Septembers

1. First Day

First Day

It seemed Theo was the last student to arrive at the dorm. His mom and aunt had decided they needed to hit their favourite diners on the way, which meant Theo was arriving to his new life smelling like maple syrup and burnt grease.

Doors were propped open and newly nest-escaped students weaved in and out, chittering like the baby birds they all were.

And then he saw it; a name scrawled across the whiteboard outside his dorm room in blue dry-erase.

Daeyoung Moon.

The writing was sloppy, slanted, and probably scrawled by some frazzled resident advisor who didn’t understand the magnitude of those two words.

Dae had been an unsolved mystery to Theo since high school.

He was an enigma wrapped in a question wrapped in hooded sweatshirts.

He was floppy dark hair, tightly sealed lips, and battered old sneakers.

He was silence, scribbled notebooks, and pink cheeks.

His air of mystery screamed secret identity: maybe a spy, or grumpy superhero, or a really great yodeller.

The last time Theo had seen him was at a speech competition in tenth grade.

Other students had already claimed the dark corners and dusty nooks backstage to mutter through their speeches, hands flailing, and water bottles at their lips.

Dae wasn’t exactly extroverted, so Theo figured he’d take it upon himself to pump him up a little.

“Wow, you dressed up.”

Dae had abandoned his usual baggy nonsense for some dress pants and a button-up shirt and tie.

Cute, if you were into the whole adorable nerd thing.

He didn’t respond to Theo’s comment, which was fair.

What was he supposed to say? Astute observation?

Fun fact; this is my designated funeral suit?

If I loosen my tie, my head will fall off?

Instead, he stared through his hair, his almost-black eyes just slightly wider than usual.

Theo probably should’ve left him alone to practice, but that would’ve gone against a fundamental aspect of his personality.

“It looks good. The outfit I mean. Professional.” He hadn’t meant to rock back and forth on the balls of his feet, it just sort of happened when he had too much energy. “What’s your speech about?”

More staring.

“Not trying to psych you out. Promise.”

Dae handed Theo his title cue card. His handwriting was small and neat, his letters rigid and evenly spaced.

“Whoa, cool. Do you really think social media is changing our brains? Is that, like, backed up by science?”

Nothing. Not even a nod.

“Mine is about the social benefits of music, but I’m not doing this seriously. My friends basically dared me to do it.” Theo shrugged so dramatically he felt a twinge in his back. “They’ll probably boo when I’m on stage or something because they know I don’t care.”

Dae’s eyebrows raised, and Theo congratulated himself on eliciting any kind of reaction at all.

“Anyway, good luck. I’ll be watching.”

What Dae didn’t know was that Theo was always watching. Not in a creepy way! He was just deeply observant. There were very few complex beings at their school, so he couldn’t be blamed for hyper-focusing on a bona fide human puzzle. And okay, he was cute. That was also a factor.

Dae had moved to Toronto from Korea in the third grade and naturally became a subject of great curiosity.

Theo could still remember him standing at the front of the class, introducing himself three times before anyone heard him.

Moon Daeyoung. He’d let the teacher call him Moon for half the year before his parents explained that, in Korea, they said their family name first.

Dae nailed the competition. By the end of his speech, Theo was almost ready to delete his social media accounts.

Almost. Dae won second and Theo got fifth, which was fine because he didn’t even care.

The first and second place winners went on to the city competition, where Sara Larsen brought home third place, but no one talked about Dae’s results.

Theo investigated (always watching) and Dae came forty-seventh out of fifty.

The following week, he and his family moved away, so Theo never got the chance to discover what had happened.

Had they moved because of the competition?

Had he been outed as a spy? Was their yodelling too loud for the neighbours? A mystery for the ages.

At least, it was until Theo saw the glorious, messy writing across the dorm door: Caleb Fennel, Theodore Walker, Jason Williams, Daeyoung Moon.

His duffle bag pulled on his shoulder, and the corners of a box dug into his hands, but he wanted to process this development, calm his thudding heart, and maybe savour the momentous shift into the next chapter of his—

A blur of earth tones slammed the door open, and the box swayed in Theo’s arms.

“My bad!” A lanky guy with a loose brown bun took Theo’s box of picture frames and dollar-store utensils, then flashed him a lopsided smile. “Theodore, right? Come on in!”

The moment could be appreciated later.

The dorm was like a pair of new shoes that hadn’t been worn in yet: stiff, fresh, and too white.

Four rooms flanked a small living area already furnished with a cheap couch, an old TV, and a knock-off Ikea-style dining table.

The kitchen was mostly built into the wall with an island counter, on top of which sat a half-eaten pizza: all meat, no vegetables.

Perfect.

“Hey, you must be Theodore. I’m Jason.” Tall, Black, shaved head, and strong features. Probably not gay, but one never knew. So the skinny pale one currently putting Theo’s box in one of the rooms had to be Caleb. Definitely not gay, one absolutely sometimes knew.

And then there was Dae, almost exactly as Theo remembered him, with a downcast gaze and tight lips. A too-big sweater hung off him, and his dark hair hung over his forehead, almost falling into his eyes.

Still cute.

Theo nodded to him, Dae nodded back, and that was the extent of their high school reunion, mainly because, for the first time in his life, Theo couldn’t think of a single thing to say. So instead, he addressed the other two.

“By the way, you can call me Theo.” He’d planned on making a grand entrance followed by, only call me Theodore when you’re being dramatic, but nearly getting hip-checked had sort of ruined it.

“Or—here me out,” Caleb raised one finger, his face lit up with childlike excitement, “we could call each other by our last names. Only the four of us. It could be our thing.”

Jason winced like he smelled burnt hair. “Not sure we can manufacture a thing.”

“We can if we don’t tell anyone we manufactured it.” Caleb’s lopsided grin was met with dubious silence.

“So, the tour.” Jason pointed as he spoke.

“Your room, Daeyoung’s room, the bathroom you guys will share.

” He spun around, gesturing to the other side of the dorm.

“My room, Caleb’s room, our bathroom. We can all share dishes and stuff, but we have to promise to wash them.

Oh, and I brought a TV and PlayStation you guys can use. ”

“Sure, thanks.” Theo had never played a video game in his life and had no intention of starting now. “He goes by Dae, by the way. Not Daeyoung.”

Caleb sucked in a tiny delighted gasp, and Jason’s finger swung between the two of them. “You guys know each other?”

Theo waited for Dae to respond, but when he didn’t, Theo nodded, not entirely sure if that was the truth. “Sort of? We went to school together, but not for the past few years. Do you still go by Dae?”

He froze as if they’d just shoved a microphone in his face and asked him to share his solutions for the climate crisis, then he let out a mumble in the affirmative.

“Okay, Dae it is.” Jason mercifully moved past the awkwardness. “Want to get coffee and set down some house rules?”

“I should unpack before orientation tonight,” Theo said. “You guys go ahead. I’m okay with whatever you come up with, unless you ban pillow fights, which I absolutely cannot agree to.”

Jason laughed and Caleb lit up, but Dae said something about being tired and went back to his task. The rest of them exchanged glances as the rhythmic clang of dishes continued, but once again, Jason was the first to recover.

“Alright Caleb, come on.” He nodded towards the door. “Guess we’ll be bending these fools to our will.”

“Right behind you, Williams.”

“We’re not doing that.”

The door shut, and Theo’s heart decided to put in entirely too much effort as he found himself staring at Dae freaking Moon. Well, his back, but still! What were the odds? That seemed like a good ice breaker, so he said it out loud.

“What are the odds?”

“Relatively high.” Dae didn’t turn around. “Our school was large.”

His voice was deeper than Theo remembered, and he was taller, so they were almost the same height.

What else about him had changed? In the two years since they’d last seen each other, Theo had gone through three different aesthetics.

His mom said that, with his dirty-blonde hair and light eyes, he reminded her of a young Robert Redford, so, after looking up who that was, Theo leaned into the cowboy thing.

Last year, he’d shifted to business casual, but for university, he’d landed on Former Child Celebrity Who Recently Got His Life Together.

He was rocking the look with strategically messy hair and a fashionably loose shirt that showed just enough collarbone, and he found himself wishing that Dae would at least look in his direction.

It was fine; all he had to do was start a conversation.

“Last time I saw you was at the speech competition.” Theo wasn’t sure what response he expected, but Dae refused to meet or subvert expectations, instead simply turning and staring.

“What happened at the GTA competition? I always wondered how that went.”

“Um, that was…” Dae put his hands in his pockets and frowned. “Well, I—I’m kind of tired.” He disappeared into his bedroom before Theo could say something charming about counting sheep or whatever.