“My ideal woman is someone snow white and pure...” Gina heard a voice coming from the living room say.

“What the are you watching?” she asked her younger sister, Tamara, before sitting down on the couch to see.

It was, of course, another interview with another kpop group her sister listened to and kept up with. Gina had given up on kpop years ago. Tired of the recycled concepts, the music didn’t appeal to her anymore. But she could see why it’d still appeal to Tamara. The guys were good looking after all and every once and awhile, they actually had some talent and potential. Plus, what teen didn’t go through a ‘boy band’ phase?

“It’s EXO,” Tamara said, as if it should’ve been obvious. “They’re having their first comeback.”

Tamara quietly hide the remote under a cushion as Gina was distracted by the person speaking, who apparently was named Kai. Gina always tried turning the channel when these interviews came on. She said there wasn’t a point for Tamara to keep up with guys she would never have, nor probably meet, or even really know. Tamara, they’re nothing but a front. It’s all publicity, an act. They just want your money. She’d say time and time again. Tamara knew G was partially right, but she liked the groups anyway and it was fun being a fan sometimes.

Gina watched the interviewer nod as if to agree and she rolled her eyes at the whole statement.

“Snow white and ‘pure’? Good luck with that Disney dream, Kai. If that is your real name,” she stood up from the couch and walked away, already forgetting about the boy with the thick hair and dark eyes.

It’d been five years since their family had moved to South Korea and still these microaggressions popped up. Sly words to put dark skin down and bring white skin up. Stupid ideas about innocence and ity that grossed G out. So basically, you want a girl that acts five, but looks twenty-five? is what she thought every time a man said that .

The move had been her parents’ decision. Both of them were CEOs of corporate businesses that had ties to South Korea and both of them thought it was too hard doing their jobs while living in the US still.

“At this day and age, face to face conversations are important. Emails can only get you so far,” her mom had said, while Gina cried, watching as boxes upon boxes were piled outside their house. Goodbye to her home, her friends, the only life she’d known and hello to a new world of foreignness.

Tamara had adapted more easily since she was eight, at the time, and didn’t realize that this wouldn’t simply be a vacation and that moving to a different country was a pretty big damn deal.

She’d made friends easily and everyone was interested in her. Gina, on the other hand, had just turned fourteen and as if being a teenager wasn’t hard enough, she happened to be a black girl teenager. Her first year of high school was lonely and hellish. Girls touching her hair, boys eyeing her body, and a good chunk of teachers either ignoring her or straight out putting her under a spotlight.

The second year was better, she’d found a solid group of friends and could actually recognize city streets and food dishes. It wasn’t always bad. After a while, it was even cool. She’d talk to people online and they’d tell her how jealous they were, how they’d love to leave the states and start over.

By now, she’d settled in well and over the years more “foreign” people had come and it seemed SK was getting used to it. Less people openly stared at her and more people asked her questions, questions that even made her laugh.

“So do you know Will Smith?” a shy girl once asked, at the library.

“Unfortunately, no,” Gina smiled, before flipping through a book.

But then it came back to these moments where boys like Kai, opened their mouths and said whatever. Didn’t even realize how what they said could affect a girl like Tamara, a girl who fell asleep looking across her bedroom at posters of Super Junior and Girls’ Generation, wishing to be like them and be famous.

Gina was protective of her younger sister because she’d wished she’d had a sister to be protective over her. Tamara would be entering ‘the real world’ soon. The world that wasn’t so careful and didn’t admire her smooth skin or “intricate” hair (“they’re just braids,” Gina would say). The world that flipped a switch once a girl started to become a woman. The world where men like Kai could list a thousand things someone would need to be in order to attract him and no one would consider it harmful or alarming. The kind of world Gina hated.