“Trainee days are very trying times for all idols, and I think if we had any seniors in our studio today, they would agree, right?” the MC in the crisp black business suit said, facing the camera and then turning back to look at EXO-K.

The boys smiled innocently and nodded their heads in agreement, all of them hyper-aware of the fact that they were being filmed and therefore had to be on their best behavior. 

You shifted in your seat. At the moment, you were sitting on the leather couch that your father had bought from a garage sale before you were born. On one end, the stuff was starting to peek out, but you still liked it. You were watching a program that day. Whatever its title was, you didn’t remember. It didn’t matter to you. What did matter was the fact that Kai was on it. 

Kai.

He wasn’t technically your boyfriend, but neither was he simply a friend. Rather, you liked to think that the two of you were in the complicated stage of a relationship where neither of you were entirely sure of your feelings, and until you were sure, neither of you knew what to do. 

But there were some day when you would look over at him and forget how to breathe. Sometimes his hand would brush against yours when you were walking side by side and you couldn’t tell if it was an accident or if he did it on purpose, yet it didn’t matter. Sometimes you would talk and talk for hours and not even know that time was passing by. On days like those, you liked to at least pretend he was your boyfriend. 

Today, EXO was on a program, and even though you had other chores to fulfill, you took a little time to sit down and watch it if only to see Kai. Sometimes he looked so awkward and scared on such programs, and other times his charismatic self would shine through and steal everyone’s hearts. Today, it seemed he had reverted to this latter part of himself. 

“Sehun is the maknae, isn’t he?” The MC asked, gesturing over to EXO-K’s maknae who was sitting on the far side of the studio’s couch. The rest of the group nodded in agreement again.

“Ahh, I see,” the MC said turning away from the group for a moment for review his cue cards before perking up again. “Alright, that’s good. let’s move along to our next question then. This one has been the subject of much interest recently. Everyone wants to know the answer! Let’s start here with leader, Suho, and then just go down the line. Please tell us what, for you, would be the ideal girl?”

You smirked a little as you sat up on the couch, interested in hearing what the boys would have to say to this question. You kept your eyes on Kai the entire time, looking forward to hearing what he would say. Suho, Baekhyun, Chanyeol, and D.O. each shyly looked between the MC and the camera and described their ideal girls.

Descriptions and adjectives bounced around the room and between them and the MC. Words such as “cute” and “kind” were thrown into the mix. Suddenly it was Kai’s turn, and suddenly you felt yourself simultaneously dreading and anticipating his answer. The mic was passed to him and Kai spoke.

“My ideal kind of girl?” he said, clarifying the question. He then cleared his throat and looked up at the ceiling as though the answer were there. Then, he looked straight at the camera, as though he were looking at you.

“I like girls who are beautiful, really pretty, and cute. And she has to be really smart, too. Um, I like a girl who’s very talented and determined, as well.”

“Ah, so Kai-ssi is like that when it comes to girls,” the MC said, nodding in understanding. “So she has to be beautiful, intelligent, talented, and determined? Kai has very high standards for girls, then! Isn’t this sort of unattainable?”

Kai smiles and turns his face downward, turning back into his shy self. He only laughs but doesn’t answer the question.

“Our Kai is not an easy man, then. Sehun, your turn.” 

You grabbed the remote and switched the program off before Sehun could describe his ideal girl. 

Beautiful.

Intelligent.

Talented.

Determined.

Those were the four things Kai said he looked for in a girl. You had no idea he was so picky.

There was a mirror to your right and you turned around to look at your reflection. There were some days when you looked into a mirror and decided that you liked what you saw. But did it necessarily mean that Kai liked your appearance? Staring at your reflection, you saw a drab girl with acne-prone skin, flat hair, and dim eyes. Your cheeks had always been a little too chubby for your own taste. You wished your legs were longer, or that your face was smaller, or your skin a little paler. 

Basically, you just wished you were overall prettier. 

Kai and EXO debuted not long ago, and had been performing on stage alongside numerous girl idols as well. He probably knew many girls who were ten times prettier than you. Girls with longer legs, shinier hair, prettier eyes, ier bodies. If beauty was what he wanted, would he find any in you? How could he with so much of it standing next to him on the stage? You were lucky he even bothered at you. You weren’t beautiful at all, and perhaps you never would be.

Then he had said he wanted a girl who was smart. In school, we weren’t exactly known for being the most intelligent person in the class. No matter how hard you studied you just couldn’t bring yourself to get that A you coveted so badly. It was too elusive, even despite your efforts. 

Every time you were handed back a test, you hid it right away, afraid that someone might see it and think you were stupid. In a way, you yourself thought you were stupid. You remembered a girl in your class. Everyone thought she was the prettiest girl in school, and not only was she beautiful; she was also the student body president and the smartest girl in your class. You wondered how she could manage and make it look so easy. 

There were many girl idols as well who were known for their brains as well as their beauty. And on top of that they had talent.

You had no talent whatsoever. In school, while the rest of your friends and classmates gathered on the field to practice dance routines or performances for the school talent show, you always hid in the art room near the comforting smell of paint and wood pulp and watched them from the windows. You were too awkward at dancing, and even your mother admitted that your singing was not good. 

There were a few of your friends who, like you, were not adept at singing or dancing, but they worked hard to be good sports and improve themselves. You, however, were too scared to make a fool of yourself to even try.

Kai said he liked girls who were determined. And looking back on your life, most of it had been lived in quiet submission to your ugliness, your stupidity, your lack of talent. And even then, you lacked the determination or drive to even change any of it. 

You weren’t Kai’s ideal type at all. 

—————

“Say something,” Kai said, elbowing you gently. You broke away from your thoughts and looked at him.

“Huh?” you said.

“You haven’t said a word to me since I picked you up. Is something wrong?” he asked again, his voice laced with concern. 

Later that day, Kai had called you and asked if you wanted to accompany him to the grocery store. He had been tricked into doing the chore by D.O. and he’d rather not go by himself. You had agreed halfheartedly, and the two of you went. 

“No,” you lied nonchalantly, still lingering in your own little world, thinking and going over the thoughts you had earlier that day. Kai wasn’t buying it. He kept his eyes trained on you and pushed the cart full of meat and cereal at the same time. 

“Hmm,” he said and tossed a pack of frozen won-ton wrappers into the cart. “I can tell that you’re lying. There’s no point in denying it. What happened?”

You continued to stare straight ahead with your arms crossed over your chest. You looked down at your shoes and wrinkled your brows. Kai pushed the cart over to one corner and walked closer by your side. 

“Normally, I can’t get you to shut up,” he said. “If you don’t want to say anything because you think I won’t get it, I can just listen. What’s wrong?” Kai stopped you from walking ahead by halting you with a hand on your elbow. 

You looked up at Kai. His kind eyes were bearing into yours and begging you to tell him what was bothering you. You looked him up and down, taking in his dark hair that always seemed so fluffy and fell in just the right directions, his tall height, and slightly cocky smile that made your stomach go in different directions. But suddenly, all those things you used to love about him you suddenly hated. You tore your elbow away from him, making his eyes widen in surprise. 

“You’re such a shallow, superficial, frivolous, stupid jerk!” 

Kai stood frozen in his spot, not even taking a few steps back and away from each insult you hurled at him. The mere emphasis you used with each word used against him was enough to set his heart racing. He was now scared and confused. 

“Umm,” he said, tentatively. “What?”

You bit your lip. You didn’t mean to raise your voice and lose your temper at him. In fact, you weren’t quite sure what triggered your sudden outburst in the first place, and you were sure you had just embarrassed him, with all these people in the store now facing the two of you. 

“Nothing,” you said quietly and just turned away from him again. 

Kai scoffed at his own confusion. Your moods were so unpredictable that they were beginning to give him a whiplash. One second you were fiery and yelling and undeniably pissed and three seconds later you were back to being mysterious and demure. Umm… what just happened here?

“Hey,” he said, tapping your shoulder again. “What’s going on?” 

You turned back to face Kai, ready to explain yourself more calmly, but upon seeing his face the only words that came into your mind were “ugly, stupid, untalented, loser”. 

“Come on,” Kai said, placing his hand on your shoulder to steady you. “Don’t cry.”

You brought your hand up to wipe away a stray tear that you didn’t know had fallen. 

“Tell me what’s wrong,” he said again. You took a deep breath.

“Me,” you said. “I’m what’s wrong.”

Kai wrinkled his brows again. “What are you talking about? How could you be the one wrong?”

“Well, I guess it’s partly your fault, too, but it’s me mostly,” you explained. You sighed again and looked down at the ground. “I’m ugly,” you whispered. Kai widened his eyes at you. Did he really just hear you say that?

“Ugly?” he said. “Why would you say that about yourself?”

“Because it’s true,” you said. “Come on, you’ve been with pretty girls, Kai, and you know that I don’t look anything like them, and neither am I even close to. Compared to them I’m just… plain, and ugly.”

“Don’t compare your—”

“I’m stupid, too!” you said. “You know in school everyone made fun of me for being stupid. I was scared to talk in class because I knew that if I got the answer wrong, they’re all laugh at me. I’m not smart at all, I’m stupid. I’m not good at anything either. All my friends, they were all singers and dancers and played instruments, but me I didn’t do anything, I just stayed inside and watched them.”

Kai watched you and as you confessed to him all the insecurities that had been trapped in your mind all day, and while revealing secrets was supposed to make someone feel better, you only felt worse. 

“And the worst part is,” you said. “I never tried to do anything to change it.” 

Kai clenched his fists and then relaxed them. Seeing you tear yourself apart was breaking his heart. He had no idea you felt like this and or thought all these horrible things about yourself, horrible things that he didn’t think were true in the least. He wanted to hug you; somehow he felt that you didn’t want him to at the moment. 

“Umm,” he said. “You got it all wrong.” 

He smiled, and it irritated you for a split-second. “What?” you said. 

“You’re wrong,” he said. “You said you were stupid because you never got A’s in school. But ‘A’ is just a letter, and the lack of one doesn’t make anyone stupid and doesn’t give anyone the right to think of someone as stupid, not even you. You’re smart in your own ways, ways that some ‘smart’ people can’t even think of. And as for talent, singing and dancing aren’t the only things that classify as talent. Anything that you’re good at is talent. And you’re good at a lot of things; arguing, for one thing. It doesn’t sound like something cool to be good at, but in some cases stubbornness is good. In your case, I think you’re a very strong girl. You know what you deserve and you don’t compromise yourself. So don’t wallow in self-pity, it’s not good on you.” 

You smiled slowly but didn’t look at him. “Then what about the beauty part?”

“Standards for beauty change all the time; really though, beauty is only skin deep. Who wants a beautifully wrapped box with nothing in it? You have beauty but yours is in your heart.” 

Your cheeks were beginning to grow a shade of pink, but as you smiled you couldn’t hide it from him. Seeing your blush made him slightly bashful as well, and he turned away to smile to himself.

“Besides,” he said clearing his throat. “I think you’re pretty.”

“Hmm,” you said. “Really?” You were about to thank him for his pep talk when you saw him smiling bashfully at the floor and were reminded of his demure reaction to the ideal type question on the program.

“You’re still a shallow, superficial jerk, though.”

“What?”

“I watched your program!” you said, raising your voice again and catching him off-guard. “And here you are telling me that intelligence doesn’t matter and there are different ways of being talented and determined and that beauty is frivolous.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I heard you! You said you only looked for girls who were pretty and smart and talented and determined! Do you have any idea how shallow that is? What if an ugly, stupid, boring girl really loved you? Would you spurn her?”

Kai scoffed. 

“Oh that. What’s the big deal? I was talking about you the entire time.”

The world grew silent at his confession. The whole world seemed to have gotten into slow motion, except for you and Kai. He just said you were his perfect girl. Did he?

“You meant me?” you asked. “I don’t fit that description at all.”

“Yes, you do,” Kai said. “You’re beautiful, smart, talented, and strong and you’re my ideal girl.” 

You let out a long slow breath and looked at the floor before looking back up and facing him. Kai had a serious look on your face, but as he began to smile so did you. You took a mental picture of this moment, wanting it to last forever. Whether or not you and Kai took another important step towards becoming boyfriend and girlfriend you would never really know, but as for you, your heart took another step towards him. This moment, for you, was perfect.

It was ideal.

—————

Fin

—————

A/N: IIIIII LOST MY MIND ASDFGHJKLKJHGFDSA GET IN SLOW MOTIOOOOOON! Hehe did anyone else catch that line in there? ;)