Chile, listen. Episode 11 deserves its own post because whoooo boy it was a doozy! In this episode we really get to see just how mentally and emotionally exhausted Kuea is due to all the secrets and lies. Once again, he goes to perform at Gemini’s club and right away Gemini messages Lian and tells him that Kuea will be performing and that he should come. Of course, this whole thing is a secret to Kuea.
I still really don’t understand why Gemini does this or what he and Lian’s business partnership is even supposed to be for and why. Maybe I missed it while I was watching but it all just still seems pretty sketchy to me and Gemini does not seem entirely trustworthy, especially if he is supposed to be a friend to Kuea.
But anyway, Lian shows up and Kuea performs. All of Kuea’s friends are there and Syn and the new guy’s relationship takes a huge jump in this episode because it is now very out and open that they like each other. Why, you ask??? Because ladies and gentlemen, we get another scene of yet another public make out session between Syn and his love interest. They are in the club preparing to sit down when some (possibly drunk) girl bumps into Syn, sending him careening into the guy whose name I still can’t remember, causing him to accidentally kiss him. They like, smacked faces and all that.
Syn is instantly embarrassed because he’s supposed to be a good boy Buddhist and all that, and he was already feeling uncomfortable because he was at a club and felt like he shouldn’t be. Now here he is smacking faces with a boy. So, like I said, he’s embarrassed and is all like, “omg we kissed”. And the guy is like, “boy that ain’t no kiss. This is a kiss.” And he proceeds to suck Syn’s lips off right there in the club, in front of their friends, in front of the whole club floor and everyone surrounding them.
I’m not even gonna lie to you. I skipped through this scene because I truly cannot get down with the public make out sessions. Like, my second-hand embarrassment becomes way too much to handle. And as I mentioned in my last Cutie Pie update, I’m not into voyeurism, and these public kissing scenes very much feels like voyeurism.
So anyway, they finish kissing and the rest of the friends aren’t entirely surprised lol. They seemed more shocked that this was happening publicly than anything else and simply told them to calm down and take a seat because they just got there lollll. Then Kuea performs a new song that he wrote and it’s very much a song about his feelings for Lian. He still believes that Lian does not love him and is only marrying him out of duty due to the promise he made to Kuea’s grandfather.
After Kuea sings, Lian rushes away because he doesn’t want Kuea to know that he is there. At this point Kuea still doesn’t know that Lian knows all about his true personality and still lies to him. I was feeling pretty annoyed that even after all this time, Kuea is still lying about something so simple as liking to sing and enjoying race cars. I really don’t see how either or those things can make him or his family look bad. And why on earth does he still think Lian doesn’t know? Lian literally made his house exactly how he knew Kuea would love it by building a whole music studio and putting race cars in Kuea’s room. Like, come on Kuea, you can’t be that dense!
But no matter his secrets, his mom and Lian are keeping an even bigger secret that’s way more hurtful. We find out that the Keerati business is indeed going bankrupt. The economy hasn’t been good, and their silk business is failing. The majority of their customers are old customers the grandfather used to serve and it’s not enough to keep the business going. But Kuea didn’t know this. All he knew was that he discovered Lian owning the titles to all the Keerati businesses and that he was even planning to change up the businesses entirely. He was going to change the silk business into a car showroom.
Kuea eventually confronts Lian about this, but he does it while Lian is on the phone with his mom (which he did not know). She hears the entire confrontation and then finally decides to tell her son what’s been happening.
This. Took. ENTIRELY. Too. Long.
It should not have taken basically this whole season for Kuea’s mom to tell the freakin truth! She admits that the family business is failing and that she is the one that asked Lian to take control of them, and then after he and Kuea get married, the businesses will be transferred back into the Keerati family name through Kuea since he is the one and only heir to the Keerati fortune. She claims to trust Lian and wants Kuea to listen to him.
And this bothered me! Like, whether she trusts Lian or not, she should have trusted her son. He is the heir of the family, yet he has absolutely no idea what the heck is going on within his own family due to the constant secrets and lies. His mother has lied to him soooo much even when he directly asks her what’s going on.
Lian then apologizes and tells Kuea that he really didn’t want to hurt him but was trying to find the right time to tell him. And honestly, I was rolling my eyes. This has been going on for too long. And then he wonders why Kuea still feels like he can’t be himself around him. Make it make sense!
So anyway, they makeup, but you can still see just how tired and insecure Kuea is feeling. And it doesn’t help that no one ever gives Kuea any time to process information. They expect him to just accept it like a “good boy” and move on. And to that, I say no! This is huge information. Trust in Lian and in his own mother is not just going to magically come back after all this. Kuea does not trust Lian (for good reason) and I’m not sure he entirely trusts his mother anymore either (also for good reason).
But they can’t stay too sad for long because it’s Lian’s dad’s 60th birthday, and in Chinese tradition, this is supposed to be a very big age milestone and so there is going to be a huge party. Lian also decides that he is going to propose to Kuea at his father’s celebration.
Yup. A huge celebration about his dad reaching a milestone has now become about Lian and his marriage proposal and I just…I have no words lol. Even though in the episode they say that the dad loved this idea and is super excited about it, to me it just feels wrong. This is about Lian’s dad, not him. So, making it about his elaborate marriage proposal (that Kuea knows nothing about, by the way) just feels really weird to me. It left me wondering how the party guests felt. Like, imagine going to someone’s 60th birthday party, only for there to be a marriage proposal from someone else. I would be so confused! Lol.
Anyway. At the birthday party, Lian starts singing a song to Kuea in front of everyone and you can see just how uncomfortable Kuea is. Ugh I felt so bad! Because I knew that the rejection was coming. And after Lian sang his song, got down on one knee, and asked Kuea to marry him, Kuea said no.
Omg I had to cover my face because the embarrassment was so strong for me. I was embarrassed for Kuea, I was embarrassed for Lian, I was embarrassed for Lian’s parents who were very excited about this proposal. And I was embarrassed for all of the confused guests.
This is why I firmly believe that no one should do public marriage proposals unless marriage has already been thoroughly discussed and agreed upon. No doubts. No secrets. No huge family revelations the night before. Everything needs to be absolutely certain. But this was not the case between Kuea and Lian. And why did Lian think it would be a good idea to propose anyway after the big blow up they had the night before?? It just…ugh. It was a bad choice smh.
So, Kuea tells Lian no and that he thinks it would be better if they don’t get married because he knows that Lian does not love him. He also feels that Lian does not really know him since he has been hiding his true self from him. And after taking the family businesses and essentially making Kuea feel stupid about the goings on within his own family, now he is being publicly humiliated by being proposed to in front of hundreds of strangers when they haven’t even hashed out their own issues yet. Kuea didn’t say all this, this was just my interpretation of what he did say as well as his underlying emotions.
I understood completely why Kuea rejected the proposal. And quite honestly? I would have too. But even though I understood, good grief it was still hard to watch. He ended up apologizing to Lian’s parents before completely running away, crying. The shame, the embarrassment, the confusion, the hurt from the lies, the pain from thinking the one he loves does not actually love him back. It was all just so much, and so he ran, leaving Lian standing there alone in front of all those people.
And oooommmgggg Zee is such a good actor because the way he stood there in shock and hurt, then turned back to his parents like a lost child that had absolutely no idea what to do made my heart ache so bad. The confusion and desperation were so strong I had to pause the video and take a breather myself. Zee acted this way too good because the hurt was so real.
I have absolutely no idea what I would do if I were a parent and this happened to my son. The only thing I would want to do is take away the pain and humiliation which is completely impossible unless I could control time. To believe that all is well in my son’s relationship, but to then get the revelation from his fiance that my son does not love him and doesn’t know who he really is, it would send my mind reeling. Like, what do you mean all is not well when my son is so clearly in love with you??? And to then see him turn back to look at me with that expression and there is absolutely nothing I can do in this moment that would even matter is just….it’s so heartbreaking.
Even though I think the proposal (especially a public one!) was a bad decision, I still felt so bad for Lian.
I now have no idea how the final episode is going to go. How can they ever come back from this? The lies and a public marriage proposal rejection. This is heavier than I thought this show would be. Sheesh.
Well, that’s all for right now. Only one more episode to go and I’m nervous yall.
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