I met Marko at IconSiam, up on the top deck, where the city feels calmer than it is.
It’s high enough that the noise thins out before it reaches you. Far enough from the street that Bangkok becomes something you look at instead of move through. The river below slides by without urgency, wide and reflective, catching whatever light the sky is willing to give it.
We were standing there at sunset.
Not rushing to photograph it. Not narrating it. Just watching the colors shift in the way they always do—slowly at first, then all at once, like someone turning a dial you didn’t notice until it moved.
Marko stood with his arms resting on the railing, weight settled evenly, not leaning forward, not pulled back. Comfortable. Present.
He’s Serbian. Big guy. Thick shoulders. The kind of build that carries presence without explanation. He doesn’t need to square himself to a room or adjust how he stands. Space makes room for him naturally.
He was passing time while his husband was tied up in meetings.
Not killing time. Not waiting impatiently. Just letting it pass the way time sometimes does when you don’t feel the need to control it. Drifting between views and conversations, stopping when something held his attention, moving on when it didn’t.
There was no edge to him. No restlessness. No sense that he was measuring the wait against something else he could be doing.
We talked the way strangers sometimes do when neither of them is trying to extract anything from the exchange.
Marko asked about the U.S. the way people do when they’re actually curious.
Not headlines.
Not politics.
Not the loudest version of it.
What it’s like to live there.
How it feels day to day.
Whether it matches what people imagine from the outside.
I answered honestly.
Not selling it.
Not dismissing it.
Just describing what it’s been like for me. The good stretches. The friction. The things that surprise you even after you think you’ve figured it out.
He listened without interrupting. No follow-ups layered with opinion. No comparison waiting in the wings. He nodded occasionally, eyes moving between me and the city below, like he was fitting the words into a broader picture.
When I finished, he didn’t respond right away.
He looked back out over the river. Watched a boat slide past, its wake widening briefly before flattening again. The sky had gone softer by then, the color draining slowly, making room for lights to come on one by one along the banks.
Then he said, simply,
“Don’t you want to live in Bangkok forever? I do.”
No argument.
No invitation.
Just a preference stated out loud.
The sentence didn’t ask for agreement. It didn’t frame itself as a challenge. It wasn’t trying to persuade me of anything.
It was just his truth, spoken plainly, allowed to exist without needing support.
I didn’t rush to answer.
Not because I disagreed. Not because I agreed. Because the question didn’t demand a response in that moment. It was complete as it was.
We laughed about small things after that. About how cities reveal themselves differently depending on how long you stay. About how some places feel like they keep opening doors, while others slowly close them behind you.
The light continued to fade.
Below us, the water show began. Music carried upward in pieces, losing its shape before it reached the deck. Lights pulsed and shifted, drawing phones out of pockets all around us.
Marko didn’t reach for his.
He watched for a minute, then turned back to conversation as if the spectacle were just another background layer. Something happening, not something that required participation.
His phone buzzed.
He glanced down, smiled once, and tucked it back away. No announcement. No shift in mood. Just acknowledgment.
“That’s him,” he said casually.
A few minutes later, he drifted back into the crowd.
Not abruptly. Not ceremoniously. He didn’t shake hands or exchange numbers or suggest we keep in touch. He simply stepped away when it made sense to do so, his presence folding back into the evening.
The city kept moving.
Boats cut new lines through the river. The deck filled and emptied in waves. Couples leaned into each other for photos, then separated again. Conversations overlapped and dissolved.
So did he.
There was nothing about the interaction that lingered loudly. No line that demanded to be remembered. No insight that insisted on being carried forward.
What stayed was the ease of it.
The way he occupied space without pushing against it. The way he spoke preference without needing to defend it. The way he let the city be what it was without asking it to be more or less.
Some people move through places like they’re auditioning for them.
Others arrive, settle in, and decide quietly whether they’ll stay.
Marko felt like someone who’d already made that decision.
Not because Bangkok had convinced him. But because it fit the way he moved through the world.
When I eventually left the deck, the sky had fully darkened. The river reflected a different city now—brighter, sharper, less forgiving.
IconSiam glowed behind me. Traffic waited below. Bangkok returned to full volume.