Page 38 of Septembers

Dae shook his head, almost wincing. “No, you were just being you, and I made it weird.”

“I know you’re uncomfortable with proximity. I shouldn’t have⁠—”

“Theo, stop. Please.”

“—crossed a line. I can be too much.”

“No, I can be not enough.”

Theo’s breath caught. How could he think that? “Don’t ever say that again. You’re so much more than enough.”

Dae seemed like he wanted to say something, but his mouth wouldn’t open, so he froze, staring. The window into his mind Theo had often fantasized about would’ve been incredibly handy in that moment, but at the same time, he knew he would’ve been too scared to look. They needed to move past whatever this was, bury it and forget it, and go back to being best friends who’d never even thought about destroying their bond with something so stupid.

Dae was still staring at him, unblinking.

“Dae? Are you rebooting?” He let out a breath that wasn’t quite a laugh. Theo let the moment settle before leaning over his notebook. He’d drawn a flower-like character with a split stem for legs. It was wielding a chainsaw with the caption, They love you, they love you not, come at me and find out. “Should I read into this?”

“I’m begging you not to.” His hand twitched by the side of the notebook as if he was going to shut it, shut Theo out, shut down the only clue he had to what was going on inside of him. But he didn’t, and Theo was shocked by how grateful he was.

“Dae, are we okay?”

His voice came out barely audible. “We’ll always be okay.”

“Pinky swear?” Theo held out his hand.

Dae eyed it. “I thought it was just an expression.”

“Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t.”

Dae’s lips quirked as he wrapped his finger around Theo’s. “Pinky swear.”

Anime Chic

Theo’s mom dropped the pizza box on the table with smug satisfaction. “Who’s the best?”

“Are there mushrooms?”

She huffed. “No, you giant baby, there are no mushrooms.”

“Then you are.” He opened it and sucked in a long breath. There was nothing in the world as enticing as the spicy smell of cheese-infused Italian sausage. Another box sat on the counter, ready to be put in the fridge and consumed cold the next morning.

Breakfast pizza: a time honoured tradition.

The apartment he’d shared with his mom and aunt was about an hour from campus: subway, streetcar, then a jaunt through a park while avoiding yoga classes or torrid hand-jobs, depending on the time of day. The building used to be a Victorian-style house but was split into three different apartments. It still felt house-y though, with creaky wooden floors, fancy carved moulding, and a fireplace they never used.

His aunt Liana followed her nose to the pizza. She had the same chestnut brown hair, dark eyes, and heart-shaped face as his mom, so people always assumed they were twins. Every time it happened, Liana would put on a fake smile and say through gritted teeth that, no, they weren’t twins. She was, in fact, five years younger. It gave his mom endless joy, not because it implied she appeared younger than she was, but because it pissed her sister off so much.

Liana slopped a piece of pizza on her plate and picked off the toppings. She liked to eat the dough first because she was an actual insane person. “How was your first month? Are classes okay? How is my favourite nephew? Tell me everything.”

She’d been calling Dae her favourite nephew since she finagled him into helping her repair the stage in the bar, earning him a place in her heart forever.

“First month went by fast, classes are interesting, and Dae is fine.”

“Fine?” She cocked her head, the topping-less crust hovering in her hand just before her mouth. “What’s that tone?”

“There’s no tone.”

“There’s a tone,” his mom agreed. “And since when do you end at fine? You usually give us more updates about Dae than you do about yourself.” She slipped into her terrible impression of him, which was just a lowered voice and hunched shoulders. “Dae answered a question in class without panicking, Dae made a new friend in his language lab, Dae gave his opinion about a Real Housewife without having to be asked.”