I wanted to wait until I had processed the ending of this drama before reviewing it. The emotional investment I had in these boys and their story stopped me from writing down coherent sentences at first. But here we are, a week later!

For the first few episodes, we see a fairly regular (and wonderfully done) set-up between an A+ student with a poor background and a rebel with a soft heart. I must say, I really fell head over heels for both boys and how soft they are with each other. How much happier Shigu became after gradually letting Haoting inside his heart and life. Haoting shouting from the rooftops how much he loves Shigu...

The promising flow of this story was what disappointed me and resulted in a lower score overall after the last episode aired. Having Shigu die, off camera, and fast forward 6 years felt like a cheap trick for making the audience cry. An ending can be sad without being disliked. This was just bad writing.

Why not let Shigu be sick from the get-go and let the audience experience them fighting-perhaps even losing the fight, but alongside them? Why not show us what happened on that god-awful day and watch Haoting pick up the pieces of his life and move on? Both would have been a lot more powerful in my opinion. And both Wei En and Juan Zhi could have carried that as actors.

I think the decision to take Hao Ting's incredible love for Shigu and make it so he seems stuck at 18, broken and unable to move on, too much. The LGBTQ community has had enough of those sad and useless endings, dramas don't have to be lifelessons. They don't have to have the shock-factor this writer aimed for. Sure, we were shocked. But also pissed off. And I was unable to even talk about it because I was so upset that a poor boy who finally found love and warmth got ran over by a car we didn't even see. One of Haoting's lines at the end even insinuates he'll go climb the highest mountain in the world and die there to be with Shigu again. Healthy image for queer romance? I think not. Sometimes it's okay if dramas wrap everything up in a little bow, making people happy can be just as powerful as making them cry.

I guess in the end, this was not what I signed up for when I started this and therefor I cannot stop my emotional reaction of giving it a lower rating. I do wish for the actors involved to get more work and recognition through this, as it is thanks to their performance that the ending hurt so much and the happiness made my heart soar.

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I'd like to note that I have a harder time watching Thai dramas/lakorns because the romance does not appeal as much to me. I really enjoyed these two in their other drama (I Wanna Be a Sup'tar) so I decided to check this out.

Overall story started out promising. The female lead feels relatable (to me) as a single woman getting closer to the 'marriage appropriate age' barrier and not wanting to be pushed into a relationship. She keeps her character throughout the story, just slowly learns that the male lead might just fit into her life after all. For me, it had a little too much of the side-storylines which dragged the whole thing down in timing. Although there need to be side-stories to feed the main story, not all of these side-stories need to get as much screentime as they did.

HOWEVER; I enjoyed watching this drama a lot. Would rewatch again, although I'll probably skip the side-storylines the next time. The main couple's chemistry is what makes this story shine. I really love friends to lovers dramas, and this one felt like a healthy relationship (which, in my experience is not always the case with lakorns) so I can't say I didn't enjoy this.

Also sidenote: HER OUTFITS IN THIS ARE SO FREAKING AMAZING!! The stylist here did a stellar job.

SPOILERS BELOW
What I wanted to see here was them going from:
- Strangers to good friends: Check! Even talking about what's bothering them, feelings and general chitchat without implying the romance immediately. Enjoyed the set-up a lot.
- Friends to crushes: Check! Subtle hints of them starting to like each other more and more.
- Crushes to... Married couple? This is where they lost me. I felt like; With 26 episodes we should have gotten a lot more of the romance build-up towards this inevitable marriage question. Both, if not her a bit more, are un-eager to jump into marriage at the beginning and YET with family related circumstances changing, they rush into it.

This felt like it was a last hurdle created to have some sort of conflict at the end. But in reality, the fact that he wants to marry her and she's unsure is conflict in and of itself. I feel like the writers could have built on that premise and then shown her opening up to the idea over the course of a few episodes.

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It seems I'm one of a few who didn't enjoy the drama as much as I'd have liked to.  The drama is shot beautifully and everything looks cool and slick. Park Hae Jin was an excellent choice, as was the villain and sidecharacters.

My issue is that it focused 30% of its story on a romance that appeared out of thin air. I never connected with them as a couple in love and never really understood why Agent K would fall for this particular woman. Strangely, I don't dislike the female character, I just do not see any chemistry and missed out on the leading-up-to the romance.

I will talk about it more below, but I want to intersect by saying: this is still a good drama to watch for action fans. Just ignore the romance and you'll be fine. The rest all works very well. The humor isn't making anything ridiculous and the action is fastpaced and cool. Definitely a drama I would want to use in a youtube edit. It's just not at all a romance drama.

Near the middle, roles have been assigned and some secrets have been revealed, and Agent K reveals part of his identity to save the girl he - apparently? - likes. However, I don't know if he really does, or if it leads up to a bigger plan by then. Maybe Park Haejin wasnt allowed to display hearteyes? Maybe the writer focused so much on making the action drama well thought out and only decided to add romance (to please more people) near the end so it wasnt fleshed out. Either way, I don't connect with it at all. I can understand the trope and I would have loved it if it was written better but in this case I don't see how she goes from "who is this dude" to "let me hold your hand and love you forever".  Everything sure does look good though. (Except the girl's hair. Why oh why would you do that)

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Kim Seulgi is always amazing, I absolutely love her.

But even if you're not a fan of her as I am, this drama is such a great mini-drama. I loved it because it was sweet and plain fun to watch. The humor was subtle, chemistry abound between the leads, lovely romance and good pace. It was a simple storyline, but it was brought to life by the actors in a way not every actor could manage. I'm almost sad it only had 2 episodes, but it felt right.


{SPOILER}
A bit of an icky ending though, because the reincarnation thing never really makes me happy. It feels like a cheap cop-out somehow. But it doesn't take away from a lovely drama!

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aka "shan shan comes to eat" which she does. A lot! & I love her for it. She is adorable, sweet & likeable. She was easy to root for, without being the dumb candy-girl a lot of dramas have. He is cold at first but genuinely cares for her, plus he's never mean to her. I find that with cold male leads, they often bring their counterpart down. Feng Teng never does, which was just icing on an already very sweet cupcake!

Their relationship is really fun to watch. I didn't care for his female friend who was in love with him, but the story needed some sort of conflict I guess. Besides that, most of their struggles felt real, their problems did make sense and together they were always a perfect match. It's definitely a palette cleanser, nothing too serious, but what a great drama to watch.

New favourite!

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I see a lot of people reviewing this drama poorly, so I wanted to share my two cents.

SUMMARY:
The drama tells the story of Sarawat and Tine. Tine wants to get rid of a boy who's chasing after him so him and his friends decide that he'll get the most popular, mysterious boy at school (Sarawat) to pretend to be his boyfriend. Sarawat agrees to help him and they end up falling in love. With a twist; What Tine doesn't know, is that Sarawat actually fell for Tine at first sight at a concert a few years ago.

REVIEW:
I really loved this series as a whole. The tone of this story is very sweet and funny. The actors did an amazing job. The music plays a big role in this and I really loved the soundtrack as well as the original songs by the actors. The editing is a bit choppy, which sometimes takes away from the emotional impact a scene can have. The writing itself could have been better.

I am a little sad we didn't get more intimacy. I'm not talking kisses, but seeing them being boyfriends, eating together, holding hands, listening to music, going on a date maybe? or something in that regard. High fives are fine, just maybe not after you cried over your boyfriend and moved out your stuff? The grand gesture of the song was wonderful though, I just think this series started off really strong and therefor people's expectations only got higher. But that doesn't mean it was bad.

Like everyone else I was a bit disappointed the last two episodes were spent on a rushed "hurdle" for our main couple because after the stargazing scene in episode 11 I don't think there was any reason for Tine to doubt Sarawat's love. It might have been a better fit to make the Pam arc and the "your smile" song arc in the same episode. Then the stargazing scene would have been the finale.

What also could have worked is seeing more of Sarawat's perspective. Like I get that Tine doubting him could really weigh on him and that might have been an interesting hurdle for them if they really wanted to create one. I guess in the end, the story itself has some plot holes and near the end Sarawat acted a bit out of character (not going to see Tine in the hospital ? Turning away to sleep while Tine's upset in bed? Episode 11 Sarawat would never.) purely for ~drama.

All in all, I enjoyed this series a lot. Bright and Win did so well. I'm really happy they were Sarawat and Tine and I can't wait to see what they do next. I will definitely rewatch this and will always remember it fondly.

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Great story about every part of our little group of friends. Brings back the same spark as the earlier seasons did in its own way.

Really well made, lovely acting and all around fun to watch. They pushed it a little with the length of each episode. Faster pace and some scene-cutting could have done wonders. Of course, I was in the wrong boat (Damn it junghwan!!) so in the end I felt a bit cheated personally. So close, yet so far... Damn you, second lead syndrome!

Watching this live really does you in. I wouldn't rewatch, but I'll always remember its magic.

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Honestly.. I was so into this drama, the main couple, the acting, the pretty directing, lovely OST,.. But it all falls flat because the storylines were all over the place.

Everything was focused too long on being "set up" and "leading up to". Then when everything was good it lasted for a quick second only to fall apart again.
Will be good to edit to, but what a mess to watch!

Acting was on point, however. IU was pretty and just subtle enough. Lee Jun Ki takes the cake here, I feel like he really gave it his all. Very powerful, sad, yet sometimes light and sweet, his character really lived through it all. I should have known it would break my heart, as I've read the story online beforehand, but I was hoping, with the changes made already, that the story would be directed and/or written better.

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