Only Friends

Four university friends get handed a group project: plan a hostel and actually open it. Easy, right? Uff. In Only Friends (เพื่อนต้องห้าม), the hostel turns out to be the simplest thing any of them builds all year.

Mew (Book Kasidet Plookphol) has spent his whole university life with his head in his notes, and love has never made it onto his schedule. His friend Boston (Neo Trai Nimtawat) decides that has to change, so he brings in Top (Force Jiratchapong Srisang) to help with the design work. Boston expects a quick, light little spark. Instead Top falls for Mew properly and asks to be his boyfriend, which is the last thing Boston wanted to see.

Then there is Ray (Khaotung Thanawat Ratanakitpaisan), the restless, lonely heart of the group, who has loved his best friend Mew for years without saying a word. One rough night, bar singer Sand (First Kanaphan Puitrakul) ends up looking after him, and Sand starts falling for a man whose heart is already pointed somewhere else. Fair warning: you will want to shake Ray and hug Sand at the same time.

Boston, meanwhile, meets Nick (Mark Pakin Kunaanuwit), a sweet IT guy who wants a real relationship. Boston keeps everything casual and keeps his secrets close, and Nick keeps hoping for more. Namcheum, the fourth member of the project team, has a front row seat to all of it, and so does Yo, whose bar is where the group keeps ending up.

The setting matters as much as the people. The hostel is a real assignment with a real deadline, so nobody can walk away from the group, even when walking away would be easier. Every plan for the building drags the friends back into the same rooms and the same feelings they keep trying to park.

So the rules sound simple: stay friends and get the hostel finished. But every party at the hostel pulls another line out of place, and each secret sits one conversation away from coming out. The question hanging over twelve episodes is right there in the title: when the hostel finally opens its doors, who stays together, and who goes back to being only friends?

My tip: keep an eye on the friend you trust least in episode one. Your opinion of him will change at least twice.