✧ 함께라서 웃을 수 있고 ✧

Some things do not need to be spoken aloud. Some answers are better left quiet, unannounced, because we already know them, deep down.

Krailert's eyes finding Naran the last time they ever saw each other

A man of such fine feeling, who stands for what is right and lives by honour, who sacrifices his own life without question — now is fated to exist in a living hell.

He starts composing again and playing the piano in his home, instead of just at the Grand Paradiso or at the library. He is at the lowest he can possibly be, but he will live, and his pain and his hope are immortalised in the one thing that has always been there for him, which is music. He is forced to hide who he is and what he wants in life, but he has experienced love, and joy, and despite that being torn away from him it will not be forgotten, because he channels it into his art.

Just like Trin composing his feelings of melancholy reminiscence into music, Naran taking adoring photographs of the man he loves, Tanwa finally processing his grief and fear in finishing his mother's novel, Tanwa and Trin expressing their love together in painting and even Dhevi, directing her feelings of frustration and desire for control into her sewing and plant cultivation, Krailert uses his art to feel and express when the world around him makes it almost impossible to do in any other avenue.

First, how inescapably they nailed the story into our own history. Having Tiva working with students preparing to protest in 1971, knowing what unfolds in the 70s in Thailand, was like a punch to the gut. And then at the very end, the focus on two old men on a beach in 2025 and a wedding ring. They took the struggles in the show and drew a clear line through to the real defeats and victories that have come since then... and an implied line forward into the real defeats and victories that our current struggles will see. It was exactly the infusion of hope and realism I needed right now in this historical moment.

Can you see the road ahead? What does it look like?

I'm Klai Rung, pleased to meet you in person. Sa-ra-sa-wa-dee, not pleased at all.

SON YUKE as KRAILERT SUWANNAPHAT

the time when they communicated through the newspaper was the only time the readers - and us watchers - knew about them, about their love. that was their moment of freedom, where they could be themselves openly (while hiding at the same time).

those letters are the only tangible proof of their love. the rest was theirs, and only theirs. notes hidden in books, hook-ups in places only them knew about, stolen glances and touches at public gatherings. us, as watchers, were welcomed into such intimate moments because we saw them through naran's or krailert's eyes. not through ours.

when their love was torn apart, in such sudden and wretched way, they had no choice but to stop writing on that newspaper who gave them a voice even when they knew they had to stay quiet. this blocked the way for readers to keep learning more about them, and consequently, us watchers couldn't know anything more about them either.

naran and krailert might still be alive, but their true selves - sarasawadee and klai rung - died. how are we supposed to see life through dead people's eyes?

we've been cut out from their story. we can't see it anymore, not through a newspaper, nor through their own eyes.

My response to Krai Rung.

How exquisite it is, to feel the warmth of a heart that beats in time with ours. And you, dear readers--do you have someone whose hand you wish to hold for as long as the world will allow? If you have found that person, grasp their hand tightly, and never let it slip away.

And you, dear readers — do you have someone whose hand you wish to hold for as long as the world will allow? If you have found that person, grasp their hand tightly, and never let it slip away. For even if it is a love that must remain hidden, it still grants us a moment to ask ourselves — in this tangled, unyielding world, can we still offer a touch, and an acceptance without condition, to just one soul?

Sarasawadee’s letter as far as I can make it out- and there is stuff missing. (Thai natives please correct me if I am wrong! I am still learning and had to rely on google translate for some words and parts!)