I’ve started Ball Boy Tactics, and I am regretting putting out my end of year list before watching this. Choi Jae Hyeok as Jeongwu is one of my favorite seme performances and characters I’ve ever gotten.
I love a bitchy truth-teller in a BL. How often do they get the lead role and their man, though? Only Friends’ Boston and Jun from ThamePo can attest to that fact. Jeongwu is just like them in how he calls out his ridiculous friends and cockily pursues who he’s after, but he earns his happy ending—I’m presuming; haven’t finished yet—by facing his own truths head on. He’s cocking his eyebrows in disbelief at his own jealous behavior, kicking himself over who he’s dreaming about. There’s no gaming here because he’s not lying to himself or pretending with others about his feelings. He already called himself an idiot for being so lovestruck and blind to his queerness in his head, so what’s the worst someone else could do.
Choi Jae Hyeok did NOT have to play this character with so much brass. There’s a version of this character on the page that’s flat-faced and cold, delivering his direct lines in a graceless robotic fashion. Choi’s version of the character is so warm, witty, and fluid, though. He reads the room with a quick glance and refuses the expected etiquette to address the elephant everyone’s avoiding. His ego leads but for the right reasons, unafraid to laugh when others’ conversations become absurd from being confronted by the truth.
His confidence isn’t off-putting because there’s a slight softness there, a rare quality to find in such a typically masculine seme. Earth Pirapat infuses a similar light into his masculine seme characters. When Jeongwu’s confronting a character attempting to manipulate Jiwon into performing while injured, Choi takes a beat to snap his head into a tilt. Moments of effeminate gestures like that in a seme!? It makes me giddy! And Choi finds a wealth of spots to plant these kind of physicalities, sassy and flexible, without threatening his character’s alpha status. He’s not here to protect his uke with his size and strength. He’s here to offer solidarity until the truth comes out.
