Saturday morning, Gene woke up at 11:30 AM—the latest he'd slept in months. His body felt like it had been put through a grinder, but his mind was clearer than it had been in weeks.
He showed up at Mei's studio at noon with two bottles of wine because he'd forgotten she said 11 AM, and also because he figured they'd need both.
The studio was in an old building in Dadaocheng, up three flights of narrow stairs. Gene could hear music—something jazzy and melancholic—before he even reached the door.
Mei opened it wearing clay-splattered overalls and a tank top, her hair piled on top of her head with what looked like a paintbrush holding it in place.
"You look like death," she said cheerfully.
"You look like you fought a mud monster."
"I did. The mud monster won." She took the wine bottles, examined the labels, nodded approvingly. "Good choices. Come in."
The studio was chaos in the best way. Pottery wheels, shelves loaded with bowls and vases in various stages of completion, a kiln in the corner that radiated heat. Windows overlooking the street let in dusty afternoon light. It smelled like wet earth and something mineral Gene couldn't identify.
"Sit," Mei said, gesturing to a worn couch that looked like it had been rescued from a dumpster. "I'm opening both bottles. Lin Yue filled me in on the basics but I want to hear it from you."
Gene collapsed onto the couch. "Steven and I had a fight."
"Lin Yue mentioned. Something about a bad deal and you finally growing a backbone?" Mei handed him a very full glass of white wine. "Details. Now."
So Gene told her. The David Koh deal falling through. The impossible deadline. The reports he knew were garbage. The investors tearing Steven apart. The fight where everything came pouring out.
"And then he just… admitted I was right," Gene finished. "Said Diana broke up with him. Said he doesn't know if he cares enough to change."
Mei was quiet for a long moment, drinking her wine and staring at a half-finished vase on her worktable.
"That's the most honest I've ever heard Steven be," she said finally. "When we were together, he'd apologize for missing dinner or canceling plans, but he never actually admitted that the work mattered more. He'd just say he was 'going through a busy period' like it was temporary."
"Do you think people can actually change?"
"Some people. Not Steven." Mei's voice was sad but not bitter. "I don't mean that cruelly. I just think he is what he is. And what he is, is someone who loves building things more than he loves anything else. That's not bad. It's just… incompatible with most relationships."
"Then why did Diana even try?"
"Same reason I did. Same reason you're still there even though you just had a massive fight." Mei looked at him. "Because there's something magnetic about people like Steven. They make you feel like you're part of something bigger. Like the normal rules don't apply. And for a while, that's intoxicating."
Gene took a long drink of wine. "So what do I do?"
"What do you want to do?"
"I don't know. Three months ago I knew exactly what I wanted—break into these circles, build something that matters, prove I could make it here. Now I don't know if any of that was real or if I was just chasing Steven's vision because it was there."
"Okay, different question." Mei refilled both their glasses. "If Steven disappeared tomorrow—not dead, just moved to another country or something—would you still be doing this? The venture capital thing, the seventy-hour weeks, the constant hustle?"
Gene opened his mouth to say yes, then stopped.
Would he?
"I don't know," he admitted.
"Then you have your answer. You're not doing this for you. You're doing it for him." Mei's expression was gentle. "Which isn't wrong necessarily. Sometimes we need other people's momentum to figure out what we want. But at some point you have to separate the two. What's his dream and what's yours."
"What if I don't have my own dream?"
"Everyone has their own dream. You just haven't given yourself space to hear it yet." Mei stood up, walked to her pottery wheel, ran her hand over a lump of clay sitting there. "You want to know why I really left? It wasn't just Steven's schedule. It was because I woke up one morning and realized I was living a life that looked perfect on paper and felt empty in my chest. I had the right job, the right boyfriend, the right apartment. And I was miserable."
"Are you happy now?"
"Most days, yeah. I'm broke compared to what I was making. My mom stopped talking to me for six months. My friends from business school think I had a breakdown." She smiled. "But I wake up excited to work. I make things with my hands. I have dinner with people I actually like without checking my phone every five minutes. That's worth more than any deal."
Gene thought about his apartment in Irvine. About the family business waiting for him. About the person he'd been three months ago—bored, restless, desperate for something more.
"I don't want to go back," he said. "To who I was before."
"Then don't. But figure out who you want to be next. Because right now you're just reacting—to Steven, to the work, to whatever crisis is happening that day. That's not a life. That's just survival."
They drank more wine. Mei showed him how the pottery wheel worked, let him try shaping clay even though he was terrible at it. They ordered dumplings from a place down the street and ate them sitting on the floor, grease dripping onto paper plates.
Around 6 PM, Gene's phone buzzed. Steven.
*Can we talk?*
Gene stared at the message.
"Is it him?" Mei asked.
"Yeah."
"You don't have to answer right now. You're allowed to have space."
But Gene found himself typing back: *Tomorrow. Coffee. 10 AM.*
Steven's response was immediate: *Okay. Thank you.*
Mei watched him put his phone away. "You're going to stay, aren't you? In the job."
"I think so. Maybe. I don't know yet."
"Just promise me something."
"What?"
"Promise me you'll set boundaries this time. Real ones. Not just 'I'll work slightly less' boundaries. Actual lines you won't cross." Mei's eyes were serious. "Because if you go back without changing anything, this pattern just repeats. Steven pushes, you collapse, you fight, you make up, nothing changes. I watched that cycle for two years. Don't do that to yourself."
"I promise."
"Good." Mei raised her wine glass. "To figuring out what the hell we actually want before we're too old to do anything about it."
Gene clinked his glass against hers. "That's depressing."
"It's realistic. There's a difference."
-----
Gene left the studio around 8 PM, pleasantly buzzed, his hands still smelling like clay. Taipei's Saturday night energy was in full swing—night markets opening up, groups of friends laughing on scooters, the air thick with food smells and humidity.
He walked for a while with no destination, just thinking.
What did he actually want?
Not Steven's version. Not his parents' version. Not even the version he'd convinced himself he wanted three months ago when he'd first arrived in Taipei.
What did Gene Eu, age twenty-seven, former Irvine kid turned Taipei hustler, actually want from his life?
The answer didn't come. Not yet.
But for the first time, Gene felt like maybe he was asking the right question.
His phone buzzed. Lin Yue.
*Mei says you're having an existential crisis. Want to get drunk and make bad decisions?*
*Already drunk. Made my bad decisions for the week.*
*Boring. Well if you change your mind, I'm at that bar in Xinyi with the overpriced cocktails*
*The one where we first met?*
*The very one. Full circle and all that poetic bullshit*
Gene smiled despite himself. Three months ago he'd walked into that bar desperate to impress people, terrified he didn't belong.
Now he was drunk, covered in clay dust, about to have what might be a career-ending conversation with his boss, and somehow felt more himself than he had in years.
Progress was weird.
He caught a taxi home, fell into bed with his clothes still on, and dreamed about pottery wheels and spreadsheets and Steven's face when Gene had finally told him the truth.
Tomorrow would be complicated.
But tonight, Gene was okay with that.