Septembers

22. Literal Definition of Insanity

Literal Definition of Insanity

“Cheot Sarang, how’s your butt? It feels toasty, right?” Dae’s mom stood grinning at him from the open door of their new car after insisting he try the seat warmers. Her dark bob bounced as she nodded in encouragement.

“It’s like sitting on the beach on a warm day without all the gross sand.”

“Appa didn’t want seat warmers.” She gave Dae’s dad a smug smirk as he continued taking boxes out of the trunk. He looked the same as always, though Theo did notice a few more white hairs.

“I don’t like hot butts,” he said, setting a box onto the sidewalk. Theo kept his mouth shut tight, since the only plausible response wouldn’t have been appropriate to say to Dae’s parents.

Dae had sold or given away most of what he had in Korea, so most of his boxes were filled with notebooks, clothes, and kitchen gadgets.

When Theo reached the apartment carrying one of them (all sweaty and gross, stupid fourth-floor walk-up) Dae and Min were in the kitchen whisper-yelling at each other.

“You have to make a decision,” Min said. “You can’t keep doing the same thing over and over. That’s the literal definition of insanity.”

“No it’s not, I don’t expect a different result.”

She made a noise like she was choking. “That’s so much worse! Korea was supposed to cure this.”

“It wasn’t working. What was I supposed to do, stay there forever?”

“Find middle ground! There are more options than in the fire or no fire at all. You could be by the fire. Roast some marshmallows.”

“I’m fine this way.”

“You’re not. Listen to me: This is it. Either you say something, or you let it go and move on.”

“From what?” They both jumped as Theo turned the corner, red exploding on their cheeks and creeping up their necks.

Synchronized blushing: a wonder to behold.

Min’s hair had grown past her shoulders, and she still had the same wire-rimmed glasses that she continually insisted she actually needed, even though, when Theo put them on, he didn’t notice any difference.

“My job,” Dae said quickly. “Min doesn’t think I should start right away.”

She scowled at him but didn’t say anything.

“I’m with her,” Theo said. “Ease into it. There’s no need to dive right back in.”

“Exactly.” Min glared. “Diving right back in is a bad idea.”

“Thank you both for your concern, but believe it or not, I’m an adult who can make my own decisions.” He stared at her pointedly. “If it goes badly, it’s my own fault.”

She sighed and flipped her hair, seeming to decide this argument was no longer worth her energy. “Theo, you’re a big-time music agent now, right?”

“The biggest.” Junior agent, but that was just semantics.

He had seven people on his roster, including Jordan (under Hannah Fucking Gardiner), Caleb (as a recording guitarist), Avery (who was disturbingly amazing at almost every instrument she tried), two goosebump-inducing singer-songwriters, and a harmonizing sister-duo who sang about crushing the patriarchy.

Life was good.

“So,” Min said, her eyes boring into him, “when are you going to sign our cousin?”

“Ah right, the genius.” Min had been hounding him about their guitar-piano-violin-bass-playing, song-writing, perfect-pitched cousin for months.

And Theo was keeping an eye on him, but he wasn’t about to sign someone known for disappearing for days at a time.

“I’ll sign him when he gets his rag-tag little rock band out of his mom’s garage and onto an actual stage. ”

Dae’s parents waddled inside holding boxes, and chit-chat was momentarily replaced by the clang-thump-ding sounds of moving day as they put dishes away, rearranged fridge allotment, and found space for appliances, since, unsurprisingly, Dae owned grow-up things like blenders and milk foamers.

Theo paused to put on his Moving Day Playlist and watched as all four Moons started bobbing their heads. “Min, are you living on campus this year?”

He thought she might pull a neck muscle scoffing. “Hell no. I got an apartment with some friends in The Annex, so expect regular unannounced visits.”

“As long as you bring snacks,” Theo said, “you’re welcome any time.”

She mugged triumphantly at Dae. “Hear that? Any time.”

He shrugged. “Did you think I would argue?”

She snorted. “Do you see what I deal with, Theo? He’s always taking away the fun of teasing him.”

Dae winked at him. “That was my evil plan all along.”

Holy shit. A pulse of electricity shot through very specific parts of Theo’s anatomy. Had Dae ever winked at him before? He wanted it again but also did not want it again.

Dae was different. Easier. Talking more, joking more, smiling more. Over the course of just a few hours, Theo had already seen his dimples twice. It was amazing, so he wasn’t sure why it made his chest ache.

“Theo, are you in?”

“Huh?”

Min took a cheese grater out of the box and pointed it at him. “Tonight.”

“Oh, um.” Clearly he’d missed something important. “Whatever Dae wants.”

“This is already starting? You two don’t have to do everything together!” He guessed that meant Dae had already said no. She sighed at his lack of response, adjusting her glasses. “Fine. Have fun in your knitted sweaters drinking tea and watching Murder She Wrote, you old farts.”

Before Theo could point out how delightful that actually sounded, a knock on the door announced the arrival of the ceremonial moving pizza.

Over dinner, he got caught up on their lives.

Eomma—who insisted Theo stop calling her Mrs. Moon—had gotten into water aerobics, and Appa had invented a fake back injury to get out of it.

They were both still teaching (professor-ing?) at McMaster, with no retirement plans for the foreseeable future.

Theo told them about work, about Jordan’s progress, and his brief flirtation with learning to play the guitar.

He’d almost forgotten how wholesome Dae’s family was. They were so supportive and lovely, they probably wanted Dae to end up with someone as wonderful as them.

After they polished off the pizza, Dae’s family started to gather their things, and Eomma took Theo’s hand, squeezing with surprising strength. “You take care of him.”

“Of course.”

“Eomma!” He’d never heard Dae whine before. It was delightful. “I lived in a different country for three years. I don’t need someone to take care of me.”

“Is that what you think?” She smirked at him and gave Theo a wink. Probably where Dae got it. “Goodnight, Cheot Sarang.”

Once everyone was gone and the apartment was quiet, Theo glared at Dae. “Are you ever going to tell me what my Korean name means?”

He’d considered trying to look it up phonetically, but that felt like cheating. He didn’t want to figure it out, he wanted to be told.

Dae snapped his fingers as if he just remembered something. “I have a gift for you.”

“Effective deflection.”

He went into his room and reappeared holding a green bottle. “You said you wanted to try soju.”

“You brought that from Korea?”

“No, I got it at the Euro supermarket on Bloor Street, but it’s the same.” He brought fancy shot glasses to the coffee table in front of the couch, shook the bottle for some reason, then cracked the lid and poured. “I know it goes against your instincts not to shoot this, but you’re meant to sip.”

“So why give it to me in a tiny glass?”

Dae cocked his head to the side, his eyebrows pushed together. “I don’t know. It’s just how it’s done.” He held up his glass. “To Toronto.”

“To your return.”

They clinked, and Theo sipped. He thought it would taste like something—literally anything—but instead it was just pure, strong alcohol searing a path down his torso and settling into a pool of fire in his belly.

Dae laughed at Theo’s coughing fit. “Koreans take drinking seriously.”

One glass turned into three as Dae told him about the lady sitting next to him on the plane who filled him in on the gossip from her small town (the absolute nerve of Helen using Angela’s recipe for the pie-baking contest after she’d slept with her husband) and Theo told him all the tricks of the building; Stairway Bill hits on everyone, but it can be a confidence boost from time to time, and the super is basically a figurehead, since his wife calls all the shots, so compliment her when she gets a blow-out and she’ll let the delivery guy go right to the door instead of waiting outside.

Slowly but surely, the coffee table became a graveyard of bottles, candy wrappers, and chip bags. Theo had picked up flavours that didn’t exist in Korea: dill pickle, ketchup, and all-dressed, and even though Dae complained about the sodium content, he moaned at the first crunch of every flavour.

Which was fine. It was just a moan. People moaned for all kinds of reasons.

They joked, laughed, and teased, and Dae didn’t hold back his smiles.

Each dimple seemed like a promise. He was there.

He wasn’t a two-dimensional wish on Theo’s computer screen, he was right in front of him, breathing the same air, sitting on the same hilariously named couch, eating the same snacks—and maybe it could always be like that.

Maybe he would never leave again. That was what those dimples said.

“Theo, are you okay?”

“I’m not that drunk.”

“No, I meant about Nick.”

The silly, foggy fun-bubble burst, and a guilty, hard feeling cemented around his chest. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

His expression was all empathy and concern. “Okay, but if you do—”

“Why’d you start Bob is Not Your Neighbour?”

“What?” He laughed. “It’s been years. Why ask now?”

Because dirtbag cheaters didn’t deserve sympathy from their best friends. “I’ve always been curious. I was just respecting your privacy.”

“Ah. And now?”

“Now I’m buzzing from Koreans-take-drinking-seriously soju, and I don’t give a shit about your privacy.”

“Okay.” He turned towards him on the couch, tucking his leg beneath him. His knee touched Theo's thigh, but it didn’t seem intentional. Leaning into it to chase his heat also wasn’t intentional, and Theo would swear to that in a court of law.

“Do you remember that I went to horse camp?”

“I have not stopped thinking about the fact that you went to horse camp from the moment you told me, so yes, I remember.”

Amused eyes. The wink of a dimple. “Well, I brought one of my notebooks with what I thought were just dumb little doodles, and this girl saw them, and they made her laugh, and I don’t even know how to describe it.

” His voice was practically twinkling, as if reliving the joy of his past. “Her face lit up in a way that also lit me up. Someone was laughing because of me. I hadn’t experienced that in a long time, and I just… ” He shrugged. “I wanted more.”

Theo wanted more for him too. More laughter, more amusement, more love. He deserved it all. “Why didn’t you ever tell anyone it was you?” Dae stared at him pointedly and it took Theo a moment too long to realize what the look meant. “Other than me. I don’t count.”

“Right. You never count.” He shook his head with indecipherable frustration. “We’ve talked about this. I just want people to be able to interpret them the way they want to.”

“Okay, but like, if I know a song is written by a certain singer that doesn’t stop me from finding my own meaning in it.”

He laid his head on the back of the couch, thinking about it for so long that Theo wondered if he’d forgotten the question.

But then Dae rocked his head to the side, his face open with a vulnerability Theo hadn’t been expecting.

“It’s the only place where I can be completely honest. I know they’re just drawings, but they’re part of me, and if people know they’re mine, I don’t think I’d be able to be as open without worrying that they’ll read into it. ”

That made sense. Except… “You’re not scared I’ll read into it?”

A slow, almost sad smile. “You never read into anything.”

Theo needed out of the moment, out of the soft tingling in his stomach, out of the pull Dae had on him, refusing to let his gaze go, and out of the desire to close the space between them and finally feel what it was like to press their lips together.

It was the alcohol. Theo knew that. He wouldn’t be this weak otherwise.

This stupid. His blood was running too hot through his veins and…

other places. He needed something to say: a joke, a jab, a simple observance about the fucking weather—anything.

But he had nothing. His every sense was filled with Dae.

The heady smell of him, the way his hair fell across his forehead, his intense, dark eyes, and the sound of his breath, which, if Theo wasn’t imagining things, was getting heavier.

“I read.”

Dae blinked, calculating, probably trying to decipher what that possibly could mean, but failing. “What?”

“You said I don’t read.”

Dae somehow cocked his head while keeping it resting against the couch. Adorable. Then he burst out laughing. “I said you don’t read into things, Theo.”

“Oh right.” Shit, was he legitimately drunk? Off the soju and Dae. His brain wasn’t working.

“But now that you say that, I have always been curious.” The twist of Dae’s mouth was teasing. “You can read, right? I mean, from the state of your texts…”

Theo pushed his shoulder, grateful for the dissipation of whatever spell he’d been under. “My texts are perfectly acceptable for the times we live in. You’re the one who texts like an octogenarian.”

“Ah, yes, eighty-year-olds, famous texters.”

Theo refused to admit that he’d had no idea that word meant someone was in their eighties. He just thought it meant they were old. “Yes, you should ask them for some pointers. They probably know more about trends than you.”

Dae deflected a poke aimed at his ribs and held Theo’s hands down to prevent any more attacks, both of them holding back their laughter as they traded empty insults.

It was good to have him back.