There’s nothing more overwhelmingly memorable than falling in love for the first time. The terror. The excitement. The indescribable seductiveness of being near someone that makes your skin tingle.

The complicated but wholly consuming fear of realizing the person you’re curious about, the person you’re intimately attracted to, is the same sex as you.

The new Korean BL The Eighth Sense doesn’t just offer this, it throws you into the feelings.

From the moment I pushed play on the first episode, I fell.

Love is seductive, and The Eighth Sense has seduced me.

But I also get the ‘sense’ that it will hurt me.

Starring Im Ji Sub as returning student, Seo Jae Won, and Oh Jun Taek as the out-of-place university freshman, Kim Ji Hyun, The Eighth Sense is a story about two college students coming from two different walks of life who find themselves curious about each other.

And that curiosity steals the screen.

The Eighth Sense has ‘break my soul’ vibes. From the seductive wary attraction between the leads to new student Ji Hyun’s exhilarating but terrifying jump into facing his fears, an undercurrent of intense feelings laced with wonder instantly pulls you under.

And I’m ready to drown in it.

There doesn’t always need to be an epic plot full of twists and turns and big special effects to make a story stand out. For me, the best stories told are human ones. But to deliver those, you need someone who can tell a human story. Someone who understands the minute details, the little touches that convey a feeling, a stare that conveys fear and curiosity, a stolen moment that screams, “Do you see me?”

I see you, The Eighth Sense.

I love that this drama centers its romance around surfing. It feels symbolic, the parallelism of riding the waves and falling in love for the first time.

Surfing is a passionate, terrifying, and exhilarating sport that throws a person at the mercy of the waves and the sea. There’s more falling off the board, more being pulled under by the current than there is catching a wave, especially for beginners.

And isn’t that precisely what love is? It’s getting up and falling, over and over and over again. It’s being pulled under and struggling to breathe. It’s reaching for the surface and basking in the wonder of riding a wave to the shore.

For two episodes, I rode the wave of Jae Won and Ji Hyun’s curiosity in each other, their electric chemistry, and the underlying fears both of them have. I felt their need to be close to each other and the quiet pressures they face in their personal lives.

And I was buoyed by it.

The Eighth Sense has a beautiful start, telling a very human story seeping with emotion that leaps off the screen.

From the cinematography to the subtle way each character, leading and supporting, exude emotion, The Eighth Sense wowed.

For a story that promises to pull you under and keep you there, check out The Eighth Sense now on Viki.

Rating- 4 out of 5