The boyish, almost innocent looks of new Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva mask a certain inner steel.
Consider his move to lead the Democrat Party into an unprecedented boycott of snap elections in April, 2006.
Given all the events that have followed in Thailand's political meltdown - a military coup to oust a prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, Thaksin's flight into exile as a fugitive from justice and protests that shut down Bangkok's airports - Mr Abhisit's decision is sometimes overlooked.
Yet it triggered a constitutional crisis and put the very existence of his party - Thailand's oldest political grouping - at risk.
If Thaksin, a billionaire telecoms tycoon, had somehow pulled it off and stemmed the mounting criticism of the corrupt and authoritarian excesses of his five-year rule as Thailand's strongest-ever elected leader, the Democrats could have found themselves in the wilderness. They would have had no seats in parliament and would have lost their voice as Thailand's largest opposition party.
Instead, the turnout was so low in Democrat strongholds, such as Bangkok, that seats could not be filled and a new parliament could not be formed.
Amid the constitutional confusion, Thailand's revered monarch, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, staged a rare intervention to urge the courts to solve the crisis. It was an act that has continued to resonate in the two years since, leading some analysts to describe the more recent legal moves against Thaksin, his family and his cronies as a 'judicial coup'.