There’s a moment during my conversation with Steven’s father when I suggest that maybe Steven has done all this simply because he wants to make him proud. I suggest that perhaps, Steven just wants to be as successful as him.

At this, he visibly perks up. He asks, “Did he say anything like that? Do you know if it’s true?”

I decide to ask Steven myself, and he reveals that when he was younger, he did indeed want to be as successful as his father. This is where things start to make sense.

We know that his brother has always been the one who did as he was told. Steven, on the other hand, was a scrawny kid who was bullied, went to ITE, then Nanyang Poly, and basically made himself into the man he is today.

His story, to me at least, feels like one of ambition gone awry. He wanted to prove himself, and before he knew it, he had tumbled down this rabbit hole of constant improvisation. When he talks about his Mercedes or how he paid 95% cash for his flat, it’s not showing off. It’s him reminding himself that he’s worth something.

Now, the only way forward is for him to remain convinced that the next reasonable step is to break into the rest of the Asian market. Assuming that everything goes according to plan this August, it could be Taiwan, China or some other part of South East Asia that he’s headed for next.

As much as fame is about being rich for Steven, I suspect that it’s also about ultimately proving that he’s made it on his own terms. This may not be who he set out to be, but it is who he now is. He may have trouble taking criticism, but he is, at the end of everything, just a guy trying to do his best.

In a final text exchange, he tells me, “I wanna have my own sky.”

And I can’t help thinking that we may want what we want, but the world is never under any obligation to give it to us.