With zero dollars and free college equipment they started the series-each episode is actually just a five-minute installment-during their last year of college. (“People were like, ‘But you’ve made out.’ I was like, ‘No, never!’ ” says Ash.) And thus the germ for their YouTube series was born. Much to their amusement, people were puzzled by this rapport. “You got this little schmutz right here.” “Yes, bubeleh,” says Bening as he reaches across their quinoa salads to wipe Ash’s face. He notices that Bening is looking at him funny. It was a beautiful thing,” says Ash, who speaks with rapid-fire excitement. “Six years, domestic partnership in the making, shared bank account. They have lived with each other ever since. The director, Bening, grew up in Ohio, having never known a gay person until 2009, when he met Ash, his freshman roommate, at Tufts. The show’s star, Ash, an Israeli-American, is the gay one. Like most things YouTube, the series, about a gay college student and his straight roommate, is about themselves. At Le Pain Quotidien in Brooklyn Heights, where many thirty- and fortysomethings come to sweat it out on their television pilot/novel/screenplay/tech start-up or other get-rich-quick scheme, 24-year-old Noam Ash and 25-year-old Austin Bening are giddily basking in their recent Hollywood glory, having just learned that they’re this close to selling their YouTube Web series, My Gay Roommate, to one of the premium online networks.