Following the directions on my phone, I returned to the metro station, boarded the last train of the night, and got off one stop early to walk home slowly under the streetlights.
At the entrance of the alley near my home, I spotted a figure standing under the lamplight. The silhouette looked familiar, but I didn’t want to recognize who it was. I had repeatedly told myself not to have any expectations—it was as futile as hoping for an oasis in the desert.
Yet the oasis approached me step by step. The familiar make and model of the car behind him forced me to admit this was real.
I walked toward him until the faint light illuminated his face.
“Chu Ke Huan, why are you here?”
“You said that seeing me was very important to you.” He repeated the words I had written earlier, but as they emerged from his tired voice, they felt far less significant than I had imagined.
“But you said tonight wasn’t possible,” I pressed. “Why is it possible now?”
“Have you checked the news since returning to Taiwan?” Chu Ke Huan threw an entirely unexpected question at me.
“What?!” I thought I had misheard.
“Today, the UK held a referendum. The result was Brexit. For every trader in the world, this means either massive losses or massive gains. Right now, the global stock market’s value has likely evaporated by over two trillion dollars. Essentially, this event has already wrecked my annual trading performance.”
Under the streetlamp, his face had lost its usual vibrancy, replaced by sheer exhaustion. “This is like the Swiss National Bank’s black swan effect all over again. Another headache... Forget it, I don’t want to talk about this nightmare anymore. I just wanted to tell you that when you asked me if I could meet, I genuinely didn’t know if I could stay calm with you. I wasn’t sure what I might do.”
I stared at him, trying to process everything he had just said.
I had never imagined that a historic international event could dictate whether we should meet. Yet, from a logical standpoint, it made perfect sense. At an age where love and livelihood must coexist, love affects how we perform at work, and sudden crises at work inevitably impact how we approach love.
If this can even be called love.
“It sounds like a kind of systemic collapse,” I murmured.
“Collapse?” He thought for a moment, then smiled bitterly. “I guess... Wait, what do you mean by ‘also’?”
I didn’t answer immediately. I simply stared into his eyes, counting silently how much I still had left that could collapse.
Finally, his deep black pupils reminded me of one undeniable fact—
Chu Ke Huan hadn’t slept with me yet.
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