Here's a short code version of the problem I'm facing:

public static void main(String[] args) {
    CompletableFuture.supplyAsync(() -> {
                /*
                try {
                    Thread.sleep(2000);
                } catch (InterruptedException ignored) {}
                */
                //System.out.println("supplyAsync: " + Thread.currentThread().getName());
                return 1;
            })
            .thenApply(i -> {
                System.out.println("apply: " + Thread.currentThread().getName());
                return i + 1;
            })
            .thenAccept((i) -> {
                System.out.println("accept: " + Thread.currentThread().getName());
                System.out.println("result: " + i);
            }).join();
}

This is the output that I get:

apply: main
accept: main
result: 2

I'm surprised to see main there! I expected something like this which happens when I uncomment the Thread.sleep() call or even as much as uncomment the single sysout statement there:

supplyAsync: ForkJoinPool.commonPool-worker-1
apply: ForkJoinPool.commonPool-worker-1
accept: ForkJoinPool.commonPool-worker-1
result: 2

I understand thenApplyAsync() will make sure it won't run on the main thread, but I want to avoid passing the data returned by the supplier from the thread that ran supplyAsync to the thread that's going to run thenApply and the other subsequent thens in the chain.