Page 102 of Septembers

He watched Dae twist the string of the tea bag around his finger and dunk it in and out of the water, his concentration unbreakable.

Theo couldn’t count how many times over the years he’d wanted to crash through those thick walls of his, but never so much as this moment. But he had no right to ask. He’d pushed him away too many times, and now Dae’s uncertainty was a punishment of his own making.

So he just nodded. “Okay.”

Roommate-aversary

People were due to show up for the party soon, and Theo was going insane for several competing reasons. First, Dae was far too dreamy in a simple jeans and dark blue button-up shirt combo, and Theo wanted to undo every one of those buttons with his mouth.

Second, he and Dae had been weird all week, which was an expected result after kissing and then deciding not to kiss anymore, but it still sucked. They were polite and careful around each other, not teasing, not touching, and barely even staying in the same room. It was torture, and Theo had no idea how to fix it.

Third, Dae was baking yakgwa, a sweet Korean pastry that had taken most of his concentration for the entire day, and it smelled so delicious, Theo’s stomach almost clawed its way out of his throat to get a taste.

Jordan had the same idea, reaching for it on the kitchen counter, but Dae swatted her hand away. “It’s still cooling.”

She pouted. “You said five minutes.”

“Yes, thirty seconds ago.” He didn’t pull his attention from the platter he was carefully arranging.

The recipe book he had propped against the back of the stove was the best birthday present Theo had ever pulled off. A full precious Saturday was spent secretly shuttling off to Hamilton to meet with Dae’s parents and grandparents to pick up their hand-written recipes, which he laminated and bound together. He even had Dae’s grandma use her fancy calligraphy brush to write their surname in the Korean alphabet on the cover.

Dae rolled his sleeves up to his elbows to continue his task, and Theo nearly fainted.

Jordan snapped her fingers in his face. “Hey. Why are you being weird today?”

“Me?” His cheeks were so warm, they felt infected. “I’m not weird. The world is weird, I’m just living in it.”

She narrowed her eyes, casting a glance back at Dae, who was pointedly ignoring them both. “Here,” she said, still skeptically studying him while shoving a bowl of chips into his hands. “Put these on Céline’s table.”

He ate a chip on the way. “Hmm, dill pickle.”

Dae tsked. “If you ruin your tastebuds on chips before trying my yakgwa, you don’t get any.”

Jordan had shown up mid-afternoon to ‘set up’, which consisted of putting twinkly lights on the balcony and select areas of the living room, putting out various snacks, and commandeering the kitchen table as an alcohol station, all of which had taken a measly hour. Then she just sat at the counter watching Dae bake as Theo changed his mind about his outfit six times.

She wandered into his room with more twinkle-lights and shook her head at his latest clashing outfit attempt. “What was wrong with the first one?”

He shrugged. The first outfit had been fine; blue chinos with a charcoal grey shirt that flirted with being tight. But for some deeply mysterious reason, he wanted to be extra dazzling tonight.

He heaved a sigh and went back to the original outfit, ruffling his hair to windswept levels. Jordan was halfway through putting up the lights when he finally decided to step away from the damn mirror. She’d carefully avoided any space that had a picture or sticker, which was quite the task.

“You know,” she said, raising herself on her tip-toes to tape a string of lights directly above the collage he’d made of their first year of university, “I was going to do a whole picture-shrine thing to celebrate your friendship, but then I remembered you already have one.”

Theo spun on her. “Why is the tone judgy?”

She laughed, turning on the lights and gasping at her handiwork. “No judgement. It’s just the right amount of creepy.”

It was possible Theo had gotten a bit carried away through the years with the same polaroid camera his aunt had given him, constantly adding photos to his collage, which now spread over the remaining three walls that weren’t covered in stickers.

“And it works with the theme of the evening,” she said, “so I can’t be mad at it. You’re still cool with letting people in here, right?”

“Uhm hmm.” Dae’s room had too many clues outing him as Bob Is Not Your Neighbour, but Theo’s would be open for anyone who wanted quieter conversations.

“Hey.” She nudged him with her elbow. “You okay?”

He wanted to tell her, but he also needed to figure out his feelings before anyone else started weighing in and pushing him one way or the other. What if she thought he was too reckless with people’s hearts to even consider taking that leap with Dae? Or worse: What if she encouraged it and pushed him into doing something he wasn’t equipped to handle?

So, instead of burdening her with his crisis, he just nodded, and though her face implied that she didn’t fully buy it, she let it go.