“He Joined the Industry for Revenge. He Fell for the CEO Instead.”

Payback started as a webtoon before it became one of Thailand’s most talked-about BL dramas — here’s how the story hits in both forms.

Cover art via [Lezhin TH / Bomtoon] — official PAYBACK webtoon by SAMK & Fujoking

Sun is a deliveryman with a painful past — his brother was killed, and his boyfriend Bank betrayed him and vanished with his money. Years later, Sun runs into Bank again. Bank is now a rising actor, and Sun decides to enter the entertainment industry to get his revenge — only to get tangled up with Jay, the company’s secretive executive director.

It’s tense, a little melodramatic, and very watchable. The finale drops August 1, so if you start now, you can binge straight to the end without waiting week to week.

Cover art via [Lezhin TH / Bomtoon] — official PAYBACK webtoon by SAMK & Fujoking

From Panel to Screen: How Payback Changes in the Adaptation

Payback began as a webtoon by SAMK and Fujoking, and reading it before (or after) the drama gives you a very different rhythm of the same story. The webtoon lets Sun’s revenge plot breathe — you get more of his internal calculations, the slow build of his plan, and quieter moments between him and Jay that a 45-minute episode format doesn’t always have room for.

The drama, on the other hand, trades some of that interiority for pace and performance. Minlee and Toptap’s chemistry adds a physical tension the page can only hint at — a look, a pause, a scene that plays out in real time instead of panel-to-panel. Some plot beats also get compressed or reordered for TV pacing, so a few twists that unfold gradually in the webtoon hit much faster on screen.

Screenshot from PAYBACK Official Trailer, iQIYI/One31

Neither version is the “better” one — they’re just doing different jobs. The webtoon is where you sit with Sun’s plan. The drama is where you watch it collide with everyone around him

Screenshot from PAYBACK Official Trailer, iQIYI/One31

Where things stand right now: the drama is 9 episodes deep, with the finale landing August 1 — so there’s still time to catch up before it wraps. The webtoon has a much longer history behind it, first published back in 2021 and still being collected into new print volumes as recently as this year, which means there’s a lot more story on the page than the show has had time to cover.

And if you’ve watched episode 9, you already know exactly which scene I mean. Sun and Jay finally stop circling each other — no more clipped arguments, no more walking away mid-sentence. Just the two of them, alone, with every excuse they’d been using finally run out. It’s the kind of scene that makes you understand why people were willing to wait nine episodes for it.

Screenshot from PAYBACK Official Trailer, iQIYI/One31

That’s Payback, in both forms. If you’ve read the webtoon or watched the drama already — which version hit harder for you? Drop it below.

Here’s the official trailer, if you want a taste before diving in:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJTDTI_Tol8