Six weeks after Diana died, Gene sat in a noodle shop in Ximending watching Steven pretend to be fine, and realized pretending was something they'd both gotten too good at.
The lunch crowd buzzed around them—students laughing, couples sharing food, normal people living normal lives. Gene used to find that comforting. Now it just made him feel disconnected, like he was watching life through glass.
Steven had barely touched his noodles. He was scrolling through his phone, jaw tight, that muscle near his temple twitching the way it did when he was stressed but refusing to show it.
"You're not eating," Gene said.
"Not hungry."
"You haven't been hungry in six weeks."
Steven's thumb paused on his screen. "I'm fine."
"You're not fine. You look like hell. You're working eighteen-hour days again. You haven't mentioned Diana once since—"
"Don't." Steven's voice was sharp. "Don't say her name here."
"Why not? She existed. She mattered. You can't just pretend—"
"I can do whatever I need to do to survive." Steven finally looked up, and his eyes were hollow. "You want me to break down? Have some big emotional moment? That's not how this works. She's gone. Crying about it won't bring her back."
Gene felt something crack in his chest. "Is that really what you think? That feeling things is weakness?"
"I think feeling things is a luxury I can't afford right now."
"That's bullshit and you know it."
Steven set his phone down hard enough that the couple at the next table glanced over. "What do you want from me, Gene? You want me to admit I loved her? Fine. I loved her. I loved her and I got her killed because I was too arrogant to see what I was walking into. Is that what you want to hear?"
The words hung between them, raw and painful.
"I want you to stop punishing yourself," Gene said quietly. "You didn't kill her. They did."
"I might as well have. She came to Taipei because of me. She got involved with David's board because I introduced them. Every choice that led to her death started with me." Steven's hands were shaking. "So yeah, I'm working eighteen hours a day. Because when I stop, all I can think about is her face at that party. The way she laughed. The way she looked at me like maybe I could be someone who didn't destroy everything I touched."
Gene reached across the table, put his hand over Steven's. "You're not destroying everything."
"Aren't I? Mei left because of me. Diana died because of me. You lied about your entire identity just to survive in my world." Steven pulled his hand back. "Maybe everyone would be better off if I just stopped letting people get close."
"Don't do that. Don't shut down."
"Why not? It's safer. For everyone."
Gene wanted to say something that would fix this, that would reach through Steven's walls and pull him back. But he didn't have those words. He barely had words for his own mess of feelings—the grief for Diana, the guilt about his lies, the complicated tangle of emotions he felt every time he looked at Steven.
"Can I tell you something?" Gene said instead.
"Do I have a choice?"
"When I found out Diana died, my first thought wasn't sadness. It was relief." Gene forced himself to keep going. "Relief that it was her and not you. And then I felt guilty about that relief. And then I felt guilty about being relieved about feeling guilty. It's this whole spiral of shit I don't know how to process."
Steven was staring at him.
"I'm not saying that to make you feel better," Gene continued. "I'm saying it because you're not the only one who's a mess right now. We're both carrying stuff we don't know what to do with. But shutting down and pretending you don't feel anything isn't the answer. It's just slow-motion drowning."
"Then what is the answer?"
"I don't know. Maybe there isn't one. Maybe we just survive it day by day and hope it gets easier."
Steven was quiet for a long moment. The restaurant sounds filled the space between them—chopsticks on bowls, conversations in Mandarin, someone's phone ringing.
"I miss her," Steven said finally, his voice barely audible. "I miss texting her about stupid things. I miss her laugh. I miss having someone who understood this life and didn't hate me for choosing it." He looked down at his untouched noodles. "And I hate that I miss her because missing her means feeling it. And feeling it means I can't pretend I'm fine."
Gene didn't say anything. Sometimes there wasn't anything to say.
"My father told me to forget she existed," Steven continued. "Said it was safer. Cleaner. But I can't. I see her everywhere—places we went, restaurants she liked. I keep almost calling her and then remembering I can't."
"Have you told anyone else this?"
"Who would I tell? My father thinks emotions are tactical weaknesses. My business partners would see it as instability. You're literally the only person who knows what actually happened."
The weight of that settled over Gene. He was the only person Steven could be honest with. The only one who understood the whole picture.
That felt like too much responsibility and exactly the right amount at the same time.
"We should take a day off," Gene said. "Actual day off. No work, no phone calls, no pretending we're fine when we're not."
"We have investor meetings next week."
"The investors can wait. You need a break before you collapse."
"I don't collapse."
"Everyone collapses eventually. The question is whether you choose when or let it choose you."
Steven smiled—barely, but it was there. "When did you get so wise?"
"I didn't. I'm just good at recognizing my own patterns in other people." Gene pulled out his phone. "I'm calling Mei. We're going to her studio. We're drinking wine at inappropriate hours and making pottery that looks like garbage. You don't get a vote."
"Gene—"
"No. No arguments. You need this. We both do."
Steven looked like he wanted to protest. Then something in his face shifted—resignation, maybe. Or relief at having the choice taken away.
"Okay," he said quietly. "But I'm not making pottery."
"You're absolutely making pottery. Bad pottery. The worst pottery Mei's ever seen."
"This is cruel and unusual punishment."
"This is friendship. Get used to it."
Gene texted Mei while Steven paid for their untouched lunch. As they walked out into Taipei's humid afternoon, Gene caught Steven's expression—still tired, still haunted, but maybe fractionally less alone.
It wasn't healing. Not yet.
But it was something.
And right now, something was enough.