Page 2 of Septembers

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.

A rough start, but not unsalvageable. They had all year. A full year with Dae Moon. Theo wished he’d recorded the mysteries through the years so he could make sure to uncover every one. What was he always scribbling in his notebooks? Was he dating that tall girl Theo saw him with sometimes? More importantly, what did his forehead look like under all that hair?

He was tempted to knock on his door and start gathering tidbits immediately, but decided not to be a clingy weirdo on their first day and instead unpack his bedroom. It was surprisingly fun, and he spent a disproportionate amount of time arranging his concert and album posters on his wall. His room was small, but that was the university experience. His mom and aunt had ganged up on him to get a degree, and that was fine; he could delay his life for four years and make the memories every coming-of-age movie told him he should. Sure, it meant not interning at a talent agency or becoming the youngest agent since the dawn of entertainment, but it also meant he could spend the next four years mining the university’s student population for talent.

He knew how lucky he was to know exactly what he wanted to do with his life. Some people spent a lifetime trying to figure it out, but Theo had known since he was twelve, when his aunt had snuck him into the bar she worked at after the babysitter bailed. She told him to stay in the back, but once the band started playing, it was impossible not to peek his head out and watch the woman’s fingers fly over the guitar strings, watch the drummer’s arms flexing as they brought the sticks down again and again, and watch as the man’s vein popped in his neck as he sang. Little Theo had never experienced anything like it. The notes had burrowed under his skin and stayed there, constantly humming just under the surface.

Maybe it was strange that he never considered becoming a musician himself, but the thought had honestly never occurred to him. He didn’t want to make the music, he wanted to be around it, to help it exist in the only way he knew how: by being a pushy control freak.