Gene woke up Sunday morning to seventeen missed calls.
His phone had died sometime during the night, and when he plugged it in, it exploded with notifications. Most were from Steven, a few from Lin Yue, and one—inexplicably—from Mei.
The first message from Steven was timestamped 6:47 AM: *Airport. Terminal 2. Singapore flight leaves in 90 minutes.*
Gene checked the time. 7:23 AM.
"Shit."
He threw clothes into a bag—the wrong clothes probably, but there wasn't time to think—and was in a taxi within twelve minutes. His hair was still wet from the world's fastest shower and he was pretty sure he'd grabbed two different shoes.
He made it to the gate with eight minutes to spare. Steven was already there, looking annoyingly put-together in dark jeans and a crisp white shirt, laptop open, completely absorbed in whatever he was reading.
"You're late," Steven said without looking up.
"You gave me forty-three minutes notice for an international trip."
"I sent the first message at 11 PM last night."
"My phone died!"
"That's a you problem." Steven finally glanced up. "Are those… different shoes?"
Gene looked down. One Nike, one Adidas. Both black, but definitely not a matched pair.
"Nobody's going to notice."
"I noticed immediately." Steven closed his laptop. "Come on. We're boarding."
-----
Singapore hit like a wall of heat and humidity. Gene had been to plenty of hot places—Southern California in August, Phoenix during a freak summer visit to relatives—but Singapore was different. The air felt thick, alive, clinging to every surface.
They took a taxi straight from the airport to some industrial area Gene couldn't pronounce. The whole drive, Steven was on his phone, switching between Mandarin and English so fast Gene got dizzy trying to follow.
"So what are we actually doing here?" Gene asked during a rare pause.
"Meeting someone about a rare earth processing facility. Guy named David Koh. Runs one of the cleanest operations in Southeast Asia, which doesn't mean clean—just less disaster-prone than the competition."
"And we're looking at this because…?"
"Because he wants expansion capital and I want to know if he's full of shit or actually smart." Steven put his phone down. "Your job is simple: watch him. Not the numbers—I'll handle those. Watch how he talks about his team, his facility, his plans. People lie with data constantly. They can't lie as well with body language."
"You want me to be a human lie detector?"
"I want you to pay attention to things I might miss because I'm busy reading spreadsheets." Steven's phone buzzed again. He ignored it. "Look, you're good with people. I'm good with systems. That's why this works."
The facility was exactly as disgusting as Gene feared. Chemical smells that made his eyes burn. Heat that felt like being slowly cooked. Workers in full protective gear moving around vats of stuff Gene really didn't want to know about.
David Koh met them in a conference room that had clearly seen better decades. Mid-fifties, wire-rim glasses, the kind of intense focus that came from solving impossible problems for too long.
"Steven." They shook hands. "You brought someone new."
"Gene Eu. He's working with me on cross-strait supply chain investments. Family's in semiconductors, so he knows the compliance nightmare."
David's handshake was firm, measuring. "American?"
"Unfortunately," Gene said, which got a surprised laugh.
"At least you're honest." David gestured to seats. "Most Americans show up pretending they're experts after reading two blog posts. Drives me crazy."
They spent three hours going through everything. Numbers, processes, team structures, expansion plans. Steven asked questions that made Gene's brain hurt. David answered with the tired patience of someone who'd explained this a thousand times to investors who never quite got it.
But Gene watched.
Watched David's voice lift with pride when discussing his operations manager. Watched him hesitate—just slightly—when mentioning his CFO. Watched him light up talking about Malaysia expansion plans but get tense about Singapore regulations.
During a bathroom break, Steven cornered him in the hallway.
"What are you seeing?"
"Operations manager is the star player. CFO is competent but David doesn't fully trust his instincts on growth. And he's way more worried about Singapore regulations than he's saying out loud—probably thinks they're going to tighten environmental standards and kill his margins."
Steven's expression didn't change but his eyes got sharper. "Good. That matches weird contingency money in his projections that he hasn't explained."
When they got back, Steven went straight for it.
"Expansion makes sense. Team's solid. But you've got risk reserves in your projections that are way above industry standard. What regulation changes are you actually worried about?"
David was quiet for a second, then laughed—tired but genuine. "You're good. I keep forgetting." He pulled up documents on his tablet. "Singapore's tightening environmental regs next year. New reporting requirements, stricter discharge limits, bigger fines. Technically manageable but it's going to cost time and money. I'm building buffer capital in case it gets ugly."
"Malaysia facing similar changes?"
"Not yet. That's partly why I want to expand there—window's probably three to five years before they catch up to Singapore standards."
Steven nodded slowly. "So you're building Malaysia as insurance against Singapore getting too expensive."
"That's the cynical read. The optimistic one is I'm building it because demand's real and margins are good." David smiled slightly. "Both can be true."
They left two hours later with a maybe-deal and Gene's brain feeling like soup.
-----
Dinner was at a hawker center—Steven insisted, said the best food in Singapore came from these open-air markets, not restaurants. He was right. They sat on plastic stools eating chili crab that was genuinely life-changing.
"You did good today," Steven said, destroying a crab claw with scary efficiency.
"Is that an actual compliment?"
"Close enough." Steven took a long drink of cold beer. "Most people I bring on these trips spend the whole time trying to impress me. You just… observed. Asked questions. Actually learned instead of performed."
"I'm too tired to perform."
"Good. That means you're paying attention to the right things." Steven's phone buzzed. He glanced at it, then put it face-down on the table. "You know what the difference is between people who succeed at this and people who burn out?"
"What?"
"The ones who succeed figure out they're playing a long game. The ones who burn out think every meeting, every deal, every conversation is the one that'll make or break them." He cracked open another crab claw. "You're not trying to be impressive. You're trying to get better. That's rarer than you'd think."
Gene didn't know what to say to that, so he just ate more crab.
His phone buzzed. Message from Mei: *Hey! Lin Yue gave me your number (hope that's okay). Steven mentioned you're in Singapore. How's he treating you? On a scale of 'mildly difficult' to 'actively trying to kill me through overwork'?*
Gene snorted.
"What?" Steven asked.
"Mei's asking if you're trying to kill me through overwork."
"Tell her I'm pacing myself. It's only been a week." Steven flagged down a server, ordered more beer. "She warn you about me yet?"
"Thoroughly."
"What'd she say?"
"That you're brilliant but exhausting. Don't know when to stop working. Think sleep is optional. Will call at 2 AM if you have an idea."
Steven considered this. "Fair assessment. What else?"
"That I should take actual breaks. Not 'working from a different location' breaks."
"Also fair." Steven looked at his beer. "We dated for two years. I thought we wanted the same things. Turns out she wanted to make pottery and see daylight occasionally. I wanted to build something that mattered. Couldn't figure out how to do both."
"Do you regret it?"
"Which part? Dating her or ending it?"
"Either. Both."
"I regret that it couldn't work. Don't regret trying." Steven drained his beer. "She's happier now. Makes these bowls that cost more than most people's rent. Completely impractical, deeply personal, everything I'm not good at. I'm happy for her."
"But you don't get it."
"Not even a little bit." Steven smiled—genuine this time. "That's why it works now. We don't have to get each other anymore. We just have to accept that we're different and still care."
Gene's phone buzzed again. Another message from Mei: *Also if you're free when you get back, want to grab coffee? I'm curious about the American who willingly signed up for Steven's boot camp.*
He showed Steven the message.
"You should go," Steven said. "She's good people. And she'll tell you things about me I'd never admit."
"Like what?"
"Like I'm a workaholic with control issues who needs to learn work-life balance before I alienate everyone who cares about me." Steven stood up, stretched. "Come on. We've got an early flight back tomorrow. Try to charge your phone this time."
-----
They got back to Taipei Monday evening. Gene went home, fell into bed, and slept for twelve straight hours.
When he woke up, he had messages from Lin Yue (asking how Singapore went), his mom (asking if he was eating vegetables), and Mei (suggesting Thursday for coffee if he was free).
He also had an email from Steven with subject line: "David Koh Follow-Up" and an attachment with about sixty pages of analysis.
Gene stared at his ceiling.
A month ago, he'd been in Irvine, comfortable and bored out of his mind. Now he was in Taipei, exhausted and weirdly happy, working seventy-hour weeks for someone who thought sleep was a suggestion, getting pulled into deals that were way over his head.
He grabbed his laptop and opened Steven's email.
Time to see what the hell he'd actually gotten himself into.