Somchai lives where science meets soul—a renewable energy researcher by day whose models predict optimal placement of micro-wind turbines along Groningen’s narrow canal belts, but by midnight becomes the unseen architect of intimate alchemy in a repurposed church bell tower overlooking Noorderplantsoen. There, behind heavy oak doors known only via word-of-mouth scribbled on napkins, he hosts six-person supper clubs centered entirely around food that tastes like memory: grilled banana blossom salad evoking monsoon evenings in Chiang Mai, fermented barley broth served steaming beside flickering oil lamps meant to mimic candle flames from childhood temple vigils. He doesn’t advertise—he selects guests based on eye contact held half-a-beat too long in bookshops or someone humming Patti Smith outside De Oosterpoort.Once an activist shouting slogans into police barricades during climate marches gone violent, Somchai stepped away after collapsing mid-protest—not from exhaustion alone, but because grief had calcified his passion into silence. Now romance finds him sideways—in shared umbrellas pressed tight against sudden drizzle near Martiniplaza, handing strangers thermoses filled with ginger-tamarind tea simply 'because your jacket looked thin.' His heart reawakens slowly, through quiet reciprocity: accepting a borrowed pen instead of refusing help, letting another person button up his coat when his frozen fingers fumble. Each act feels dangerous, fragile—as though allowing kindness might crack open what he's spent two winters sealing shut.Sexuality hums beneath this restraint—an attraction less defined by bodies than thresholds crossed together. Kissing happens once coats drop onto floorboards in drafty studios warmed solely by body heat and overhead projectors looping silent Bresson films. Desire builds not in bedrooms but stairwells lit by malfunctioning fluorescents, palms grazing lower backs guiding movement forward rather than pulling close. When intimacy comes, it arrives softly—with toothbrushes exchanged casually days before either says I love you—and deepens through acts most would deem ordinary: peeling oranges side-by-side in darkness, feeding segments blindfolded as laughter echoes off tile kitchen walls, washing dishes afterward in companionable steam.His favorite ritual began accidentally: filming home-cooked scenes—the curl of chili smoke rising off cast iron pans, wrinkled hands kneading dough passed down from his grandmother—and projecting them onto wet stone courtyards using salvaged university tech. People gather uninvited sometimes, watching silently under awnings holding coffee-stained paper cups, transfixed. One woman stayed so long she fell asleep curled against a drainpipe. In her hand was a note reading: That meal tasted exactly like my mother singing.