One would think that matchmakers have no trouble with a love life since they are always looking around and would know who is looking at them. Yet Kitty, in XO, Kitty, who has successfully brought together a few couples, is clueless as to what she wants and what she could get. We are trying to remember that this is a story based on teenagers who are mostly in over their heads. That is why, as atrocious as we find it that Dae lied to Kitty about his family’s financial condition, we are excusing Kitty’s instant forgiveness by understanding it for the puppy love that it was. Dae’s eyes remind one of that, not to mention his smile, which is a million bucks. Yet, there is one thing that we found a little hard to accept. He really had a low opinion of Kitty because he thought that she would tell everyone the secret of his fake relationship the way she told them about Min Ho’s baby advertisement. We understand that there was a lot at stake for him. In fact, he had his entire future to think of. Even though Kitty had traveled across the world to be with him, she came from a place of privilege, one where life would be alright for her whether she stayed at KISS or not.
At the end of the series, didn’t she want to stay in KISS so that she could be with Dae and be closer to her mother? As sentimental as these reasons are, it is important to remember that her future would be fine if she left, whereas Dae would lose everything if the truth came out. Yet it is infuriating that he did not even try. He should have asked Kitty whether she could keep a secret; he could have told her what it meant to him. But he blindly listened to Yuri over the girl, who had been in a relationship with him for four years.
In this scenario, we also have another question. If Yuri had not found that necklace and it had directly reached Dae like it was supposed to, would he have gotten together with Kitty? What we mean is that it was Yuri’s blatant insensitivity and flexing of her power over him that kept him in the relationship after he discovered what she had done. These actions of hers basically ruled her out as someone who needed any level of understanding from him, and that is why he was willing to take a step back. Another matter is that Yuri herself publicly broke up with him, making things convenient for Dae. That is the keyword here: “convenience.” Dae did everything according to his convenience. He kept the truth from Kitty multiple times because it was easy for him, and he let others, specifically Yuri, make the tougher decisions for him. Yet we are finding it hard to blame Dae for everything because he had so much more at stake. He could be expelled from KISS, something he worked so hard for. Love is well and good, but it cannot keep you in school. We believe Kitty understood him when she said he was the perfect “first boyfriend” because he did not have the character for enduring love.
However, if Dae wasn’t a great lover, was Min Ho? Kitty does not fall in love with him in Season 1 of XO, Kitty. But he was certainly more fun than Dae. He was the only one with enough spunk to make fun of Kitty’s name, though he did not, which we hope is reversed in Season 2. Min Ho can come across as rather self-important, but when we see him next to characters like Dae, Q, and Florian, we have to appreciate his clarity of thought. Min Ho understood right from wrong, and no circumstance was strong enough for him to do something he did not want to. We often tend to mistake high self-esteem for arrogance, and that is what we thought was Min Ho’s problem. But when we saw that the man came with a fair share of self-awareness, our opinion instantly changed. After all, why should one fall into the trap of underconfidence when we acknowledge that nobody is perfect? Min Ho was just not wasting time.
Siding with Min Ho, as sweet as it was that Kitty traveled from the US to Seoul for Dae, we believe she deserved to be made fun of. Who enrolls in a school and just shows up in a different country without informing the person they are doing this for? Kitty had met Dae when she was a literal child, and after four years of long-distance across a skewed time difference, she was so sure of his feelings just through some phone conversations. This borders on delusion, and Min Ho recognized it. Somebody in XO, Kitty had to make fun of Kitty, and we are glad it was Min Ho because, at the end of the day, he remained empathetic, which we saw when he helped her with the preparations for Chuseok. When he developed feelings for Kitty, he remained respectful of her conflicting emotions for Dae until the very end. When he got angry at Dae for hiding his fake relationship from Kitty, he was right.
Maybe the thing we liked best about Min Ho is that, despite his love for Kitty, he did not stop living. He moved on with Madison, and when that did not work out, he did not resort to feeling bad about himself like Dae or Kitty did when their relationships did not work out. He figured out what he wanted and devoted himself to it. If asked to choose between Dae and Min Ho, we would choose the latter for Kitty. He can be straight with her, and for someone like Kitty, who tends to get into her head a lot, this is needed. She might take a while to reciprocate his feelings since she seems to prefer the sweet type of guy in XO, Kitty but we never know what could happen if Min Ho decides to turn on the charm. We hope he does that because even though Kitty lacks chemistry with both of them, Min Ho is a lot more fun to watch.
