surmised. Retrospectively, the matter was almost farcical. He knew something was a bit up as he’d enviously watched Oh-aew flirt with his school crush (admittedly, a short-lived one), Bas; whom Teh had even gone so far as to spur his friend towards. And then he had briefly basked in the glory of Aew’s hanging around all the time when they were on uni breaks; not realizing at first that Teh was only partly the draw—the main attraction at his house at that time (and, realistically all times since) being Teh’s older brother, Hoon. How silly; to think you’re the main event only to discover you are the side-show.

But even before that, the dreams came. In them men he didn’t know would be gazing at his lips, and in his all-knowing dream state he understood that they wanted to kiss him, ’You can kiss me if you’d like,’ he would tell them. Afterward, upon waking he would come up with the most ludicrous reasonings as to why he would offer himself to be kissed by another man. Another time he dreamt that he had been in a room of beautiful people and making eyes at this one guy whom Teh would try and follow to a secluded place…but his dream was disorganized and he could never find the guy again. He also did have dreams about girls, which, if anything only added fuel to his burning pyre of confusion. He didn’t know anyone who has openly bisexual at the time, and media portrayals frequently avoided the usage of the term. The final nail in the coffin was dreaming that he was slow dancing with Oh-aew, but a strange slow dance: more like foreplay. As they cascaded around to the music they pressed their bodies up close to one another, creating heat and friction, they kissed and dream Teh grasped at dream Oh-aew’s chest—but they still danced to the music, upright and their feet never stalling: an agreement from some higher dream god that sex could not occur until the never-ending song was finished—hurrah! the song was complete and now things were really picking up— His alarm clock had gone off…among other things, and Teh had plucked himself up from his bed with a ”Well…that was weird,”, but silently hoping that someday he got to the end of that, particular, dream.

He remembered it lucidly; Oh-aew had come to him in the strictest confidence: ”I’m in love with Hoon,” Teh…had an out of body experience that day. Now, he had never done hard drugs, but if this was anything akin to what heroin was like then Teh swore to never touch the stuff. He remembered not a single action of his own that day, his mind and soul off, floating about morosely in the firmament. ”I hadn’t really thought about it much before, you know…but then when we were going out to celebrate going off to university—and he was out in the restaurant when Bas and I dropped by to pick you up…it’s like I saw him with fresh eyes. Suddenly he was right there.”

For a couple of years…Oh-aew did have to endure Hoon being ’suddenly right there’ with a girlfriend; a strange time for all as Oh-aew pined for Hoon, and Teh for Oh-aew. The younger brother assured himself that his friend would eventually outgrow his infatuation with the older sibling. He watched Reply 1997 over and over again; Seo In-Guk had a happy ending here—it didn’t have to be the “Please Don’t…” story for Teh, either.

Oh-aew and Hoon hadn’t started dating until after Aew had finished university and begun working in advertising at the Phuket Tourism Department, and Teh would have to admit that despite being friends with one and related to the other he didn’t know the exact logistics of their getting together. His childhood friend, and secret love, video called him to say that he and Hoon had dinner three times that week!! And that Hoon had asked Oh-aew out to dinner already for the next week. If the floor in Teh’s dingy little apartment had all fallen out from beneath his feet he would have been less perplexed. He was also gripped with fear remembering the only person he had ever told about his feelings for Aew was Hoon. The call was short, but Teh hung on for as long as he possibly could to listen to Aew’s delighted ravings. ”What’s wrong? You look sick?” came his best friend’s voice. ”Yeah…I’m not feeling too well,” he shrugged, trying to brush off the fact that he was now anxiously sweating as his bowels and stomach did an antithetical jig.

It had been strange; seeing Hoon and Oh-aew holding hands…sharing long and fond gazes. A rollercoaster ride when he’d seen them first kiss. It was strange because it made him hurt, but it also made him so happy to see them so happy. He was home for a few days between theatre performances after the couple had been together for a few years. And in their childhood bedroom, Hoon confided to Teh that he wanted to propose to Oh-aew.

Not even a week later Oh-aew had video called Teh, frantic: ”Teh, I know it’s not cool of me to put you in this position but your brother has been acting really secretive this past week…and I just have to know if he said anything to you while you were home about proposing—“ Teh had fallen for the bait, or come to the duel unprepared—he was unsure which, but his face must have betrayed his older brother’s confidence because he heard Oh-aew’s squeal ”—AHA; I knew it! Oh my god, you’re such a terrible actor! I love you so fucking much Teh; you’re the best friend and the worst little brother—I’m gonna get maRRied! Ahhhh—“ Aew blew Teh some kisses and hung up.

As Teh stood there with the wedding planner, he admitted that things had not exactly gone as he had ever fantasized. No, Aew had not had an epiphany and suddenly realized he loved the wrong brother. No, he wasn’t exactly a big star in terms of acting but a steady stream of…frankly abysmal roles kept food on his table and a roof over his head. He checked his phone, hoping that he would get this callback. It had been the first decent project he had been recommended for and scored an audition at in ages. He needed to manifest a good omen.

____________________

Teh awoke at first daylight, its glare meekly filtering through windows as he rolled over and away from them. Gazing upon his brother’s bed, he felt strange; tonight would be the last night Hoon was to sleep in this room (as at this moment Hoon was likely sleeping soundly next to his husband-to-be in Oh-aew’s comparatively grand four-poster bed at the resort), and to occupy this house. He looked about the room, and it was as if the sun sensed his actions and so rose further to broaden his vision, and he felt bad for the room: when Hoon had moved out for university Teh had occupied it in his absence, and when Teh had moved out Hoon had lived here in his stead. Now the room was to be vacant, an unnecessary thing. He could empathize, but it occurred to him that the room might wish to be superfluous; a weight off of its proverbial shoulders. As he began his diurnal rituals he lost track of himself staring in the mirror—not at himself as he found he looked the same as he had yesterday, but at the reflection of an open window. What might be through that window if traversing the barrier of the looking-glass were possible. His phone buzzed.

~Q: We’re at the airport, see you in a couple of hours~

He did not bother responding to the other best man, instead checking his email as was customary every morning; finding no emails relating to any upcoming work offers but a few wedding related correspondences. He checked to see that the flowers had arrived for tonight’s dinner party, and skimmed through an email from Hoon’s friends who had agreed to plan his brother’s stag party as Teh already had his hands full with other wedding commitments. At least he didn’t have to worry about the venue, as Oh-aew’s parents wanted their only child’s wedding to be supreme, and so were going above and beyond for preparations. Anxiously he reviewed his itinerary for the day, which included ‘finish assorting guest favours and drop off at all guest accommodations’, ‘pick up OA uni friends’, ‘pick up rental car’, ‘confirm dinner orders for Friday’, and ‘book car service pick-up for band at airport Saturday morn.’.

The hallway, living room, and every other available surface was covered with the guest favour bags; each stamped with a custom stamp that stated each groom’s name and the date of their nuptials. He had stayed up late last night to finish them, so the first thing today would be picking up the rental car so he could even begin to transport all of the bags. Pulling up outside of the airport two hours later he had already made two deliveries around the town, despite being a precarious car driver. Oh-aew’s group of friends clambered inside the vehicle after depositing their designer luggage in the trunk; a cloud of perfume following them wherever they went. For half a second he thought to feel out of place in their presence, understanding that he was of a different ilk in the casual clothes and loud-print top he had thrown on that morning, half of a power bar shoved into his mouth to make up for the breakfast he had refused from his mother this morning already.

“You ready?” Q slapped Teh’s thigh, almost causing him to jump “This is going to be a long weekend,” for us.

The best men; Oh-aew’s best friends, confidants, and ever ardent admirers shared a knowing glance in the front seats.

Au popped in his head betwixt them, “What’s the big deal for you two? Party like hell in Patong tonight with Aew, speeches tomorrow during the reception—boom—you’re done; ready to kick back and get shit-faced.”

“You could be a poet,” Q dryly retorted, pushing his friend back into his seat.

“Remember Teh is organizing everything since the wedding planner quit,” Plug chastised Au from the very back of the vehicle. Teh could barely see him in his rearview mirror because of the large parcel he had refused to part with which sat on his lap.

“Man, I mean…I love Aew and all, but that is not something I would sign up for,” Pong stated from beside his boyfriend.

“It’s fine; I’m happy to do it,” Teh brushed off, smiling as though it didn’t pain him, waving his hand. He dropped them off at the pier, trusting that they would catch the next boat and soon be in Oh-aew’s ecstatic grip.

______________________

“Teh! We’re going to be late for my own rehearsal dinner,” Hoon called up the stairs.

“Sorry, coming!” With one last look in the mirror he tried to arrange a strand of hair that kept falling into his eyes—it flopped back—he gave up, giving a frustrated blow of air; now the strand stayed, admittedly at a contrary angle to the rest, but he accepted it. It was a plain suit that he wore part of; leaving the jacket hanging in his closet, he checked the tuck of his shirt and if he had buttoned it evenly.

The dinner was an intimate and joyous communion between the families. Aew and Hoon glowed, feeding each other morsels from their plates as they chatted with each’s parents. Aew caught Teh’s eyes when he rested his head on his fiancé’s shoulder, he blithely grinned at his friend. It wasn’t until the two groups were parting outside the restaurant: each groom heading out to his own party that was sure to extend into the wee hours of the next morn; Hoon’s friends were already waiting for him, Q and Aew were ready to join their group as they would head to Patong—when Oh-aew called out to Teh. Teh was not facing anyone else; he was turned and lost in thought as he stared down the festively lit quiet street. He had spent dinner talking little and eating less.

“Mmm,” he turned to Aew, who had his hand outstretched as if to beckon him.

“Come here,” and when he did, Oh-aew enveloped him in a hug; after all these years he still smelled of coconut, and for this Teh was grateful. His friend’s aroma had remained unchanged, much like his love. “Are you alright?” He whispered.

“Yeah, just a bit tired,” Teh confessed, not ready to let the other go but Aew made no move to release him either. “I hope Hoon isn’t going to require a lot of primping from me tonight or tomorrow,”

Aew chuckled into Teh’s shoulder, “I think Hoon can do his own primping,” For a moment it felt as though he were going to pull away, but then he remembered he had something more to say: “I wish I could have you for the night, Teh, part of me can’t believe that I’m spending the night before my wedding without my first best friend.”

Q was standing next to them and could overhear them, Teh blinked away the tears that threatened to fall and smiled at Q. “You’re in good hands,” he told Oh-aew.

“Teh, do you know what happens after tomorrow?” Teh could feel Oh’s chest swell as he spoke.

“You only have to fill out one tax return for two people,” he dryly commented.

“You and I become family—officially brothers,” the groom beamed.

Another thing Teh had never fantasized.

____________________________

Dreaded, cursed day. It was stunning, the weather was gorgeous, the sea gleamed spectacularly as though in approbation of the blessed event. Teh had spent the morning running around with a checklist to make sure that everything was as it was supposed to be. Oh-aew’s mother had managed to drag him away from where the florists were arranging the wedding arch, and Teh himself had been compulsively rearranging the orchids among the aisles where guests were to sit. She instructed him to have a little break, a nap, some food, anything; and when he’d protested she’d insisted. Briefly, as he was slipping in and out of sleep on a couch up at the main house he wondered if his mother had said something to Oh-aew’s about Teh’s late nights and early mornings this past week. Truthfully, he had been having trouble sleeping; once dreaming that a terrible cold snap had engulfed the country and frozen all the flowers that were being used by the florists, another time he dreamt that his suit didn’t fit at all and he’d be forced to attend the wedding as a groomsman in his high school uniform. That one still struck him as odd; it implied that he had no other even marginally more suitable clothes to wear to a wedding…nevertheless he had checked his closet multiple times a day to confirm that his suit was still there, and tried it on for good measure.

When Teh awoke, after dozing for likely not more than an hour, Oh-aew was sitting on the couch opposite him. His slim legs curled beneath him and still adorned in his pajamas, he looked up from his phone when he saw Teh stirring. He smiled at his sleepy former playmate, Plug padded in with a tray of coffee—the rest of the Patong-party-group remained slumbering or lounging in their beds. No one said anything, in case Teh should wish to sleep again, and they basked in the quiet content of each other’s company, enjoying what would likely be the most tranquil moments that day had to offer. After a while Teh wordlessly rose, fluffing up the couch cushions to their usual, un-squished state, and folding the blanket someone must have laid on top of him.

“How are you feeling?” Teh asked the groom.

Oh-aew looked up at him, cheekily smiling as he stretched his arms well above his head, his movements almost feline. “Good…excited,” he nodded, his smile grew as he brought a hand down to rub his abdomen, “My tummy is fluttering, but that might be from the coffee.”

Walking back out the pier, Teh squinted in the sunlight before bringing his hand above his eyes to shield them from the harsh light. He had to return home to assist the other groom in his preparations; Q and the rest of Oh-aew’s uni friends were helping the younger of the grooms. Teh doubted he could be of much service to his brother; Hoon had always been a much more fastidious groomer, whereas the younger sibling just stuck to bathing and shaving. Teh doubted the classes he had taken for stage hair-and-makeup would be of any use on a day such as this; he chuckled to himself as he imagined returning home to his elder brother needing help applying his wig or needing his eyebrows glued down. His assumptions were correct, and Hoon proved himself to be quite self-sufficient; and upon his inspection Teh found his brother to be wholly immaculate.

From head to heels, and even more particularly in demeanour, Hoon was the perfect man for Oh-aew. They were both intuitive and collected, Hoon staid on the surface and Oh audacious.

“Thank you,” Hoon broke the silence in the room.

“For what?”

Hoon hesitated, thinking and then nodded ever so slightly, almost as if to himself—“For everything—not just today or the last few months with the wedding stuff, but for all these years. You were so supportive of both Oh and me, both as a couple and as individuals, and I know it has to feel a bit strange to you but your actions have affirmed to me that you're just as capable and wonderful as I’ve always known you could be. I just wish you’d start seeing it in yourself, too.”

Teh felt his composure crack, just a hairline fracture, but he nodded in assent as he wiped the twin tears that had begun their downward migration over his bronzed cheeks. The older man bumped his little brother as if he was teasing him for becoming emotional, but engulfed him in a tight hug directly after. His brother’s affectionate actions made the task of staying his tears even more laborious. Teh had promised himself that if he was to break down today it would be at the end of the night when he found himself alone in his childhood bedroom. Swallowing the lump, reminding himself he still had to get through the ceremony and reception, Teh and his brother parted with a final nod, turning and beginning their long wedding procession to the Cape Panwa Hotel.

_________________________

~Oh-aew 🍧: miss you~

Was the text he received when he was standing there with Hoon and the rest of his groomsmen, waiting to get the go-ahead from someone that the ceremony could begin. Attached was a photo of Aew and his friends in his bedroom, all styled and dressed with champagne glasses raised in a toast. Teh could only focus on Oh-aew; he wasn’t wearing his suit jacket yet and his collarbone peeked out from his billowy and translucent lace blouse, his nose was scrunched as he grinned and stuck his tongue out ever so slightly from between his teeth. The end of an era; and he wouldn’t even get to be at Aew’s side for it. For within the half-hour he would be losing Oh-aew as a fantasy lover, a moon that you stretch your mortal hands to so assured that if you just reached out a little bit further it could be in your grasp. They would be brothers-in-law; a daily reminder to Teh that he had never made a valiant effort to lasso the moon.

The grooms wore ivory coloured suits, Hoon with his stiff collared shirt and Aew in languid lace that seeped out the edges of his jacket; Teh and Q wore matching apricot suits while the rest of the wedding party was dressed in tan. From where Teh stood he could see Oh-aew perfectly; how the late afternoon sun reflected off his radiant and shimming cheekbones, and the warm breeze tousled his already style-tousled tresses. His plump, glazed lips moved but Teh did not hear a word they uttered; Aew’s eyes shone with adoration, reiterating each pledge he made to the man before him, a pulchritudinous glimmer as the ring was slid onto his finger…

There was clapping; a hurrah as the newlywed husbands kissed. Teh clapped so hard his palms felt numb, Q did a small and rather awkward applause, made onerous by the bouquet of orchids and ranunculus he held. A vague remembrance of being pulled along with a crowd for wedding photos, all the while every guest in attendance jostled for a better glimpse or an opportunity to be among the first to bless the couple. A flute of champagne was thrust into his hand for a photo toasting the newlyweds: Oh and Hoon kissing, surrounded by their jubilant friends raising them a glass. Teh drank it, wincing as the acrid liquid coated his tongue.

The dance floor surged like an ocean, waves of people came and went—some songs were more popular than others. Some guests chose songs they liked over songs that were good to dance to, while others preferred to tap their feet from the safety of their table. Teh nursed his second glass of champagne, finding that the taste did not improve but deciding that the bubbles were, at least, pleasant. A lacquered hand dropped onto his shoulder, he recognized it as belonging to someone he hadn’t glimpsed since the speeches commenced.

“Come dance with me?” Q spoke, leaning over Teh from behind the chair.

Teh hesitated, almost shaking his head “I’m not a good dancer,” he told the other best man.

“I’m not asking you to be a good dancer,” he chuckled, “I just want to dance with somebody, and you haven’t budged since they served dinner.” He offered his hand out to Teh now.

With a final swig, Teh downed the rest of the drink trying to suppress a wince and stood up accepting Q’s outstretched palm. And for a minute on the dance floor they could simply jump around and mouth the words to the upbeat song that played, slipping on alcohol that had been spilled by others before them, Teh watched from the corner of his eye as Q took long and discreet drags from his juul that he knew how to deftly conceal from years of practice. The song changed to a slow one, the first slow one in ages it felt, but the dance partners fit together neatly. They had never been particularly close; neither would have chosen the other for company had it not been their mutual desire to be in the company of Oh-aew. It was comfortable, not difficult; just sort of holding the other as you shifted weight from one foot to the other.

“I’ve never seen you drink before,” Commented Q, slipping the juul back into his pocket.

“Tastes awful,” Teh shrugged in response, not feeling very loquacious.

“But how does it feel?”

Teh shrugged again, “I don’t feel anything from it,” Silence fell over them again, they just let the music move them as though it was the tide. Teh found himself staring across the dance floor at Aew.

“Are you in love with Aew?” Q asked, with his tone he could have as well been asking about the weather.

Teh hesitated, unsurprised by Q’s perspicacity, but also caught off-guard by a question no one had ever succinctly put to him before. “Yes,” He finally answered, drawing his gaze away from Oh-aew to look at Q.

“I am, too,”

“I know,”

Q threw his head back with a laugh, the mirth of their sorry situation not lost on either of them. Q pulled him closer, posing the next question in a lower tone as though it were juicy gossip: “So tell me; does your brother have any flaws? Tell me about Hoon, Teh; what are his vices?”

Teh found himself chuckling as well, at the absurdity of the question and of their conversation. Wracking his brain for something, he came up blank a couple of times until— “His Japanese is pretty bad,” He finally supplied.

The mirth left Q’s face, replaced by annoyed disbelief. “That’s it! That’s all you can come up with?” He playfully pushed Teh’s shoulder, “Fuck, I’m digging for dirt and all you give me is ‘he’s not particularly bilingual’.”

“Well,” Teh spoke, a somewhat joyless chuckle breaking from his mouth, “Hoon actually speaks English fluently, and, of course, Mandarin…so really it would be more of a fourth language.”

Q rolled his eyes with a groan, “Okay, never mind; let’s talk about something else,”

“I liked your speech,” Teh quipped with a grin, possibly the first one of the whole day.

“Thanks—I hope you don’t mind that I kinda put some words into your mouth about the ‘best men’ thing,”

“—Not at all; I liked what you said about how the ‘real best men’ were actually Oh and Hoon.” Teh assured.

“Well, it’s the truth…I mean, shit, they’re not marrying us.” Q stated depreciatively.

Teh hesitated, unsure if he should make the next joke or not; as it was a bit unsavoury. “Well, actually; I’d only want to marry Oh-aew between the two of them.”

“Understandable,” Q nodded “I’ll marry Hoon, and then have a torrid love affair with Aew.” He had taken the juul from his pocket, inhaling deeply and holding it in.

“You’d cheat on my brother!” Teh pretended to be hurt, Q laughed, swishing his hand back and forth to push the smoke away from Teh’s face. “I’d marry Oh-aew and then have torrid love affair with Oh-aew.” He quipped, glad that the music was loud enough for their conversation to be somewhat private.

“Silly!” Q chastised, “You’re supposed to say that you’d have a love affair with me!” They both laughed, and Teh wanted Q to blow smoke in his face again. “You smell good, what is it?”

Teh thought for a second, caught off guard by the statement. “I guess it’s my body lotion, it’s vanilla and pistachio.”

“You’ll have to text me the brand, I want to get some,” Q offhandedly remarked.

“What did you think of my speech?” Teh questioned.

His companion shrugged, his juul stowed away again. “You’re an actor; you can make anything sound good.”

Before Teh could ask if that was an insult, the song changed; the tempo picked up and thrummed in his chest, beating there like a second heart. Q jerked his head and pulled Teh along with him across the dance floor towards Oh-aew.

Aew danced hard, his skin glistened with a sheen of sweat, his jacket long since discarded as he swirled around his blouse reeling to keep up with the figure it adorned. He was gorgeous and sensual, people’s mouths watered to look at him. Q caught Teh’s eye as their best friend engulfed them in a warm embrace, and when he let go of them they spun him around and hoisted him onto their shoulders. Oh-aew let out a cry of surprise, but he laughed as he threaded his fingers through their hair for balance, and the matched pair felt shivers run down their spines as their love’s nails found momentary purchase on their scalps. A dense crowd formed around them, the music pulsating through their bodies, and a group lifted Hoon up as well, his hair disheveled in the night’s revelry. And after no small amount of jostling the husbands had been carried close enough to touch each other, grasping at each other’s arms for support as they laughed, drinking in the sight of one another. Teh looked up, watching as Oh-aew and his brother leaned in to kiss above the crowd.

#itsay fic #itsay writer net #itsay #ipytm #teh #ohaew #hoon #ipytm q #phantom ship #i told sunset about you #i promised you the moon

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accidentalrabbit · 2 years

Text

I TOLD SUNSET ABOUT YOU

LAST TWILIGHT IN PHUKET

I PROMISED YOU THE MOON

(series + short film + series)

Thailand 2020-21

RANK: S

A-pairing: Teh x Oh-aew

Other character(s) i enjoyed (ITSAY): MoRaoYuLok, Bass, Tarn, Hoon, Sui

Other character(s) i enjoyed (IPYTM): Khim, Q, Auu, Plug x Maengpong

Overall review:

Actually, let's break this down.

ITSAY: If there is one thing to say about ITSAY, it is that this series is relentless. It does not let up. From the camera to the writing to the acting to the edit, it is technically flawless and ceaselessly devastating. It is an audiovisual machine made of gold and steel and emotional violence. The camera lingers on scenes for perfectly unsettling or soul-crushing lengths of time. Everyone is acting their asses off, and the tears flow at least once an episode. The setting and set design are both visually impressive, taking advantage of gorgeous natural landscapes. The music is intense and unforgettable (and unfortunately the lyrics about separation and struggle are narratively resonant for the lead couple). And the story itself is maddeningly well-written.

The key to understanding the events of ITSAY (and IPYTM) is that Teh is a chaos demon, and he's a chaos demon in a very specific way. He has an MO. Teh will act like an uncomfortable situation with Oh-aew is fine, then he will get caught up in it and make everything worse, and then he will try to fix it by doing the thing that would have helped earlier too late. You would think this would get old, but although the pattern remains the same, Teh finds new ways to fuck it up every single time, and the time it takes to fix it ranges from years after the fact to a just few hours (but also too late).

ITSAY starts with my favorite trope, the play-within-a-play Sword Over the Moon, as Teh reflects on a falling out he had with his childhood friend Oh-aew, a tale that marks the first time i nearly sobbed during the first episode. I sometimes say i don't need a lot of angst and trauma, but maybe i be lying, because this flashback works on every level for me. It shows how they were once so close that Teh could tell when Oh-aew needed his back scratched, and it also shows how Teh's chaos demon behavior caused the first and longest-lasting rupture in their relationship. Teh, who wants to be an actor more than anything, giving the lead spot in the school play to Oh-aew should be heartwarming and selfless, but the thing about Teh is that he loves to pretend something is fine while secretly resenting every moment of it, and it blows up in both of their faces when Teh insults Oh-aew and they stop speaking to each other for most of the next decade. Now attending Mandarin classes to prepare for college, Teh, who is an incredibly proud (read: stubborn) person, sees Oh-aew again for the first time in years, and his first instinct is to fortify their grudge by just being The Worst, gloating over Oh-aew's low grades and struggle to learn while their mutual friends try very hard to keep the peace. This culminates in Oh-aew's first of many breakdowns when he flunks a test, and Teh finally snaps out of their stupid, largely one-sided beef to offer to be Oh-aew's tutor. (And to his credit, he is a very good and thoughtful tutor, exactingly tailoring flashcards and scrapbooks to fit his pupil's learning style.)

Two of Teh's other chaos demon arcs run on roughly parallel tracks from this point through the finale of the series. First, he offers to play wingman to help Oh-aew find out whether their friend Bass has a crush on him (spoiler: he does), and second, he tries to keep a promise to his friend Tarn that they will start dating once she's gotten accepted to university. Shockingly, Teh pretends that both of these situations are totally fine and tenable, but he comes to secretly resent them until they blow up in his face! He grows increasingly jealous of Bass and eager to have moments with Oh-aew all to himself, to the point where he starts blowing off his alleged future girlfriend to tutor him. He even wakes up at 4 am for Oh-aew, when he never sacrifices a minute of sleep for Tarn! (And oh, she notices.) I will say that Teh and Oh-aew's scenes together are lovely, and there is a brilliant homoerotic moment where their childhood back-scratching ritual turns literally orgasmic, in a very subtle metaphor for the changing dynamic of their friendship. And at some point, Teh and Oh-aew make a pact that, when they've both been accepted to their dream school, they will run all the way from Teh's place to the tip of Promthep Cape to watch the sunset. Put a pin in that. After a practice run, Teh helpfully explains the lyrics of the ominous and thematically resonant song about separated lovers, which i'm sure will in no way foreshadow the rest of the series.

Except it does. ITSAY delivers catastrophe after catastrophe before it finally crashes headlong into a happy ending. After a hot minute of not enough emotional disasters happening to our lead couple, we get what i affectionately refer to as the Dark Blue Kiss (2019) scene, because in the middle of their romantic beach rendezvous we get a stunningly cinematic underwater kiss (surprise!), and then everything goes to shit. Oh-aew more or less asks if this means Teh is ready to be more than friends, and Teh more or less says…nah, things are fine! To no one's surprise but Teh's, this is the Wrong Response! Oh-aew gets to have another spiraling, sobbing breakdown, culminating in him trying on a little red bra and impulsively posting it to Instagram before deleting it thirty seconds later. Teh turns to Tarn to make her an Oh-aew substitute, which, again to no one's surprise, Does Not Work! Teh gets an early admission offer from his dream school, and at the last minute he withdraws from the application process so Oh-aew, the first alternate, can get in without having to take the Mandarin test. Teh thinks this is an apology! Oh-aew thinks it's an underhanded dig at his intelligence! They snipe at each other using passive-aggressive Instagram stories (and the incorporation of social media into the narrative of ITSAY is brilliantly done in general, for the record), and then Teh has a massive breakdown when he realizes (a) oh shit, he loves Oh-aew and has fucked up their relationship yet again, and (b) oh shit, he has fucked up his own future by sacrificing his place at his dream school, and now he has to catch up on all the classes he's been skipping. The fucking around has occurred; the finding out is nigh.

Before i talk about how it ends, i want to run through some of the other characters i like in ITSAY.

The other members of Teh and Oh-aew's friend group, MoRaoYuLok, are difficult for me to talk about as individuals (except for Bass), but collectively i enjoy their presence onscreen and the ways they step in to do damage control whenever Teh and Oh-aew are imploding. They are surprisingly mature for a bunch of high school boys, particularly in comparison to the emotional antics that Teh and Oh-aew (mostly Teh) rope them into.

I love Hoon! He's a great older brother to Teh, even as Teh resents him for being a standard he cannot live up to. Hoon truly loves his little brother, and his immediate acceptance of Teh when he confesses he loves Oh-aew is beautiful. I bet Hoon gives great hugs. I want Hoon to hug me.

My feelings about Sui, Hoon and Teh's mom, are complex in ITSAY (i feel slightly attacked by Teh's desire to please her with academic and heterosexual performance, and her reaction when she learns he gave up his early admission to college is brutal), but i come to like her as well. (Her actor absolutely kills it.)

I like that Tarn gets to be a whole human being and that she responds to Teh's chaos demon behavior in relatable and complex ways. She buries her feelings of suspicion and jealousy, she gets angry and blows up, she sympathizes and swallows her sadness when Teh needs her to be just a friend. The portait she gifts him with the purple hibiscus in his breast pocket? Devastating. We'll get to it.

Finally, Bass. Just an absolute sweetheart. It's unfortunate that he gets bulldozed by Teh, but he's a good egg, and a good friend. Sometimes, all you can do is be quietly there for someone who is having an absolute time of it, and Bass has perfected the art of being there.

In the finale, Teh and Oh-aew run into each other before taking the normal admissions exam. Oh-aew is doing alright, all things considered. He and Bass are an item now, and thanks to Bass's continued tutoring (since Teh was definitely fired from that position), he scores high enough to get into their dream school. Teh, on the other hand, is thoroughly shook. He's literally shaking, crying, about to throw up, and he spends so much time trying to pull it together in the bathroom that he can't finish the exam, and he ends up only getting into his second-choice school. In the fallout, Oh-aew realizes that he can't stop thinking about Teh and breaks it off with Bass. The day comes when they promised they would run together, and while Oh-aew starts it alone, he soon runs into Teh, and they at last get their love confession moment and the tiniest bit of cathartic triumph. ITSAY, at long last, is over. Thank god.

There are several visual/symbolic motifs that come through in ITSAY, including (of course) the titular sunsets, which symbolize desire: The characters literally yell their dreams at the sun. But two of my favorites include hibiscus and coconuts. Let's start with the latter: Teh starts out absolutely hating coconuts, even though his mom and brother claim they bring good luck and the water gives you energy. Teh, however, likes the way Oh-aew smells. Oh-aew uses coconut scented shampoo. He's always used it. Teh suddenly likes coconuts again. In the finale, he literally brings a sidecar full of coconuts to keep them hydrated during the long, hot journey down to the cape. Coconuts as character growth. It's fun! The seond symbol is more interesting, though, and more charged. There is a color-coded hibiscus motif in ITSAY, where Tarn is represented by the purple hibiscus Teh notices while staring at her underwear, and Oh-aew is represented by the red hibiscus that he tucks in his hair during the MoRaoYuLok studycation. It's a subliminal battle that only Tarn seems fully aware of, which means she's the only person who sees when she's lost. When Tarn asks Teh to pick a color for the hibiscus she's sketching, thinking he'll pick purple, he picks red. When Oh-aew puts on the red bra, it's because he thinks that if he were a girl Teh would accept his love, but narratively the audience has the dramatic irony of knowing it's actually a battle between red and purple, and that Teh will choose him regardless, in the end. And when Tarn shows up with the portrait of Teh in full Sword Over the Moon regalia, she's drawn a little purple hibiscus into it, half-aware at the time she did so that she has no such place so close to his heart, and that he is prepared to break hers. It hurts deliciously. I love it.

Thematically, i would say that the primary message of ITSAY is that you cannot unfuck the past; you can only do the right thing now and grow into the future. Teh is constantly fucking up, and when he tries to fix his problems, it goes awry because he is acting as if he can repair the situation retrospectively. It's only in his final act of atonement, when he realizes he can still keep his promise and be there for Oh-aew in that moment, that we finally see them reach a point of resolution. There is also a cyclic element to the theme here: There is always another sunset. There is always another chance to get it right, though it may not be the same one as yesterday. This emphasis on cycles becomes much more impotant in IPTYM, as do the consequences of Teh's actions.

And because it bears mentioning somewhere: Every actor in this series can cry like a motherfucker. Which is good, because they all have to.

LTIP: With this short film existing mainly to bridge the gap between ITSAY and IPTYM and bid farewell to the locations in Phuket, you might expect LTIP to be a sentimental but ultimately fairly benign fifteen minutes. Instead, it haunts and vexes me. The show is about saying goodbye to the boys' hometown, but even as they're visiting their favorite locations, they notice the ways it's already changing around them and wondering what changes the future will bring. This ominous melancholy increases when Oh-aew gets a fortune telling him that happy times will come to an end. Well goddamn! They literally just started being happy in the last ten minutes of the ITSAY finale and it's already over. LTIP is rude. The camera here continues to push the narrative forward, and LTIP does not skimp on the visual appeal, either. The final lingering image we have is of Teh and Oh-aew riding toward the horizon, as sunset transitions into twilight over Phuket, soon to be the vast moonlit expanse of night. This short film really does make me appreciate how pretty the setting of ITSAY was, and it visually and thematically sets the stage for the arrival of IPYTM, for although their story is headed to Bangkok, everything that happened in Phuket will follow them and shape the rest of their lives.

IPYTM: I'm not gonna lie, IPYTM worried me. I had heard about the cheating plotline, and i had just watched ITSAY and LTIP care very little about my feelings, and i was unsure if i was prepared to endure another five-odd hours of whatever i had just experienced. But as it turns out, IPYTM shifted the vibe significantly. My immediate thought after finishing it was that if ITSAY is all gold and steel, then IPYTM is all silver and glass shards. It feels less weighty, but it still cuts. The camera's gaze is not quite as aggressive, but it still presses in and lingers on scenes just long enough to build tension or let it snap. The actors are still giving it 110% in every shot. The sets and setting are still beautiful, but there's much more concrete and glass. The music shifts to something more subdued. And the script and the edit make the passage of time an important character in its own right, via timeskips that i respect because of their narrative utility (IPYTM is an anthology of stories from Teh and Oh-aew's college years bound into one overarching narrative) and thematic resonance (the timeskips highlight the importance of cycles).

First episode is the lightest and the funniest of the entire saga, and it is a joyous relief. It starts a couple weeks before LTIP, which threw me for a hot second, but i love a scene that normalizes condom usage, and the two of them are absolute dorks about it. Fastforward to Bangkok and university, and I love Sui being supportive of Teh with the couple's red envelopes. I love their date where they go to the aquarium and are just insufferably lovey toward one another. I love that the conflict in this episode stems directly from the consequences of Teh's actions in ITSAY: While Oh-aew lives only a few minutes from his campus, Teh's school is across town from Oh-aew's apartment, so if he stays with Oh-aew, he won't make it to any of his classes on time. It's smart writing (as if i expected any less). The fact that they have to be apart most days of the week continues to spiral into the rest of the conflicts of this series. We already see that Oh-aew would have had a full-on meltdown being on his own in Bangkok if he wasn't immediately adopted by my FAVORITE side characters, the friend group of Q, Auu, Plug, and Maengpong, who are all simply delightful people. These fellow first-year students see Oh-aew homesick and on the verge of bawling, and immediately they decide he's their new best friend. They never stop being delightful in every conceivable way. (Teh, meanwhile, has a bunch of new acting friends, and we will get to one of them right about…now.)

So the first episode wasn't so bad. In the second one, we get a little timeskip as Teh and Oh-aew are settling into their college era, and we get a new challenge: employment. Teh and Oh-aew both want to be actors, so they head to a casting call with Teh's friend Khim (whomst we stan) to see about getting one of them commercial roles. Teh does a great job, but Khim looks too mature for her part, and Oh-aew is too femme, and the commentary they get during their auditions cuts. Khim has a good long cry about it, but then steels her resolve and basically says she's willing to do however many auditions it takes to get a role. Oh-aew, on the other hand, immediately sees the writing on the wall, and he knows deep down this is not the path for him. When he tells Teh, who is still fantasizing about them one day doing a show together, it blows up into a whole thing. Teh accuses Oh-aew of being indecisive and quitting after only one try, unlike Khim, who never quits (put a pin in it!). Oh-aew stands his ground. (Good for him!) They fight a bit, but they eventually communicate like two adults in a healthy relationship ought to, and everything is fine (…put a pin in that too). I like that we get incisive commentary on how women and gender non-conforming men are treated by the entertainment industry, and while that thematic aspect is mostly contained to this episode, its consequences certainly are not. Also, remember that time i said Teh loved that Khim never gives up on her dreams? Surprise! He blows up at her for becoming a flight attendant, because (shocker) he still harbors lingering resentment for Oh-aew changing his career plans, which surely won't bubble to the surface again. (Khim, by the way, handles this all with a surprising amount of compassion and grace. Couldn't be me.) We also get more of Oh-aew and his new friends here, hanging out and having a good time. Love them.

What could possibly go wrong?

Midway through IPYTM, we get a new play-within-a-play, and it's getting meta: Jai is directing a play he wrote called (wait for it) I Promised You the Moon, a story about the slow collapse of a relationship. (Here we fuckin' go.) Teh and Oh-aew are now a couple years into their relationship, and Oh-aew has bright red hair and a new vibe, leaving Teh feeling a bit cold, which means it's nearly time for him to be a chaos demon again. This time, though, Oh-aew also gets up to some chaos demon antics of his own, a character development that i love for him. This is also, unfortunately, the arc where Teh where fucks up the hardest.

Let's start with some fun news: Plug and Maengpong are dating now! They are a Z-couple to the overall plot at best, but still. Good for them, and also good for Oh-aew lucking into a queer friend group. And Teh does recruit Oh-aew, now a marketing student, into helping promote Jai's new play! So they're connecting both of their strengths and interests in a mature way without bulldozing or sniping at each other! They even have unsettling, Jai-orchestrated sex!

Unfortunately, things start to snowball. Oh-aew has a huge project with the Q-crew, who are all also in marketing, and Teh, feeling distant and jealous, suddenly has extra time to spend hanging around Jai (derogatory), who is stringing Teh along to try to coax a believable romantic performance out of him in his play. Teh's resentment bubbles to the surface again (who could've seen this coming?) and he mocks Oh-aew for changing majors again at dinner, where Khim catches a few strays. Oh-aew gets suspicious of Teh and reads his private acting log (a little chaotic and girlboss of him, i think), and then catches him and Jai making out in an…acting workshop. Teh and Jai convince him, somehow, that there's no deeper meaning to it. Oh-aew believes it, mostly, and Jai means it, mostly, but you know who doesn't? Teh, who continues chasing Jai like a lost dog. All of this culminates in a final longing glance from Teh to Jai, which Oh-aew obviously sees, because Teh does it right in front of him, and their relationship finally crumbles under the weight of the everything. Big oof. All of this happens so frenetically over the course of two episodes that it's hard to catch a breath, particularly when the suspense builds to Teh getting caught. Oh-aew and Teh have a sobbing, bawling, messy final breakup conversation at the Q-crew hangout, where Oh-aew finally puts his foot down, and Teh is forced to walk out of his life for good. (You don't even need to put a pin in this one, we're already there.)

And thus we arrive at the finale of the saga, the last episode of IPYTM. We have a respectable final timeskip of a year or so from the chaos, and Oh-aew is thriving. Even though he's still got some residual feelings for Teh, they have mostly mellowed into bittersweet but distant fondness. Love that for him; it doesn't last. Teh, on the other hand, runs into Oh-aew at work one (1) time and finds his chaos demon heart completely undone (on brand), so much so that he writes the THIRD play-within-a-play (i have been blessed) of their relationship, which he calls (wait for it) I Told Sunset About You. He (of course) invites Oh-aew to the premiere without telling him what the play is about, and suddenly Oh-aew's distant, residual feelings of fondness are much less distant, residual, and fond. Classic return to form! Great work, everybody.

I actually love the messy and dramatic way this last episode leads to their happy(?—we'll get to it) ending. It feels organic to the vibe of their whole story. Oh-aew asks Bass for his advice, and Bass basically tells him there's no way to know whether his happiness with Teh is guaranteed if they get back together, but clearly even being apart they aren't able to leave each other alone. Cut to Hoon and Nazumi's wedding, and Oh-aew, continuing to embrace his own inner chaos demon, shows up late, just in time to catch the bouquet. Oh-aew and Teh talk on the beach, where Oh-aew delivers a whole speech about how they are not the same people they were, and they'll keep changing forever, and Teh better be serious about loving him. At the end of the episode, Teh manages to cram in one last chaos demon moment by posting a picture of them on Instagram, a thing he is not supposed to do, and we get a montage of the reactions from all of their exasperated but supportive friends, which is a nice touch. (Tarn is doing fine! Khim and Top are dating! Jai is bathed in shadow and looks vaguely unsatisfied! Good for them.) A neat and tidy conclusion, except it isn't completely, for reasons we'll get to in a hot sec.

But before that, let's unpack some visual motifs. In much the same way as ITSAY loves a sunset, IPYTM emphasizes the full moon in several conversations between Teh and Oh-aew, indicating the cyclical nature of their relationship and their promises to each other (the moon always returns / the moon always—i / always am—the moon / returns—faithful—). We also have a callback motif to ITSAY, but tweaked slightly to keep it fresh. IPYTM gives us red vs. purple redux, but instead of red and purple hibiscus representing Teh's choice between Oh-aew and Tarn, it becomes a bit more nebulous. Red this time obviously and directly indicates Oh-aew, as his hair literally signals its narrative importance. (And, if we go all the way back to the first episode of IPYTM, we recall that Sui gives Teh and Oh-aew the red envelopes, which both directly symbolize good fortune and indirectly symbolize, through narrative context, the bond between Teh and Oh-aew in this new chapter of their lives.) Purple in IPYTM now represents Jai, and it also takes on a number of secondary associations through the play-within-a-play trope. The primary symbol Jai uses in I Promised You the Moon is aged plum wine, which is how he comes to be associated with this color, and the fact that it is fermented and left to age also suggests stagnation and decay, which is why it works symbolically within the context of the play. But outside of the play, we also learn that plum wine symbolizes the actual end of Jai's relationship. So when Teh first drinks the plum wine, all of this other information has already been bound up in his decision via the color motifs, including the context of his first struggle in ITSAY to choose between red and purple hibiscus. His infatuation with Jai and the subsequent downfall of his relationship become a narrative inevitability. Finally, there is the visual motif of the sunflowers that Oh-aew brings Teh after each play, versus the final, all-white bouquet he presents him with after the wedding. (I really wanted these to be moonflowers, but it looks to be mostly white roses. Probably budget cuts.) This represents the transition from the primacy of idealized desire (sun = sunset = desire; context of acting being Teh's dream) to the primacy of faithfulness (white = moon = cycles = return; context of the wedding) in their relationship.

IPYTM contains the same theme about the inability to unfuck the past as ITSAY, but here there is a much clearer tension between cyclical behavior and the passage of linear time. This series asks two related questions, and while one does get answered, the other remains frustratingly open. First, can we recreate the past? Yes, but only to an extent. It's what Teh spends the finale doing, and he kinda succeeds with his play in literally remaking his relationship with Oh-aew! But it cannot be the same past, because we know that past is unfuckable. It's not a reset, but a redo. The memories remain. The second question: Are we doomed to relive the past? That's the question that clearly haunts Oh-aew, and it's the question that does not have an answer, even as Teh and Oh-aew do get their (alleged) happy ending. In one sense, you cannot know whether the future will be different; in another sense, you can only know that it will not be the same. The moon always returns, and relationships will always have both good times and bad. But how the people change? Only time will tell.

And if i may briefly engage in Teh apologia (not really, it's more about theme), he's not the only heartbreaker in their story. When Teh hurts others' feelings, everybody notices, because he is usually acting brash and chaotic about it. But Oh-aew makes choices that hurt people as well, including Bass in ITSAY, Q in IPYTM, and, yes, even Teh himself. His acts are usually more deliberate, and he treats these decisions with admirable kindness and grace, but i appreciate that the narrative still allows these moments to impact others emotionally. There may be a wrong reason or a right reason to hurt someone else, or a better or worse way to do it, but all of us, at some point or another, will both give and receive that pain. We will hurt others—even ourselves—no matter how careful the choices we make.

Also, i like Teh. Yes he's a chaos demon, yes he ruins lives with his pride and his inability to let shit go, yes he's sometimes cruel. But despite the fact that he is at least one of these things at least 60% of the time that he's on screen, it never feels gratuitous. Teh is fiercely sentimental, emotionally transparent, generous and creative with his love, and his heart is a fitful, rabid thing that he doesn't fully understand. And i love Oh-aew too. He's not actually a perfect angel. He's legitimately a codependent mess who absolutely needs a real licensed therapist to talk things through with before he gives himself an aneurysm, and i'm glad he seems to be capable of growth, because lord knows he's gonna need to. And he's also incredibly kind, intuitive, and self-aware. These two are demonstrably not good for each other. They are each other's perfect match. Get ye to couple's counselling. (And quiet as it's kept, i see myself in both of them.)

TL;DR: ITSAY is a well-executed (and OVERWHELMING) television bildungsroman on its own, and LTIP packs a lot of hometown melancholy into a very small package, but for me the more balanced elements of IPYTM retroactively elevate the entire saga of Teh and Oh-aew from A-tier coming-of-age romantic drama to dynamic S-tier experience. And that's pretty fucking neat.

I had a good time, but:

My GOD is this the emotional roller coaster of a hundred lifetimes. I nearly cried twice in the FIRST episode of ITSAY and then three more times over the next four episodes. That camera does not give a SHIT about your feelings. and neither do the writers. I cannot overemphasize this point. It's a very good story overall, but my enjoyment was complicated by the fact that the narrative was as indifferent to my suffering as it was interested in its characters'.

I wish we had gotten just one scene with Teh and Tarn again in IPYTM. I have no idea what purpose it would serve except for narrative closure, but i think it would have been nice.

Character(s) entitled to financial compensation: All of them? All of them. Every character. There are a lot of devastating emotions happening here. But if i had to pick one, it's Oh-aew, without a doubt. All the other characters who get hurt by the actions of chaos demon Teh (Bass, Tarn, Khim, his mom, himself, etc.) are given enough time and space to heal by the end of IPYTM that they're more or less coping. But i genuinely have no idea if Teh and Oh-aew are going to survive the next 24 hours after the camera cuts off, let alone any fraction of a lifetime. Prayers up for Oh-aew, and may he be delivered from chaos for ever and ever. Amen.

Conclusion: This saga is a cinematic behemoth, and it deserves all the hype and acclaim it has received. By turns relentless, brooding, thoughtful, cathartic, invigorating, joyful—the story took me a thousand different places over the course of its twelve-hour run, and i will never regret having watched it. I do not know if i could handle watching it again unless i really, really needed to cry. 10/10, would recommend to the emotionally repressed.

For a series that involves far less psychological torture, please press We Best Love: No. 1 For You (2021).

#i told sunset about you #last twilight in phuket #i promised you the moon #S tier #thai drama #mine #reviews #itsay #ltip #ipytm #the only thing i could think about when i titled this post was #DO NOT SEPARATE THEM.#ipytm really ties the bow on this story please do not skip it if you watch itsay #yes you have to deal with more chaos demon shenanigans #but itsay is setup and ipytm is payoff #and it also gets funnier and gives oh-aew more room to be a whole person #and of course if you're already watching ten 60-90 minute episodes you might as well do LTIP #i left out a lot of the things about the q-crew that i love #i like the reverse custody battle for plug and maengpong when they're arguing. it's cute #i love that they all care so much about each other #where's their spinoff?#i'm kidding it would probably crush me spiritually

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