November 27, 2021

My dearest,

We went to Phuket together, finally. We walked on the sandy beach at Nai Harn, the sun soft and the waters gentle; we strolled past houses that astounded us with their familiar Peranakan architecture.

Phuket, at last.

You have wondered about this place after we watched I Told Sunset About You last year. The first episode had come out when we busy packing and planning for your return to Bangkok; by the time the finale aired, we were in two different countries… and we’d stay that way for a year and a week.

See, I had told the sunset about you and the sunset was envious. What a catch I had caught, more precious than diamonds and rubies caught in a fisherman’s fine mesh net. What a love to last all time, more epic than all the K-dramas and Bollywood blockbusters.

But what sunset, however beautiful, however glorious, would envy us apart, separated by so many miles and tormented by so many memories?

Yet here we were together again, hand in hand, strolling on sandy beaches and walking past old Peranakan houses. We were in Phuket. So much we could do, so much to catch up on. A year of our lives, surely, more.

In the end, what we didn’t do seemed to matter even more.

We didn’t go to the Sangtham Shrine where Teh and O-aew burned joss sticks and stared into each other’s eyes (and not for the last time either). We didn’t hike to Promthep Cape to see the sun dip beneath the ocean.

We didn’t eat any Hokkien mee, the noodles Teh’s mother sold from their shophouse (we walked past the kopitiam they used, its loud orange brick walls and grass green doors announcing that this was where Teh stood in his school uniform and motorbike helmet, forever looking perplexed).

It didn’t matter. We were together and whatever we did or didn’t do was perfect. Our company and our conversations were all we needed. We had each other; what more could we ask for?

I have a light in my life brighter than the stars and the moon. I have such happiness – and you the one who made me so – that the sunset can only envy, entirely awestruck and applaud. Well done, the sunset says. Excellent choice.

Which was how I congratulated you when you selected the glutinous rice cake and kaya flavour at the ice cream parlour at Soi Rommanee. It was savoury and sweet, with a bit of surprising chew in every spoonful.

I was less lucky. I chose the o-aew sorbet, as a nod to O-aew, but the shaved ice and red kidney beans and red syrup probably worked better in its original form.

No matter. This was the closest we came to recreating some scene from I Told Sunset About You like when Teh and O-aew enjoyed this dessert with their friends at The Memory at On On Hotel. (We might have passed that too, but who could pay attention to hotel façades when they could pay attention to you?)

We drank coconut water and we inhaled the fragrance of hibiscus blossoms. We traced the path of Teh and O-aew’s jog along Soi Thalang. We wandered the streets of Old Phuket Town at night, the lights strewn from the rooftops like stars in the sky.

I told the sunset about you and the sunset was curious. How did I hold on to such a good man, such a wonderful person? I could be glib and say I’m a good man too, a most wonderful person – who wouldn’t be lucky to have me too?

But the truth is, and I know this, I am the one who got lucky. I am the one who is blessed. Well done, the sunset says. Excellent choice.

Yours, ever and always.