Page 81 of Okay, Cupid

“Jude!” Huy smiles at me, bringing himself in for an awkward hug. “God, it’s been two whole days with just my family. I’m ready to jump off the roof.”

“That bad, huh?” I step inside, slipping my shoes off to join the pile by the door.

“I’m literally desperate for anyone.”

“Am I your first visitor?” I ask him.

“Alice came by yesterday—she brought me sundubu.”

I change the subject. “When do you get your cast?”

“Tomorrow. Then I can actually go back to school.”

“Well, I call first dibs on signing it.”

“You think I was going to let anyone else have the privilege?” Huy swings toward the stairs so quickly that I’m afraid for his arm. “Movie time?”

I follow Huy up the stairs to his room.

“Is this where the magic happens?” I ask him.

“What? No, that happens onstage.” Huy falls onto his bed recklessly, not seeming to mind his arm at all. “This is where I sleep.”

“Of course,” I joke. “How could I not realize?”

The room is small, about the size of mine, with one large window that looks out onto the street below us. Huy’s unmade bed is tucked right against it in the corner, and I’m sure on cooler nights, the setting is perfect for a little reading or watching a movie. I’m jealous. My only view is of our backyard, and the Orthodox church we live near.

The rest of the room is so quintessentially Huy. Posters of every singer I can think of him mentioning hang on his walls. There are black-and-white photos of an older woman and a young girl, as well as pictures of Huy when he was much younger. A Vietnamese flag, yellow with three stripes running horizontally through the middle, hangs next to a trans pride flag.

And on the wall opposite me, starting on the floor, running at least ten rows thick and as high as his desk nestled into the other corner, is his tape collection. Some I’m familiar with, but others I’ve never seen nor heard of before.

“Jesus.”

“My dad thinks I should donate some.” He rubs at the back of his neck.

“How many do you have?” I squat in front of the collection. I’d say it’s half official releases, half mixtapes, which still seems ludicrous. Some of them bear titles as simple as study vibes or for jogs around ggp. But others get more specific, like crying on a friday afternoon or julien baker: life ruiner.

“Last I counted, it’s at four hundred, but that was a while ago.”

“I still maintain my stance that Spotify is easier to manage.”

“Maybe for you,” he says with a grin on his face. “But sitting down, picking a tape out, or a record, or a CD … I like that physical part of the experience. Actually finding something instead of scrolling, scrolling, scrolling.” He lets his head fall back on a pillow. “God, I sound like such a hipster, holy shit.”

“Yeah.” I laugh with him. “You do.”

I spot a framed movie poster on his wall. It almost looks hand-painted, the title The Dark Crystal written out in elaborate font.

“Now what is this?”

There are no humans on the poster, only weird-looking elf guys, and some scary bird thing.

“You’re telling me you’ve never heard of the 1982 dark fantasy epic sleeper hit The Dark Crystal? It’s my favorite movie. Jim Henson, the guy who did the Muppets? He made it. My parents couldn’t afford that many English lessons for me growing up, but they wanted me to learn, so when my grandmother would babysit, she’d play me all her old VHS tapes and DVDs so I could learn that way.”

“That’s sweet.”

“Dark Crystal was my favorite, even though my grandma was sure it’d scare me.”

“Was she right?”