Ideal Type
Chapter 1 – Ideal Type
The rain began the way it always did in Singapore–without warning, without ceremony, like someone up above had flicked a switch.
In the studio, nobody noticed at first.
The set lights were too bright, the floor too clean, the air too cold from the industrial air-conditioning humming behind the walls. Everything here was controlled: the laughter on cue, the claps after a punchline, the gentle panic of producers with headsets dangling off one ear as they counted seconds with their hands.
Lin Suyin sat on a high stool with her ankles crossed neatly, hands folded in her lap the way her manager had drilled into her since her first talk segment.
Smile, but not too much.
Answer confidently.
If you don’t know what to say, laugh.
And if you feel nervous, breathe out before the camera finds it.
She had done this enough times to make it look effortless.
Her makeup was soft–a clean base, a hint of blush that made her look like she’d just stepped out of a sunny afternoon rather than a freezing studio. Her hair fell in gentle waves over her shoulders, and the blouse she wore was a warm ivory, chosen because it looked “approachable” on camera.
Approachable. Like a polite stranger.
The host–a familiar Mediacorp face who could glide from heartfelt to hilarious in a single breath–leaned forward with a grin.
“Okay,” he said, voice rising as if he’d just remembered something important. “We have to ask. Everyone wants to know. Suyin, right? This question never fails.”
A producer off-camera lifted a cue card as if the words needed reminding.
Ideal type?
Suyin’s lips parted into a practiced smile. She had been asked this question in different forms so many times it had started to feel like a ritual.
What do you like in a guy?
Do you prefer older or younger?
Would you date someone in the industry?
Everyone on set expected the same kind of answer: vague, safe, smooth.
Someone mature.
Someone kind.
Someone who respects my work.
She could have said any of those. She could have nodded and laughed and thrown a harmless celebrity name into the air–someone distant enough to be flattering but impossible enough to never cause trouble.
But the thing about rituals was that sometimes, when you repeated them long enough, you began to forget they had rules.
The host’s eyes gleamed.
“So,” he pressed, “who is your ideal type?”
There was a pause.
Half a second.
Maybe less.
And then Suyin answered.
“Adam Lim.”
The studio reacted like someone had dropped a cup.
A sharp inhalation. A stifled laugh. The camera operator’s slight shake as he adjusted the frame to catch the host’s face.
The host blinked once. Twice.
“Wait,” he said, eyes widening. “Adam Lim? That Adam Lim?”
Suyin kept her smile steady, but her heartbeat had already betrayed her. It thudded against her ribs like it was trying to leave.
“Yes.”
“You’re serious?”
She nodded.
For the first time in the segment, she wasn’t performing. Not exactly.
There was something about Adam Lim that had always felt… human. In a world where everything was edited and curated and compressed into short clips, he had a way of being messy on purpose.
He stumbled over his words.
He laughed too loudly.
He made jokes that didn’t land and then laughed at himself anyway, like he refused to punish the room for not finding him funny.
He made people feel safe.
That was the part nobody talked about.
The host recovered quickly–he was good at recovery, that was why he stayed on screen year after year.
“Why?” he asked, leaning in like he was about to extract a confession.
Suyin lowered her gaze a fraction, as if shy, as if she hadn’t just thrown a name into the air that would ricochet through the country by midnight.
“I… I like how he treats people,” she said softly. “He’s funny, but not in a way that makes others look small. When he laughs, it feels… warm.”
The host slapped his knee dramatically.
“Wah,” he said, half-laughing. “This one is not playing. This is… this is real.”
Someone off-camera made a noise like they were already imagining the headlines.
Suyin’s manager, seated behind the monitor, stared at her with the expression of a person watching a slow-motion accident.
Suyin kept her posture perfect.
But inside, something unclenched.
It wasn’t bravery.
It was honesty.
And honesty, she was learning, was always expensive.
By the time she reached the carpark downstairs, the rain had arrived.
It poured in thick lines, turning the road into a shimmering mirror. The sheltered walkway from the building to the pickup point was crowded with staff clutching tote bags and equipment, moving in careful little runs between cover.
Suyin stepped out into the warm damp air and inhaled.
Rain in Singapore smelled like asphalt and leaves and time.
Her manager’s umbrella appeared above her head.
“Why,” her manager said, voice too calm, “did you say that?”
Suyin didn’t look at her right away. She watched the raindrops burst on the pavement, each impact a tiny silver explosion.
“Because you asked me to be more memorable,” she said.
Her manager’s grip tightened on the umbrella handle.
“Memorable,” she repeated, as if tasting the word. “Not… suicidal.”
Suyin almost laughed.
The thing was, she hadn’t meant it like a confession. Not at first.
She had meant it like a truth that belonged only to her.
But truth never stayed private for long.
Not here.
Not in a city where the distance between a studio and a hawker centre was ten minutes, where everyone knew someone who knew someone, where gossip travelled faster than the MRT during peak hour.
Her phone vibrated.
Once.
Twice.
By the third buzz, her manager snatched it out of reflex, then caught herself and placed it back in Suyin’s hand with forced restraint.
Suyin looked down.
Group chats.
Notifications.
Mentions.
Her name was already traveling.
A clip had been uploaded with a caption full of screaming emojis.
Suyin says Adam Lim is her ideal type???
The video was seventeen seconds long.
Seventeen seconds was all it took.
She watched it anyway, because a part of her needed to witness what she had done.
Her own face appeared on screen, soft-lit and calm.
The host asked.
And then her voice, clear as rain.
“Adam Lim.”
The cut ended on the host’s shock, a freeze-frame of his open mouth.
A perfect meme.
Her manager sighed.
“Okay,” she said, flipping into crisis mode like it was a second skin. “We will keep it light. If anyone asks, you say you admire him as a host. You say you meant ideal type in terms of personality. You don’t repeat the part about warmth.”
Suyin tucked her phone into her bag.
The umbrella shifted as they walked under the covered walkway, passing a row of potted plants glistening with rain.
Sheltered.
Dry.
Safe.
Yet she felt exposed.
Because now, somewhere out there, Adam Lim would see it.
And in her imagination, he didn’t see it as cute.
He saw it as trouble.
Adam Lim’s night began the way his nights always did–by ending something.
A shoot.
A meeting.
A day that stretched too long.
He was thirty-two and tired in a way that wasn’t just physical.
The variety world was relentless. You didn’t have seasons the way dramas did. You didn’t disappear between projects. You stayed visible or you became irrelevant.
Tonight, he had finished filming a segment in a kopi shop that had been temporarily transformed into a set. The auntie had been smiling for the cameras, and the crew had laughed, and Adam had made jokes about burnt toast until everyone had clapped.
Now he stood alone in the lift of his condo, watching his reflection in the mirror panel.
Slightly messy hair.
T-shirt that smelled faintly of sweat and stale coffee.
Eyes that looked older than the jokes he told.
When the lift doors opened, his home greeted him with quiet.
A stack of unopened mail.
A couch that still held the shape of his last nap.
A small plant by the window that he kept forgetting to water.
He kicked off his shoes, dropped his bag by the door, and let himself breathe.
For a moment, he enjoyed the silence.
Then his phone lit up.
Bro have you seen this??
He didn’t open it at first.
A second message.
Wah you trending sia.
Third message.
You owe me chicken rice if this is staged.
Adam frowned.
He sank onto his couch and finally tapped the link.
The clip loaded.
The familiar studio lighting, the host’s voice.
And then–a woman.
Lin Suyin.
He recognized her immediately, even though he had never met her.
He had seen her in supporting roles, in ad campaigns, in those in-between moments when the television was on in the background at his mother’s house and she would point and say, This one quite pretty, hor?
Suyin’s lips moved.
“Adam Lim.”
The world went quiet in his living room.
Not because the clip was silent.
Because his mind had stopped making noise.
He replayed it.
Once.
Twice.
On the third time, he paused on her face.
She wasn’t giggling like a teenager.
She wasn’t playing it up for attention.
She looked… sincere.
And sincerity was the most dangerous thing a person could show on camera.
Adam let out a slow breath.
He wasn’t flattered.
Not exactly.
Flattery was easy.
This felt like responsibility.
He stared at the paused frame and felt something unfamiliar tighten in his chest.
Not panic.
Not excitement.
Something like… fear.
Because when people shipped you, they didn’t ship you.
They shipped the version of you that could be edited into a story.
Adam had spent his whole career being edited into stories.
He had learned to survive by laughing.
But now, a new story had arrived at his door without permission.
His phone buzzed again.
This time it wasn’t a friend.
It was a message from his manager.
Tomorrow morning. Office. 9am. Don’t be late.
Adam closed his eyes.
Of course.
He was trending.
And in this industry, trending was never just a word. It was a storm.
He looked back at the paused clip.
Suyin’s face was still there, framed by studio lights, calm as if she hadn’t just thrown a match into dry grass.
Adam pressed play.
He listened to her words about warmth.
And against his better judgement–against every defensive instinct he had built over years–he felt the smallest flicker of something soften.
Warm.
He didn’t know if he deserved that word.
But he knew, suddenly, that he wanted to meet the woman who had said it.
Outside his window, rain streaked down the glass.
In the distance, the lights of the city blurred into gold.
Adam watched them and whispered, mostly to himself:
“What have you done?”
The next morning, Singapore would wake up and carry the clip like a new song.
People would forward it over kopi.
They would laugh about it in office pantries.
They would comment under it with hearts and jokes and conspiracies.
And somewhere between the comments and the laughter, something quieter would begin.
Not a headline.
Not a ship.
Not a story meant for content.
Just two people, standing under the same shelter, unaware that the rain had already decided to keep falling.