Thursday arrived wrapped in the kind of humidity that made Gene's clothes stick to his skin before he'd even left his apartment.
He'd spent the week drowning in Steven's world—supplier contracts, investor calls, endless details about rare earth supply chains. His brain felt waterlogged and he was pretty sure he'd forgotten what actual rest felt like. But he'd promised Mei coffee, and honestly, he needed to talk to someone who wasn't Steven. Someone who might actually understand what he was getting himself into.
The cafe was tucked into a narrow street in Daan—one of those places where mismatched furniture somehow looked intentional, plants spilled from every available surface, and the barista treated coffee like a sacred ritual. Mei was already there when he arrived, wearing jeans with dried clay smudged across one thigh and a loose sweater that looked soft enough to sleep in. Her hair was up in that same chopstick-secured bun, a few pieces falling around her face.
"You look like hell," she said, not unkindly.
"Thanks. You look like you've been wrestling mud."
"Clay. But close enough." She pushed a latte toward him across the wooden table. "Already ordered for you. Trust me on this."
Gene took a sip. Perfect temperature, perfect sweetness, the kind of coffee that made you wonder why you'd ever accepted anything less. "How did you—"
"Steven drinks the exact same thing. You California boys are tragically predictable." She wrapped both hands around her own cup, studying him over the rim. "So. How's survival going?"
"Does dreaming about spreadsheets count as a cry for help?"
"With Steven? That's just Tuesday." Mei's smile was knowing, sympathetic. "He sent me photos from Singapore. You went to see David Koh's facility?"
"You know him?"
"Met him once, maybe two years ago. Intense guy. Smart but paranoid as hell."
"That's… yeah. That's accurate." Gene rubbed his face, felt the exhaustion in his bones. The week was catching up to him. "Can I ask you something?"
"Depends what it is."
"Why'd you really leave? Not just Steven—the whole world you were in."
Mei went quiet. Outside, scooters zipped past in their usual chaos. Someone laughed at another table. The espresso machine hissed and gurgled.
"You want the sanitized version or the real one?"
"Real."
"Okay." She set her cup down carefully, like she was handling something fragile. "I loved him. Still do, just differently. But being with Steven was like… you know those dreams where you're running on a treadmill that keeps getting faster and you can't get off? That's what our life felt like. Every time we hit a goal, there was another one. Every success was just a stepping stone. We never just… existed together."
"And you wanted to exist."
"I wanted to wake up on a Sunday without him already on his laptop. I wanted dinner without his phone buzzing every five minutes. I wanted to feel like I mattered as much as his deals." She looked down at her hands. "The thing is, I knew who he was when we started. This wasn't a surprise. I just thought maybe I could handle it. Or that he'd change. Or that I'd change. Turns out none of that happened."
Gene felt something twist in his chest. Recognition, maybe. Or warning.
"Don't misunderstand me," Mei added quickly. "Steven's not a bad person. He's actually one of the best people I know. Loyal, honest, he genuinely wants the people around him to win. He just… loves his work more than anything else. And that's his choice. I just couldn't keep being the thing that came second."
"So you started making pottery."
"So I started making pottery." Her smile turned real again, losing that sad edge. "Which sounds like the world's most cliché burnout story, right? Stressed businesswoman quits to become an artist. But I'm actually happy now. I make less money. My mom thinks I've lost my mind. My friends from business school don't know what to say to me anymore. But I wake up wanting to start my day instead of dreading it."
"Do you ever miss it? The business stuff?"
"Sometimes I miss the adrenaline. Closing a big deal, that rush. I miss feeling like I was building something that mattered to other people." She tilted her head, considering. "But then I remember I was building Steven's dreams, not mine. And that wasn't fair to either of us."
A couple entered the cafe, the woman laughing at something the man said. The barista greeted them like old friends. Outside, Taipei hummed with its usual electric energy.
"Why are you telling me all this?" Gene asked.
Mei's eyes were gentle but serious. "Because you remind me of who I was three years ago. Smart, driven, willing to work yourself into the ground to prove something. And Steven's going to feed that part of you because that's what he does. He finds people who want what he wants and pulls them along in his wake. It's not manipulation—it's just who he is."
"You think I should quit."
"No. I think you should pay attention." She leaned forward, elbows on the table. "Every once in a while, stop and ask yourself: am I doing this because I want to, or because Steven's momentum is carrying me? There's a difference. A big one. And if you don't check in with yourself, you'll wake up two years from now and realize you've been living his life instead of yours."
Gene thought about Irvine. About the comfortable apartment he'd left behind, the family business he'd walked away from, the safe path he'd rejected.
"What if what I want is the same thing he wants?"
"Then you'll be fine. You'll probably be successful, even. But Gene…" She paused, choosing her words carefully. "If you're wrong about that, the cost is pretty high. I'm just saying—keep checking. Make sure this is your choice, not just the only option you're letting yourself see."
They talked for another hour after that. About Taipei, about her pottery studio and the absurd politics of the art world, about what made Gene leave California in the first place. Mei was funny and sharp and completely unlike anyone Gene had met in business circles. She asked real questions—not networking questions, but the kind that made you actually think about your answers.
"I was bored," Gene admitted when she asked why he'd really left home. "Not regular bored. Soul-deep bored. Like if I stayed there, I'd wake up at forty-five and realize I'd been sleepwalking through my whole life."
"And now?"
"Now I'm terrified and exhausted and honestly kind of overwhelmed most of the time. I have no idea what I'm doing half the time. Steven uses terminology I'm still learning. I keep waiting to screw something up catastrophically." He paused, surprised by his own honesty. "But I'm not bored."
Mei laughed—a real sound, not polite or performed. "Well, that's something."
When they finally left, Mei pulled him into a quick hug. She smelled like coffee and clay and something floral he couldn't place.
"Come by the studio sometime," she said. "I'll show you what actual work-life balance looks like."
"Does it involve clay?"
"So much clay. And wine. Mostly wine."
Gene walked back toward his apartment, but his feet took him to a different cafe instead. He found a corner table, pulled out his laptop, and opened Steven's email about the Malaysian facility proposals. The ones he was supposed to have finished reviewing last night.
Three hours later, he'd done a deep analysis that went beyond what Steven had asked for. He'd caught two problems—environmental compliance timing and a currency hedging issue that could cause problems down the line.
When he sent the analysis to Steven at 11 PM, his phone rang almost immediately.
"This is good," Steven said, no preamble. "You caught things I missed. The compliance timeline especially."
"Thanks."
"Did you see Mei today?"
"Yeah."
"Did she warn you about me?"
"Thoroughly."
Steven was quiet for a moment. "She's usually right about things. I'm terrible at balance. I know it. I'm working on it."
"Are you though?"
A laugh—tired but genuine. "No. Not really. But I'm aware of the problem, which is… something. Sort of." A pause. "Anyway. Good work on these proposals. Get some sleep."
He hung up before Gene could respond.
Gene stared at his phone, then pulled up his messages.
*Your friends are all weird*, he texted Lin Yue.
Her response came immediately: *You're one of them now. Welcome to the circus. 🎪*
He smiled despite himself.
Tomorrow would bring another fourteen-hour day. More deals, more analysis, more of Steven's relentless pace. But as Gene closed his laptop and headed home, he realized something had shifted.
He wasn't doing this because he felt trapped by momentum. He wasn't doing it to prove something to his parents or escape boredom or because he didn't know what else to do.
He was doing it because somewhere in the chaos and exhaustion and overwhelming complexity of it all, he'd found something that felt like his. Not Steven's dream that he was borrowing. His own.
That realization settled into his chest as he walked through Taipei's glowing streets, and for the first time in weeks, the exhaustion didn't feel quite so heavy.
He was choosing this. Every day, he was choosing it.
And that made all the difference.