Love Like A Bike (Thai Series)

This BL follows three guys who got adopted and grew up as brothers, and their bond runs just as deep as if they actually shared blood. Like you'd guess, the oldest brother's storyline gets the most focus and ends up being the central one, but the other two brothers and their romances still add plenty to the overall story. Biking seems to be the underlying theme tying things together, though it fades into the background a lot, leaving room for these quieter moments where each brother finds love in his own way and his own time. It runs eight episodes, each around 50 to 55 minutes long.

Sailom is studying at university in the US and comes back to Thailand for a short trip to Phuket, where he ends up randomly meeting a soft spoken doctor named Nabnueng. The two hit it off right away, but Nabnueng quickly picks up on the fact that Sailom deals with aphenphosmphobia, meaning he can't handle being touched by anyone at all, not even close friends. What's strange is that he doesn't react badly when Nabnueng touches him. As they get closer, Nabnueng starts learning about the abuse Sailom went through as a kid at his father's hands, and he helps him get proper treatment for it. The second brother, Tawan, used to be a pilot and now bakes at the cafe he helps his mom run. One night he hooks up with a guy named Dindin, and the next day, surprisingly, Dindin shows up as the new baker at the cafe. Tawan can't stand him at first, constantly picking at everything he does wrong, and the two of them even get into physical fights sometimes, but it always ends with them sleeping together. Tawan and his mom end up helping Dindin out of a financial mess he's in, while Dindin helps Tawan work through the guilt he's been carrying from his piloting days, when a crash he was involved in cost a lot of lives. The youngest brother is Sky, a popular host at a bar who's all about spreading happiness to everyone as long as it stays surface level and doesn't touch his actual heart. Naturally, that changes when he starts getting close to a client named Nava. Nava's innocent, genuine personality catches Sky's attention, and before long the two of them are officially dating. Later on it comes out that Nava has cancer, though it's treatable, and we follow the two of them through that whole journey together.

Each of these three couples gets their own distinct arc. The show clearly puts the most weight behind Sailom and Nabnueng's story, and they really do make an adorable pair. They're easy to root for, and Sailom does a solid job portraying the lingering effects of the sexual abuse he went through as a kid. I appreciated that the show made sure Nabnueng wasn't the one actually treating him medically and instead had him refer Sailom to someone else. Tawan and Dindin's relationship, meanwhile, is intense and steamy, and it comes with its own share of shady characters since Dindin's in deep financial debt. That debt situation ends up fueling most of the dramatic moments across the eight episodes, with the whole family banding together to fend off some pretty ruthless debt collectors. Does any of it hold up to real world logic? Not particularly, but this is a BL, so pretty much anything goes. Sky and Nava's storyline is honestly the weakest of the three, but it still works fine overall. The sudden appearance of Nabnueng's birth mother asking for help felt like it could've been skipped, but it didn't really bother me, and it actually reinforces the idea of how these three adopted brothers built their own family unit alongside their mom. The kidnapping subplot involving a little girl near the end felt like a bit much though, and honestly could've been left out entirely. That part just felt like unnecessary drama for the sake of drama. Overall, this was a decent enough watch. (6.5/10)