My feelings on this one are quite conflicted. While the initial mind games and manipulation provide a strong start, the series eventually devolves into a repetitive, confusing slog that caused me to mentally check out. Furthermore, the BL angle feels like an afterthought when measured against the larger story the show is pursuing. Rather than delivering a standard romance, the narrative leans into much darker territory, constructing relationships centered on power dynamics, trauma, and significant emotional imbalance. While I can see this concept succeeding if a creator fully committed to it as a proper drama, my personal patience simply ran out. With each episode lasting around seventy minutes and a total of ten episodes, it is a lot to ask of any viewer.
The story centers on two main characters, Vier and Kelvin. As the polished and calculating heir to the VPG group, Vier is a confident man accustomed to winning. Kelvin is his complete opposite: an ignored son from a rival family who must constantly outmaneuver his own relatives just to survive, living under a father who offers no love and an older half brother who treats him like hired help. Rather than just developing feelings for Vier, Kelvin studies and becomes fixated on him, predicting his moves before eventually pulling him into his web. It is clear early on that Kelvin has something planned. The entire story is carried by the underlying tension of the fact that neither man is truly what he seems. The show moves between the present and a year earlier, tracing how Kelvin and Vier first teamed up in business and slowly fell for one another. After a business situation causes Vier to relocate to Chiang Mai, the timeline shifts to the present, where Vier wakes up to find he has been kidnapped and locked away by Kelvin, who has zero intention of letting him go. As the cast expands, the plot thickens with the arrival of Kelvin’s older brother Ken and his wife, the wife’s secret girlfriend who is covertly working for Vier, and the wife’s brother, who has another brother who is close with Vier and has gone missing. The show is fueled by the back and forth business dealings and the mysteries of why Vier had to run, why he is being held prisoner, and what Kelvin is actually planning.
The show’s structure is its most significant flaw; the constant jumping between timelines does far more harm than good, wrecking the pacing and muddying the emotional beats instead of building mystery. While you can follow the surface-level plot, the lack of continuity makes it difficult to actually feel anything. By around episode four, I had completely lost the thread of the actual story. Kelvin is a character driven by warped emotions and obsession, and while watching that unfold is gripping and unsettling, I never connected with him, especially since the actor maintains a permanent expression of exasperation. Vier, on the other hand, seemed so clueless that I found myself questioning how he manages to run an entire company. Although both characters undergo major arcs, many of their choices feel like they exist because the plot requires them rather than feeling organic, meaning their development doesn’t feel earned. The experience is shaped by a dark romance angle that deliberately crosses moral lines, but the central relationship is never romanticized; instead, it feels rooted in emotional damage, dependency, and control rather than real affection. Because I watch many Asian BLs expecting romance to be the focus, a show with a legitimate storyline but barely any actual romance feels like a bait and switch, and it honestly felt like there was way more GL content than BL. This made it very tough for me to stay engaged with the show at all.
The fundamental issue lies with the story, which ultimately collapses under its own weight. Because the plot becomes weak and inconsistent, maintaining any emotional investment is difficult. While the two leads still offer a bit of charm, their acting certainly required more polish, particularly during the heavier scenes. This one is skippable. (4/10)
