BLISS RATING: ★★★★+
“That’s the thing about love. It doesn’t leave you because you told it to go. It simply stayed quiet, bleeding out from the pain, still praying you wouldn’t let it slip away.” – Brittany C. Cherry-quotestats.com
I must admit that this is one of the best named BL series ever. It has such an encompassing name that it is hard to forget. It is quite poetic. I just wish the actual series lived up to the title. Well, let me clarify that. It does; and yet, it does not. It is a breeze; I am just not so sure about the love.
Admittedly, it is an intriguing story made unnecessarily complicated. Two guys good at basketball in high school were friends. One falls in love with the other but becomes possessively jealous of him when he thinks he is paying too much attention to other guys. So, in the usual teenage immature yet I am right mode, transfers to another school, thus ending on a bitter note whatever chance for a budding romance there was. Lesson learned? For sure.
Fast forward a few years, when Ban Dong Wook (Shin Jeong You) who made the infamous decision to leave the high school, returns to the same college that his first love is now the captain of the basketball team. Lee Do Hyun (Woo Ji Han) is fixated and passionate about basketball. Being down a player, the Coach of the team, Kim Hye In (Lee Seo Bin) had been friends with Dong Wook and persuades him to try out for the basketball team, since he had been a very good forward before. For sure at this initial stage, both have bitter feelings towards each other, yet there is also an concealed bond between the two.
Dong Wook continues to suffer from severe insomnia, and he learned from his high school days that the only cure for this was to be near and with Do Hyun. So, he makes a bet with him that if he wins the big game and scores 20 points, he must grant him his wish; which he does fulfill.
While not exactly smooth sailing initially, the two begin to reignite their relationship and Dong Wook realizes his profound mistake he made. Unfortunately, he makes the same mistake, yet again. Rather than being candid, honest, and communicating openly his reasons for wanting to live with Do Hyun, Do Hyun finds out that all he wants him for is for is to be his ‘human sleeping pill’. And to use people and to play with people’s emotions was just being a ‘jerk’ again, as before.
Devastated, Dong Wook desperately explains that yes, he can fall asleep with him, but he can fall asleep with him because he is in love with him and Do Hyun makes him feel safe and wanted and needed. He was wrong in high school and wanted to not make the same mistake again, yet here he is making the same mistake, yet again. It is his love that he wants and desires. And he ruins it, perhaps irreparably.
Who really S.T.O.L.E. this series? Two supporting cast stand out here really deserve distinction. One is Woo Ji Han as the Captain of the basketball team. Her presence is just what this series needed. She gave it animation, life, and a human quality that is really lacking here. She brings life to everyone around here and shows and displays a commitment to the sport she is coaching, as well as to her players. She projects power and leadership and respect, and it shows. Yet, she is also astute enough to know what is going on. Never interfering, yet also trying to be as supportive in a very quiet unobtrusive way. Her players respect her authority and position, and it is all based upon her projection of who she is as an individual. The second person who struck me with such quiet fortitude is Do Hyun’s friend, Yang Seung Joo (Kim Hyun Jae). Always by his side, he has such an unrequited love for Do Hyun with Do Hyun never realizing or recognizing it at all. The one who does is Kim Hye In and of course Dong Wook. Do Hyun, while wanting Do Hyun, knows he can never have him as he senses and understands that Do Hyun is in love with Dong Wook. He makes the magnanimous decision and fateful one to give the direction to Dong Wook as to where Do Hyun is so they can talk; knowing full well the inevitability of that talk. That was good writing and very good acting to not give away overtly what he was truly feeling; yet we knew. The series did an homage to him, which normally I would have found patronizing or corny, but worked in this case. They teased in the end that Yang Seung Joo now may have a new spark in his life that happened serendipitously. Let us hope so. He deserves one.
This is a great series, unquestionably. It could have been a masterpiece, however. What it lacked was an impact. The two main characters played their parts just a little too unemotional and flat to the point it all seemed a bit too robotic. More so on the part of Shin Jeong You as Dong Wook. He reminded me of Spock from Star Trek but with even less humor than Spock. I have a difficult time with series who try so hard to be emotionless in its approach to intimacy and love. I can appreciate it in all areas outside of that but when it is carried to that extreme, I think it is due to a lack of originality on the part of the director.
I can accept lack of communication which is a staple in almost ALL BLs universally and especially in Korean BLs, but the lack of emotional responses even when alone, is something I simply do not understand. We get glimpses and peeks of it, so I know it can exist. The stoicism of certain characters in BLs is bothersome and the shutdown of displaying emotions does not seem to be a healthy alternative. Romance almost becomes something you do grudgingly. That should never be.
Nonetheless, this is an impressive series, and I enjoyed it. But simply found the major characters too unrelatable in their stoicism.
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