Bo's early morning journey to Z coffee roastery didn't go great. First, he nearly caused an accident by pulling too far onto the road at a blind intersection. Then, he parked illegally, unaware that Bangkok indeed had rules about where you could or could not leave a motorcycle.

"You live and you learn," he thought, trying to shake off clumsiness he was not accustomed to. He arrived earlier than planned, ordered a black coffee and headed to the second floor. Climbing the stairs, he nearly tripped.

"Why am I suddenly clumsy?" He laughed at himself. Noticing Nina hadn't yet arrived, he sat at the table where they first met, watching the street below, trying to steady himself. Back in Chengdu, he had thought a lot about the young designer and ultimately decided to cut short his absence, convincing himself that the website was crucially important and that was the reason he rushed to schedule a meeting.

His eyes locked onto a tuft of blond hair in a river of dark heads. Nina was wearing a knee-length floral dress, her hair uncharacteristically loose. It flew behind her like a short veil caused by her brisk pace. Her glasses slid down her nose and, in a moment that Bo concluded was resignation, she pushed them up to her head and squinted towards the café's entrance. She looked fragile in the middle of the crowd, and Bo felt his pulse quicken. He felt an urge to run outside and push the bystanders out of her way.

"Okay, this is crossing all lines of reason," he thought, lightly slapping his face. He heard laughter from the next table and, turning in that direction, realized he had been watched. He smiled at the girls at the neighboring table and turned his gaze back to the street. Nina was out of sight. A few moments later, he was enveloped by the scent of her perfume. She approached from behind, gave him a short hug, and sat on the chair opposing him.

"Did you get here early? I don't think I'm late, am I?" she asked, glancing at her watch. Bo found it hard to concentrate amid the flurry of flowers but somehow managed to focus on her eyes.

"I was eager to see what you've created," he grinned.

"We've been working hard," Nina pulled her laptop out of her bag. "I've developed several new components specifically for your site. I hope you'll like them," her eyes sparkled, and Bo felt himself drawn into her enthusiasm. She positioned the laptop in his direction on the table and moved her chair so they sat side by side. Their knees were touching lightly, he tried not to focus on that.

"First, I want to show you the banner, Chompoo is particularly proud of it. I must admit she deserves some of the credit. She's responsible for most of the color choices, and I think the Chinese tattoo elements she added fit well with the rest of the design. Here, what do you think?" Nina leaned back to give him a better view.

"It's elegant," he said, thinking. "I like it. Okay, there are parlors in China and a specially featured new one that we're opening here. That's nice and clear."

"Here, when you click this," she said, reaching for the mouse to demonstrate, "you get an overview of all the tattoo artists in the studio. This is the first new feature I mentioned. The artists rotate like clockwork, one per minute. This gives you enough time to read about them and make an informed choice by simply clicking on their picture if you wish to select them."

"But how does a user know where to click?" he asked, his eyebrows rising slightly.

"Well, it seems intuitive to me. If you want to choose an artist, you'd click on their picture."

"I'm not sure. It wasn't immediately clear to me," he said, unconvinced.

"Okay, we can refine that. Let me show you the tattoo gallery. We decided to separate the images of completed works from templates available to potential clients, with this other new feature that provides a brief explanation of Chinese characters. We've been working on this for days—"

"What do you mean by explanation? I don't think this was mentioned in the draft?" Bo was surprised.

"Well, some people might not know what some of the symbols mean. After all, it's not just Chinese tattoos; there are Japanese, Celtic ones. People will feel more confident in their choices if they understand what each symbol means," Nina explained, reaching for her glass of water.

"I prefer when people come prepared. We're not going to explain the meanings of their tattoos. Besides, do you know how many templates we have? Who's going to provide meanings for all of them? No, scrap that, I don't like it," Bo was uncompromising. He gave her a somewhat stern look. Nina put her water glass down slowly.

"Okay, no descriptions then," she said.

"What else can you show me? Can I see the booking system?"

"We haven't gotten to that part yet," Nina's voice suddenly faltered, avoiding his gaze. Bo was a bit disappointed. He had expected more. For the first time since they met, he wondered if he had made a mistake in deciding to work with a young professional who was just starting her own business. He quickly calculated how much money he would lose if he abandoned the project.

"I see you're disappointed," Nina's directness surprised him. "This isn't the final version, and this is why we have development meetings. Now we can steer the vision towards where you want it to go. Everything I've shown you can still change multiple times."

"That's fine, but I thought the project would be finished in time for the new studio's opening. That would have been perfect."

"I see. You didn't mention that before.", Nina said, her body motionless, her eyes glistening with fragility he didn't like to be the cause of.

"I didn't want to rush you, but seeing how quickly you developed the draft, I thought the project would also proceed fast." Bo pushed his thoughts about abandoning the project to the side, concentrating to find words to reassure her.

"You know what was one of the first things they taught me at the company I used to work for?" she asked, not waiting for his reply. "You can only have two of the following three things: fast, good, and cheap. Never all three."

"And you're cheap?" Bo teased, happy that she seemed to have recovered.

She stared at him with a serious expression for a moment, a smile creeping up in the corners of her lips. He held her gaze, admiring the unfamiliar color of her eyes.  

"I'm a design studio with one employee," Nina said, tucking her hair behind her ear. "If you want a quality project done in two weeks, you need to pay at least five people." 

"Okay, I understand," he said and watched her as she typed his comments in a Notepad document.

"Let's talk about the online ordering system in more detail so we can be closer to the final result next time," she said. "Also, we might still finish on time for the opening, but we'll need to meet more often. That way you can provide feedback before I go too far with the development."

"OK, no problem. The website is now my number one priority," Bo readily agreed. "As far as I'm concerned, we can meet every day."

He was surprised at his own suggestion and tried to read her reaction. Nina was serious. She looked up from the screen, pushing a strand of hair from her face.

"Maybe we don't have to meet every day—"

"Why not? It's on my way to the parlor, and you're always here, right? From today, I'll take over from Shampoo. We'll meet every morning over coffee to discuss what you've done the previous day."

"Okay," Nina nodded. "That will definitely speed up development. We have ten days until the opening. I'm sure we can resolve most of the main features by then."

"That's what I want to hear!" Bo said, straightening his back and sitting more upright.

When it seemed they had agreed on all the remaining features, he leaned back satisfied and said, "Hey, how about we wrap up here and reward ourselves with some sandwiches?  I haven't managed to have breakfast this morning."

"Sure, my treat," Nina replied, pulling away from the mouse and screen. "Do you want the menu or do you trust my choice?"

"I trust you 100%," Bo decided. Nina paused briefly at his words, but it seemed she was pleased to hear them. While waiting, he thought about how quickly his dissatisfaction with the project vanished and how optimistic he was feeling again. Soon, he saw her returning to their table, each hand carrying a plate.

"Hey, you're a pro, I would have dropped one of those plates ten times on the way from the bar," he complimented her as accepting one of the plates she offered. "What did I get?"

"I used to work as a waitress one summer during college," she replied, sitting down. "You got a Satay Chicken Sandwich with peanut sauce, pickled cucumbers, and red onions. We can swap if you don't like it."

"I love Satay Chicken," he said, licking his lips. "What did you get?"

"A Thai omelet sandwich with green chili."

"I see someone's gotten a taste for spicy food," he chuckled and finally bit into the wonderfully crispy crust of his sandwich.

"How come you decided to open a tattoo studio in Bangkok? Not enough work for you in Chengdu?" she asked, and then sank her teeth back into her sandwich. A little mayonnaise stuck to the edge of her lips. Bo noticed it and suddenly found it hard to form words. He gestured to his own lips to get her attention but she just stared at his mouth in confusion.

"You've got a little something there," he said, clearing his throat. 

She took a napkin and patted the corner of her mouth – making an even bigger mayonnaise mess there. Without thinking, he leaned forward and, with the thumb of his finger, whipped the smudge off.

While Nina stared at him, motionless, he rushed to reply to her question. "I prefer the atmosphere here. People are more relaxed, more open. Chengdu is a huge city, but Bangkok is much more multicultural. I really like that here you can so easily come into contact with people from all over the world," he replied.

"I really like that as well. Sometimes I feel like I'm at the center of the free world. Everyone walks around half-naked, unburdened. Okay, many people are simply high, but it's not just about that. You know what blew my mind?"

Bo was chewing, so he nodded for her to continue.

"Did you know they recognize eighteen different genders here. Tom, Dee, Tom Gay, lesbian, etc. I think that's great. I asked Chat GPT how that happened, and it seems to have a lot to do with Buddhism."

"Yes, that's part of what I mean when I say that people are more open here. But actually, I didn't come to Bangkok with a plan to open a studio. We were posting our work on Instagram and suddenly people started contacting us wanting to come for a tattoo session but couldn't. It's not easy for Thais and Vietnamese to get a visa for China. I've always loved coming to Thailand on vacation, so at one point I decided to mix business with pleasure," he said, remembering those days. "Business here picked up pretty quickly and it seemed sensible to open another studio so I wouldn't have to be a visiting artist every time."

"Yeah but you're still mostly visiting right?" she put down her empty plate.

"Actually, these past three months I've been spending more time here than I have back home," he said finishing his sandwich.

She looked at him with raised eyebrows, "Is that because of the opening of the new studio?"

"Yeah, that's mostly been the reason why," he said, though it was only part of the truth.