2017 — Beginning

You two met in early September. Yu's latest note in the chats — five years later, in November 2020 — still reads: 我记得2017年9月4号的每一幕. I remember every scene of September 4, 2017.

The first messages the archive holds are already mid-conversation. Yu was in Toronto. Feng was in California. The chats were political at first — the Charlottesville aftermath, an election in Virginia coming up, the WeChat groups full of opinion. Then, on a quiet afternoon in early September, the politics dropped out and the rest of the relationship walked in:

[Yu]你最美

[Feng]😄💋

[Feng]好想你❤️😢

[Yu]🤗🤗

[Feng]抱不到😞

You're the prettiest. So happy. I miss you so much. Hugs. Can't reach you.

That is the entire shape of the four years in five lines: Yu says a small specific thing, Feng answers in lips and hearts, Feng misses him, Yu reaches across, Feng names the distance. The hug is offered. The hug cannot land. Every later year is a variation on that exchange.

By November the two of you have a private founding text. Yu quotes a line — I want you, because I love you / I love you, because I want you — these are not the same — and tells her he means the first. Feng replies in five colors of hearts:

[Yu]在亲密关系中，I want you, because I love you（我需要你，因为我爱你）和 I love you, because I want you（我爱你，因为我需要你）完全不同。

[Yu]我对你是前者

[Feng]I want you, because I love you so much🌹💋❤️😍💓💕😘

That distinction — I want you because I love you, not the inverse — became the early grammar between you both. Yu names the philosophy; Feng absorbs it and answers in color.

Then comes the November election night. Yu sat up in Toronto watching Virginia returns; Feng watched from California; the two of you celebrated together over the phone. Feng gave Yu the nickname she would use forever after — 周求恩, Zhou-Save-Grace — a play on his name and the night's victory. Yu had designed a campaign logo. Feng said she was proud. Yu wrote: 能跟你又站在一起迎接胜利，真开心. I'm so happy to stand with you again, welcoming a victory. The word again is doing a lot.

[Feng]赢了😄

[Yu]👊👊👊 VA, NJ, NYC, NC

[Feng]我还贡献过💪

[Yu]那个标志是我设计的，与有荣焉😄

[Feng]宝贝 为你骄傲🌹💋❤️

[Yu]能跟你又站在一起迎接胜利，真开心

[Feng]💋❤️🤗周求恩

In December Yu makes the first real declaration — not a poem but a resolution. He tells her he'll move to California:

[Feng]The heart wants what it wants❤️❤️❤️

[Feng]不喜欢的 近在眼前也不要

[Yu]人生就只有一次，YOLO，我要想办法去加州，我行我素。

[Feng]YOLO是啥？

[Yu]you only live once

[Yu]我只有这一生，没有机会也要创造机会，我要努力

[Feng]❤️❤️❤️

[Feng]爱你宝贝🌹💋❤️🤗

Feng quotes Selena Gomez back at him — The heart wants what it wants. Hearts hearts hearts. Love you baby. It is one of the cleanest declarations of resolve in the archive, and it will be tested every year that follows.

And — this is the harder thing to put on the same page — there was already a fight by mid-July, the second month captured. Feng had already blocked Yu once. She had already named the trait she would name dozens of times in the years to come:

[Feng, 2017-07-18 23:04]我喜欢你的善良正直 才华横溢 也知道你小心眼爱吃醋 不爱认错

I love your kindness and integrity, your brilliance, and I also know you're small-minded, jealous, and won't admit fault. Month two. None of the later patterns emerged late. They were baseline.

So the year holds, in equal weight: a sun and a shadow. A 你最美 and an I know you won't admit fault. The album from this year — San Diego in November, the small hotel rooms, the maple light — was made inside this paradox. Both things were true the whole time.

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