On the surface it is a short, slow burn romance with low angst. We need to peel back some layers to find the deeper meanings.
The ML is a tortured soul whose near perfect world collapsed in short order due to his gradual loss of hearing. He doesn’t know how to deal with it, so he became withdrawn and pushed everyone away. He tried to join the deaf community but finds that he is still on the outer because he was not born deaf. He came to the sad conclusion that EVERYONE sees him as being different and there is nowhere he truly belongs.

I believe that one of the motifs of the Show is how society divide people based on many assumed and perceived criteria into different groupings. Both real and invisible barriers are here to segregate and isolate them into smaller cliques.

Our need to belong creates pressure points in our social interactions. It can be exhausting and debasing when we run into unyielding barriers. How horrible it is when you are yanked from a comfortable reality into a new one where you are confused and lost.

It was fortuitous that the ML met a kind deaf girl. She befriended him and helped him to learn the sign language. It is not acceptance but at least he can function again. Their relationship is ambiguous. The girl is clearly interested in him, but he is afraid of commitment and shows no inclination to take their relationship to the next level. The girl is happy to stay in the friend zone as she has him all to herself. However, all that changed when the ML's ex-girlfriend ran into him by accident and started a chain reaction that changes several lives.

For me, the Show is a beautifully crafted story about rediscovering love, friendship, sacrifice and the need to compromise. I don’t want to give away the plots regarding the SML and SFL but let's just say that I'm getting serious second leads syndromes by the end of the Show.

From my perspective, the first half of the Show is very well done. There are lots of backstories, raw emotions and misunderstanding before the fateful reunion. The show took its time to explore all this. It was never going to be a joyride but the writer-san skilfully weave the story back and fore along the timeline so that we know how each character arrives at their current circumstances. There were plenty of broken psyche that needs healing. They get patched up enough to keep functioning but not completely healed. The amount of baggage carried by the ensemble cast will keep a caravan of camels fully loaded.

Unfortunately, while the Show start to untie the knots and salve the troubled souls in the second half, it is a slow process. The pacing of the show becomes almost meditative.

The healing and exploring requires a lot of dialogues between the OTP and sometimes side characters. I think the writer-san wants to show how difficult communication can be even though it is based on a common language. We ended up with a mix of sign language, written words, phone apps and normal conversations. It can be slow going as the ML has to keep the signing slow and simple so that the FL can keep up. It is like watching two primary school kids trying to communicate. They do resort to writing sentences on paper when it got too complicated.

In the end, the bulk of the breakthrough came in the last episode. All the affirmations and compromises are nutted out then. Some of the best scenes are also found there.

The FL worked hard to live in his world and she cajoled the ML into compromising his unyielding stand. It is a fragile middle ground but one they can call their own.

The acting is great with a lot of depth. Without spoken words, they need to emote with their facial expression, posture and their eyes. That requires real skills.

The loveline of the OTP is sweet-bitter-sweet. It is ashame that there is almost no skinship.

I can recommend this show but you have to be in the right frame of mind to appreciate it.