Chapter 3

JinYoung had tried Mark's approach to get his parents to stop nagging about his lack of effort in finding a woman to date and marry: he would tell them he was too busy, or after having gone out on a date, he would explain how they were incompatible.

But these approaches didn't work. JinYoung's mother, unlike Mark's was tenacious.

She kept setting up dates for him and, out of respect for her, he felt he had to keep going.

And no matter how much Mark ranted about how disrespectful it was for her to set up these dates without his knowledge, much less his approval, and point out that JinYoung was a good son to his parents, but he didn't owe them the rest of his entire life, JinYoung just couldn't bring himself to tell his mother to out of his life.

"I'm thinking of telling my parents," Mark said, introducing the taboo subject to JinYoung again, after his lover returned from yet another blind date that had been arranged by his mother.

"You can't," he countered.

"Why not?"

"Because, if you tell them you're gay, they're going to ask themselves who you've been being gay with. It will take them all of three seconds to come up with me," JinYoung reasoned.

"Would that be so bad?"

Because he didn't want Mark to be angry with him and he was just plain tired tonight, he held his boyfriend's hands and looked him in the eye.

"We've talked about this over and over again. My parents can't find out. Just how many seconds to you think it would take your mother to get on the phone to my mother once she found out. Please, Mark. We're happy together, aren't we? Why would you want to risk that?"

"We've talked about you not wanting to tell your parents, but now you're saying I can't even tell my own parents what I want them to know about me? That's going a bit far, don't you think, JinYoung? And another thing, what do you mean by 'happy'?" Every time you go out on one of these dates, I feel like there's a time-bomb ticking that's going to blow up in my face. I can't help wondering when your devotion to your parents is going to overcome your love for me..."

"Oh, come on, Mark..."

"I'm serious. You weren't exactly gay before you met me," Mark pointed out.

It was true.

JinYoung hadn't had much experience in the romance department before the two met, but every person he had ever liked or had a crush on had been female, starting with little EunKyung when he was in preschool. Mark was the first time that he'd ever had feelings for a man.

"So, now you think that some woman will come along and steal me away from you? After how many years? Oh, let's see, almost a decade?"

"No, that's not what I'm saying, so you don't have to be sarcastic. I'm not saying a woman will steal you away, not in the ordinary way, I'm saying that one day you might feel overwhelmed by this overactive 'filial son' thing you have going on and you will convince yourself that you should love some woman just to make your family happy."

"If that's all you have to say to me, then I'm going to bed," growled JinYoung getting up from his place next to Mark on the sofa.

"See? Every time you come home from one of these dates, all we do is fight," Mark said.

"That's because you start a fight every time I come home from 'one of these dates'. Can't you just trust me?"

"That's unfair. I do trust you."

"Then stop acting like this. I never did this when you'd come home from any of the dates your mother arranged."

JinYoung was right. He never had. Mark had to admit that, but a small part of himself didn't like that fact.

Why had he never got upset?

And then a wholly unpleasant, fleeting thought crossed his mind before he was able to stop it.

Maybe Jinyoung didn't love Mark as much as his partner loved him...

*                                 *                                 *                                 *                                 *

This time would make the fourth date Jinyoung's mother had set him up with in as many months. As much as he loved his mother, JinYoung was running out of patience. Their relationship had become strained to say the least: lately, she seemed to have become something of a Johnny-One-Note: dating and marriage seemed to be the only subjects that interested her. What happened to the great mom he used to have?

JinYoung could see his mother getting more and more obsessed if he didn't 'find' somebody quick, so that's when he hit upon an idea.

He would find somebody.

Not really, but only seemingly, just to quiet his mother down. If he could strike up a friendship with one of these women, they could just hang-out occasionally, which would look to his mother's voracious eyes like dating. After a few months, he could 'break-up' and then pretend that he was too emotionally traumatized to date for a while.

It wasn't a permanent solution, but it was something. It might buy him some time until he could come up with something better. Maybe he could find a lesbian to date who was in the same predicament he was. But, honestly, successfully identifying a woman as a lesbian in South Korea would be as easy as finding a needle in a haystack.

*                                 *                                 *                                 *                                 *

"This was your mother's idea, wasn't it?" his date that evening asked.

"Yeah." A light went on in JinYoung's head. "Your mother, too?"

"Yup."

They both laughed.

After that, they both relaxed. It was nice to know that the woman sitting across from him was in the same boat.

They had a nice dinner together. Well, relatively nice. MiRa—that was her name—was a bit of a daddy's girl and it seemed that she was pretty well off. It was hard to come to a firm conclusion about her, though: she would start off saying something interesting but then she would slip something in that made her seem, well, a little spoiled and self-centred. It was a little disconcerting. JinYoung had never met anyone like her before. It was hard to decide if he was enjoying her company or not.

Once they left the restaurant, they went for a walk around the shopping district. It was MiRa's idea and JinYoung thought it might be relaxing walking around and maybe doing a bit of window shopping, but MiRa ended up pulling him into a few stores and pointing out everything she thought was pretty. And she thought lots of things were pretty.

She really started getting on his nerves when she saw a handbag she wanted. It was the most impractical excuse for a bag he'd ever seen. Not to mention the colour. Did she really have anything in her closet that would match that?

Suddenly, that half-decent girl he'd been having dinner with earlier, turned into a full-blown manipulative, demanding brat.

"JinYoung-Oppa," she crooned, "won't you buy that handbag for MiRa?"

Why had she started talking about herself in the third-person?

She batted her eyelashes (which JinYoung then noticed were false), she made faces that were supposed to be innocent and cute and talked in a high-pitched, babyish voice. She pulled out every weapon in her arsenal, but he was impervious to her attempts to persuade him.

He just thought she was being ridiculous.

As they walked away from the store, MiRa had a miserable look on her face, but JinYoung didn't care. They hardly knew each other. Why on earth should he buy her a handbag?

She dragged herself back to the restaurant parking lot unwillingly, every step taking her further and further away from her beloved handbag.

JinYoung said it was time to call it a night.

"Already?" MiRa asked. She genuinely looked disappointed. He thought she'd hated him by now for not having given in to her, but it seemed that he was wrong.

Suddenly, a very grown-up voice, she said, "I really enjoyed talking to you, JinYoung. All the other guys I've been set up with were so desperate to get married, I felt like a steak that had been thrown in front of a starving man. It was nice to just have a calm night out with someone nice for a change."

This was weird! Had she forgotten about the handbag?

She smiled at him sincerely.

It seemed she had.

"If you want, we could go out some other time. Just as friends, I mean," MiRa offered. "It might go a far way in keeping my parents off my back."

"Great minds..." JinYoung said smiling.

So, once they exchanged information, they bade one another good-night and drove off in opposite directions.

When JinYoung got home, Mark was already in bed.

This is the first time he's gone to bed before I got home.

He must have been tired, JinYoung thought. Either that or too angry to stay awake in case he might start a fight. Well, he would find out the reason in the morning for Mark's uncharacteristically early bedtime. For tonight, he crawled into bed next to the man he loved and kissed him fleetingly on the lips before snuggling close to him and falling asleep.

*                                 *                                 *                                 *                                 *

If Mark had been angry, he appeared to have gotten over it. Everything between them was wonderful in the morning. JinYoung woke up to the smell of cooking. He slid slowly out of bed, stretching and yawning before going to the bathroom and grabbing his toothbrush. He wanted to greet Mark with fresh breath.

He loved weekends. Even though he and Mark were always on-call, they didn't have any office hours, so they could usually spend an entire two days together.

"Good morning, handsome" JinYoung slurred ily wrapping his arms around Mark's waist.

"Good morning," Mark replied turning around in his beloved's arms; his hair sleep-tousled giving him both a mischievous and look.

"You look so y, Mr Pak," Mark said breathily as he kissed JinYoung's neck.

JinYoung slid one arm from around Mark's waist up to the nape of his neck, pulling him towards him for a kiss. But Mark wasn't giving in easily. He sometimes enjoyed playing this game.

"Resistance is futile," JinYoung said, forcing Mark closer to him. JinYoung knowing his power over Mark, made his eyes slide over Mark's body in a second and then bit his lip sensuously.

Mark was over.

They grasped each other tightly and kissed feverishly. Lips kissed lips and cheeks and necks. They both had the feeling that they couldn't get close enough to the other as they kissed and touched each other with increasing passion.

"But, breakfast..." mumbled Mark through the flurry of burning kisses.

"It can wait," JinYoung said against his lips. Then he grabbed his hand and led him, running down the hallway to the bedroom.

*                                 *                                 *                                 *                                 *

"So, how was the date?"

JinYoung was sitting at his parent's kitchen table. It was rare for his mother to call him to come over on a Saturday unless there was a family gathering or some such thing. But perhaps he should have said it was rare in the past. Now that she was a woman possessed, everything was different. She'd called just as JinYoung and Mark had fallen asleep after their morning 'activities'. Mark rolled over and JinYoung answered the call. Now, he was sitting here being grilled over his date with MiRa.

"It was okay. She seemed nice, I guess."

"Finally, a girl my son likes!" his mother exclaimed.

"I didn't say I 'liked' her. It was 'okay', I said," JinYoung deflected.

"An 'okay' from you is high praise indeed. You've never said that about a date before," his mother bubbled. "so, what happened?"

JinYoung told him what they had for dinner and some of what they talked about.

"She says she likes singing. She's even written a few songs."

"Sounds like a match made in heaven," his mother said hopefully.

"Not exactly."

JinYoung skipped ahead to the bag incident.

"What sort of woman expects a man she meets for the first time to buy her a handbag?" he asked irritatedly.

"It's not just a bag, JinYoung. Don't you know why young women expect that sort of thing?"

"No."

Enlighten me, JinYoung thought sarcastically.

"It tells them a few things about a man's character. MiRa is from a very rich family, so she could buy herself any bag she wants, but she wanted you to buy it for her. Why do you think that is?"

"I really have no idea," JinYoung admitted.

"It gauges a man's generosity towards her and his willingness to fulfil her wishes and desires. It's symbolic. It means that he is willing to be attentive to her; it's an indication that he will be a considerate husband and father," she explained.

But, on a first date? Thinking about who will be a considerate husband and father on a first date?

As his mother continued to explain this theory of courtship and marriage, JinYoung's thoughts wandered recalling all the couples he had seen dating in university and since. Every man he had ever known who had later married his girlfriend had been generous and considerate before the marriage, but he had yet to meet one who had continued that trend after the ceremony. Most of the wives he knew either looked pretty miserable, or despondent, accepting their lot in life: a marriage to husbands who didn't really seem to care about them at all.

If this handbag thing had any merit, the women would have been happy, right?

Maybe if they'd spent a little less time looking at handbags and a little more time looking at the faces of married women, they'd have come up with a better strategy or, at least, figured out what lay ahead.

Then again, maybe they had figured it out. Maybe that's why they had their boyfriends do all that stuff for them before they got married. Knowing what they were in for after they got married...

"JinYoung! JinYOUNG!" his mother called. Apparently she had come to the end of her explanation and was waiting for an answer to a question.

"I said, are you going to see each other again?"

"Well, we exchanged information, so I think there's a good chance we will."

JinYoung's mother hugged him.

"I knew it! I had a good feeling about this one!"

"Umma, we've only had one date..." JinYoung objected.

"You're right," his mother said with a look on her face that meant that she didn't think he was right at all, "it's only been one date. It's early yet, so we'll see what happens..."

*                                 *                                 *                                 *                                 *

"We should have been in the car five minutes ago, " Mark called.

JinYoung hurried into the kitchen, just as Mark was packing the last of the food.

"You're still packing the food and yet you're nagging me," JinYoung retorted.

"I'm almost done and you know you're always the last one out."

"I'm always the last one out because I always have to take care of all the last-minute stuff. Making sure we haven't forgotten anything. Making sure all the lights are off, and the stove is off..."

"When have I ever left the lights or the stove on?"

"I'm going to put the backpacks in the car. Don't forget the water," said JinYoung avoiding the question.

As he turned to go, Mark reached out and grabbed his arm.

"Hey, kiss me," he suddenly demanded sultrily.

"Stop wasting time," JinYoung countered. "We're late, remember?"

Mark ignored him and pulled him close. He tried to kiss JinYoung, who turned his head to the side playfully ignoring Mark's lips.

"Hold still," he growled, chasing JinYoung's lips as he turned his head left and then right to avoid Mark's.

Finally, Mark placed his hands on either side of JinYoung's head, holding him still so he could kissed him. His lips nipped tenderly at JinYoung's, once... twice.. before he kissed him in earnest. The kiss was slow and deep. A moment later, he pulled away briefly so he could look at JinYoung's handsome face before plunging back in for another deep kiss. JinYoung wrapped one arm around the back of Mark's neck with the other encircling his waist. Mark clasped JinYoung closer to himself as he deepened the kiss even further.

As he drew back ending the kiss, he looked into JinYoung's eyes and breathed, "I love you..." before adding,

"...you latebird..."

"That's it. I'll be outside," JinYoung grumbled.

Mark laughed, his eyes sparkling, as he grabbed their day's provisions, departing the kitchen.

After making sure that the lights and stove were off, of course.

They exited the car at the parking lot near the base of the Gwaneumsa trail. It had been so long since they'd had a date. Today was finally the day. The two were finally doing something they had wanted to do together ever since they'd moved to the island.

They were going to climb Mount Halla.

"It looks pretty misty up there," Mark remarked. Both men were fully outfitted in hiking gear with all their provisions in their backpacks and their walking poles in their gloved hands.

"It'll clear up as soon as the sun starts breaking through. The weather report promised ideal weather today, so...Mr Tuan...off we go," JinYoung smiled.

As the sun began to rise an hour after the trekkers started out, they began to be able to appreciate the views around them. It was turning out to be a beautiful day. They cherished virtually everything they encountered, because they were finally able to experience it together: the stone steps they climbed; the rugged green flora sprinkled liberally in places with colourful admixtures of pink, red, yellow and deep purple flowers. They climbed at a good pace, but they paused occasionally to simply look around.

However, no matter how beautiful the surroundings, by the time they reached the first shelter where they could take some refreshment, their legs had already begun to ache.

"I thought I was in pretty good shape. But this..." Mark puffed as they headed toward the shelter.

"Just let me lean on you for a minute, Hyung," JinYoung panted.

"We're almost there, Jinnie. A few more steps, then we'll sit down," Mark assured him.

JinYoung sprawled out on the bench as soon as they reached the resting station.

"Come on, have some water. It'll revive you," Mark offered, opening the bottle for JinYoung.

"Too...tired...to drink..." he moaned wearily in response.

Mark lifted his lover's head and sat so that JinYoung could rest his head on Mark's lap. He his hair lovingly. The look of exhaustion on JinYoung's face made him look so adorable, Mark had to chuckle.

"This was your idea, " he said.

"Don't remind me," JinYoung breathed. "And don't make me talk, it hurts."

Mark laughed.

"You should take a few sips at least. Here, I'll help you," he said as he half-lifted JinYoung into a sitting position. He then tipped the water bottle so that JinYoung could drink.

"Feel better?" he asked.

JinYoung turned to him and smiled. "A little..."

"Good, let's eat then," Mark suggested as he began to unpack their morning snack.

As JinYoung leaned on his partner's shoulder, Mark fed him the kimbap he'd prepared this morning. After each mouthful, he would reach up and his lover's face saying, "that's my sweet baby".

Mark really enjoyed babying JinYoung sometimes. Usually, JinYoung was equally as strong and independent as Mark: in all things, they were truly partners. But there were times when one of the two would need an extra bit of pampering or looking after, and at times like those, the other would gladly oblige.

This was one of those times.

When they were two pieces of kimbap away from finishing, they heard the sound of footsteps approaching. Out of habit, they sprang away from one another: JinYoung sitting up now under his own power, as Mark drew his hand away from his boyfriend's face.

In the presence of strangers, they finished their snack, packed up and started back on the trail, making sure to look, to anyone who cared to take any notice of them, like good friends, but not lovers.

When they were less than an hour away from the summit, they stopped to sit on some boulders near a stream. Except for their one rest stop, they had been hiking uphill non-stop over three hours. They both removed their socks and shoes and dipped their feet in the frigid water. It felt good, but they didn't keep them in too long. By this time, many hikers were milling around, but most didn't pay them any attention.

Soon it was time to get going again. However long it took them to get to the summit, it would take them about that same amount of time to descend. Plus, stopping for too long would make it all the more difficult to get moving again. JinYoung dried off his feet and then bent to dry Mark's. He looked up at Mark's face and smiled at how the sunlight dappled through the leaves, seeming to caress his love's face with its rays. He looked around to see if they could quickly kiss without anyone noticing, but there was no chance. So, they both put their socks and shoes back on and slung their backpacks into place. JinYoung was the first to stand up: it was now his turn to help Mark who had begun to feel the effects of the walk. He reached out his hand and pulled him into a standing position. They stood for a moment, their faces close to one another, sorely tempted to risk a kiss. Their eyes played amorously over the other's face, their lips urging forward like magnets, when a voice called out in their direction.

"Excuse me!"

A small group of young women were heading towards them. One of them was waving at them enthusiastically.

Neither Mark nor JinYoung recognised them.

"Hello," the young woman who had waved said breathlessly, as the group caught up to them. "Is your name 'JinYoung'?" she asked.

"Yes," he replied looking a little confused. "You are..."

"SeYeun. I'm a friend of MiRa's."