Gene has, understandably, been a little off lately. First the thing with the memory sharing, and then their parents all showing up. She had thought that Zhang showing up was the worst that could have happened. Never in a million years would she have guessed his mother would show up.

Pepper hunts him down at a tea shop one afternoon, putting a sweet bun in front of him before she sits, a mug in her other hand with a cookie across the top of it like a lid. "Gotta wonder what it says about us when we try to avoid things, that I go to the dojo and you go to a tea shop and write."