once upon a time in 2017...
lu was 18 at the time and worked as an intern at the multicultural center at the college of san mateo, where he studied computer science.
because he hated going to class, had a lot of calculus homework, and was a very dutiful intern, lu spent most of his time in the multicultural center. besides, it wasn't a bad place to be. people were friendly. there were free overripe bananas and oatmeal packets and a nintendo wii with mariokart.
the multicultural center—or the mcc, as frequent flyers referred to it—had just opened a few months before lu got hired there and he was the very first intern the center ever hired. in hindsight, this was pretty lucky, because lu’s boss would only hire people whose horoscopes were compatible with hers.
it was the first space on campus to focus on making school easier on students from all walks of life, providing specialized help to undocumented students, formerly incarcerated students, former foster youth, and lgbt students.
lu made sure people signed in, scheduled appointments with counselors, and filled up the keurig when it ran out of water. it was a pretty relaxed gig. he made many friends, all from different backgrounds and with different life experiences, and learned a lot from them.
it was fall semester when henry retook calc 2 at csm, having failed it earlier that spring during their senior year of high school at cañada college’s middle college program.
they had had some difficulty applying for college in high school, so they decided to take a short break from school altogether before trying again. having little direction at the time, henry thought it would at least be useful to have a better grade in calc 2.
henry hadn’t taken any classes at csm before (although their mom got her associate’s degree there), so they didn't have much of a place to be until a few friends from their student activism days at cañada recommended the mcc as a study spot.
and so henry started coming by to study calculus and eat oatmeal with overripe bananas.
neither lu or henry remembers exactly what they talked about the first time they met, though when they look back at it now, they do each remember thinking the other was cute.
december of that year, lu, who was responsible for a lot of the early event programming at the mcc, decided to host a secular secret santa of sorts. he called it a gift n get. unfortunately, because lu arranged the gift n get, he knew that henry would be his assigned gifter. henry got him this sock (and the other one, but it got lost at the laundromat). as consolation, he told henry that he’d bake them something, but he didn’t get a chance to make good on this offer until much later…
after finals, henry and lu went mostly separate ways.
henry passed calc 2 with a b and spent the rest of their gap year traveling to korea and applying to 4-year colleges (which was no easy feat, but that’s another story). they got accepted into humboldt and uc davis, and ended up choosing uc davis.
lu changed majors to anthropology, after deciding that it interested him more than typing up lines and lines of code for google or facebook or whoever else. he finished up at community college a couple semesters later and transferred to uc davis under a tag agreement about a year after henry did.
during this time, henry and lu would occasionally talk and send each other memes over text and hung out a couple times when henry would come home from school for breaks.
some times that stand out include:
- that time when lu and henry went to the beach on a foggy day in pacifica and for a picnic of safeway chicken tenders and talked about wanting to learn beekeeping and carpentry.
- that time when henry picked lu up from his job at the san mateo county tourism bureau and they went to get tong sui at sweet indulgence in millbrae.
- that time lu took the train up to meet with an academic advisor before starting at uc davis and met henry at the peet’s in downtown davis before going for a walk around the arboretum.
some time during this part of their lives, henry gave lu this tiny jar terrarium with a little mushroom and tree in it. henry had no idea, but lu kept it on his windowsill in san francisco and brought it with him when he finally moved to davis. it now sits in their living room.
at some point during fall of 2019, lu broke the news to henry that he’d be moving to davis soon. henry was excited for a familiar face to come around; it could be pretty lonely on campus.
but come spring of 2020, the pandemic hit and lu had to postpone moving. classes shifted toward being online and, caught up in the chaos of it all, henry and lu lost track of each other once again.
later that year, henry moved to agrarian effort, a rickety old co-op house full of cockroaches, mice, unruly undergrads, and a little cat named sushi. ag, as it was affectionately dubbed, was run by a nonprofit called solar community housing association (scha), which had been running the show for uc davis’s on-campus co-op housing since 1972.
that quarter, unbeknownst to one another, henry and lu both enrolled in an organic chemistry class (chem 008a) that would be held entirely online.
now, organic chemistry is a pretty tough subject to learn in regular school. but when all of your classes are unexpectedly online and quarantine means there’s little hope of making a study group with people who somehow understand chirality in asymmetric carbon atoms better than you, it’s damn near impossible.
so someone quickly made a discord server for the class of 500-some students to exchange notes, ask if the midterm was supposed to be today or next week, and, most importantly, get help from volunteer ta santpreet.
we also used the server to organize a petition to hold our professor accountable for harassment and incompetent teaching, but that’s a story for another day…
santpreet held regular office hours that basically served as a better version of our professor’s lectures. we’re pretty sure that he’s the only reason we were able to pass that course.
a little while into the course, henry posted a joke about attending santpreet’s office hours and lu recognized the username that they’d recycled from instagram.
he sent them a direct message and they started talking again, as if no time had passed at all.
by winter 2020, lu had decided he was ready to move to davis, in preparation for some of his classes returning to in person curriculum. henry helped him tour a few places and, with henry’s recommendation of scha’s co-ops, lu ultimately decided to move into the domes.
the domes were a unique on-campus housing situation. they were comprised of 14 fiberglass domes that were built by students in 1972 and left to disintegrate for the next 50 years (at least, by the time lu got there) in the hot davis summers and rainy winters. they each housed two students, one in a downstairs bedroom and the other in an upstairs loft.
lu moved in on january 2, 2021 and, as soon as he’d finished moving his things into the loft of dome 14 and saying goodbye to his parents, henry came by to welcome him to davis. they went for boba at the now defunct old teahouse at the now defunct u-mall situated directly in between ag and the domes.
they didn’t know it then, but this would be their first date of sorts.
now that they were neighbors, lu and henry were inseparable. they exchanged homecooked food and explored the empty campus late at night.
pictured (left to right): henry's berry rhubarb pie (lu's favorite), lu's nutella babka, and a ginger muffin henry made with some yogurt lu made
lu wouldn’t find out for a long time that henry hates staying up late or that they weren’t getting any homework done, because they would always make the time to hang out with him.
henry wouldn’t find out for a long time that lu also wasn’t getting any homework done and would stay up extra late by drinking a ton of mint yerba mates and/or key lime pie bang energies to make up for it.
if lu and henry listed every nice memory they had from their undergrad days at the co-ops, this page would be a mile long, so here’s a highlights reel (lu will put some captions here soon, but in the meantime, feel free to ask about any mischief we might or might not have gotten up to in college):
in winter quarter of 2021, lu lived in dome 12 and having roommate problems. henry was also feeling that their time at the co-ops had run its course. so they set out to move into their own place.
after much effort, henry and lu settled on an apartment across the street from the grocery outlet in davis, broke their leases at the co-ops, and moved in on lu's 23rd birthday. they celebrated with a dinner of yellow curry, the first meal cooked in the new apartment.
lu and henry’s rooms were right next to each other. every morning, lu would wait for the sound of henry’s door opening to say hello.
this period of their lives was an uncertain time, spent finishing up straggling degree requirements and trying to find work that actually suited those once so elusive bachelor’s degrees (henry’s is in global disease biology and lu’s is in evolutionary anthropology and linguistics, in case you were wondering).
the latter of these two was a pretty tough sell. the post-quarantine job market was not a very hospitable place for new graduates. lu ended up taking a job tending the bar at red 88 noodle bar, a local thai restaurant and watering hole best known for a drink called the fml, which was equal parts vodka, gin, rum, triple sec mixed with about twice as much sugar as the alcohol.
he was thinking about sticking it out for a bit until he could afford to go to grad school, hopefully in germany, where it would be cheap or free.
henry's ochem 2 (che 8b with nasiri, for all you uc davis alums) flashcard for the kekulé structure of a carboxylic acid halide, which still hangs on our wall, as a reminder that, no matter how difficult life may get, at least we aren't doing organic chemistry any more
henry finished up their remaining ochem, physics, and microbiology credits, which required a lot of late night studying. lu would help quiz them with flashcards.
once they finished up in fall of 2022, henry was on the lookout for a job and lu, who had worked his way up to a supervisor job at red, hired them. working together was fun; when lu would test new menu items, he’d feed them to his favorite taste tester (henry, of course) in the expo line.
as a supervisor, lu would often work longer, later shifts. henry would always be waiting for him at home. sometimes, they’d watch tv in the living room together.
one day, henry asked lu if they could share a blanket. and the next day, they asked if they could put their head on lu’s shoulder. the next next day, henry ate half of lu’s cornmeal crust mushroom pizza and fell asleep on him during the second episode of naruto.
and finally, the next next next day—december 1, 2022, lu got off work and he and henry walked to nugget from their apartment to get an oreo cheesecake bar and laid on the living room couch comparing spotify wrapped playlists.
the lease was up for another renewal and lu was thinking about what to do next. henry seemed down and lu couldn’t tell why.
after some encouragement to say what they were thinking from a roommate, henry told lu that they’d miss him if he went to germany and that they’d be sad to part ways.
this gave lu the courage to act on an idea he'd been thinking about for a while.
he said something henry didn’t expect: “now, if the answer is no, we can always pretend this never ever happened, but do you want to be gay, like, together?”
and suddenly henry wasn’t so sad any more.
they went for a walk hand in hand and it felt fresh outside, both from the recent rain and from the happiness of finally being together.
when they came back, they watched chud ii: bud the chud (1989) on tubi and, after only a short moment to prepare (“hold on, let me clean up a little first!”) henry moved into lu’s room...
...and never moved out (but maybe they will if our next place has two bedrooms, since we have different bedtimes).
the following couple of years have been a whirlwind of working different jobs, building a place to call home together, and learning how to understand and support each other through good times and bad.
we’re excited to finally be starting the next chapter in our lives together as a married couple!
...and they all lived happily ever after!