It was when these words were spoken that I realised this series won't be entertaining anymore.
This was a hotchpotch of all the different ideas or tropes that you can imagine a generic love story can have. And the same ideas were contradicted by subsequent scenes.
1. Rivals to Lovers: The series starts with showcasing how the two protagonists (Mangkorn and Yai) are womanizers and are eyeing to get the same girl. They meet and try to one-up each other leading to a drinking competition and ending with spending a passionate night together a result of spiked drinks. Strangely the glasses of both the leads were spiked which made me wonder is it still rape when both are under the influence of drugs albeit due to the clumsiness of one of the male lead's bodyguards? After coming to their senses, Mangkorn keeps annoying Yai by bringing up that night and the recording that he possesses. He practically blackmails him to be his friend and in no time they fall in love. But in the later episodes we are told that Mangkorn liked Yai for a long time. So there was no reason for antagonising Yai.
2. Female Love Interest: Mangkorn's dad wants him to get married to his friend's daughter Hong. This plot is introduced while Mangkorn is trying to win Yai over. It made for an intersting twist as we now have a potential love traingle. This plot is later destroyed when we are introduced to Hong's girlfriend. So there was never a love triangle to begin with and Yai losing his mind over this was for naught as it could have easily been explained to him.
3. Male Love Interest: Yai has a friend Nine who returns to Thailand and starts showing interest in Yai while he and Mangkorn are having a bit of a misunderstanding. They also show Mangkorn and Nine fighting over Yai's affection. But in the final episode we find Nine actively helping Mangkorn to stay with Yai. No reason for Nine to give up on this pursuit. But now he is helping Mangkorn and it appears that the love rivalry had no reason to be presented other than extending an episode. BTW the second season has been teased to run on the same plot of another male love interest of Yai. If its anything like what they had for this season then please have mercy.
4. Multiple couples: Other than the 2 main leads we are shown a relationship between Hong and a girl student. They have a few dialogues in the penultimate episode and then we dont see them again. Their relationship is mentioned in passing and looks like they were introduced just to resolve a minor misunderstanding between the 2 leads. They also tease us with a potential budding relationship between Yai's 2 bodyguards. But nothing comes of it and for a good number of episodes we dont get to see them on-screen at all. May be they will using this as fodder for season 2
The story needed a lot of working on to make it more coherent. Instead of the mandatory 3rd act break-up being about Hong, they should have rather concentrated on Mangkorn's plan to travel to New York for 2 years for his Master's degree. This would have helped in showing the budding romance between the 2 leads and a genuine concern of losing each other.
In conclusion, the acting by the 2 leads and the supporting characters was great. If you are a fan of enemies to lovers genre then you should go for this series.