TL;DR Version:
While trying to work out his crush on Ink, Pat begins to get caught up in his feelings for Pran. Slowly becoming more and more jealous of Pran’s relationship with his friend Wai, things come to a head at the music competition where Pran plays a song he and Pat wrote together. Unable to leave things alone, Pat confronts Pran about their relationship and they kiss on the rooftop.
Recap:
Pat wakes up and apparently can’t tell the difference between food cooking or a fire. Despite last night’s heartbreak, Pran seems okay to be back to bickering like usual. He even lets Pat stay in his dorm when he has to go to school, after only saying “no” once.
Pat snoops around Pran’s place shamelessly, but eventually leaves when Pran calls for help getting a file from his desktop. Pat isn’t trying to hide anymore and nearly gets caught, but Pran manages to keep their cover. There’s more bickering, and what I have to call sniff-flirting from Pat, who is caught wearing Pran’s shirt.
Ink though, finds them easily enough, teasing the pair of them. Pran leaves first, and is still unhappy seeing Ink and Pat together. On their own, Ink and Pat have dinner at the place Pat and Pran had dinner in an earlier episode.
Later, Pat’s sister Pa is happy to encourage and advise him on dating Ink, who she approves of. This extends to joining the two of them for pastries and pre-arming Pat with a list of signs that Ink will give if she’s interested in Pat. Ink doesn’t show any of them.
Pat bails on them to pick up drumsticks from the music store. There he runs into Pran. After bickering a bit, Pat realizes that he’s displaying all the signs Pa mentioned, just with Pran. Including being jealous when Pran talks on the phone with someone and asking if he’s dating anyone.
Pat is not the smiling cocky Pat of the last few episodes. After getting advice from a friend, he pushes into Pran’s room again to further explore his feelings. For his efforts he ends up more jealous of Pran’s friend Wai. Pran is confused by Pat’s weird behavior.
Pat flashbacks on when he and Pran came up with the song they sang at the disastrous Christmas Party together. Pran was writing a song about them, though Pat was maybe missing that it wasn’t just inspiration. Pran decides the focus should be hesitation, and Pat takes credit for co-writing.
In the present, Pa mistakes Pat’s introspection for thinking about Ink. She encourages him to keep trying, but also catches his lack of enthusiasm and wonder if he likes someone else. He denies it.
Music competition time. The engineers do their song off screen, but we get the entire performance by Pran. Pat looks like his heart is breaking as he thinks about the Christmas concert. On stage Pran is singing and interacting with Wai.
Post concert, Pat confesses to Ink. Only, it’s not really a confession and Ink knows it and Pat knows it too. Ink teases him, but also says she can tell something is on his mind and she’ll be there for him.
The architecture group wins the music competition and a moody Pat takes his group away rather than fight. Pran looks worried.
Pat’s bad mood seems to be more about the song and his jealousy over Wai than losing. He waits on campus for Pran, and is upset to see him arrive drunk on the back of Wai’s scooter. Even drunk, Pran fights Pat to keep his cool and not spill everything to Wai, while the more sober Pat doesn’t care. This isn’t cute bickering, feelings are upset. Clueless Wai tries to defend Pran and punches are exchanged. Pran separates the two and stomps off.
After thinking in the shower, Pat tries to find Pran again. He finds him on the roof. Without Wai around they get to the meat of the fight. Pat is hurt he sang the song with Wai. Pran is confused because they aren’t even supposed to be friends. Pat says he was glad when Pran was gone because he didn’t have to leave, but he was also depressingly lonely.
Pat wants to know what to call their relationship. They’re both crying. Pran wants to know if Pat wants them to be friends. Pat says no. And then they kiss. And kiss again.
When it’s over Pat is smiling, but Pran is still crying and leaves. Pat seems lost in thought, leaning against the rails.
Thoughts:
Back when this is airing I remember the online excitement over the roof scene and now I totally get why. It’s why this recap is longer than I want it to be.
But first, after two episodes of seeing Pran’s longing, we got to be with Pat’s feelings for almost the entirety of this one. It’s definitely interesting to see how he dealt with them by comparison. Pran got jealous and gave up. Pat got jealous and got angry. And it’s his confrontational attitude that forced them to finally talk about their feelings.
Pa and Ink get awesome awards. Too often the women in Thai BLs can be either horrible monsters or aggressively pushing the men to date without regard to their feelings. While Pa and Ink are side characters they are also realistic, kind people. Pa is a supportive but annoyed sister who thinks her brother likes this cool girl. Ink isn’t interested in Pat and she knows he’s not really interested in her, and she’s willing to help him when he wants to talk. I enjoy both their scenes.
And yeah, the roof scene. I get why Bad Buddy got so much love and attention. It is a silly romcom in some ways with the goofy fighting between the two departments. But that roof scene, after the build up of Pran and Pat’s feelings, with both of them struggling with their pasts and what they want now and in the future, it was well written and well acted and gave me the kind of intense feelings of longing that I want when I watch a show.