A MAN'S JEALOUSY

The girl he was speaking to this time had hair like fire. Jinyoung was never sure whether or not this was a sign of distinction among the other girls. Sometimes they would her hair during break time between classes and pin it up with barrettes with gems and butterflies, calling it pretty and soft and special and expressing jealousy over how each strand seemed to hold a different and distinct shade of copper.  Other times they laughed and called it, or her, “ginger.” Jinyoung knew from his English dictionary that this was another way of expressing her hair’s color, but she always seemed to pout at those times as if she had been insulted. Jinyoung didn’t understand the logic behind it, but understood well enough the art of jealousy among women. That was still the same, whether it was LA or Gyeongsang.

But what about a man’s jealousy?, he wondered as he looked at the girl. Whether or not her hair color was something worth admiring, she was still beautiful. The Americans had different standards of beauty, but he could see it just as well as they could. Her eyes were a bright shade of green, her skin porcelain, her lips small but full, pale pink like cherry blossoms. She was not too short or too tall, just small enough to look delicate beside him without looking weak. Her chest—if you cared about something like that, which most guys did—was decent. Her personality, from what he could understand of it, was sweet but spunky.

He wondered if he was a little bit jealous of her. He wondered what it would be like to be her. To have the long copper hair that tumbled past her shoulders, to be that perfect head-shorter when standing next to a man, to have that long line of mascara turned up in a cat’s eye at the corner, to have the soft swells of her chest. He pursed his lips. No, none of those things were exactly what he wanted. He didn’t want to be her. He didn’t want to be a woman.

It was the boy she loved he wanted. Park Jinyoung wanted to be loved by him.

He watched her from the safety of the library study center, a book he was only half reading pressed up against his nose. This was the tenth time he was watching this since his Dad’s job had transferred him to LA and he’d started attending this school. Not the same girl confessing, of course, but this was the tenth time one of his classmates had confessed to Mark Tuan. And there had certainly been confessions before he transferred schools, if the grumblings of the other guys had been any indication.

Mark was attractive. Like the girl, he had red hair, but his was not like fire, but a deep, dyed color that was bold and drew your eyes. He was also athletic. If you badgered him enough during gym lessons, he would perform flips for them. Off the wall, off the balance beam, one time even sailing over another classmate before landing calmly on his feet. As soon as he was out of class, he carried his skateboard with him everywhere. Jinyoung had never seen him fall. For such a daredevil, it was hard to spot of him with scabs or cuts on his legs. He was careful, and good at what he did. He looked like he might be, but he wasn’t reckless in the slightest.

Mark was a little bit shy. When we first talked to him, it was hard to get him to open up. You had to prod him a little bit, peeling back the rough outer layers to reach the soft inner shell. And if you made that effort, he was beautiful. He laughed a lot. He enjoyed teasing you and making you laugh. He showed his spirit, and that spirit made you notice him even more. There were more attractive guys in the class, more athletic guys, more outgoing guys. But Mark was the one people wanted, because when you opened Mark up and Mark smiled for you, you became special.

Jinyoung watched Mark smile at the girl, his heart throbbing. Was he going to say yes this time? Of course, he always smiled at whichever girl was speaking to him, even if he rejected her. He was kind, and let people down gently. The nine girls he’d turned down previously didn’t hate him. In fact, if Jinyoung read them correctly, most of them still liked him regardless of his rejection. He was hard person to hate. He never gave you a reason to hate him, only to love him. That was the one part about him that was hard to take. Sometimes you didn’t want to be in love. Sometimes you knew what the inevitable end would be. But still it happened in any case. You wanted what you wanted. And Jinyoung wanted more than anything to be loved by him.

He lowered the book a little and watched them. The girl’s face fell. It was another ‘no’. She tucked a strand of red hair behind her ear and ducked her head to hide her expression for a moment. Mark said something to her, probably something that would make the whole thing easier on her. When she lifted her head again, she wore a smile. She probably told him that it was okay, and she was fine. Jinyoung wondered if she really was. He was in love with Mark too, and it had rarely felt ‘fine’. It was agonizing and confusing and gut wrenching and sometimes-- but rarely-- blissful, but he never thought to himself that his heart was ‘fine.’

He was a man who wanted to be loved by another man. He couldn’t risk playing these love games and having more than just his heart broken. He could only hide behind the safety of a book and watch, wishing for something that wouldn’t come true.

xx

He hadn’t thought he would fall for Mark, or anyone from LA from that matter. He hadn’t wanted to go. He’d screamed at his father for pulling him out of his school and uprooting him in the middle of highschool. He’d barricaded himself in his empty new room when he arrived, hiding from the blinding sun and the throngs of beautiful, tanned foreigners. And then when he’d had to start school, he’d been terrified. His English was good, but bad enough to be made fun of by the native students if they were bullying types. He couldn’t get rid of his accent. He was still trying to master his ESL lessons and get used to a culture that had so little to do with his own.

Mark was the first face he honed in on in the classroom. With his red hair, he looked like the rest of his classmates, but there was the slightest upturn to eyes which indicated he was Asian. Jinyoung had felt relieved for a few moments before realizing his relief was pointless. Mark wasn’t Korean. He was as thoroughly LA as the rest of the kids in the class. There wasn’t some unspoken law either that they had to be friends just because their ancestors originated from the same continent. Jinyoung was just as likely to make friends with the other students as he was Mark, which wasn’t saying much because he was paralyzed with fear by all of them.

But Mark had spotted him reading an ESL book after school on his first day in the library and had dropped into the seat across from him. “Is it that terrifying?” he asked.

Jinyoung had blinked. “W-what?”

“English. You’re looking at your book as if it’s going to attack you at any moment.”

Jinyoung stared at him, trying to form the right words. “If I mess up, it’s embarrassing.”

“It’s also embarrassing just to give everyone the silent treatment if you’re too afraid to try.” He leaned back, his face expressionless. “You could try practicing on me. I’m not going to make fun of you.”

“You don’t have to.”

“No. I don’t.” He remained seated there, staring at Jinyoung expressionlessly. Jinyoung tried to ignore him and read his book, but it hadn’t worked. He gave up with a sigh and practiced terms he would need when shopping in America with Mark until it was time to go home for dinner.

They only ever really talked after school. Mark had other friends who grabbed him for lunch, and girls who followed after him in between classes. But little by little, Jinyoung grew to love their English lessons after school. It was mostly him talking, and Mark listening. At first he worked on whatever they were covering in their ESL classes while Mark stopped him every now and then to correct his pronunciation, but Mark’s quiet and relaxed demeanor started to make him feel more at ease. He started talking about back home and the people there he missed, and how out of place he felt in LA. Mark listened and nodded. And then one afternoon he grabbed Jinyoung’s ESL book and tossed it in his backpack. “I’ll show you LA properly.”

And he had. Mark had taken him around the city streets, showing him the skatepark with its colorful graffiti and its melody of wheels tearing against the pavement, then taking him to an old arcade where he held the record for Ms. Pacman and easily crushed Jinyoung at racing games. They went to a food cart and bought hot dogs for dinner, and Mark made him try it with all the available toppings and ketchup and mustard, which wound up being not at all as gross as it looked. When night came, he took Jinyoung to his family’s apartment and they climbed up to the fourth floor where there was a patio on the roof where they could watch the sun setting.

“Feel at home now?” Mark asked, leaning back into one of the fold out beach chairs and gesturing for Jinyoung to take the one beside him.

“Maybe it isn’t so bad.”

“Maybe?”

“You make it less terrifying.”

Mark smiled, then. The first time he had ever really smiled at Jinyoung. It made his stomach ache in a way he’d never felt before. “It’s not terrifying,” he said. “It’s new. It’s different. Different doesn’t have to be terrifying, does it?”

Jinyoung shook his head.

“I think so, too. So don’t be so frightened, okay?” He tilted his head back and stared up at the sky. “Frightened doesn’t seem like you. You look much more comfortable when you’re smiling.”

Jinyoung pressed his hands over his lips. Do I?

Mark saw him and started laughing. “Yes. Yes, you do. And in case you didn’t know, you were smiling the whole day. Except when I crushed you in the arcade, but hey. Other than that, you had a good time. You don’t have to be afraid of being happy, you know.”

Jinyoung didn’t say anything, but turned his attention to the setting sun filling the LA sky with new colors from its brilliant blue. Pink and orange and red, red like Mark’s hair. His breath caught with how beautiful it was. Not the sunset itself, he thought, since he had seen that any number of times back home. It was watching it with someone else. It was the feeling of reaching out and trying to make a connection, no matter how small it was, and letting the day end at someone else’s side, feeling a little less afraid, a little less alone.

xx

But the more time they spent together, the more the fear started slipping back. Jinyoung didn’t know what it was. Sometimes he’d catch himself staring at Mark as if in a daze, and when Mark caught his eye, he’d feel a rush of embarrassment at having been noticed. He started becoming addicted to Mark’s smile on top of that. He tried to find the things that would make Mark smile and do them more often. Mark liked it when Jinyoung passed his English quizzes, so he studied around the clock so he would get every answer right. Mark liked the cheeseburgers at the place across the street, so Jinyoung would always say he wanted to go there when they hung out after school. Mark loved skinship unlike the other guys at school, so Jinyoung would let him touch him. Hands around the waist, knees sometimes brushing, fingers occasionally as well, and once there was even a kiss on the cheek when Jinyoung had gotten an 100% score on one of his ESL tests. Mark’s lips were soft, and Jinyoung’s cheeks had flamed as soon as Mark touched him. It was then he started to become terrified all over again, but for a different reason.

It was around the time he first saw a girl confessing to Mark that he was beginning to realize. He wanted to initiate their touches. He wanted to kiss Mark's cheeks. He wanted to smooth down the cow in his hair when he came into school in the morning and neaten his wrinkled shirts. He thought at first it some kind of desire borne of finally making his first overseas friend, but something had seized inside of him when he saw one of his classmates pulling Mark aside after school, the time he and Jinyoung were supposed to be together. It was clear enough what she wanted on her face, and he watched in agony as the two of them talked. He didn't necessarily want her to be rejected. In fact, he felt like he understood her. He wanted the exact same thing she wanted, and when Mark turned her down, he fully understood the pain that clouded her face. But understanding what he felt didn't make things easier. He felt hopeless in the discovery of his own heart. He wasn't a woman and couldn't confess upfront like one. He didn't want to become one. He just wanted to be loved by the person he loved. And that person, he thought, would never be able to love someone like him.

xx

The other boys in the class would tease Mark about all the girls he rejected. Perhaps that was the form their male jealousy took. "You should say yes to at least one. What are you waiting for? The most popular girl in school to get on her knees and beg you to take her?"

Mark shook his head. During the first few months Jinyoung spent at school, he answered "Nah, man, I just wasn't interested in that one."

Eight more rejections later, he changed his answer: "The one I like hasn't confessed to me yet."

"Then just ask her out yourself, man. What are you trying to do, get all the girls in school to confess to you while you're waiting?"

Mark only shook his head. "Not yet," he said.

There were two hundred students in their grade. One hundred and five were girls. After the last confession, ten had asked Mark out since Jinyoung had started attending classes. That left ninety-five with uncertain status in regards to Mark. Twenty-four that he knew of were already in relationships. What if Mark wanted someone who was already taken? How long would it take to whittle down the numbers before the right girl confessed? How long did Jinyoung have to wait to have it made official that he really did have no chance at all?

xx

"I don't know what's wrong with you," Mark said abruptly one day. Jinyoung had come over to his house after one of their study sessions and the two of them were playing video games in front of Mark's television.

"What's wrong with me?"

"You're frowning a lot more than you used to. And when you look at me you get--" he narrowed his eyebrows and wrinkled his forehead in anxious look-- "this kind of expression on your face."

"I'm fine."

"Are you?"

"Yes."

"Really?"

"Really."

"For sure?"

"Annoying," Jinyoung muttered in Korean. Mark lifted an eyebrow. "For sure," he said, rolling his eyes.

"Did you like that girl?"

"What girl?"

"The one who confessed to me the other day. Shannon. Did you like her?"

"No."

"Really?"

"I don't want to do this again."

"Fine. I'll believe you. Just wondering. I saw you in the library afterwards, and that's when your mood seemed to start going south."

Jinyoung leaned against Mark's bed, closing his eyes. "They confess to you a lot."

"Hmmm?"

"Girls. Confess to you a lot."

"I guess."

He cracked open an eye to glare at Mark. "You guess? Is receiving that many confessions normal?"

Mark shrugged. "If you're that jealous, I could direct some of them to you."

"No thank you."

"Good. Not having a girlfriend isn't the end of the world." He reached out an played with Jinyoung's hair. "I don't know why no one's confessed to you. You're pretty."

Jinyoung turned pink. "Girls like manly guys here, not pretty ones."

"Their loss." He smiled, and Jinyoung felt his chest would split open with how badly he wanted to kiss him. But he couldn't. He just couldn't. He didn't have long hair or a soft body and was one inch taller than Mark and didn't look cute when he was standing next to him. Mark was waiting for a girl to confess to him, and that was one thing he'd never be.

xx

The eleventh confession happened about a week later. Jinyoung didn't stick around and watch this time. The count was narrowing. Eventually the right girl would wind up confessing to Mark, and he didn't want to be there when it happened. Instead of doing his regular ESL studying, he wandered over to the theater department. His dad had made him take on an activity to "be like the other kids," and he volunteered to be the prop boy for the school play, Alice in Wonderland, which mainly involved setting up the elaborate table for the tea scene. He wasn't needed for the day, but sat in the auditorium for awhile listening to the actors doing their script reading before wandering backstage to make sure the props were still in the good state he had left them in.

He ambled in a half daze through the racks of brightly colored costumes as he thought of Mark back in the library. What if he said 'yes' this time? What then? He'd have to give him up, but he was going to have to do that anyways. Would there be someone else? Another impossible love to lock himself in only to have that dashed too because of who he was? Or would he just keep watching and wanting Mark forever, unable to change his heart? He didn't want either ending. He wanted to be set free, but his heart was determined to stay trapped. He hated it. Why did he have to come here if this was what was going to happen to him? He wanted to go home and disappear back into the old crowd again and forget everything. He didn't want to be him anymore.

Absently, he pulled Alice's wig from the rack and set it down on his head. It looked stupid. The blonde hair clashed with his dark eyebrows, and made him come across like a half assed drag queen. He leaned into the mirror. Mark had said he was pretty. Was he really? He liked his eyes, his nose, and his lips, but being pretty didn't change the way things were. He wasn't pretty in the right way. He was pretty like a man.

"Jinyoungie, what are you doing?"

He whirled around. Mark was leaning against the backstage entryway, looking amused.

"Um..."

"I get it, I get it, when you're in charge of props, you can't resist. But Alice, Jinyoungie?"

"Just having a laugh," Jinyoung explained lamely.

"You skipped out on our lessons."

"You were busy."

"That's never stopped you before."

"Did you say yes this time?"

Mark blinked. "No."

"Oh. Still waiting for the right person to confess to you?"

"Yes."

"Don't you ever feel sorry for them?" Jinyoung edged closer, feeling the long hair of his wig brushing against his shoulder. "It must take so much to say it. To just look you in the eye and say exactly what's in their heart. I wish I could do that." Feeling a bit braver in partial costume, he looked looked right in Mark's eyes and whispered in a light, feminine voice, "Mark oppa, I like you."

He thought Mark would laugh. He had meant it to be a joke. But the face staring back at him wasn't laughing. He looked more annoyed than anything.

"Park Jinyoung, are you acting?" he asked in a scathing voice. "Wonderful. You're doing it wrong. Take off the wig."

"It was only a-"

"Take off the wig."

Jinyoung did, smoothing his hair down underneath.

"Okay. Now try that again."

"Try what?"

"Confessing."

"What?"

"Aha. I see. So you were just doing that to be funny, were you?"

"Umm..."

"If you're serious, be serious. If not, don't mess around with me by saying things you don't even mean."

"But I..." He lowered his voice to a practically incoherent mumble. "I did mean it."

"Yes...?"

"I like you," he said a little bit louder. "But I can't just confess to you."

"An odd thing to say for someone who clearly just did confess to me, but all right..."

"I'm not a girl. There's no point."

Mark stared at him. "You think pretty lightly of me, don't you?"

"What do you mean?"

"If the major requirement for me accepting a confession was for the person to be a girl, I'd have about twenty girlfriends right now. You really think that's all I care about. To get me to say yes, you have to fit well with me and make me happy and be the person I love."

"Oh."

"And there is one person who I've started liking but had no idea felt the same way until now, so I'd been holding off confessing to them, but now it seems kind of pointless to do that since they just confessed to me like an idiot and even though they did a pretty bad job of it, I'm still going to have to say yes to them."

"Oh..." Jinyoung blinked, slowly processing everything and trying to translate it in his head. "Oh! But I'm--"

Mark pressed a finger against Jinyoung's lips. "I get it. You're not a girl. Big deal. You're a person who is trying his best to make me smile and who I love spending time with and who has the absolute best cheeks for kissing and who is very pretty and handsome and cute all at once and who may be a little bit different, but isn't terrifying to me at all. So please stop feeling bad about who you are, all right?"

"Oh."

"Is that all you can say?"

"I'm not very good at English," Jinyoung said, trying to keep his heart from leaping out of his chest. "I'm sorry."

"There's something in English I'm 100% sure know how to say that you should be saying instead of that."

"I like you?"

"No question mark."

"I like you." He took a deep breath and reached out to squeeze Mark's hands. "I really, really like you. Can I please have a yes?"

"You can have better." He leaned in to peck Jinyoung's lips. Mark's were soft, softer than they had even felt against his cheek. They were gentle, accepting, and warm. Jinyoung felt like they were taking in every little piece of him, the softness and the hardness, the gentle and the rough. All the things that made him who he was. He hadn't known each side of him could be loved, that he wouldn't have to change the parts that to anyone else wouldn't have fit. It was worth coming here to find that out. Mark wasn't the only one who needed to eased open; Jinyoung himself found the barrier around his heart unfolding as Mark touched him and with his kiss set him free.

Mark pulled away, his lips turning up in a lopsided grin. "There," he said, running his thumb against Jinyoung's chin. "Perfect just the way it is."

xx