Part 2
KOREA

1.

Looking out the window of my Korean Air jet out of Chicago, I see, through a break in the clouds, the checkerboard snow-spattered pattern of what might be Illinois. Or Iowa, maybe. I’m already lost.

The last few weeks are a blur. Getting through all my classes and getting everything ready for the trip. Worrying about the passport arriving, and then still worried when it does. And then there was that weird photo session. Coach Yeong arranged for me to go to a place downtown where they took about 200 photos of me in my green Team Anaconda shirt. I might have looked a little glum, since all I could think of was how much more fun it was having Hannah take my picture.

And Hannah. When I think back, she really was great. Even though she could see the dead end ahead. After I gave her the yoga stuff we had this great week. We’d either do something together after school or I’d come over to her house after dinner. Her dad was never around, but her mom always seemed happy to see me. Of course, it might have been only because she knew I was heading halfway around the world in a few days. When I asked how it was that we had so much time together all she said was, “I’m being selfish.”

So Hannah and me. We’re still something, I guess. At least, we were. I mean, I know I’m as crazy about her as always. And there were a couple times over the past few months, when we were finally alone. Wow—not healthy to spend too much time thinking about that. Not while sitting on a Korean Air flight going 700 mph just about as far from Hannah as possible.

Then there was the scene at the Kansas City airport. It was so weird that it already feels like it happened to someone else. In my mind, I wanted it to be just Hannah and me. One of those romantic goodbye scenes from the movies. Full of longing stares and pitiful embraces and promises.

But Dad insisted on coming with us, so it was the three of us. I checked my giant bag with my entire wardrobe of hoodies and jeans. We were standing there awkwardly near where the security line begins. No one was really talking.

I was looking at Hannah, who was trying not to look at me, while Dad pretended to be looking somewhere else. She looked sad, but smiling. And tears. I’m sure I saw them, barely.

If I was the weeping sort I’d be right with her. It just felt awful. Awful to be leaving her, and home, and Dad and being so far from Mom and Garrett too, if truth be told. But awful to be excited about going too. Like I’m somehow a traitor.

So in the end, I gave Dad a hug, and he patted me on the back. And then Hannah, and I really want to kiss her goodbye, but it just felt wrong there in public with Dad watching. Now, as I watch the clouds rushing past below, I’m pretty sure I blew it. That she will never forgive me for wimping out. As soon as I can I’ll write her and tell her that I really wanted it be different. Like the New York street photo we posed for. That’s what it should have been like.

And when I’m not thinking about leaving Hannah and home, there’s Starfare. Could I be nuts to think I could be one of the best in the world? What will they do if I can’t measure up? Where would I go if they fire me? Go back to high school? After graduating? That seems impossible.

Instead of figuring it out, I dig through my backpack and get out the first book for my Internet class. I really hope I can knock off this class as easily as possible. The lectures are all online and you can work through at your own pace. My intent is to get it over with fast so I can concentrate entirely on getting my game up to speed.

I pull out my copy of The Scarlet Letter and start speed reading. I just want to get the flavor of it before I resort to SparkNotes. I get through a couple of chapters when my eyes get heavy.

I’m out for what must be about an hour when I’m wakened by a young Asian flight attendant. Korean or Western dinner? I’m a little flustered, because I’ve been wondering about Korean girls for a couple of months. And now here one is, leaning towards me and smiling, speaking perfect English.

I decide to go safe and get some sort of Western-style chicken dinner. Plenty of chance ahead to experiment with Korean food.

2.

Luckily I sleep for most of the flight but am groggy as hell when we land in Seoul. All I can see out the windows is blinding sun. I nod off again as we taxi and wake to the bustle of people gathering their things. I slip on my backpack and it’s only by luck that I notice that my headset cord is lying on the seat, still plugged in. I can almost hear my dad’s voice, telling me how bad I am at looking after my stuff. But I think I do a pretty good job of looking after my important stuff. It’s not like I’ve ever lost a laptop.

I just stumble along with the passengers in front of me, trying to remember the dream I woke up from. I was playing a game of Starfare, in front of huge, cheering crowd. But instead of having a hand on my mouse it was a fork. And still, I was playing, and in the dream, the fork was working, but not very well, because my cruisers were moving in slow motion, no matter what I did with the fork. The crowd was booing and laughing and making fun of me and I was probably doing some weird things in my seat, because when I woke up I was curled in a strange position and my forehead was damp with sweat.

The passengers lead me down a long corridor. When we go by a food court I’m relieved to see signs in English as well as Korean. It’s mid-afternoon but to me it’s the middle of the night. Although I recognize some of the restaurants, there is something different about the food smells, something foreign and sour. The same with the overall scene: all the thousands of people pulling their little wheeled bags, dressed in regular clothes, but the buzz of conversation has a different tone, and as people walk by I hear what I only assume is Korean. I’m still groggy and I just follow the flow to baggage claim. I hope it’s the right one. But after standing for a few minutes I see our flight number up on a display on top of the carousel. So at least I can relax about that. How I’m going to connect with Coach Yeong or whoever they send is still a mystery.

At the luggage carousel I stand back and wait for my bag. I read something online how Asian people think English sounds like dogs barking. Well, Korean has a sing-song sound to it, like it was being chanted, not just spoken. I wonder how long it will take before I can say a few things. Like, “Nice game, better luck next time.”

When I get my bag I follow the flow of people to a large room with a couple dozen long lines. I’m used to grabbing my bags off the carousel and scooting out of the airport. Customs, I realize. I find a line with other American-looking people, dragging my bag along as if it were loaded with weights. There is an older couple in front of me, and a family behind me, talking in French or Italian. I’ve been in line for about ten minutes when I notice that everyone is holding little cards.

The woman in front of me sees that I’m trying to get a glance at her card. She just gives me a motherly look and starts talking. She’s short, with hair so neatly streaked in blond that it has to be dyed.

“It’s a customs card. Have you filled one out?”

I shake my head. She turns to her husband, who isn’t paying a whit of attention to me or his wife. He’s wearing a Nike baseball hat over graying hair, staring in the other direction, focused on the lines, as if trying to figure out which one is moving fastest.

“Honey,” she says. “Honey—you have an extra customs card don’t you?”

“What?” he says, turning, surprised and perhaps annoyed that I’ve become part of his scene.

“You’re always grabbing extras. You have an extra card for this nice young man?”

“Oh, hang on.” He starts patting his pockets and comes up with another card and holds it out. His wife offers me a pen.

I start filling out the form. Name, address, blah, blah, blah. Push my bag forward a few steps. Local address. I dig through my bag and find Team Anaconda’s return and write that down.

“Are you doing a semester abroad?” the wife asks.

I really don’t want to get into it so I say, “Well, yeah. Studying. Might be more than a semester.”

“I bet you’ll love it,” she says. “Every time we come over to visit my daughter I think how much I missed by not traveling when I was in college. Of course, back then, it was a pretty exotic thing, to study overseas. Now everyone seems to do it.”

“You got the passports?” the husband barks.

“Yes, dear.” She smiles at me, as if excusing his rudeness.

“Our daughter did her junior year in Korea and now she’s in her third year of teaching English in Seoul. Honey, is this our fourth or fifth visit?”

“Fifth,” the husband says. The line moves and we all push our gear ahead.

“So, do you have friends in Korea? Other students traveling with you?”

I shake my head.

“Well, I’m going to give you Sarah’s number. She’s so well acclimated to the culture. Plus she’s always taking people under her wings. Just her nature. Even when she was little. Always bringing home stray cats, lost dogs. She’s just so nurturing.”

She pulls out her pen and a pad of paper, scribbles something and hands it to me. I fold it and put it in my wallet.

She continues to chatter until we’re up to the counter. I’m digging out my passport when a little guy in a uniform steps up to the counter and calls out, “Mr. Seth Gordon?” Like an idiot, I raise my hand, as if I’m in sixth grade.

He motions me to come with him and we walk past the counter a bit down the hall where he unlocks a door and takes me into a small room with another uniformed guy at a desk and two older Korean men standing. I’m thinking, maybe someone planted drugs in my bag. I’m probably going to go prison for thirty years and have to crack rocks with a sledgehammer as heavy as my luggage.

Then one of the men grins as big and bright as a neon sign and lunges towards me. I instinctively step backwards but he stretches out a hand and grabs mine and our hands are pumping up and down like we were are sharing a Wii controller.

“Mr. Seth Gordon. I welcome you to Korea. I am team manager Soong Kim. Coach Yeong is busy with team.”

I shake Mr. Kim’s hand. And ask him how Coach Yeong is doing.

He smiles blankly and says, “I am Soong Kim. Team manager. I welcome to Korea.”

Then he motions the second, older man over, bowing his head as he does. “This is Mr. Kim, marketing director of special projects, ANC Computers.”

I shake his hand, also very enthusiastically. For an oddly long time. I wonder if the Kims are related. He’s got a fixed grin on his face that looks like it might be stuck there permanently. The stalemate is broken when the uniformed man at the desk says with a heavy accent, “Passport and card please.”

I hand my stuff over and he starts thumbing through my passport as if he can’t find a blank spot, then grabs a hand stamp and hammers it onto a page. He holds my passport out for me and I take it with a mumbled thanks.

“Mr. Seth Gordon,” the older Kim is saying. “Very nice to meet you and have you in our Korea,” he says, in a way that suggests it may be his only phrase in English.

The younger Kim half pulls off my backpack and grabs my big bag, and despite my protest that I can manage, starts dragging it out of the room. I’m surprised how cold it is. People bustling in and out of the terminal in coats and hats, just like back in Kansas. I can tell that Koreans believe in getting their money’s worth out of their car horns.

A driver in a black sedan is waiting at the curb. Kim leans forward and mumbles something to the driver and then he plops back in the seat next to me. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a card and reads.

“We go directly to your new apartment. Put you to sleep. But there is some one thing to see on way. Surprise.”

I can see from the dual-language road signs we are headed towards Seoul, which looms hazily in the distance like the Emerald City, except for the coloration, which is a pale shade of yellow.

Kim gives the driver some more directions and I can see we’re heading into the towers of downtown, inching towards a section which is glowing like Las Vegas. Store signs are vertical, from street level up several stories. Mostly in Korean, but with a smattering of signs and brands in English: Canon, Coffee, KFC. A light changes and we take a turn to the right and Kim shouts out something in Korean. He’s pointing up in the air, at the roof of the car and at first I look there, but then I realize he wants me to look outside. I press my face against the glass and peer up at a wall of neon signs that are each stories high.

One sign is blazing a Starfare logo and an ANC computer logo with a moving scene from a game. I turn to Kim and say, “Very cool,” but he is gesturing wildly, so I look again, just as the screen blinks.

“Holy crap,” I say. Because there, on a hundred-foot sign, is a picture of me, with a backdrop from one of the Starfare maps. I’m looking towards the map, as if playing. Underneath is a streaming row of Korean characters.

I turn toward Kim and stutter something.

He jabbers something excitedly.

“What the hell does it say?”

The young Kim shakes his head and leans forward and says something to the older Kim, who has been riding quietly up front. They chat for a second.

“Big star,” Kim says.

“Me? How can I be a big anything? I haven’t done a thing.”

Kim looks at me with a proud grin and says again, “Big star!”

All I can think is that I better be getting into training. Immediately.

The car drives another twenty minutes from downtown. When we get into my apartment the doorman sets down the luggage and bows to Kim before leaving. The door snaps shut. Kim reaches past me and flips a switch and I can see the rest of the place. It’s a narrow room, with a tiny kitchen to the right and an open floor with a big screen TV on the left. A curtained window at the end.

I hear the door opening and look up and see Coach Yeong, marching straight towards me, his hand held out as stiffly as if he were pointing a gun at me.

“Very nice, no?” Yeong says, grabbing my hand and shaking. “No need to share, like other players. Americans prefer single room, is this not correct?”

He walks all around the little apartment opening cabinets and displaying features like he personally designed the place. Finally he pauses before a pair of narrow doors and, with a flourish, opens them up to two stacked white appliances.

“Washer and dryer!” He says. “Very convenient for younger player!”

I smile like I actually know what he’s talking about. Yeong hands me a key card, which is attached to a Starfare key ring.

“I am in apartment 1321,” Yeong says. “Not a single.” Then he snickers. “I have wife and two children.”

“You get rest. Team breakfast in Suite 1201, end of hall. 8 a.m. No worries,” he says, one hand on the door. “We take all your cares.”

Just like that Yeong and Kim are gone. I flop down on the couch across from the black sheen of the TV screen. Exhausted and a little dizzy. My picture on the huge billboard etched into my mind like a burned LED screen. What was that all about? I knew I was just an experiment, a long shot. A long way, at least a year, maybe two, from playing with the top pros. If ever.

I look at my cell phone. Before I left I checked online and the AT&T site said that the phone would work in Korea. But as far as I could figure it would cost a fortune for local calls, and worse for international. However, the time says 6:20 p.m., so I’m connected. I figure it’s 3:20 in the morning back home. The day before. Crap, it’s confusing.

Realizing that if I fall asleep now I’ll be totally screwed up in local time, I find the remote on the table next to the couch. Whip through about twenty channels when I get to one that is a Starfare game, with a commentator prattling on in Korean. I watch for a bit and, during a commercial, find a second channel with two Korean guys playing WoW. I run through all the channels, and find two in English before I flip back to the Starfare game. I turn down the Korean commentary and watch the first game. I had heard about the gaming channels, but it’s still a bit of shock, actually watching one.

When the first game winds down I check out the refrigerator. It’s stocked with what I think is bottled water and some cans that might be some sort of soda or sports drink. One cupboard has some food in it and I take out a couple rice cakes and grab bottle of water. The cakes don’t taste like anything and the water has something off about it, but I drink it anyway.

Behind a little desk in the corner I find an Ethernet cable and so I unpack my laptop and plug in. I’m amazed I get online without a hitch. I open my email account and find a bunch of new mail, but nothing from Hannah. Garrett has a short note wishing me luck, Mom has a long one telling me all about a new yoga class she’s started. Even Dad has sent me a good luck note. I send out a reply to my family list, letting everyone know I got in safely. Then I decide to send an email to Hannah. I write about twenty different versions and finally send one with a subject line that says, “Hi from Korea” and a message that says, “Korea is amazing. Everyone is my height. Write me back if you want. Would be nice to Skype sometime.”

Even though I have a piece of tape over my webcam. Through a webcam I look even dorkier than normal, my face blown up like it’s been inflated. I’m staring at my computer screen, thinking about Hannah when an IM pops up. I shake my head in disbelief.

STOMPAZER: HEY PUTZ HEARD UR IN KOREA…GUESS WHO BEAT U HERE…TRYING NOT TO PUKE, SEEING UR POSTERS & ADS NEVER KNEW HOW MUCH U LOOKED LIKE A GRL…BUT THAT’S WHY THEY LOVE U ISNT IT…LET ME NO WHEN UR READY TO GET PWNED

I shut down the IM application. Wondering if he’s kidding, about being here. But then, how would he know about the posters? I decide not to think about it and watch Starfare games until I can’t stay awake even though every game is just amazing. When I finally decide to crash I realize there’s no bed. I open up a small closet and see a row of about a dozen crinkly red team shirts, just like I wore when I did the photo shoot. Underneath are some rolled up pads, blankets and some pillows that look and feel like they could be used as airline seats. I spread the pads out on the floor and prop my head up on one of the pillows. My head is buzzing. Every time I’m about to fall asleep I think about meeting the rest of the team in the morning and get a rush of nervous, sinking feeling which jars me awake.

And as I lie awake I can’t stop thinking about what it must be like back in Kansas. I could tell how many guys at North had become tuned into Hannah. Especially that one guy in the environmental club that I was particularly paranoid about. It would only be a matter of time before one of them clicked.

I’m sure I had just fallen asleep when I hear a doorbell and then knocking on the door.

3.

I throw on a T-shirt and the jeans I wore on the plane. Open the door to a grinning Yeong.

“You sleep good, yes?” And before I can answer he says, “Good, good.”

He looks at my chest and frowns.

“You not find team shirts?”

I tell him I did indeed discover the shirts.

“Must wear. Every day. Team Anaconda is very famous here in Korea. Photos all the time. Our great sponsor, ANC Computers, they be very sad if picture printed and no shirt and no ANC logo.”

“Right,” I say. I wave Yeong into the apartment but he just stands in the doorway. So I rush back to the closet and slip on the first team shirt. It’s just as scratchy as I remember.

“Come, come,” Yeong says as I follow him down the hall. He swipes a card across the double doors at the end and pushes one open, holding it for me to enter.

Inside the entire Team Anaconda is sitting at a series of small, low tables, chopsticks in hand. They all turn, simultaneously, and just stare at me, chopsticks pointing at me like accusations. With their identical shirts and similar haircuts I feel like I’ve been dropped into some sort of clone experiment.

Yeong steps past me and starts babbling in Korean. Then he grabs my arm and walks me around the room, spitting out what I assume is everyone’s name, but too fast and too thickly accented for me to follow. No one stands up. No one offers to shake hands.

I recognize two of the players from the Chicago trip and expect them to be more friendly, but they’re not.

I figure it must be the Korean way. After we’ve made the circuit he takes me into the suite’s little kitchen and gives me a bowl and while I hold it, scoops a mound of white rice into it. He takes another, smaller bowl and dips a big ladle into a pot as large as a beer keg and as he brings the red stuff towards me my nose burns and my eyes actually start to water.

“Kimchi,” he says. “Korean national dish. You try little at first.”

I’m thinking my definition of little is none. He dribbles a bit more than a little onto my rice. Then he leads me past a bowl of what looks and smells like some sort of canned fish, which I politely decline. At the end of the counter is at last something that looks familiar, a loaf of odd looking bread. I take a couple slices and Yeong points me back towards the team.

In the far corner there is a table with one player and two empty chairs. I sit down and nod at the player. I glance around the room and the rest of the team all seems to be staring at me. I stare into my rice, push it around with chopsticks. Trying to find some untouched by the pungent kimchi.

I look up when I hear the player across from me say something in almost a whisper. Look at him and shake my head.

“My name Sung Gi Park.”

“Sung Gi?” I repeat, my heart lifting. “You speak English?”

“English not very good,” he says, looking past me around the room. “But best on team. Maybe someday I go to America university. I try learn. You speak to me? I call you ActionSeth?”

“Just Seth,” I say. “Of course I will talk to you.” Then I lower my voice. “Sung Gi. Did I say that right?”

“Yes. Very good.”

“The rest of these guys,” I whisper. “They don’t seem so friendly.”

Sung Gi takes his time. Maybe because he has to translate what I’m saying. Or it’s a hard question.

“They not know you, ActionSeth. But it is hard for new members on Team Anaconda. I am next newest. I sit alone.”

“They don’t like you either?”

“They like great Starfare champions. I not a great champion. They say you not great player.”

“Not yet,” I admit.

“You play hard, get good. They like you.”

“OK, sounds like a plan.”

When I glance around the room I see that the rest of the team has gone back to eating and chatting among themselves. When one of the players from Chicago, Tae-Uk, glances up and sees me looking his way he gives me an evil glare. I grin his way and wave. He shakes his head and mutters something to the guy next to him. I eat the first slice of bread. I can’t bring myself to try the reeking rice. So I sit and stir and stare into the pink bowl.

I have about a hundred questions for Sung Gi. But I don’t want to annoy the only guy who doesn’t seem to already hate me. Plus I can tell it’s a stretch for him to communicate beyond the basics in English.

After breakfast I follow the group into a room equipped with rows of back-to-back flat screen monitors and blue-glowing high-performance computers. Bed pads like mine are rolled up in the corners, and I realize that the rest of the team must sleep right here, in front of their monitors. The team lines up and down the center of the room and into the next room equipped the same way. I follow suit and stand at the end of the line. Yeong yells something and they start jumping up and down. After a minute he yells something else and they drop into a sort of push-up position, with their butts stuck up in the air and start pumping up and down. I do my best to follow along, but honestly, I’m not in the greatest shape and I just sort of dog it, doing one or two for every ten of theirs.

After about fifteen minutes everyone breaks to a seat in front of a monitor and they fire up their computers. Just being in the same room with this much Starfare talent, and seeing the screens light up, I get a little dizzy. It’s a mixture of excitement and fear and disbelief. I shake my head to clear it. Then find an open spot, but before I can figure how to power up Yeong taps me on the shoulder and says, “Plenty of time to start training. Other things first.”

The other things start with some sort of press event downtown. I get stuck in front of this room with about forty folding chairs and while I’m blinded by camera flashes as reporters yell questions in bad English.

I don’t get all of them, but they want to know if I have an American girlfriend, what I think of Korean girls, how soon before I make it to a televised match, whether I like Korean food, and if I played Little League baseball. When I say I have—or had—a girlfriend they ask for name and photos. I just shake my head and say no over and over. I honestly have no idea how much I’m communicating, between the overlapping questions and the flash of cameras and the rolling chatter of Korean which sounds like I’m trapped in a flock of thousands of honking geese.

Afterwards Yeong seems very pleased. “You already big star!” he gushes. As we walk out onto the busy sidewalk a dozen people freeze and stare at me. Others come rushing over, pointing. Finally three teenage girls step forward and say something to me.

“They want to pose picture with you,” Yeong says. He seems to think this is a great idea and two at a time, they pose, standing on either side of me, grinning and bouncing with excitement, while the third snaps pics with her cell phone.

After the press event Yeong ushers me back into the car and we drive about ten minutes and get dropped off in front of a large office building. A steady stream of dressed-up Koreans is flowing in and out of the glass doors at the front. As we weave through the crowd I wonder if any of these busy people speak English, and if they did, how I would ever know.

We take an elevator to the fourteenth floor and get in line. Turns out it’s some government office and we have a bunch of paperwork to go through to get my Work Registration and Korean ID, which only involves standing in six different lines for three hours. Then we stop at a bank called Woori and I sit like an idiot while Yeong gets my account set up. I only figure this out when he hands me a credit card with a Visa logo and says, “Good in any ATM anywhere in world.” He also hands me a receipt with what I take to be my balance. It says 3,300,000 won, which is what they call the Korean dollar. I looked up the currency conversion before I left and impressive as the balance looks, it converts to only about $3,000.

“We deposit three million won first of month,” Yeong explains, with a proud little grin. He hands me a stack of bills. “This is what I think you call bonus.” I thumb through them, and they are five and ten thousand won notes. I don’t want to be rude and count them in front of him, but something about those zeros is comforting. For the first time in the day I actually feel like grinning back.

I do a quick calculation and figure that it’s about midnight back home. So no wonder I feel as if I’ve just pulled an all-night Starfare marathon. When we get back to my apartment I lie down on the couch. I take out a folder that I’ve carefully packed into the center panel of my suitcase. Inside are some photos from Hannah. The framed kissing photo, of course, but another of my favorites. Hannah had taken this self-portrait between two giant mirrors. So that she’s sitting in a chair, looking over her shoulder at the camera, and to either side of her are the reflected images, angled so they make a long, infinite hall of Hannah profiles. I prop it up against the back of the couch and I’m counting Hannahs when I pass out.

4.

So naturally, it’s still dark when I wake up, having slept about twelve straight hours. Hannah’s picture has flipped over during the night and I pack all the photos back into my bag and stash it in the closet. I draw the curtains and look out my window. In the gap between two high-rises the first fuzzy light of dawn.

I tell myself it’s time to start honing my game so I fire up my computer. I’m not surprised to see plenty of action on the Korean server, even though it’s 5:30 a.m. local time. I get in the queue on the advanced level and within a few seconds my in-game IM screen is lighting up.

At first I think there’s a software glitch. The messages are rolling in so fast I can’t read them all, like trying to read movie credits on fast forward.

I catch a few of them. “ActionSeth! Really you?” “Send picture please!” “Private chat, Mira1278 please please please.” “LOVE U KISS KISS KISS” “U make me a big happiness!”

I flip off the IM screen and in a few minutes get in a game with someone named KKim1994. I reboot the IM screen and mute everyone but KKim. It feels great to be back into the game. We’re playing the Neverland map, which is not my favorite, but I’ve spent significant time on it and feel pretty confident.

KimK and I both are going for early force development over infrastructure and I think we’re pretty even, going into the midgame. The action is heated, and we’re in one of those fierce battles that is so frantic you start sweating when I realize that I’m grinning. Because Starfare is such an awesome game and nothing is more fun than a close game like this. Then we get into a series of battles with three major fronts. I’m pumping on the mouse and keyboard so hard that I’m actually getting winded and when it’s over, it’s just barely over. In our final clash I’m left with just enough units to finish him off.

“GG,” KimK writes. “You nice to take it easy on beginner.”

“You’re no beginner,” I say.

“I #5,” KimK writes.

“#5?”

“I playing team. School team.”

“University?” I write.

“No, no. High school team. Inha Academy in Inchon. We becoming good. Finish 2 in district. But I #1 girl on team.”

As I sign off I’m trying not to panic, thinking that I just played a very good game, and it was barely enough to beat a girl from a high school team. Then my stomach growls and I look at the clock. It’s six-thirty and the sun is glowing through the haze on the horizon. I sign off and after pushing the rice cakes and unknowns around in my cupboard decide to head downstairs. I slip on a sweatshirt and scoot down the hall towards the elevators, looking back as if someone was about to jump out and catch me.

As I step outside our high rise I immediately wish I had taken my coat. It’s at least as cold as Kansas, a few snowflakes are drifting down and tiny waves of snow are blowing across the sidewalks. Everyone is wearing ski jackets and scarves and it’s odd, because some of the young women are walking with umbrellas open, as if it were pouring rain.

The traffic is already heavy and the chilly air is filled with the smell of bus exhaust and the sound of horns, and a distant siren. Even the siren is different, kind of a wha, wha, wha sound. I’m surprised to see so many bundled up business people hustling along the sidewalk. So many people in such a hurry towards a place where they have jobs they know how to do, colleagues they can talk to.

I step into the flow of foot traffic and at the corner there’s a little cart, cooking something that smells like real food. I get in line, stomping my feet back and forth to stay warm. When I get to the front the old guy in a greasy coat working the cart looks at me funny but hands me something hot in a paper wrap. I pull out my wallet and hand him a bill. He just stares at me so I hand him a couple of more and he hands one back with a few coins.

When I step to the side and open it up it’s still steaming and smells great. It has two pieces of bread with what looks like a scrambled egg inside. The bread is sticky with a coating, like a sugar donut. I open it up and stare at it. While I’m looking a younger guy in a black coat and a red tie stops and says, “Tost-u.”

“Tost-u?” I say, stupidly.

He says it again, slowly, like he’s talking to a two year old. “Very delicious.”

I bite into it and agree. I would have never thought of putting a sugar topping on an egg McMuffin, but I would now. The guy smiles and bows and then walks away. I eat the whole thing on the spot, get back in line and get another one and carry it back upstairs. I’m just relieved, knowing that there is now a distinct possibility that I won’t actually starve to death.

5.

I have a little time before eight o’clock team breakfast so I log on and check email. My heart skips, and I blink, before clicking on a message from Hannah.

“Can’t believe u r halfway round the world and I’m still stuck here. Sent out my portfolio to the art schools—fingers crossed! Thanks for helping. Hope u r getting used to it and like it there. I know u will do gr8t…gtg”

And that was it. Nothing about how she might feel about me. Nothing about whether she was missing me, or already hooking up with someone new, like that guy from the environmental club. But, I’m thinking, at least she wrote.

I sit and stare at a blank email screen, trying to think of a response. Something that will make her want to write back, and then I can write again, and pretty soon it will be like we’re talking all time. But before I come up with a clever message I see that it’s a couple of minutes past eight and I log off and hurry down the hall. I swipe my apartment card and the door clicks and I step inside. Same scene as last time—a buzz of conversation, the team all dressed in the same shirts, working through their food with chopsticks. Only this time they don’t stop and stare. I guess they’re getting used to me, which is some sort of progress.

I look for Sung Gi, but I don’t see him. Although I’m not hungry after the Tost-us I get a little bowl of rice and sit in an empty spot at a table with three of the guys on the team. I actually know most of the names from studying the team before I left Kansas. But I haven’t been able to match them up with faces yet.

When I sit down the guys all acknowledge me with a little bow of the head. Then they go right back to their Korean chatter. I play around with my bowl of rice and try to look like I’m deep in thought. Which I am, still trying to figure out what to write back to Hannah.

I jump when the guy across from says, “American girls, is it true…”

I look up and all three of the guys at my table are looking right at me.

“How you say, easy to go to bed?”

I sort of shake my head. First of all, I’m shocked to hear English. But what kind of thing is that to ask, first time you say a word to someone?

So I say, “So you speak English?”

The three of them all laugh.

“Every Korean study English in school,” the questioner says. “We just more good studying Starfare, not studying school.”

This sparks an animated round of laughing and Korean.

“You have American girlfriend?” he continues.

“I used to.”

The three of them lean into the table and talk slowly. Probably trying to interpret what this means.

When they’re done the original questioner asks, “So this girlfriend. She do everything?”

I redden a shade.

“Look,” I say. “I’m not talking about stuff like that. Not even if we were friends. And to tell you the truth, I’m not even sure what your names are. How about we start there?”

The three of them lean in and chat. One of them points at my bowl of rice, where I’ve left my chopsticks sticking into the air. “Very bad in Korea. Big…” He looks at the other guys and it seems like he is asking them how to say something. I reach for the chopsticks with my left hand and as I do all three of the guys start yelling at me. “No! No! Bad!”

Finally the guy across from me points at my left hand and says something in Korean. He wrinkles his nose and points at my left hand and says, “Bad. Bad hand.” He leans across the table and lays my chopsticks across the bowl.

Then they tell me their names, speaking slowly. I repeat each one and they smile, either because I got it right, or because I botched it in a funny way.

Then Yeong barks out some orders. Everyone puts away their plates and then we line up for exercise. Afterwards I’m relieved when Yeong leads me to a chair in front of a glowing monitor.

He leans over to me and says, “Today we test new map. Beta map. It’s called Mordant Isles.”

“You get to see maps before they’re published?” I never heard of that before. After all, getting a head start on a map before it was issued would be a huge advantage in tournament play.

“All the big teams test maps,” Yeong says, as if he were telling me the world was round. “Part of sponsorship. Help pay for wonderful apartment!” He motions around the room and grins.

“We have three groups, work as team,” Yeong said. “You start here with Yeun, Choi and Kim. You and Kim partners.” Kim is one of the guys from breakfast. “Start game and you see.”

A few minutes later I’m live in the new Isles map. I pull back and see that it’s a series of islands. It looks like you have to build bridges or boats to navigate from one island to the other.

Before I can even get started I hear team members yelling out stuff. I look over to Kim’s monitor next to me and see he’s found something on the far side of the starter island. I send some troops to the same spot, but he’s already got his men there, mining ore and setting up a refinery.

I decide to see if I can get established on the opposite side of the island and I find these caves, which may have some important resources. I try to tell my partner that we should check them out, but there’s so much chatter, much of it in some sort of hybrid, English/Korean script which is inscrutable. About every thirty seconds one of the team members shouts out something in Korean. Probably some new resource or tip which, of course, means nothing to me. I realize I have to develop some firepower fast, but I can’t find any energy sources anywhere. I finally find some vortices just off shore and start transferring energy from them into my troops.

I’m still looking when suddenly a whole line of some sort of new fighting ships comes sailing around the corner of the island sending out a cloud of explosives, which destroy the scouts I have checking the caves, and then take my base and troops out too.

A screen automatically pops up and I see that it’s some sort of log. My partner is keying something in and I’m pretty sure it’s the coordinates of the ore mine. He leans over and asks me something in broken English.

I shake my head and then he motions me to look and he opens up the map and focuses on an area near the caves. I try to tell him about what I saw in the caves and he types something into the log and then I point where the energy vortices were and tell him what the energy flows were. He types in some more coordinates and some numbers which correspond to my energy gains.

Then I see that he’s scrolling through the log, probably picking up the tips from all the other teams. I try to keep up, but even though it’s written using English letters, he’s going way too fast and even if I could stop and study I wouldn’t know all the shorthand and abbreviations and Korean words using English characters.

Then we do it again. In this game the other three players develop power so much faster than I do that even though Kim is doing fine, we’re doomed as a team. But they let me live and I do my best to help Kim discover how to develop the bridge-building capability that you need to jump to the next island, and the one after, each one hosting a precious commodity that gives you a huge boost in power. I may be having trouble keeping up, but I keep thinking that the Starfare developers have done it again, because it’s an awesome map, with all kinds of new twists coming out of the island geography.

After about three hours of this, we break for another kimchi avoidance exercise. White rice for me. When I’m about to head back to my computer, Yeong puts his hand on my shoulder and leads me the other direction. In the hallway I see the driver from the day before.

Yeong says, “Choi will take you now. You go to see tutor. Learn Korean. She very best in Seoul. Soon you be talking to fans!”

6.

Within a few days I’m into the routine. Breakfast, morning practice, lunch and then I get pulled away for Korean lessons and various meetings. Then back with the team for an evening session where I just struggle to keep up. By the time I get back to my apartment I’m wiped. Still, I always check for messages from Hannah. I’ve written her three short ones in the last few days, but nothing.

DT is another story. He wants a replay of every minute of every day. He writes at least twice a day about how boring school is and how cool it must be to be able to just game all day with some of the greatest players in the world. I guess it is pretty cool, but somehow it’s better in theory than in practice. I mean, it’s not like hanging out online with DT and my other Starfare buddies at home. For one thing, I can’t even talk with these guys and as far as I can tell, they don’t goof or joke around or even go out. They just grind away, hour after hour. And while we get Sunday off, it seems like they all go home to their parents.

The weirdest thing I do in the first week is go on what I finally figure out is a Korean talk show. They put me through the makeup thing and then I get led out onto a set where I sit next to this animated guy in an odd, electric blue suit. Naturally, they provide a translator, but the whole thing is so manic that I’m never quite sure what’s going on. Then, in what turns out to be a grand finale, they release about a dozen Korean school girls in uniform and they sort of jump me and knock me to the floor. As I fight to get up I see the cameras teams jockeying around us, trying to get the best angle.

Then an older guy who looks like he’s in charge comes running out shouting and seems pretty happy. The school girls disappear and the host shakes my hand and bows and, before I know it, Yeong is leading me out of the studio.

“Very big show,” he says. “Very big. Like your Jay Letterman. Sponsors be very very happy.”

The sponsors may be happy but I’m not. First of all, Choi shows up at my door that night with a big duffle. As I take it from him I smell something rank.

“What the hell is this?” I ask.

He answers me with a flurry of Korean and I just shake my head. He tries some obscure sign language, but I can’t follow. Finally he grabs the bag from me, pushes past me into the apartment and heads over to the small doors. He takes the duffle and upends it on the floor. A big pile of crumpled team shirts and discolored socks and boxer underwear.

He points at me and says, “You.” And then he points at the washer and dryer.

Then I remember what Yeong said the day he showed me my apartment. About how the washer and dryer would come in handy for the youngest member of the team. Choi gives me a look like I’m the village idiot and then stomps out.

So I’m up to two in the morning doing laundry. Playing my English lectures from my online course, which are infuriating. They’re set up so you can’t fast forward. And they have these interactive popups where the lecture stops until you answer some questions. So I have to keep an eye on the screen. Then type in a response to questions like, “Can you think of a modern example of the sort of treatment Hester receives from her pilgrim community?” Just begging for you to type AIDS. So I do.

Then I just daydream as the lecture plays and the dryer spins. Thinking, sure, I can now see how these Korean pros get so good. First of all they’re absolutely cranking, four hours in the morning, four in the afternoon, three in the evening. Six days a week. Plus the guys will actually squeeze in extra games online for fun. Instead of one guy working on a map for ten hours a day, you get twelve guys working on the same map, sharing all their discoveries. The problem is that between Korean tutorials and mall appearances I’m missing every afternoon and when I’m on board I can’t follow what they’re shouting and sharing. I pick up what I can by watching and absorbing what I can from the logs. But at best I’m getting maybe ten percent of the benefit of the team’s insights.

After two weeks of frustration, I finally tell Yeong that we need to have a talk. We’ve had breakfast and exercises and I say, “Mr. Yeong. We need to sit down and discuss a few things.”

“Very good,” he says. “But not today. Too much things to do.”

“Well,” I tell him, heading back to the meal room. “I’ll just sit and have some tea until you have time.”

“Tea?” Yeong says. “You no like tea.”

“I’m not drinking it,” I explain. “I’m just going to sit in there and stir it until you get a few moments to talk.”

A couple of team members who were close enough to hear me are staring at me like I just insulted their ancestors or something. Yeong turns and barks some orders and they scramble to their stations.

“Very well, we have that talk.”

The two of us head to the far table in the meal room and I sit down. Yeong stands.

I’ve got a pretty good idea what I’m going to say. That if my game is going to progress, I need to practice full time with the team. And I’m going to need help understanding what’s going on. A translator on site, for at least the time being. And Korean lessons are fine, but they can’t take up half my afternoon. I’m going to propose that the tutor come here and we do it during lunch, which I barely touch anyway.

“Mr. Yeong,” I begin. But before I can say another word Yeong takes a step toward me and leans in very close, so it seems like he’s shouting at me. Even though he’s more hissing.

“You are not in America anymore Mr. Seth Gordon! You are here in Korea. Part of the great team Anaconda. My team! I am the coach! I am the leader!” He’s got his face about two inches from mine, and even when I lean back he stays right with me. His eyes are bulging and his face is glowing like a stoplight.

I stutter something but he’s not about to stop.

“In Korea, no player tells coach what he is to do. No one. Not even the greatest star in Starfare. Not the world champion. And not American teenager. Especially not American player who cannot beat Korean grade girl!”

I want to tell him that I’ll never beat anyone if I don’t start getting more out of the practices. That going to autograph sessions and making TV appearances don’t do anything for my game. But I figure there will be a better time. I let him rant for a while longer and then I stand up and do my best imitation of a Korean bow and say, “I understand Coach Yeong. May I get back to practice now?”

He nods and I scoot out of there as fast as possible. I just tell myself that I’ll have to learn to decipher the logs and maybe get Sung Gi to take some time to explain things. I’m sure as hell not going to ask Yeong, who seems to think I don’t need any extra coaching now that I’m with the team all day.

7.

That night, after evening practice, I sign back onto the team’s intranet in my room. I download the day’s log on the new map and I start going over it, line by line, trying to understand it. Some of it is straightforward, when it talks about map coordinates or landmarks, but every so often there’s a couple lines that I assume are transliterated Korean. Google translator is as weirded out by this text as I am. I take out my English Korean dictionary and try to sort it out, word by word, but after about a half hour, I’m nowhere.

Without really thinking I just drift over to one of my old favorite Starfare message boards and I start reading a thread about the relative merits of deflector shields versus force fields when countering cruiser attacks.

DTerra: hey, ur a hard guy to reach

I look at the computer clock and calculate back to about 7:50 in the morning in South Dakota.

ActionSeth: u2 isn’t this a little early for you?

DTerra: back 2 school u don’t remember? School? They herd all the young Terrans into a massive building and make them sit in hard wooden chairs and listen to droning speeches from elders.

ActionSeth: the trick is not 2 listen.

DTerra: Easy for u to say. I have to get decent grades or I’m going to end up stuck in Fargo forever, going to school with your brother at ND State. So how’s the training going? When u going to enter ur 1st pro event?

ActionSeth: Soon I hope. Lots of red tape and bs over here. I spend half my day going to meetings and signing autographs and taking Korean lessons. It’s driving me crazy because these guys r insane good and if I don’t start training like a madman I’ll never catch up.

DTerra: Don’t worry. UR the best, man. Hey, gtg or I’ll be late for 1st period. CU later.

ActionSeth: Right

8.

Next morning after exercises, Yeong unveils a complicated draw sheet. He lectures the team for about five minutes in Korean, followed by a few questions, and then everyone breaks for their machines. I spend another couple minutes studying the draw, where I can see my pairing against Sang-Chul Lee, who is currently the top-ranked member of the team. When we go out as a team, he gets pestered the most, because real fans of Starfare want his photo and autograph. Some of them guys as old as my father, not just the teenie-bopper girls like the ones who pick on me.

Yeong takes me aside for a minute to explain that entries are due the end of the week for the first big national televised tournament on the Mordant Isles map. Each pro team gets to enter three players and we’re playing off for those spots.

“Big luck!” Yeong says with a smile that seems to contain less than the best wishes.

“Right,” I say, knowing my chances.

And guess whose match finishes first? And I’m pretty sure that Sang-Chul slowed down at the end out of pity. Playing this guy is like a race where you’re in the water swimming and your opponent is running alongside on land. When first round matches are done, the draw pits me against another loser and probably because the guy is pissed off about his first round, he takes no mercy on me and pins me in less than twenty minutes. That gives me time to wander around and watch the other matches which are really intense. I can see where I’m failing—these guys know exactly where to go and can manage multiple development sites without any seams. They’re all over the map and they’re typing out instructions so fast that each of their keyboards sounds like a dozen tap dancers warming up. Back in the U.S. tournaments I was one of the fastest guys around and people would gather around and I could hear them oohing and ahhing as I jumped across the maps and pounded out commands. But here, I could see that it was the difference between the speed of high school and pro football.

It takes most of the day to work though all the round robin matches. Final round I lose to Sung Gi. Which makes me last, and him second to last. Coach Yeong congratulates the top three finishers and everyone gives them a rousing round of applause and many shouted Korean encouragements. The thing is, even though only three players can represent the team, the entire team shares in the winnings. Which makes sense, because the only way the three top players can have a chance is the depth of work that the whole team puts into understanding a map.

Then Yeong has another long address and everyone cheers some more. When we break for dinner I ask Sung Gi what it was about. He says to get food and then he’ll explain. I get a big plate of grilled chicken and some rice. We get some sort of grilled meat every night. Mom is always asking about fruit and vegetables and they sometimes have little oranges or these pale round things that Mom thinks are Asian pears. They’re actually delicious.

But when we sit down Sung Gi has trouble explaining. In the end I get the impression the rest of the team gets to play too. Finally I corner Yeong and he says that a great honor has been granted Team Anaconda. We’ve been picked to play a televised exhibition match prior to the big Mordant Isles pro tournament. Against the national high school championship team.

“First television match!” he exclaims. “Very big audience. Very big.”

Very big, all right. Very big chance for embarrassment.

9.

That night I knock out a five paragraph essay on what I think are the lingering effects of Puritanism in American society for my English class. Writing it, I think of Hannah’s angel picture, which would make a great illustration. If English papers had illustrations.

When I finally get to sleep I dream about Starfare again. This time I’m playing in front of these giant TV cameras and my opponent is a little toddler. I just can’t seem to get my game rolling and I look down and instead of holding a mouse with my right hand I’m holding chopsticks. Weird thing is, if I squeeze them just right, the cursor moves, but it’s like trying to play pick-up sticks with your toes. Then I realize I’m starving and I call out for food and Coach Yeong puts a big steaming bowl of kimchi right on top of my keyboard and of course there’s a live audience and they’re laughing like it’s not Starfare but Saturday Night Live.

I wake up earlier than usual. I decide to slip on my headset and Skype Hannah on her cell. It only costs a few cents a minute and I have to start thinking like a working guy instead of a broke student. I’m hoping I can improvise something clever for her voicemail and when I hear her say hello I’m just thinking it’s her recorded message. But then she says it again, “Hello, who is this?” and I realize she’s live.

“Seth. It’s Seth,” I blurt out, because if I don’t say something really quick she’ll think it’s some sort of bot call and hang up.

“Where are you?” she says.

“In my apartment.”

“In Korea?” Like she was hoping I was back in Kansas and she could run right over and give me a hug.

“K-O-R-E-A,” I spell. “What time is it there?”

“It’s three-thirty. I’m just leaving school. But how…how did you know to call?” And even all these miles, I can picture her from her voice. It’s her sad voice, and her sad face means she’s looking at the ground, pulling her fingers through her shoulder-length hair like she’s trying to sift out the troubles.

“What’s wrong?”

Silence. Maybe some sniffling, but I can’t tell.

“Hannah? Hannah?”

“I’m fine.”

The way she said it, meant she wasn’t.

“Hannah? I know something’s wrong.”

Like I could do something, five thousand miles away.

“It’s no big deal. It’s just…”

“Just what?”

“Well, you know how my father took this job with the company in Leawood?”

I did, sort of. She had told me all about it, but I had been distracted. Biomedicine start-up blah blah. Looking at her eyes, probably, thinking about touching her.

“Well, it looks like something is going on. Some sort of buyout and Dad may be out of his job and he’s been talking to the people back at Squibb. They want him back. Which means he’ll be moving back to New Jersey.”

“And you?”

“I’ve already told them. I’m not moving again. It would just be impossible. But Dad, he doesn’t want to split up the family. Our old house is still on the market in Princeton. He keeps telling me I could pick up just where we left off, but I know that’s not the way it works. Things change. Things are always changing.”

Tell me about it.

“Anyway, I did get some good news too. The Savannah School of Fine Arts? I told you I sent them the portfolio?”

“Sure.”

“Well, they loved it. The head of the photography department called me last Thursday personally and told me that I was being offered this big scholarship. And then he talked to Dad and I think he was really convincing because afterward, Dad’s not saying I can go. But he’s not saying no either.”

I tell her congratulations, which is what I think I’m supposed to say. I mean, what difference does it make? Kansas, some school out East. I’m still halfway around the world.

“So if your family goes and you stay, where are you going to stay?” Wondering if I should offer her my empty room at Dad’s. Which seems pretty unlikely on all accounts.

“I don’t know. Really. I’ll come up with something, I guess.”

And then we just sort of are both breathing into the phone. Until finally she does that thing, when she clears her throat before saying something important.

“So, Seth. What’s it like there?”

“It’s OK. I’ve got my own apartment. Hardly a minute to myself. These guys train like maniacs.”

“But you like it? You’re happy?”

“Sure. I guess. I’m going to be on TV. Next week.”

“That’s amazing. I told you you were going to be famous.”

“Famous for losing, maybe,” I say.

“Stop it. You’ll do fine. Anyway, I’ve got to go. But call me again, when you get the chance.”

When I shut down Skype I feel this weight, like gravity had just doubled. It makes me want to just lie down and go back to sleep. Instead, I check the time, put on my regular T-shirt instead of that itchy team one, my winter coat, and trudge downstairs for my breakfast Tost-us.

10.

Just when I’m at peak anxiety about the televised match Yeong comes up to me at breakfast and tells me to come with him. I follow him out into the hallway where Choi is standing.

“Today big day for ActionSeth,” Yeong says, grinning like a fool. “You tape first big commercial for soda. Very special soda. Named for you!”

I shake my head. This sounds completely crazy. Even Michael Jordon doesn’t have a soda. So I think maybe I heard him wrong as I follow the two of them to the elevators and down to the parking garage.

But an hour later I’m in makeup. The rest of the day they have me pose in front of this green background, while I hold a bottle of orange soda. It says ActionOrange. I have to hold it a bunch of ways. First with my right hand. Then my left. Saying, “ActionOrange. Let it power your game!”

The director of the commercial is shouting at me in Korean and pidgin English. “Orange soda!” he says, over and over. “Very American! Very American! Say again! ‘ActionOrange. Let it power your game!’”

Like all we do is hang around the soda counter at the local drug store, sitting on round stools, drinking orange soda. Because it energizes us. I’m pretty sure it’s the longest day of my life. I’m so exhausted when we get back I skip dinner and just lie on the couch with my laptop, getting through the lectures on Silas Marner. I type in some nonsense when I have to answer questions like my thoughts on the nature of guilt.

The next day I feel like I’m hopelessly behind. The team is working the Mordant Isles map like crazy. I’d be shocked if there are any big surprises left on any of the islands. We’re still trying to get a handle on all the underwater resources, because you have to build special equipment and train your troops before they can start exploring.

Maybe because I’m still lagging the rest of the team, I try some odd stuff. A couple of days before the big event, while the rest of the team is exploring the edges of the map, I decide to see if there’s anything we missed back near the home bases. I gear up my underwater abilities and start working my scuba troops and aquabots through every underwater crack and crevice. That’s how I stumble onto this little undersea hatch which surprises the hell out me. My troops can’t open it at first but when I blow the door up to maximum magnification I see a kind of lock which I manage to cut by transferring a laser bazooka from one of my ground forces to an aquatrooper. The door opens into a tunnel with three passages. I send scouts down each of them and discover that they hyperjump to outer islands that would otherwise take half a game to reach.

I type this up on the log and within thirty seconds the entire team is gathered around my monitor and I backtrack and show them the door and how I cut it open. They all immediately break into chatter and Sang-Chul, our star player, pushes me aside and sits down. He repeats my exploration and then jumps up, says something that sounds like a compliment and pounds me on the back.

Then they’re all patting me on the back and laughing and for the first time in the month I’ve been here I feel like I actually might belong.

11.

The day before the televised tournament I have my weekly call with Mom. Back in Kansas this was not exactly the highlight of the week, but maybe because I just don’t have anyone to talk to over here I’m actually looking forward to it.

I have to do the call after our evening practice, so I can catch Mom at the Institute’s office. Which is, weirdly, the morning before.

“Seth!” Mom says, “Is that you?”

I never know what to say to that. So I say, “No, it’s an imposter.”

“Oh Seth, don’t be like that. I’ve been so worried about you.”

“Mom, no need to worry. It’s like going to summer camp. They keep an eye on me 24/7.”

“I know, Seth. But it’s just that you are so far away. If anything were to happen…”

“Nothing’s going to happen, Mom. I’m telling you. They even make us exercise every day.”

“Well…that’s nice.”

The thing is, it’s hard to find stuff to talk about with Mom. She doesn’t have a clue about Starfare. I don’t have a clue about Zen meditation. So we talk about the weather. And then she tells me about her studies and how she feels like she’s reaching new levels.

We hit a sort of gap in the conversation. So I talk about food. Mom’s always interested in what I’m eating, so I tell her how disgusting kimchi is and about these delicious Tost-us which she likes because they’re pretty much vegetarian. And healthy, compared to hamburger and fries, which, I don’t tell her, I really miss. But not as much as pizza.

When I hang up I check out Hannah’s Facebook page, which she hasn’t updated in a long time. Still that weird picture of her in a costume. And I like to look through her portfolio. Because each of her photos is like a puzzle. I think that if I stare at them long enough they’ll reveal something, some secret part of Hannah that I’ve never known. So I stare for a long time.

12.

So the next evening when the team packs up and heads out in a big van, I’m a mess. I’m honestly scared to death about this exhibition and failing epically to some high school kid in front of a huge TV audience. I ride in the very back of a large van. Sitting next to Sung Gi. He doesn’t seem too upbeat either. So we don’t talk much. I stare out the window. Looking at all the parts of Seoul I probably will never see again.

After about forty-five minutes we pull up to a large building with a milling crowd out front. My face is pressed to the van window, thinking there must be thousands. Huge cloth banners hang from the second story, with Starfare logos and “Mordant Isles” in some sort of old style script, with pirate flags and pirate vessels in the background. I know that the Mordant Isles release hit the Isles public just two days ago. I read online that they’ve already shipped six million copies worldwide. Of course, we’ve been working the map for almost a month straight, but that doesn’t seem to be public knowledge.

The van lets us off at the curb and about forty policemen in riot gear, including plastic face shields, are keeping open a path to the main doors. Kids are screaming at us from behind the police line and holding out autograph books and trying to take pictures of us. The other Team Anaconda players seem in no hurry, stopping to sign the occasional book and giving out high fives to fans.

“Seth, Seth, Seth.” I can’t believe that they’re actually chanting my name. I can see the other guys on the team glancing over at me and I know I’m blushing. I try to imitate the other players. Make a foray to the police line to greet some fans, but as soon as I get close I feel someone grabbing my shirt and someone else actually pulling on my hair as if they wanted scalp-deep souvenirs. I karate chop the hand on my head and jerk away from whoever has my shirt and sprint up the stairs and through the doors, breathing like I just ran a quarter mile in gym. I look down at my shirt to see if it’s ripped and suddenly realize the utility of that rough fabric. It must be woven out of Kevlar, the bullet proof vest stuff.

I follow the rest of the team through some corridors and into a back room where they have the standard makeup mirrors. Everyone takes a seat and a dozen makeup girls appear out of nowhere and start slapping on the powder and combing hair. I seem to be getting more than my fair share of attention and chatter, which I suppose is because they don’t get to work on Westerners with blond hair very often.

Whenever someone comes through the door I can hear the buzzing sounds of a large crowd. After what seems like an hour they get tired of messing with my hair. The other guys are all talking Korean, probably strategy points that I could really use. I decide to sneak out and check out the scene. I follow the noise up some narrow stairs and down another corridor and realize I’m backstage. The curtain is down and the stage is set up with about a dozen gaming stations. Hanging overhead are four giant screens like they have at rock concerts. Still curious, I scoot around the edge of the curtain and work my way to where it meets the side of the stage, crack it just enough to get a thin glimpse of the auditorium. It only takes a glance to see that’s it huge—a fan of seating rising from the stage level and at least two balconies above. Holy crap, I’m thinking. I’m playing in front of thousands of live fans. If Hannah was here she’d flip out.

Of course, then I’m thinking about Hannah. I look at the time and count back fifteen hours. Three o’clock in the morning back home. So I retreat to a back room where it’s relatively quiet and try to text Hannah on my Korean cell, but either I don’t have the right international codes or the phone is set up to block international calls. I’m trying for about the twelfth time when I hear someone yelling my name and I stick my head out the room.

Yeong is there, looking at me like I’ve lost my mind.

“You hiding?”

“No, I had to make a phone call.”

He looks as his watch, which is one of those big gold ones that old rich guys wear back home. “Two minutes. We have introductions in two minutes. And you go hide to make call.”

“I wasn’t hiding,” I say again.

“Come, come,” he shouts, like I’ve been a bad dog.

He leads me to the side of the stage where all the Anaconda players are queued up. We can see the stage, but not the audience. After a couple of minutes the crowd starts screaming and the curtain must be rising because colored spotlights are strafing the stage, making the computer equipment and silver scaffolding and monitors shine like fireworks.

Then an announcer quiets the crowd and they start introducing the team. One at a time, the guys run out onto the stage to huge cheers and then stand at attention at the front of the stage. When there are only four of us left the announcer takes a lot more time and then each of top three players is introduced. The screaming is thunderous, so loud I actually hold my hands over my ears. I’m absolutely relieved that they’ve left me out because I really don’t deserve to be playing with these guys. So I’m sort of breathing easy when I hear the announcer say something that sounds familiar, but I can’t quite make it out because the screaming is doing what I thought impossible—hitting a new level of volume. Then I hear it again, and someone is physically pushing me on stage where I’m stumbling, blinded by the spots. I can’t see a single thing past the edge of the stage, it’s like looking into the sun. The noise hits me front-on like a fire hose on full blast and I must freeze, before Sung Gi takes pity and jogs over and leads me to the line, where the guys are standing and smiling and waving. I look at them and finally raise my hand and wave and it’s like I’m an orchestra conductor signaling a fortissimo finale.

Finally the spotlights are off us and they introduce, much more quickly, a group of boys in red and white team shirts. I try to figure out which one will be my opponent. Within a few minutes they have us sorted into pairs and I’m sitting in front of a monitor, across from a kid who looks about twelve. Then the monitor in front of me flashes to life and begins a countdown from twenty, each number has a different Mordant Isles theme. The crowd is yelling out each number, and I actually recognize the words when they get to ten. My wonderful Korean tutor taught me how to count to ten at one of our first sessions.

At zero the screen lights up with the Mordant Isles starter map and I start with a standard troop development, trying to remember all the shortcuts that the team has discovered. My opponent seems a bit slow and lost. But then, I have to appreciate where I’d be if I had only two days to work the map, probably solo, instead of close to thirty with twelve pros. Even as bad as I am compared to my teammates, it’s no contest, and I have to work hard not to close him down in ten minutes. I glance right and left and see that the other pros are dogging it too. At around the twenty-minute mark I hear an announcement and a loud cheer, which I take to be the first declared victory. The rest of us finish sometime over the next ten minutes. I’m close to the last when I finish off his last troops. The two of us stand and he bows and I try the same, trying to remember what my Korean teacher told me about how low to bow when someone is younger and you’ve just trounced him in front of thousands.

The Korean fans are cheering my name like I just won the World Series and I turn and wave a couple times before jogging off stage.

Yeong is there, greeting each of us as we step out of the lights, patting each of us on the back. But me, he pulls me aside.

“You see, ActionSeth. How much they love you already. You are big star!”

I thank him and tell him I’m not feeling well and better lie down and rest. Could I go back to my apartment? He waves over a guy I don’t recognize who leads me down a maze of halls and out a backdoor into the chilly Korean air, lit with yellowish streetlights and hundreds of headlights. He waves a cab down, tells him my address, and a half hour later I’m back in the apartment, watching our three best players on Sky Game TV playing in the tournament.

I glance up at the TV to the sound of some very familiar, awful pop music and see the hideous sight of me fake-smiling while tipping back a can of that lame orange-flavored Korean soda. We spent two entire days getting that stupid shot just right. I jump up and turn off the TV. It’s around noon back in Kansas and I Skype dial Hannah’s cell a half-dozen times before realizing that it’s still Friday back there and she’s probably in the middle of school. I leave a text message. I don’t know who else to call. I Google her name, to see if anything pops up. Then I check her Facebook page and she’s added some information about the Savannah School for the Arts. It links to their website. The school looks like something out of Gone with the Wind. Lots of that stuff that hangs from trees. I Google “stuff that hangs from trees in Savannah.” Spanish moss.

So I just sort of stare at the Skype screen for a long while, waiting for a pop-up message that never appears.

13.

I continue to Skype Hannah’s cell every half hour or so, wondering what she’ll think, when she sees all these missed calls. I flip the TV on to see how our guys are doing. Tae-Uk loses first round to the number one player from the Pusan Raiders. Our top two players make the final eight, which is a very good showing, guaranteeing that the team will get a decent payout. I get caught up in Sang-Chul’s quarterfinal match, which has an amazing frantic ending with the Korean announcer screaming like it’s a photo finish at the Kentucky Derby. I find myself standing up and cheering as he finishes off the last of his opponent’s ships. He’s our last hope in the semis, but can’t quite pull it off. When they show a close-up of him after the match his face is glistening with sweat and he looks exhausted.

When I try Hannah’s number again after the match she picks up on the first ring.

I tell her it’s getting late, Saturday night.

“So how’s it going?”

I want to tell her how frustrating it is. That I have no idea what the guys on my team are talking about. That it’s like a dream where you go onto the field to play soccer and when the whistle blows you realize it’s not soccer, but some weird sport like rugby and you’ve got the ball and a dozen giant guys are converging on you to squish you like a bug.

“Pretty good,” I lie. “I played on TV earlier this evening. In front of a live audience of about five thousand. Probably a couple million on TV.”

“Wow, so how did you do?”

“I just played one match, but I won,” I say, skipping over the part about my opponent being a twelve year old kid who had no clue how to play the map.

“Wow. I Googled you and found this big ad with all this Korean writing and your picture. I think it was like for some sort of soft drink.”

“Yeah,” I said. “ActionOrange. It’s my first big endorsement deal.”

“Endorsement? Wow. I can’t believe I know someone famous.”

Hannah, I miss you, I hate it here. What do you say I come home and the two of us, we can pick off where we were I’m thinking.

Instead I say, “Yeah, all the Korean girls go nuts over me. It’s like I’m in a chart-topping boy band or something.”

“I’m jealous,” Hannah says. “Although I can always say I knew you when.”

“Yeah, you can always say that,” I say, but thinking, she said “jealous.” Then wondering if any of the guys on the team actually get within ten feet of a girl outside of the occasional autograph and snapshot. I can’t imagine when. They’re either programmed every waking hour or off with their families on Sundays.

14.

On Sunday I sleep until it’s time for my call with Mom. At first she was leery of the whole Skype chat thing, but it only took a couple of calls to get her acclimated.

“I hope you haven’t lost weight,” is the first thing she says. “Are you getting enough to eat?” I get the fruits and vegetables lecture.

Mom is pretty good at seeing through me, so she asks six variations of “what’s wrong?”

I don’t give her the whole story, but I do say that it’s hard, being so far away without anyone who speaks English.

“Maybe we should talk more often. I could ask Steve here to set me up on Thursday nights. That would be, what, Friday mornings for you?”

I explain that they keep me way too busy for that—that Sundays are my only day off.

To fill the gap she tells me all about Martin and how far his yoga has progressed and I listen, because it’s nice to hear her voice, even though I couldn’t care less about Martin’s plow execution. Mom always seems almost on the verge of tears when it’s time to disconnect and it ends up me consoling her, instead of the other way around.

Afterwards I resist the urge to call Hannah, even though it’s a good time to connect, since it’s early evening back home. It’s great when we’re talking, but afterwards. Afterwards, the hollow feeling is so awful.

I do get DTerra online and we have a pretty good conversation. I’m upfront about the suckiness of my situation. He thinks I’m exaggerating. Still prefers to think of it as a dream come true, but after I bitch for about a half hour he’s finally getting a sense of the downside.

ActionSeth: I’ll never catch up with these guys. Not speaking Korean. It’s just 2 hard.

DTerra: You’ve got to give it a shot. I know how good u r.

ActionSeth: U don’t know how good everyone is here. Even the little kids, they could kill in a US tournament. I can barely make a high school team here.

DTerra: That’s bogus. U hang in there and in a few months you’ll be owning them all.

ActionSeth: Right.

DT has to do something with his family so after he signs off I clean up my email and visit a bunch of my favorite message boards.

I’m so bored after a couple of hours that I’m actually kind of pleased when I see an old, familiar name slipping through my IM filter.

Stompazer2: HEY PUTZ I SAW U OWNING SOME GRADE SCHOOL KID ON SKY TV NICE JOB.

I don’t give him the pleasure of a response, but I’m curious. If he was kidding about being in Korea then he wouldn’t have seen that show on TV. But if he wasn’t, then why I hadn’t heard a thing about him?

Stompazer2: Got some news for u. We just got accepted into the Prozone League.

Prozone is the premiere Starfare league, where Team Anaconda plays.

Stompazer2: Yeah, u heard it here 1st. It will be announced on Monday. One of 2 new expansion teams.

Stompazer2: hey, u there.

ActionSeth: yes?

Stompazer2: We’re set 2 go. Xerus International. Remember that name, noob. We got the best guys from Europe, South America. You know most of them. Bendo, from Germany. TheBorg, from Sweden. Me. Of course.

ActionSeth: So?

Stompazer2: So we got 1 requirement. English. We train in English.

ActionSeth: So?

Stompazer2: So I happen 2 know from my contacts that ur getting nowhere fast. Not the 1st time. These Koreans can b real dicks. That’s why it’s so easy to get the best European guys. They love it. Joining forces to beat those asswipes. We’re going to do it our way. None of this bs indentured servitude and ass-kissing coaches. Want to hop into the sack with a pair of Korean twin teens, we’re all for it. Private rooms, state of the art training facilities, plenty of seed money.

Stompazer2: Of course, u got a no-compete clause built in to your contract, so ur stuck with those Korean snakes for 2 years unless u can get fired. By then, we’ll b tops in the world. 2 bad u will miss out. Besides, ur 2 much of a noob for r standards.

ActionSeth: Up yours.

Stompazer2: U would b expert in that department—what with all those Anacondas porking u daily. we’ve got 1 Korean player committed to the team—Doo-Ri Song. Or Song Doo-Ri as these ass-backwards tards say. You never heard of him? He’s young and good and hungry. Maybe the other guys mentioned him?

Stompazer2: didn’t think so. He’s the guy they kicked off to make room for the blond bombshell.

I just stare at the screen dumbly.

Stompazer2: How come u live every day with these guys and I know more about that team than u? The only guy on your team who speaks fluent English and they kick him off. He’s hilarious. he’ll be doing standup after he retires from E-games. And the guys on the team, they loved him. Treated him like a little bro. Makes u wonder how they feel about the American blondie who got him fired.

As much as I want to disbelieve anything Stomp says, it all makes such good sense.

Stompazer2: And by the way, that orange soda tastes like ass.

15.

Back when I was in Kansas I’d dream of having a whole day to myself with nothing but broadband and Starfare. No one bugging me. But by evening I’m going stir crazy. I know the team has all these rules about where you can go when and always signing out with the coach, but honestly, what’s that about anyway? Say I want to step outside, get a snack. You think the coach wants me to wake him up and get his OK?

I get out the phrase book from my Korean teacher and look up “nightclub.” I say it to myself about a hundred times while I get dressed in my regular clothes instead of that annoying team shirt that I’ve worn over a hundred days in a row.

When I get down on the street I hail a cab which is just some little Korean compact painted yellow. I get in and carefully say the words for nightclub. The driver repeats it and I say yeah. Then he opens up with a flurry of Korean, which is probably a list of every nightclub in Seoul. I just say the word for nightclub and I’m guessing he’s made a choice because we’re off.

It takes about twenty minutes to get to a part of downtown that isn’t familiar. The sidewalks are jammed with people, who spill over into the street, slowing traffic to a crawl. Each side of the street is lined with huge vertical neon signs in bright shades of yellow and green and red, crammed with Korean script and the occasional English word.

After about ten minutes of weaving through this district he drops me right in front of a place with a flashing sign that says Helios with a long queue outside. I don’t know what it takes to get into this club, but based on who’s waiting, it certainly isn’t fancy suits or sequined dresses. Although the weather is warmer than when I first arrived in Seoul, about forty beautiful Korean girls look like they’re freezing to death, standing in line, knee high boots and bare thighs. Arms wrapped about their short leather jackets. As I dig out my wallet I look down at my T-shirt (it’s a black one from last year’s nationals) and my worn jeans and almost bark out one of the only other things I can say in Korean– my address. But I’ve gone this far, might as well give it a shot.

As soon as I get out of the cab I can hear the dance music seeping out of the building the way the smell of grilled meat surrounds a fast food place. I swear everyone waiting is staring at me, probably because I’m the only Westerner. A guy in a suit, who appears to be guarding the door, immediately comes over and bows and gestures for me to follow. And just like that I’m inside the door, the warmth and music and cigarette smoke hitting me with a wave. I pay a girl in a fancy black dress twenty-five thousand won and take a stairway downstairs, with each step the throb of the bass and the dance music and the buzz of the crowd crescendos until I step into an ear-deafening cavernous room which is lit by strobes and spotlights shooting through the smoke. I don’t recognize the music, but it could be any one of a thousand of those computer-generated dance tracks.

The floor is packed with young Koreans jumping around in what might be called dancing while shouting and drinking and smoking. The crowd sort of parts as I walk through, heading towards what I think is a bar in the back. The drinking age in Korea is eighteen but I’ve heard it’s loosely enforced, if at all. So when I get to the bar I order a beer. I’m not much into drinking, but I always liked the way cold beer looks in all those commercials, with the condensation streaming down the bottle.

Of course, nothing is that easy and the bartender is shouting something, probably twenty different brands of beer. I look around, see a guy standing a few feet away with a bottle that says OB and point at that. Living where you don’t speak the language, it’s like going back to being two years old, pointing and grunting.

Before the beer arrives I feel a presence behind me and I turn to find about a half-dozen young Korean girls. I don’t know what they’re saying, but they seem to know my name. So naturally I smile and nod and when one of them finds a pen and paper in her purse I sign my name. Off to the side is another young Korean girl with a red streak in her hair, looking at me with what I take is amusement.

The DJ puts on a new song, this one in English. It even sounds familiar, some sort of hip-hop dance cut with the hook, “You get it on you take it off.” Before I can take a sip the girl with the red streak in her hair half drags me onto the floor and starts gyrating so I just sort of join in the fray. Now, my dance moves are so lame that they’ve never ventured further than my bedroom mirror, but with the strobe lights and the mass of humanity it’s pretty easy to just sort of jump around and no one can really tell what you’re doing.

Actually, I’m stealing glances at this girl and I like what I see. This girl is looking me right in the eyes, and so I stare right back. She’s wearing some sort of multi-layered outfit that seems to expose a couple layers of underwear. She’s got that normal black, square cut hair with the red streak dyed down the side and she manages to dance her way in front of me, no matter which way I turn. I’m still holding onto the cold bottle of beer with one hand, and when I stop jumping to take a sip, I’m sort of gagging at the awful taste when she wraps both arms around me and kisses me.

Still holding me, she leans so that her lips are against my ear and she says something that sounds like English. A hot Korean chick who speaks English? I can’t believe I didn’t find this place sooner. Then she takes my hand, the one without the beer and pulls me across the floor. I don’t know where we’re going, but I hope it’s a dark corner.

Across the dance floor is a spiral staircase and I follow her up and through a double door. When the door shuts the music is still loud, but not abusively so. We go through another door, and enter a large room full of people sitting at round tables. The music is thinner but the smoke thicker.

My new friend continues to lead me across the room to the far wall where there are a series of booths. Deep in the far corner, in a booth which could hold a dozen people, is a startling sight. Six westerners, four guys and two girls, sitting with drinks in their hands and looking at me with puzzlement.

“This is great Starfare player Seth Gordon,” says my new friend.

“Haven’t I seen you somewhere?” says one of the girls in an accent that could be British or Australian. She is looking at me the way you might eye an odd animal at the zoo.

“I believe that would be on a neon poster, about twenty times life size,” says the guy on the far right. He semi-stands and reaches out with a hand. “Guy Hamilton,” he says. “Good to meet you, mate.”

I shake hands all around and they shift over and I sit down, absolutely ecstatic to be among English speakers again, only then realizing exactly how much I’d been missing it. I set my beer in front of me and realize that I’m grinning like an idiot. A mute one, because I have yet to say a word.

Hamilton says, “I see you’ve met Sumi. Her hobby is collecting foreigners and then getting them all together in one spot, like a collection of dolls.”

Sumi blushes and says, “It is only that I practice my English so I someday study in America.”

The Western girl next to me hands me a little cocktail napkin and points to her lips. “It seems Sumi has been practicing a little more than English.” No accent at all.

I wipe and see the red smear of lipstick on the napkin.

The American girl says, “You’re welcome. And since you looked like you were in a state of shock, I’ll repeat the introduction. I’m Sarah. From Hollywood. Florida, that is.”

Then I get about six questions at once and for the next half hour explain how a high school kid from the Midwest has ended up, not only in Korea, but unaccompanied at the hottest nightclub in town. Turns out all six of them are teaching English at various Korean schools and from what I gather, none of them is liking it much. They either aren’t getting paid as much as they were promised or their students are arrogant and indifferent or their bosses are either trying to get them to go to bed with them or trying to make sure they don’t go to bed with anyone at all.

When I finally check the time I’m shocked how late it is. Everyone at the table seems at least a little drunk, except me. I really didn’t like the taste of that beer very much and didn’t order anything else. All evening Sumi just kept wiggling closer until now she is sort of draped over me, a position that seemed to amuse but not surprise the other English speakers.

And while I’m not exactly pushing her away, it’s so weird touching another girl. And while this Sumi is pretty and seems willing, it just makes me think about Hannah. So I’m stuck with this awful mixed feeling, this excitement of physical contact and wishing it was Hannah instead.

But even with the building guilt, I’m still thinking how I can sneak Sumi back into the apartment. When I announce I have to go, Sumi hands me a slip of paper, which I assume will be her phone number. Instead I unfold it and realize it’s a bill. For a lot more than I’ve spent all night.

The Westerners at the table all have a big laugh at my expense and throw some bills on the table, apparently splitting Sumi’s fee.

The Aussie guy says, “It’s an old Korean custom. Female companionship, at a price.”

I think he sees something in my expression, something hopeful, because he adds, “In case you were wondering, the fees are for public companionship only. And I’m not telling you anything that you probably don’t know, but the locals here, they don’t abide having their girls mixing it up with foreigners. I had a mate who taught with me, got jumped a few months ago, walking out of club with a Korean girl. Got messed up pretty bad. Threw in the towel and headed back to Sydney. Can’t blame him.”

I count up the bills and add the difference and give it to Sumi, who now appears to be all business. She takes the money and bows and says “I hope to see you again soon.” As I get ready to go Sarah, the girl from Florida, tells me that they try to meet at the club every Sunday night and that I should catch them next week.

Then she pulls me aside and says, “Look, you seem awful young and alone here. If you every need any help…”

And then I connect the dots. I pull out my wallet and find the folded scrap of paper I got when I was in customs. I read the phone number out loud.

Sarah looks at me like I just grew horns.

“Is this some kind of parlor trick?”

“No, no,” I protest. “It’s just when I was going through customs I met this couple and…”

“Christ,” Sarah says, shaking her head. “You met my mother.”

“Yeah,” I say. “That’s what I was trying to tell you.”

“Crazy old Mom. She’s always adopting every waif within miles. Well, all the more reason to give me a call if you need anything. You know, I’ve been here a few years. I have the system down pretty well.”

I thank her and weave my way out of the club and to the street where the cabs are lined up waiting. Once in a cab I pronounce my address as clearly as I can and it must be good enough because it doesn’t take long to get there. I pop the main door of my apartment building with a slide of my card key and head to the elevators. And even as I’m still buzzing from the excitement of meeting all these English speakers and the feel and smell of Sumi hanging onto me, I realize I’m just as alone and lonely as ever. Upstairs I can’t even stand to look at Hannah’s pictures or open up Facebook. It’s better to just head into the welcome unconscious of sleep.

16.

I don’t drop off until 2 a.m. and it feels so good to sleep in, taking advantage of our Monday morning break. I can’t remember if we’re supposed to be back to practice at twelve or one, so I pick one. When I catch up with the team they’ve already done their exercises and are deep into practice. I figure I’m going to hear about being late from Yeong and sure enough, I’m barely inside the door when I hear him.

“Seth Gordon!” he yells. “Come with me!”

I can tell by the way he struts into the breakfast room that he’s hot. He slams the door behind us and I start to apologize for being late.

“You not say anything!” he shouts. He reaches into his pocket and unfolds a newspaper. It’s one of the tabloids that I see every day at newsstands. They always have huge black headlines like war has just been declared.

Yeong unfolds the newspaper on the table and I hear myself croaking something that sounds like the noise you might make if someone unexpected drilled a fist into your stomach. I lean over the wrinkled newspaper and stare at the large picture. It’s me all right, with the Korean girl, Sumi, both hands over my neck, looking like she’s expected a long, romantic kiss.

“Seth Gordon!” Yeong is shouting. “You know the call I received this morning, from our great sponsors, ANC Computers? You know how I shout at you. Now think twice as loud from a man who is my superior who pays for this apartment and your food and your salary. And he pay for me also.”

I’m wondering what the caption says. But think better of asking.

“It was nothing,” I say.

“SHUT UP THE MOUTH,” Yeong is now about two inches from my face. “It is everything. Everything! How you get to this club and find this person,” pointing at Sumi, “this girl of bad morals? How you find a way to embarrass whole team?”

He crumbles up the newspaper and throws it against the wall.

“You go back to room. Now! I cannot stand to look your way. Go!”

I slink out the door and go back to my room. Sit for about an hour, wondering if I’m going to be sent back home. Surprised that I’m actually feeling OK with that. And then just thinking about how hungry I am and how I better sneak out now, while the Tost-u cart is still doing business. I slip on my coat and stick my head out the door, see no one and sprint around the corner to the elevator. When I step out of the building a little gust of wind blows scraps of paper into a little tornado and I can feel the chill cutting through my pant legs.

The street is still busy with traffic but the sidewalks are no longer congested. Like every day I’ve been in Seoul, the sky, where you can see it between the buildings, is gray, rather than blue. The air smells of car exhaust and some sort of spicy cooking, as if the entire city is permeated with kimchi. I look up and down the street, thinking of the thousands of people who drive by or walk by this spot every day. And I don’t know one of them.

Five minutes later I’m taking a bite out of the hot, steaming egg sandwich. Thinking that here’s the one thing I’ll miss the most if I get sent home. But I’d be happy to trade the best Tost-u for a twelve-inch pie of good old authentic American pizza.

17.

The next morning I’m not sure whether to just hang out in my apartment and wait to hear from the Coach or write some sort of Korean-style letter of apology or just show up like nothing happened. At first I just hang out, doodling around the Internet. I check Hannah’s Facebook but nothing new and then I Google my name and get a screenshot of that billboard I saw the night I landed. The one introducing me as the newest member of Team Anaconda. I cut the Korean copy and paste it into Google Translator.

“New Team Anaconda. Very best of American E-gamer is blond sexy. He is very happy of Korean girls to meet them soon.”

I swear under my breath and then decide, what the hell, to just go for the “show-up and see what happens” option. As I walk towards the training rooms I just keep seeing that translation “blond sexy” in front of my eyes. I can’t believe how slow I’ve been in figuring out just what the “great team Anaconda” sees in me.

When I walk into the breakfast room there’s a moment when everyone looks up and then the conversation starts buzzing again. I get a little bowl of rice and find a place to sit, at a table with Sang-Chul (who, of course, did best in the big release tournament) and two others.

Coach Yeong is stalking around the room, giving what looks like pep talks to each of the tables, but he skips over ours and heads out the door into the practice rooms. Sang-Chul looks over at the other two players and then he sticks his hand up in the air. I don’t recognize this as any Korean gesture I’ve yet seen so I shrug my shoulders, hoping that a shoulder shrug isn’t some sort of insult.

“High five!” he says, only it sounds to me like “Hig I’ve.”

Still, I get the drift and give him a resounding slap. The rest of the guys on the team swarm over and are patting me on the back and saying stuff in Korean and broken English.

Sang-Chul raises his hand and everyone is quiet.

“You very just-do-it American,” he says and from the buzz that follows it seems the rest concur. “Korean player, he be good-bye.”

I smile and say, “Well, sometimes you have to say, what the hell, and just go for it.”

They take a minute to do a communal translation and they seem to like the sentiment. Then Sang-Chul whispers, “So you do something with this Korean girl?”

I shake my head. I want to explain that I paid for the attention, but have no idea how to communicate this subtlety.

Then Yeong comes back through the door, gives a sour look at the gathering around my table and shouts something that gets everyone scrambling to line up for morning exercises. It seems like we do a lot more than usual, but it’s no sweat for me. I actually think I might be getting into decent shape.

18.

Things settle down into the old routine for a few weeks. Morning practice, Korean lessons in the afternoon. I still can only say a few dozen lines, but that’s because we spend a lot of time doing stupid stuff like practicing bowing. One bow for someone your age, another if you are a bit older, another if you are a little younger. My Korean teacher gets completely flustered when I don’t even see the differences. It’s like this guy I used to know in grade school who was really into comic books. He could glance at an old Superman book and instantly tell if it was in fine, very fine, or just very good condition, while they all looked the same to me, even if I paged through them for minutes.

Mom and I continue to have our Sunday morning chats, and the longer I’m here, the more I seem to be looking forward to them. She keeps me up to date on Garrett’s basketball. The thing is, after we disconnect I always feel worse than I did before the call.

So after the call where Mom tells me how glad Garrett is to be done with basketball season I call his cell.

“Good God,” he shouts, when I get him online. “What the hell time is it over there?”

I tell him it’s Sunday morning and that I just talked to Mom.

“She worries a lot about you,” Garrett says. “It was the same when I went away to college.”

Which is just the opening I need, because I have a serious question for him and I was afraid I wasn’t going to be able to ask.

“When you left for college,” I say. “I mean, it wasn’t like a surprise or anything. But when you got there, were you ever, you know, sad or whatever?”

“You mean homesick?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Hell yes. You remember that girl I was going out with the summer after senior year?”

“Kimberly?”

There’s a pause and he says, “Seth, I know you’re smart, but how the hell did you remember that? I don’t think you ever met her.”

I don’t say a thing.

“Anyway I was totally crazy about her. We were going to call each other every day and we had plans to set up visits, but then, just before I go, her parents convince her to break up with me. I was, like, just blown away.

“So anyway, there I am, up in Fargo in this athlete-only dorm, every night, just pining for Kimberly and missing everyone and feeling all sorry for myself and wondering if I made the right decision. I really thought about quitting.”

“Yeah?”

“But then, just like that, I go to this fraternity party and I’m sitting kind of alone in a corner and this beautiful girl plops down on the couch next to me. Like she was dropped from heaven. Seth, you should have seen her. She looked like she came off the cover of Maxim. So we start to chat, turns out she’s a huge basketball fan, and before long we’re hitting if off like we’d been going out for a year. So man, if you’re homesick, just get laid.”

“Great,” I say. I could always count on Garrett for good practical advice.

Meanwhile, Coach Yeong hasn’t spoken a word to me since the day the picture appeared in the paper. So I’m a little unnerved when he taps my shoulder while I’m deep into a practice round with one of the lower-ranked guys on my team. And actually holding my own.

“Mr. Seth Gordon,” Yeong says. I’m loath to look up from the game, but after a few dozen quick clicks, turn in my chair.

“We have entered you in very large tournament. It is National seventeen-and-under championships. You only pro. I believe you have chance.”

“Great,” I say, wondering how long I was going to be just a patsy for the guys on my team. “I’m getting my game in pretty good shape.”

Yeong shakes his head. “Not so good yet, but it important for our promotions to get you TV. You win three rounds to get to TV round. Not easy. Not for American.”

“How long do I have to gear up?”

“Tournament tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow. Thanks for the warning.”

Yeong scowls. “You not like my coaching strategy? You like to worry, worry and not sleep and train right? No, this is the best.”

I stand up and try a bow and say my Korean words for “thank you very much.” The bow for someone who is older and more powerful and who has just done you a big favor. I think I nail it, but how will I ever know?

When I glance up, Yeong at least seems pleased by the effort.

19.

Yeong got one thing right. I didn’t sleep too well that night. Thinking about the tournament. I kept coming back to that game I played when I first got to Korea. Against that girl who was number five on her high school team. Who thought I was sandbagging, to make the game close. And when I can’t sleep, I always seem to end up wondering what it must be like back in Kansas. I imagine Hannah at her environmental club meeting, getting everyone fired up about eliminating plastic bags on campus or something. The tall guy, the one I’m sure is only in the club to bag Hannah, pretending he’s fascinated with her every word. I drift off to sleep. Wake up thankful I can’t remember any dreams.

At breakfast Yeong leads me to the front of the room and gives a little speech. All the guys applaud politely and then the two of us head out. I was wondering if anyone else on the team would be competing, but I know I’m the youngest. The guys on the team remind me every day. They’re real hung up on age in Korea. If you’re one day older than someone they have to give you the bow used for an elder. I may be the only one seventeen or under, which is actually sixteen or under the way we count years. My tutor tried to explain—what I got is that they start counting age from conception, rather than birth. They do a lot of weird things in Korea.

Yeong and I sit silently in the back seat of the team car and get dropped off at the rear of a large building. It turns out the tournament is in an auditorium that’s at least as big as the one for the pro event and from the sound of things, the crowd is even younger and louder.

Only eight featured matches are on stage, the rest of the games are played in a big barn-like center which is down a long corridor. Somehow I’m not surprised when my first match gets announced as a feature. I try to remember his name which I hear as Lim Jin-Ho. He’s small, even for a young Korean, and his baggy team shirt hangs halfway down his arms.

An official in a shirt striped like a NFL referee leads us down the corridor and onto the front of the stage where an announcer broadcasts our names. When mine is said, I’m immediately blinded by hundreds of camera flashes and deafened by the screams of thousands of girls. I glance at Jin-Ho and he looks like he might be sick any second.

I never really thought much about it from the other point of view—the view the player I was facing. When I saw his frightened look I realized, in a flash, what a huge psychological advantage I had. Just being on a top pro team would scare the daylights out of any normal kid, and on top of that being foreign and somewhat famous. I’m guessing he had never played in front of large crowd, let alone one that seemed to be entirely against him.

The other thing I realize as I win my first two rounds easily is that even though I’m not getting in the kind of training time my teammates are, pounding on a map for eight hours a day was way more than any school kid was getting. Plus every day I was fighting to keep up with players who were among the top hundred in the world. So even if I’m still a little behind the top hundred, I’m now way ahead of where I had been when I first arrived. And the Mordant Isles map is as familiar to me now as the keyboard itself. I can simply flow into the game and for twenty straight minutes pound out as many keystrokes as is possible for me to make—which is more than another person could make just typing nonsense for the same amount of time.

So I relax and find myself on TV for the final eight, which clearly makes Yeong one happy coach. He tells me that my next round is against a young player with a great future who should be on a pro team as soon as he graduates from high school.

We battle evenly for close to forty minutes when I noticed one slip from him, a slight misplay on the fourth isle, which hampers his development of an important late-game weapon system. Once I see this gaff it’s just like being a piece up in a chess game. It’s just a matter of trading down until my troops are the only ones left standing.

With this win, my confidence is at new heights and the last two rounds turn out to be against lesser opponents, and just like that, Korea had its first ever foreign-born seventeen-and-under Starfare champ.

Yeong is beside himself and the next day comes to breakfast with an array of newspapers and tabloids, all opened to pictures of me competing or accepting the large glass trophy (which now belongs to Team Anaconda, of course).

“So what do they say?” I ask.

“Much controversy. They say, no foreigners in national junior tournament again. Next year, no pros allowed. It is all good.”

Yeong points to a picture and the prominent ANC logo on my shirt. “Great sponsor very happy. Very happy.”

I’m thinking I must have made up for the nightclub publicity, when Yeong, like he’s reading my mind says, “One bad picture, now good pictures. You back to even.”

So, back to even. Better than being in the hole.

20.

If I was expecting any new cred from my Anaconda teammates, I soon get over that expectation. I suppose they look at the national junior title as kids’ play, and perhaps it is. So on Friday night, the bags of laundry are back at my door. One good thing—those scratchy shirts we all have to wear dry quickly and seem impossible to wrinkle.

I’m up late, as usual, doing the laundry and getting frustrated that none of my stateside friends are online. Of course, when it’s evening for me, they’re either still at school or, for the college guys, either in class or sleeping. In a couple of months they’ll be out for summer break and online all day. So I put out a couple text messages, linking them to some of the Korean gaming e-zines that have pictures of me at the junior championships.

As I sit in front of my laptop, the hum of the washer and dryer in the background, I do a Google image search on some of my old haunts. I actually find a picture of the KenTacoHut in Overland Park where I used to go all the time. That makes me think of old times and old obsessions. So I hit Brit’s Facebook page. She’s featuring a set of snapshots with some guy I don’t recognize and it’s been so long, and feels so far away that it’s like looking at a family scrapbook of pictures taken before you were born.

Then I look up more Kansas pictures. After the congestion of the Korean streets, the wide open streets of Overland Park make it look like a ghost town. I blow up the few pictures that have people in them, and then stare at them for a while, looking, pathetically I know, for Hannah.

On Saturday morning Yeong breaks routine after breakfast and leads us all downstairs to a lounge on the first floor where a big screen is set up in front of a couple of rows of tables. In the back of the room are four round tables, covered with white tablecloths. Two guys in suits, both looking to be in their twenties, are sitting at a table in front of the room. They fire up a projector and start a lecture which has a ton of charts and equations. Now charts and equations are good news for me, because I have a fighting chance of following these, even in Korean. Interspersed are screenshots of various Starfare situations.

All the guys in the room are taking notes on the little pads like the one in front of me. Except me—I’m just fighting to get the drift, which is clearly the application of some mathematically based strategies, which strikes me as very cool, even though I’m missing too much from their lecture to really follow along.

After a few hours lunch is wheeled in on carts. Large tureens of soup and bowls of kimchi. I’ve figured out which soups are least offensive and get a bowl and sit down at one of the round lunch tables at the back of the room. I’m surprised when the older of the two speakers pulls up a chair next to me.

“Michael Kim,” he says, in accentless English, extending a hand out Western style. I shake his hand and tell him my name.

“Of course,” he says. “You’re famous, you know.”

“Not exactly,” I protest. “And certainly not for anything deserved.”

“Well,” Kim says. “We could discuss whether or not there is a quantifiable metric that links merit and celebrity. Sort of thing we would bat around all night when I was at MIT.”

“You were at MIT?”

“Undergrad and grad school. PhD in economics. All morning, I’m thinking about my freshman lectures at MIT and how lost I felt. How much of what we covered did you follow?”

“Not much,” I admit. Kim asks about my math background and I tell him about my AP courses and the class at UMKC.

“Very impressive,” he says, even though I know enough about Korean math prodigies to know that whatever I’ve done is modest. “You are eighteen?”

“Sixteen,” I correct. He arches his eyebrows and says, “Very impressive. Let me give you the ten minute version in English,” he says. And even in English it’s a bit of a strain, but I pick up that Team Anaconda has hired him and a graduate assistant to apply some cutting edge game theory mathematics to determine what is the best course of action when balancing decisions about how to decide which resources to develop in relation to your opponent’s decisions.

“It’s actually a very interesting problem,” Kim says. “Very similar to some of the real world policy decisions that game theory addresses regarding nuclear armament, the positioning of offensive forces on national frontiers, that sort of thing. Clearly there are some optimum strategies in Starfare that are not always intuitive.”

I ask him a bunch of questions that must be totally noobie, but he doesn’t seem to mind trying to answer.

Then he sort of screws up his face, leans closer and in a softer voice asks, “So you have any family in Korea?”

I shake my head.

“Friends?”

“Not really.”

“Well, do you at least have people to speak English with?”

I hesitate, thinking of the people at the bar, and then just say, “Coach Yeong.”

“Yeong?” he says, looking around to find him at the back of the room. He laughs. “I’ve tried English with him.” He gives me a look. Concern? Sympathy?

“Look,” he says. “You need to get away from this scene a bit. See another side of Korea. Have a chance to relax. Chat in English. We’ll have you over to our place. It’s not that far.”

I begin to demur, but he interrupts. “No discussion. I’ll talk to Yeong. He’ll see the benefits. Trust me.”

Then he gets a wave from Yeong to start up the second part of the session and he excuses himself.

Before he walks away I blurt out one quick question: “What would you recommend, if someone wanted to know about this stuff?”

As he stands he says, “I’ll send over a couple of books that might do the trick.” Then he smiles and adds, “Don’t worry. They’re in English.”

21.

Sunday morning I sleep late and when I log on I curse out loud when I find a series of missed Skype calls from Hannah. An email from Mom congratulating me on my tournament win, news of which has taken days to filter all the way back to her at the Institute. I hold the best for last. After deleting all the junk mail I open a voice message from Hannah.

“Seth—this is unbelievable, but today I heard from RISD! I got in! And the scholarship is terrific. We’d be paying less than a state school! It’s like you getting the call from the Korean team…call me when you can and I’ll give you details.”

So Hannah will be off to the East coast. When? In five months? I try to picture her at college. Studying art. I imagine a big studio with easels and dozens of students standing around with brushes, looking at a naked model. Then in my mind the model turns for a different pose and it’s that tall guy from the environmental club. Hannah is now snapping pictures like crazy from just a few feet away, getting him from every angle, smiling and enjoying every moment.

That night after surfing the net for hours, I just lie on my pads, staring at the ceiling. I’m waiting for Hannah to wake up back in Kansas so I can catch her before school.

I brush past Hannah when she opens the door. She’s wearing a swimsuit top, ragged cutoffs, and she has her hair tied back, the way she does when she goes running. Her eyes are wide, startled.

“Won another world title this week,” I say when I’m in the entryway. “So I hired a private jet. Flew right into the downtown Kansas City airport.”

I gesture towards the door.

“My limo is outside waiting. I came all this way to say one thing.”

Hannah’s upper lip is trembling. She’s about to say something.

I silence her with a wave of my hand. “I love you.”

Now Hannah is crying. She takes a step towards me, tentatively. Then she’s throwing herself into my arms and I’m holding her so tightly I can feel her breasts flattening against my chest.

“Oh, Seth,” she says. “I didn’t know how much I missed you. Not until just now.”

Then she takes me by the hand. And leads us up the stairs. And this time we take a left at the top of the stairs. Towards her room.

Finally at ten o’clock I go back to the computer and Skype her cell. She picks up on the third ring.

“Seth? Why are you calling so early?

“Well, I’m about ready to go to bed.”

“Omigod, I’m so sorry, I just can’t seem to figure this time change thing out. And I don’t mean to sound so bitchy. I mean, it’s great to hear from you. It’s just so hectic here in the morning. Hang on.”

In the background I can hear a muffled, “Zeb, don’t you dare go in the bathroom again. I swear I will…” I hear a door slam.

“What a brat! I swear I’m going to kill that boy…Sorry, so how are you? How’s the job?”

“It’s OK.”

“Just OK? This is not sounding like the job of your dreams.”

“Anyway, the only reason I’m calling is that you left a message about getting into a college last night. So congrats.”

“Oh it’s amazing, and not just getting in, but the financial aid. You know when you keep telling yourself, don’t get excited. Don’t get your hopes up. There’s nothing wrong with going to your second choice or even one of the safeties. And then, all of a sudden, everything just falls into place?”

Like going to Korea and staying up to midnight doing team laundry?

“Anyway, I still have to choose between the offers. But I’ve been telling everyone it’s really a no-brainer for me… Zeb! I need to get in there!” Then to me she says, “Hang on. Here comes Mom.”

I can hear Hannah, muffled as she covers the cell’s mic, telling her mom to tell Zeb to get out of the bathroom. Then her mom yelling something.

“Seth, I’m really, really happy to hear from you, but I’m going to have to go. Call me later, OK?”

Then I go lie down and it’s very, very quiet. I can still hear Hannah’s voice echoing in my ears. I hear her say she’s happy to hear from me. I hear her saying call me. I’m sure I will be able to hear her voice saying these things for a long, long time.

22.

On Wednesday I get a note in my mailbox and I get Sung Gi to translate. It takes a few tries, but finally I understand that there’s a package for me at the front desk. Professor Kim has sent me two game theory books and a card: “Will pick you outside the lobby at 5 p.m. on Sunday for dinner. Yeong thinks it’s a capital idea.” That night I begin reading the one that looks easiest and it’s almost 2 a.m. when I finally fall asleep.

During practice I find myself thinking about some of the ideas in the book instead of concentrating on Starfare and Yeong comes by about a dozen times, clucking his tongue and looking over my shoulder with what I can tell is disgust.

But somehow my mind is stuck on this tangent. I start thinking about the mathematics of other parts of the game. That maybe there could be a way to quantify some of the strategic decisions. So I grab a pad and a pencil and jot this down: “Assuming your opponent maintains perfect macro during a harass, how many spybots should you attempt to kill in order to end up ahead considering you are seeking an attrition drop rather than fast expansion?”

I look at this for a minute and I’m pretty sure that I could come up with an algorithm that could provide the answer. And this is just one little piece of the puzzle. What if you could find the equations for all kinds of moves? Wouldn’t it be possible to find the absolute efficiency mathematically, rather than by the kind of trial and error and intuition that I see the Team Anaconda pros using?

I fold the paper and stuff it in my pocket.

That night, after our evening practice, I take the note out of my pocket and grab a notebook from my desk. Start working out some of the formulas. When I look up it’s after midnight. Two hours just gone. I’ve got about ten sheets of notes and I’ve simplified it all down to about three lines of calculus.

I fall asleep instantly. In the morning I tear out the page with the final calculations and take them to breakfast. Get a bowl of rice and sit down at a table with three of the guys. Take the calculations out of my pocket and unfold them. The guys each take a look, shake their heads and pass it along. The last guy, Tae-Uk, stares at the paper for a minute and then yells something out.

Sang-Chul comes over. Grabs the paper out of Tae-Uk’s hands and stands there for minute. Then barks out something in Korean. The three guys at the table point at me.

Sang Hoon looks at me, with what I take to be skepticism. He starts babbling at me in Korean. The other guys start talking at the same time. Sang Hoon shakes his head and laughs, crumples the paper and throws it on the table. Walks away. The guys at the table look at me sheepishly as I unwad the paper, fold it up and put it back in my pocket.

I should have figured that these guys were too busy playing Starfare to keep up with their math. Screw them. It just makes me more determined to come up with something on my own.

That night I attack another problem. I know that the guys on the team have figured out what they consider to be the optimum ratio between mineral production and spybot development. But when I think about it, I realize that it’s a pretty crude approximation. I think it could be solved exactly using some basic calc. So I work on that for the next couple of nights.

Sunday I sleep in, chat with Mom, then get on the computer and waste the afternoon. I catch DT and tell him about the math stuff. He seems optimistic about it. But when I send him the actual formulas he claims it’s beyond him. I forget he hasn’t started calc yet.

So a little before five I’m in the lobby, waiting for Professor Kim. Watching all the weird little cars zip by. Wondering why half the people in Korea seem to have the same last name.

A few minutes after five a small blue sedan pulls up in front of the building. I start for the door as the driver leans across and rolls down the window. Kim is waving at me as I step through the apartment building’s door. The air is still crisp but over the last few weeks it seems the worst of winter is fading.

Kim pops the door and I slide in. I look at the car—think it’s a Hyundai. Either that or a Kia—guess one of these two and you’d be right about seventy-five percent of the time.

He reaches out and I shake his hand.

“Good to see you, Seth,” he says. And my heart actually leaps at the sound of good English.

“Me too,” I say. “I sometimes wonder if I’m going to forget how to speak. That I’ll get home and sound just like Coach Yeong.”

Kim laughs. “Not much of a chance of that.”

As we head down the road Kim says that his family is really looking forward to meeting me.

“My wife’s name is Annie,” he says. “And we have one son. Alexander. Alex, for short. He can’t be believe his old man not only knows the great Starfare warrior Seth Gordon, but is bringing him home.”

I wish he had told me. I’d have brought something for him. A Team Anaconda T-shirt, or something.

For some reason I pictured Kim living in a suburban neighborhood like Overland Park, but we stay right in the city. Take so many turns that I’m completely lost. Drive down another canyon of buildings not unlike the one I live in and turn into an underground garage.

“Home sweet home,” Kim says as he pulls into a narrow parking spot next to a pole. I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to get out the door. But there’s just enough room. I’m thinking, no wonder everyone drives tiny cars.

Elevator up to the sixth floor and down the hall. Kim swipes a key and we step into a brightly lit apartment. It smells wonderful, a bit like the restaurant in Westport.

I blink twice when Kim’s wife comes around the corner, wiping her hands on an apron. She’s tall and blond.

She marches right up to me and offers me her hand.

“I’m Annie,” she says. She frowns at Kim. “I suppose he didn’t mention that his wife is half Swedish, half Dutch and grew up in Providence?”

I shake my head. I’m thinking Providence is somewhere out East but I can’t quite remember where.

“That’s so like him. The absent-minded professor. Come on into the playroom. Alex is a little shy.”

I follow her and Kim through a small living room and around the corner into an even smaller room. The room has one wall of shelves crammed with toys and there are Legos all over the floor. Alex is sitting among them, a controller in his hand, but he’s staring at the door and us. The screen is frozen on the beginning of a Mario Kart race.

“Alex,” Kim says, “Where are your manners?”

He stands up, but doesn’t move.

“Alex, this is Seth.”

“I know,” Alex says, almost in a whisper. “I know who it is.”

Alex is looking at the ground, shuffling. He’s got straight, light brown hair. At first I don’t see the Korean side of him, but when he looks up, it’s there, in his dark eyes.

“Hope you like lasagna,” Annie is saying. “I have to have half the ingredients shipped, so it’s a special meal for us too.”

I nod, and say I used to work in an Italian restaurant, back in Kansas.

“Alex is a little shy,” Annie continues. “We speak English at home, but he goes to a Korean school. So he doesn’t get to meet a lot of other native English speakers.”

Alex continues to fidget.

“I know he’d like to play a game or two with you,” she says. “Would you be willing?”

I look at Annie and then Kim. “Mario Kart? I used to kick…butt on that game.”

They smile at each other while Alex scrambles to find the second controller. He holds it out to me.

“We’ll be ready to eat in about fifteen minutes. Alex?”

He’s jumping up and down like he has to go the bathroom.

“Alex?”

“Fifteen! I heard you!”

I sit on the floor next to him and try to get accustomed to the controller and the unfamiliar course. We do a couple of practice rounds. Alex giving me commentary and tips. He beats me the first two games but then I get back in the groove and whip around the course without an error.

“Wow,” Alex says, staring at the screen. “1:24.25? That is so fast.” He looks at me with abject worship in his eyes. “I’ve never heard of anyone doing it that fast.”

“Well,” I say. “I used to practice a lot.”

“I saw you win that tournament,” Alex says. “On TV.”

“Well, yeah. That was something.” Beating up on high school kids.

“Duk-Ho doesn’t believe I’m meeting you.”

“Duk-Ho?”

“Yeah. My friend at school.”

“What will you tell him?”

“I’ll tell him 1:24.25.”

Then Annie is in the doorway, saying that dinner is ready.

Which is delicious. The only thing keeping me from making a pig of myself is all of Annie’s questions. Answer one between each bite. She can’t believe that I came all this way, at my age, all alone.

“I don’t know,” I say. “I’d probably be going away to college pretty soon anyway.”

“Yes,” Annie concedes. “But you’re so young. And college. You’re with all those kids in the same situation. I hear you don’t even have anyone to speak with.”

Mouthful, I nod.

“That’s just awful,” she says.

Swallow and say, “But I Skype my mom once a week and get lots of email and text messages from my friends.”

“Your mom,” Annie says. “She must be worried sick. I want you to give me her email before you go. I’ll tell her that we’re going to make sure you get a decent American meal at least once a week.”

I look over at Kim who is nodding and see that Alex is grinning.

“Can I bring Duk-Ho?” Alex says.

“We’ll see,” his mom says. “If you eat your salad.”

Alex winkles up his nose, but doesn’t say anything.

After dinner Alex wants to play some more but his parents shush him away. Kim and I sit in the living room and I ask him a few questions about the book he gave me.

“You read the whole thing?” he says. “I didn’t think they gave you ten minutes a day to yourself.”

“It’s not that bad,” I say. Then I remember the notes that I stuffed into my pocket. I pull them out and hand them over to Kim. Who looks at them with a serious expression.

“I’ve been working on a bunch of these,” I say. “It’s just that I can’t keep up with these Korean players. They work so well together and so fast and I’m just left behind.”

Kim is clearly interested. So I continue.

“So after your lecture. And reading that book. I start thinking that so many aspects of Starfare are mathematical, when you think about it. But as far as I know, no one has tried to figure it out. So maybe that’s the way I get an edge. I do the math.”

Kim looks again at the page of equations.

“Look,” he says. “I’m an economist. Who studied a lot of math, true. But this stuff…how much more of this do you have?”

“I don’t know. About five pages of decent stuff. I’ve only been working on it for a week or so.”

Kim looks up at me and I think maybe he’s impressed.

“Can I borrow this?” he says. I say of course.

“I’ve got a young colleague at the University. He just finished his doctorate in applied math from Brown and this is right up his alley. Let me share this with him. I’m betting he’ll be interested in getting together.”

Annie comes in and the three of us sit around and talk about all kinds of stuff. Mostly things we miss. Our old favorite TV shows and fast food places and movies.

When Alex comes in wearing his pajamas to say goodnight I suggest it’s time to go.

Kim and I head back to the car. On the way home he says he’s really happy that I’m interested in the books he sent over. Asks me to tell him when I get through the second one. Drops me off at the door and says, “Same time, next week?”

And I’m happy to say that’ll be great.

When I get back to the apartment I check for messages from Hannah but there’s nothing. So I leave her a text, telling her about my new friends.

I don’t hear back from her that night but when I get up on Monday I find a short text.

“New friends?” she writes. Then she has a link. When I pop it open it leads to a picture from the tabloid of me and Sumi draped over my shoulders. I swear and then write her a long note about how it was just another crazy fan and that there was nothing to it. Because I don’t want her thinking I’ve got anything in common with that creep she used to go out with in New Jersey.

23.

Coach Yeong has a team meeting on Monday. I sneak in a minute late and sit in the back and imagine what he’s talking about. What I know is what you know about every coach of every pro team when the season is about to start. He’s worried about his job.

The pro season starts with a series of dual matches—team against team. The top seven players are randomly paired against each other. What has me most interested is our first pairing—against one of the two new teams. Stomp’s Xerus International.

I can feel the intensity at practices increasing day by day. But I’m not even close to being in the top seven, so I don’t get too worked up.

On Wednesday I get an email from Professor Kim. He’s invited his math prof friend Song to join us for dinner on Sunday. So that gets me motivated and I work up a couple more problems that I think could be attacked mathematically. Although I have some ideas and make some progress, I’m finding it harder than I thought.

So on Sunday evening I have a little bag with my math notebook and other stuff and I’m standing outside. There’s a strip outside my building where the sun is finding its way to the pavement. I stand in the sunbeam. Wearing just a hoodie, but not cold at all. Watching the cars zip by, seeing if I’ve gotten any better at telling a Daewoo from a Hyundai.

When Professor Kim pulls up I hop right in.

“Hey, Tiger,” he says. “How’s your game?”

“Pretty good.” But I’m really wondering about this math professor and what he’ll think of my project. Probably laugh.

Alex is at the front door when we arrive, standing with a shorter Korean boy.

I say hello to Alex, who gives his friend an “I told you so” look. Inside, the smell of cooking. Something different. Baking, I think.

“You must be Duk-Ho,” I say.

The boy nods.

“You two ready for a quick game of Mario Kart?”

I don’t have to ask them twice. Before we start Annie comes into the playroom and I thank her for having me over.

“It’s our pleasure. Right Alex?”

Alex is trying to unscramble the cords for a third controller.

Annie shakes her head.

“That’s all he could talk about all week. Seth coming over for dinner again.”

I almost say I was the same way, but I’m too embarrassed.

“And I exchanged a couple of emails with your mother. She sounds wonderful.”

“She’s great,” I say. “And really flexible.”

Annie looks at me oddly.

“From all that yoga. She can bend like a pretzel.”

“Well,” Annie says. “We didn’t discuss that. We talked about you. She didn’t seem to understand that you’re something of a celebrity over here.”

“No? I mean, I’m not really. Except maybe for that orange soda. ActionOrange. Sounds like a stain remover.”

Alex, Duk-Ho and I get in a couple of rounds before the doorbell rings. Before I go to meet Professor Song I give Alex and Duk-Ho two black Team Anaconda T-shirts. As I hand them over, the two of them are besides themselves, grinning back and forth while holding the too-large shirts against their chests.

In the living room I step over to Professor Song and start to bow, but he offers me a hand instead.

“Just call me Song,” he says. “That’s what they called me back at Brown.” I’m relieved because I’d probably mangle his full Korean name, Kyung Chan.

He has a bit of an accent, but not heavy.

“You know, I think of the Kims like an unofficial American Embassy. A little island of the States in the middle of Seoul. So we do with handshakes rather than bows.” Song is young, maybe late twenties.

Kim comes back and the three of us sit down and chat for a while. Kim takes his time, but eventually gets around to my mathematical work on Starfare.

Song asks to see it, and when I ask him if he’s played Starfare he says yes.

“When I was younger. A bit. Not seriously.”

So I explain the first problem. About trying to quantify the best yield between mineral harvesting and spybot production. As I do, Kim gets up, excuses himself to help with dinner.

Song looks at my notes. Makes a face. I’m actually flushing, thinking I’ve just made a fool of myself.

He thumbs to the next page and I try to explain what I was doing there, but he raises his hand.

After another few minutes he looks up at me and says, “Interesting. Very interesting. You know, in applied mathematics, we’re always looking for real-life examples. What makes this especially intriguing is that it all a construct. It all starts off with someone sitting down and typing binary code. So that it might be revealed in mathematical terms is initially surprising, but on second thought, quite predictable.”

I nod.

“So tell me about your background in mathematics.”

I give him the quick summary.

“What I see here—and keep in mind that this is just a quick glance—what I see is an impressive integration of some very fundamental principles. It shows a very deep understanding of the basics. I can also see where you’re running into some walls. But on first glance I imagine they are not insurmountable. Maybe some more advanced techniques.”

I’m just so relieved he wasn’t dismissing it as trash that I’m only catching parts of what he’s saying. Then Annie and Kim come in, call out to the boys that dinner is ready.

Fried chicken, mashed potatoes and what Annie calls Rhode Island cinnamon rolls. I stuff myself.

After dinner Song and I sit in the living room. He points at my math notebook on the table in front of us. “Would you be interested in working on this together?” he says. “I can’t promise anything, but it could lead to something interesting.”

Of course I’m all over it.

“The only problem,” I say, “is time. We don’t get a lot of free time.”

We talk some more about some of the individual problems I’ve identified and Song mentions a couple more. I’m thinking maybe he played more Starfare than he let on.

When Kim and Annie join us, Song explains my concerns about time. Kim is nodding. “I think Yeong might make an exception for this. If I convince him it could help the team.”

So we leave it at that.

24.

Yeong has this thing about lineups. He wants everyone on the team working as hard as possible, so he doesn’t announce the lineup until an hour before our first dual.

The venue is this big auditorium downtown. We have a team meeting back stage and Yeong pulls a slip of paper out of his pocket. Gathers us all around. I sort of hang in the back, half paying attention as he reads the names.

At first I think I’m imagining it, when he says something that sounds distinctly like “ActionSeth.” But then I see the entire team has turned and is staring at me. Not nice looks.

My first instinct is to protest, but if I’ve learned one thing since I got on the team, it’s to keep my mouth shut in situations like this.

The team breaks up into small groups. Lots of buzzing discussions. All about my being named to the lineup, I would bet.

I find a folding chair off to the side and sit down. Try to get my head in the right place to play. I don’t even notice Yeong coming up, carrying a chair. He sits down, puts his head right next to mine.

“You wonder, Mr. Seth Gordon?”

I just look at him, blank.

“I know you like to question Coach Yeong. So I tell you. You not top seven.”

I raise my eyebrows, about to say, then why am I playing, but Yeong cuts me off.

“It is for team, ActionSeth. It is always for team. This is business. Sponsors. They want you on TV. So we play this new team with Americans, Xerus International. Not so good. We win all seven. So instead we win, maybe six? Maybe seven. You play American, you can win, no?”

I shrug. Maybe. I’m certainly playing tons better than when I got to the final eight at Nationals. If Stomp is in the top seven, I’d be more confident.

“OK, OK,” Yeong says. “We have understanding?”

I nod.

“You play hard, and when you are done, win, lose, you smile at camera. You think about all your fans. They love ActionSeth. They love drink ActionOrange!”

So I’m a nervous wreck even before we step onto the stage for the introductions. The crowd is a howl in the background, behind the blinding lights. I see Stomp on the other side of the stage, in the middle of his team. I have to admit their team shirts are pretty cool. Some sort of electronic graphic on a blue background. Blue metallic accents that glow in the spotlights.

Unbelievable as it seems, it looks like Stomp has gained weight. He must love Korean food. His shirt looks more like a cape. I recognize some of the other guys from the U.S. tournaments. Including the older guy who I split with, MilesBlue. The Swedish champ, TheBorg, I recognize from pictures.

Then one-by-one, the pairings are announced. I’m in a daze as the first six are announced, not keeping track. But I’m staring across the stage and Stomp is grinning like a fool before the last pairing is announced. I should have guessed.

We take our places behind each of the pairs of keyboards. Stand and then, along with my teammates, we bow in unison. I notice that the guys on Xerus International don’t bow. The crowd starts booing at this and yelling stuff.

As I sit down, I shake my head. Look over the top of my monitor to Stomp who is still standing. Maybe that’s their strategy. Piss the Koreans off. Be like one of those professional wrestlers who makes his living dressing up as a devil, or mullah or whatever rednecks are into hating this year.

Stomp leans around his monitor and hisses, “Hey, noob. Looks like you’re getting good at kissing Korean ass. Now get ready to get your ass kicked.”

I don’t even bother with a response.

Then the game starts and I’m too busy to think. Playing at this level, it’s like running six speed-chess matches simultaneously. I’ve got to keep track of dozens of activities at once while trying to figure out what tactics Stomp is employing. The crowd noise fades to nothing and my mind is inside the monitor, beyond the monitor, flashing across this world which is no longer flat and one-dimensional, but as textured and complex as the vertical face of a mountain is to a freestyle climber.

Although the clock is spinning at the bottom right hand corner of the screen, there is another time that subsumes this monitor of reality. Because despite the frantic action of my hands and the flashing armies and battles on the screen, game time is infinitely slower than real time.

The thing is, without even knowing it, I’ve slowly adjusted to the pace of game played by my Korean teammates. It’s like when you were twelve and would go to the doctor and he’d say you had grown two inches. You don’t notice it, you don’t feel it.

And Stomp, he might have gotten better, but I know he wasn’t training like the Koreans train. And I can guarantee that he wasn’t getting regular matches with guys ranked in the top ten of the world.

Small advantages get magnified over the course of a game. By endgame it’s clear that Stomp is not even close to winning. I can hear him huffing and swearing and can see the mass of him not hidden by the monitors between us shifting, the chair under him creaking with the weight. By the final minutes I’m relaxing. Thinking it would be very cool if his chair broke.

Then the game is over and I can hear the crowd chanting. They’re chanting my name.

As the monitor goes back to the Starfare logo I stand, as is Korean tradition. Both players stand and bow. I stand, and so does Stomp, knocking his chair to the ground. Storming off the stage, mumbling obscenities.

So instead I turn to the crowd and bow to them.

The cheers are deafening. I wave and back slowly off the stage. Two of our games are still in progress. We’ve won all of the first five.

Yeong is waiting backstage. Slaps me on the back.

“Good job, Mr. Seth Gordon. Very, very good job. You beat enormous American and fans love you more!”

We split the last two matches, with the Swede winning a close one. Yeong asks us to hang around for the second dual, to scout the other teams. But to tell you the truth, I don’t absorb a single thing. All I can think about is getting home and Skyping DT. He’s going to go crazy when he finds out who I drew in my first pro dual.

25.

When I get home I try to Skype DT and send out an email message to my family contacts. Telling them about my first big pro event. Then I spend about an hour trying to write something to Hannah. Finally I just boil it down to the facts. I played that obnoxious American guy, won. Hope everything is OK. Please don’t make more of that tabloid story than you should.

I’m looking at Hannah’s Facebook page when I get a message from Yeong. It says that instead of language lessons on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons I’m going to be meeting with Song.

“Maybe this mathematics help team,” Yeong writes. I hope so too.

I’m trying to figure out what kind of algorithm might explain the growth curve of a Surrakan army’s power when I hear a Skype beep on my computer.

I pop open the window and just about have a heart attack.

Because there’s Hannah. In the little Skype window, grinning and moving in that sort of herky-jerky way you get from webcams.

“Hey,” she says. “I got a new laptop for college. High end webcam!”

“So I see.”

“Very funny. How do I look?”

I don’t know what to say. Like Hannah? Like home? Like an angel?

“That bad, huh?”

“No, no. You look awesome. It’s just…I don’t know. I’m just surprised.”

“So how come I can’t see you? So I can make fun of the way you look too.”

“I’m not making fun…”

“And I’m just kidding. But am I doing something wrong?”

“No,” I say, and peel back the tape and stare at the little glowing light.“Here I am!”

“Ohh. You look so…I don’t know. Korean?”

I push my bangs back. It’s that stupid Korean gamer cut.

“So tell me, how’s life in the Far East?” When she looks up from the keyboard my heart just melts. But I figure she’s really asking about me and the picture with Sumi.

“Far out,” I say, automatically. Then add, “Actually, it’s not all good. Not all bad, either. I’ve made a few new friends. Found some people who I can speak English with.”

“Well that’s encouraging. Any more action with those hot Korean girls?” Normally I love the way she looks at me when she’s teasing like that, but I’m not sure she’s teasing.

“As you know, they love having their picture taken with me…”

“Well, as a photographer, I can say the pose is everything.”

“We’re talking snapshots on the sidewalk. Nothing like one of your photos.”

I wiggle uncomfortably, even knowing it will look goofy through the webcam. “Well, you can’t blame a girl for imagining. I get the feeling you’re not telling me everything. I mean, you’re like some sort of celebrity right? And everything I know about celebrities says that means plenty of action.”

I shake my head.

“It’s not like that over here.”

“So let me tell you how I got the laptop. The deal to sell Dad’s company fell through, so he’s still got a job and we’re not moving. The same week we got a firm offer on our old house in Princeton. He’s so pumped that he goes out and gets Zeb a new fifty-two-inch screen. Mom gets to renovate the kitchen. Barkley got a new chew toy. And I got a new Dell laptop! It’s like Christmas in April!”

I ask her how school is going. She starts talking about the yearbook and how totally changed it’s going to be. And how behind they are on it. And how her environmental club has convinced the school board to take out the vending machines from the school cafeteria. I tell her she’s amazing and not to worry. That she’ll figure out a way to get everything done on time.

Hannah smiles. “That’s so sweet. You know, that’s why I miss you so much.”

When she says that I’m really tempted to put the tape back over the camera. Because it just makes me want to cry. Then I hear someone talking in the background. Hannah steps away from the screen and I want to yell out, “Come back! Come back!”

Then she ducks her head in from the side.

“Sorry Seth, but I got to go. But now that we can see each other.” I feel myself blushing. “Yeah, we’ll do it again. Soon.”

We sign off and I look at my watch. It’s late. I walk over to the mirror and muss my Korean-cut hair. As if a haircut will make me a true member of Team Anaconda.

26.

On Tuesday I have my first math meeting with Song. He’s got an office at the University, which is about a fifteen-minute drive from our apartment. Choi drops me off at a modern, four-story building that says Seoul University Department of Mathematics.

Song’s office is on the fourth floor. He’s waiting for me, papers strewn across a table next to his desk.

“Sit down, sit down,” he says.

I start to say something but he waves his hand. “Just a second. I’ve almost got this worked out.”

I sit for a few minutes, watching his pencil fly across the page. Then he slides it across to me. I spin it around, see it is one of the pages from my notebook. Which looks like it had been attacked by a dozen mathematical graffiti artists.

“This is really coming together,” Song says.

Maybe for him. It makes no sense to me. I look up from the paper and he can see I’m lost.

“OK, I know it’s a mess right now. But trust me. You were absolutely right to tackle this problem the way you did.”

He stands up, and grabs a piece of chalk and begins writing it out. “Let me break it down for you.”

I have to ask questions now and then, but it starts to make sense. At one point he does a series of steps and I have to stop him.

“You haven’t studied Bayesian Analysis?” He looks at me like he was saying, “Never had pizza?”

I shake my head. Song clears a section of the blackboard and begins to explain. I just nod or say OK when I get it and he goes through it in about ten minutes. It reminds me of basic algebra. I remember thinking I could learn the entire semester in about two weeks if I had had a private tutor and could just say, “got it,” whenever I had absorbed a topic and move on to the next. Instead the teacher would go on and on about some obvious point. Followed by an entire week of doing dozens of problems which were just variants on the same principle.

So we buzz through it and continue with Song’s notes. At one point I ask what I think is a dumb question, but Song stops and thinks. Then goes back to the page he was working on and adds some notes.

“Excellent point,” he said. “I think that would be a much more streamlined way to approach this.”

We’re scheduled for an hour and a half and I can’t believe it when Song says, “Well, that’s as far as we can take it today.”

He reaches up behind him, takes out a thin text and hands it to me. Algebraic Complexity Theorems.

“On Thursday I’ll show you how we can use this to get into that problem you outlined about the ratio of minerals to spybot development. Just go through the first three chapters. That will give you everything you need.”

27.

That night I draw Sung Gi for our evening round-robins and we play a quick game. I can tell he’s not into it. After I finish him off Yeong wanders out of the room. Sung Gi leans across the table and whispers.

“This is secret, but I leaving team.”

“Quitting?”

“Yes. I have long talk with father this weekend. I go to school. Study engineer.”

I’m thinking, it’s that easy?

“Is that what you want?”

“Oh yes,” he says. “I am very tired of playing many hours of Starfare. And I tell father that I never get so good as Sang-Chul or even Tae-Uk. Maybe you not know. My father is senior vice president with ANC. He put me on team. It is father’s dream that I be great champion. Not my dream.”

“But who will I talk with?”

“You will be good. No worry. I think you are getting better and better. And maybe new player will speak English with you like I do.”

“Maybe.”

“Anyway. My father will speak to Coach Yeong soon. Say that I will be going back to school.”

“OK, man. Good luck. I’m actually sort of jealous.”

“Jealous?”

“You know. Like I wish I could do what you are doing.”

“You want engineer too?”

I shake my head. “No, not really. Just that you’ve decided exactly what you want to do. And I’m still not sure.”

Then Yeong comes back and yells something and we switch partners and I get Tae-Uk. He grins as he sits down in front of the monitor across from me. I can tell he’s going to be all business. These guys seem to really get a kick out of beating me.

It doesn’t help that I keep getting distracted. I start my mining operation in the standard Team Anaconda spiral style. I remember that it was one of the first things Yeong taught me. But then I start wondering about whether any spiral is as good as the next, and whether it could be determined mathematically. I remember studying logarithmic spirals as some sort of digression in pre-calc. I jot down the formula.

When I look up from my notepad I see that Tae-Uk is looking around his monitor at me, puzzled. And when I look at my monitor I can see why. I’ve done absolutely nothing for the last fifteen seconds or so. I’m even more hopelessly behind than usual.

So I start punching up my development and I hear Tae-Uk sort of chuckle as he steps back into the game and begins the process of throttling whatever I try.

I’m OK with that, because I’m looking forward to meeting with Professor Song on Thursday and asking him about the spiral thing.

28.

I’m just a few minutes late to breakfast Friday morning, but when I get there everyone is looking at me like I just lost the deciding match in a team event against a kindergartner. I head to my regular table, in the corner, where Sung Gi is sitting alone. After everyone has their food, Sung Gi whispers that I should come with him. We both pick up our plates and head back to the kitchen.

Sung Gi glances back at the closed door and then leans in close.

“I tell you important thing.”

I nod.

“Last night team have big meeting with Coach Yeong. They not happy. Not happy that Yeong has you play against American team.”

I start to say something, but he interrupts. “Yes, you won. They worry Yeong play you. When we play best Korean teams.”

I nod, about to say that I’m worried too.

“You know. Team pay is better when team wins. Korean players worry you lose, they lose.”

I wait for Sung Gi to continue.

“Yeong very, very mad. This not happen before. Korean players and coach, you understand?”

“That players try to tell the coach what to do?”

“Yes. But more. Players angry that you do not train like them. Go away for many hours.”

“Hey, that’s not my choice…”

We hear something from the breakfast room and Sung Gi looks nervously at the door.

“Not important. Players want you off team. They say you join American team. You be happy. Team Anaconda be happy.”

I have no idea how to explain the complications here.

“OK, thanks for the info.”

“This last week.”

“For me?” I say.

“No, no. For me. I start tutor program to get ready for university tests.”

“Oh. So soon.”

Because that leaves me with no one to sit with at meals. Or to explain stuff that I miss. Like the team lobbying to get rid of me.

“I like you ActionSeth,” Sung Gi says. “Yeong likes you. Sponsors like you. More important than players like you.”

“Right,” I say, thinking, that’s easy for you to say. You won’t have to live with these guys from dawn to dusk, day after day. “Thanks for telling me.”

Then we hear one of the players leaning into the door to the kitchen and we step apart. Pretend to be trying to make a decision. More kimchi or salted fish?

29.

That morning at my gaming station I realize something. It’s not that my place in the world has suddenly changed. It’s just that I suddenly see it clearly. It’s like trying to figure out when, between the ages of eleven and thirteen, girls had shifted from being simply otherly to objects of obsession. At some point, who cares, bring on the girls.

For a long time, probably months, the hours of playing Starfare have begun to shift from something that was totally fun back in Kansas to something else entirely. I’m putting in my hours, at least as many as my schedule allows. But I can scarcely remember the excitement I used to have, sneaking out of school early, racing back to Dad’s place to fire up my computer. Playing Starfare used to take me to this other place. Like those researchers at the Institute talked about. Transcendence. Now it’s mostly about stress.

My mind is wandering as I wait for a practice game to start. I’m thinking about what Hannah is doing back in Kansas. Wondering what time it is at the Institute in California. If Dad is already at the airport. If Garrett is depressed, now that his college basketball career is over and graduation is coming up. He texted he doesn’t even want to go to the ceremony but Mom and Dad are making him. I don’t know. I bet he’ll get a huge cheer from all the basketball fans. Mom will probably give him something stupid for graduation, like a yoga mat. Dad will probably give him his old golf clubs or something. I know it can take forever to ship stuff from Korea so I make a note to wrap up one of my Anaconda shirts and send it to him. I think he’ll get a kick out of it.

Then I start thinking about the last meeting I had with Song. It was really amazing the way we could get into a problem and bounce ideas back and forth. We’d be scribbling notes and formulas as fast as we could write. And the feeling. The feeling is entirely familiar. It’s the way I used to feel at the start of a Starfare game.

So I get through the morning and skip the team lunch. Go back to my room. I’ve accumulated some snack food and have Cokes in the refrigerator. I grab a bag of Korean pretzels and a Coke. When I sit down at my laptop I see that there’s a missed Skype call from Hannah. My pulse races as I call her back, first on her computer. No response. And then on her cell.

“Hannah?”

“Oh Seth! I just had to tell you!”

I wait for her to tell me about her new boyfriend. Eloping with the environmentally friendly tall guy.

“Remember the Nelson-Atkins Museum?”

I almost say, “Remember afterwards?” But instead just say sure.

“Well, they have this exhibit every spring. They select art done by high school students from all over the city? And I got three photos in the show! One of them is the sailor kiss. So you’re going to be in an art museum!”

I tell her congratulations. But it’s not me that will be in the museum. It’ll be her.

“You deserve it, Hannah. Your stuff is great.”

“I don’t know about that. But thanks. At least someone liked them enough to put them into the show. I really, really wish you could be here for the opening. At the end of the month.”

“Me too,” I say. But it’s not the exhibit I wish I could see. And touch. “Hey, do you have time to switch to your computer?”

I cut the call and reconnect to her computer. She picks up after about fifteen seconds. The first thing I see is her broad smile.

“Hey,” she says. “Are you getting blonder?!”

“Maybe. The put this stinky stuff in my hair. But the hair guy, he doesn’t speak a word of English.”

I knew she was going to say something about my hair. Koreans have some weird thing for blonds. I had tried to protest, but Yeong stepped in and told me to shut up.

Hannah made a face. “Maybe it’s just the lighting. But it looks really, really blond.”

My red face probably made it look worse. “No. You’re seeing right. Blond hair is really a big thing over here. Any Western celebrity, they get double visibility if they’re blond. And you should see these pop stars with bleached hair. It’s just wrong.”

“Well, I think it looks fine. I’m just happy to be able to see you at all! Even if you kind of look like you’re moving like a puppet.”

I try to sit really still.

“So how’s it going?” Hannah asks. “Have you won any more tournaments?”

“Not likely. But I did get some interesting news today.”

“Yeah?”

“Well, I just heard that every other player on the team petitioned the coach to get rid of me.”

Silence. Then, “You’re kidding, right?”

“No. Serious. They hate me. I get all the attention. Get to play in matches when better players have to sit out. Make more money from endorsements. I’d hate me too.”

“But, Seth. That’s awful. None of that is your fault. They should hate the coach or whoever is making those decisions. Not you.”

“They want me to transfer over to the new English-speaking team.”

“That makes sense, doesn’t it?”

“Not if you know who’s running that team. Remember that guy who was always harassing me back home, Stomp? He’s in charge. And he hates me worse than the Koreans. I am so totally screwed.”

“Oh. That sucks. I mean, really sucks.”

No argument from me.

“So what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know, Hannah. I just don’t know. But that’s great news about the museum thing. I really wish I could be there.”

“Me too. They have this big exhibition party. String quartet. Fancy food. I’m really looking forward to seeing what the other students have done.”

“Yeah,” I say. “That should be great.”

“Hey one more thing,” I add. “I just heard from my English e-course. I got a B on the final paper. That means I’ll be graduating with you. I got this form letter from the school district. They want to know how I want my name to read in the graduation booklet. So look for me when it comes out, OK?”

We chat for a few more minutes but I know it’s late back home and we only get a half-hour break for lunch. Then I have an hour of practice before I break for my now weekly Korean lesson. Which are still pretty awful, but I’m actually starting to look forward to them. Just getting away from the computer screen and the other guys. It’s actually not so bad.

30.

Usually on Friday Choi brings me the team laundry. But that night, after practice, someone knocks on the door. When I open it no one is there. But the big duffle of laundry is there. It seems extra heavy as I drag it in and as soon as I get it inside the door I realize that something is wrong. I gingerly pull the ties at the top and as I do an awful odor rises. I snap my head back and notice that the bottom third of the bag is wet.

The whole team must have pissed in it.

No wonder Sunday is turning out to be the best day of the week by far. No practice. Plus, I really enjoy visiting the Kims. Goofing around with little Alex, playing some stupid video game, just for fun. And the food is always great.

The previous Sunday Annie had actually made pizza from scratch. And while it wasn’t quite Westport, or even Saviano’s, it was the most delicious meal I’d had in months.

So on Saturday when I get a call from Kim asking if I could come over early, spend the afternoon, I say sure. He says that Song is going to be there too. Has some stuff to discuss.

“Pick you up at noon?” he asks.

While I’m waiting to get picked up I’m debating with myself whether I should tell Kim and Annie about what’s going on with the team. With me. Normally I never talk about stuff like that. I just figure I can work it out myself.

Kim pulls up just on time, like always. As I step outside I realize that I don’t even need a hoodie. It must be the warmest day since I’ve arrived.

“Hop in,” he says. And just hearing a stupid expression like that makes me instantly happy.

“We’re going to take a little detour,” Kim announces. I ask what for, but he says it’s a surprise. All I can think of is that they’ve put another giant poster of me up downtown. I’m praying it’s something else.

My prayers are answered when Kim scoots around a corner and suddenly we’re driving down a street that’s a tunnel of white flowers.

“This is a very famous street,” Kim explains. “Yunjung-ro. See, at the end, that large building? That’s our National Assembly.”

“Wow,” I say, as we cruise down the street, surrounded by white blossoms. Off to the right is a river, with more trees in blossom. Hundreds of Koreans are walking along a path under the trees.

“Fourteen hundred cherry trees on this street alone,” Kim says. “It’s my favorite time of the year here in Seoul.”

When we get back to Kim’s place I get a hug from Annie and Alex grabs my hand and drags me towards his playroom.

“Honey,” Annie says. “You’re going to dislocate his arm! He’s not going anywhere—right Seth?”

“Actually, I’m going to take on Korea’s number one eight year old Mario Karter.”

Annie laughs and tells Alex that he can only have me for a bit, since Professor Song is coming over to talk.

“Then we have to hurry,” Alex says, and I let him drag me toward the waiting controllers.

“Something to drink?” Annie calls out.

“Nothing for me,” I say.

“Can I have a Coke?” Alex replies.

“No you can’t have a Coke,” Annie says. “You know that.”

“But this is special,” Alex pleads as we head down the hall. “ActionSeth is here!”

I see Annie smiling and shaking her head as we duck through the doorway.

Alex groans when Annie steps in to say that Professor Song has arrived. But I promise him that we can get in another game after dinner. That seems to satisfy him.

When I step into the living room Song is sitting on the couch, with a manila folder in his lap. He jumps up, beaming, and bounds across the room to shake my hand.

“Come. Sit down, sit down,” he says. “I have something very exciting to show you.”

I follow him back to the couch and he opens up the folder so we can both read what’s inside.

It’s a stapled paper. The title reads “Algorithmic Solutions to Optimizing Strategic Decisions in Starfare Cyber Games.” After this are two names in bold, Kyung Chan Song and Seth Armstrong Gordon.

“How’d you know my middle name?” is the first idiotic thing I say.

Song thankfully ignores me and says, “You must forgive me, because the deadline was last week, and I needed to get a draft submitted. We can still change anything. Anything.”

I pick up the paper and begin the thumb through it. It’s a compilation of the problems that we’ve been working on. All neatly laid out and full of academic jargon.

“Wow,” I say. “This looks like a lot of work.”

“The hard work was already done. Once you’ve done a few of these papers, the layout is simple.”

“OK,” I say, not believing a word of it. The paper is about fourteen pages long. It would take me months to do anything close to this.

“So anyway,” Song is saying. “I’ve sent it in for peer review for presentation to the annual meeting of the Southeast Asian Mathematical Society at the end of June in Bangkok. I’m very optimistic that it will be accepted. If so, we must arrange for you to help present.”

“I don’t know,” I say, thinking that Song had written the entire thing.

“Yes, yes. I insist. I am very optimistic. This is very interesting work. And it is yours.”

“Not mine,” I protest, glancing through the paper. Reading some of the formulas. “I mean, I might have gotten started on some of these. But…”

“Nonsense. Perfect example of collaboration. And I’m also going to send it to a few journals. After you’ve looked it over. It would be very prestigious for a young mathematician like you to get published. Very prestigious.”

I’m thinking, mathematician? I’m the pitchman for a crappy orange soda. A mediocre Starfare pro. The Korean national seventeen-and-under champ. But mathematician?

Kim and Annie enter the room, like they had been prompted. Kim shakes my hand and says he is very proud of my work. Annie is beaming like I’m related.

And here I was going to get them all together and tell them that my life was falling apart. Which when I think about it, it still is. Some obscure math paper is not going to change that.

I’m sure they’re all wondering why I’m so somber during dinner. Afterwards I just say that I’m not feeling that well and ask if it’s OK for Kim to take me home early. Alex is crestfallen but I really need some time alone.

When I get back to my apartment, I look at my IMs and messages. Check my phone for texts. Flip through the Korean TV channels and then say, the hell with it. Grab a sweatshirt and head downstairs and onto the street, waving for a cab.

When a taxi finally pulls over I try “naiteu keuleob”—nightclub. Then, “Helios.” He seems to understand.

31.

I must be early because there’s no line outside. But I still have to pay a cover charge. And the music is just as loud, even though the dance floor is mostly empty. I scoot around the edge of the room to the bar and get a Coke. Try to remember where the stairs are to the upstairs lounge. Keeping an eye out for the girl with the red streak. Sumi. I would really prefer not to see her.

I find the stairs, make my way through the doors. The music dimming behind me. At first I think the booth in the back is empty but when I get close I see two people sitting with drinks. The Australian guy and Sarah, the girl whose parents I met in customs.

“Well, look who’s here,” the Aussie says. “It’s Gamer Boy. Come on, lots of room, mate.”

As I sit down he says, “Guy Hamilton. In case you forgot. And this is…”

“Sarah,” I interrupt.

“Hello, Seth,” she says. “We’ve been wondering if you would make it back.”

Guy points at my drink. “You got some ActionOrange there?”

I shake my head. “Have you tried that slop? Tastes like poison, like Agent Orange, if you ask me.”

Maybe they’ve been drinking for a while, because they both seem to think this is hilarious.

I slide into the booth on Sarah’s side.

“So, we spent a whole Sunday talking about you,” Sarah says. “You know, after that picture showed up in the tabloids. We figured you got a little heat over that.”

“More like a lot,” I said. “I was really worried that I’d see that girl again.”

“Don’t worry,” Guy says. “We’ll protect you. Right, Sarah?”

“Like a mother bear protects her cubs.”

I ask them how things are going at their jobs and they both groan.

“We come here to forget that stuff,” Guy says. “So how about you? Haven’t seen you on TV lately. Other than that commercial.”

“Don’t remind me,” I say. I try to make light of it all, but Sarah is immediately on to me. She keeps saying that something must be wrong. That she can tell. And between the two of them they sort of squeeze it out of me. How the team has rejected me. How I’ve lost the spark. That the only good stuff has nothing to do with Team Anaconda. And I tell them about the work I’ve been doing with the math professor.

After I’ve told them I feel a little better. But lame too, for pouring all this personal stuff on people I hardly know. I almost mention Hannah seeing that picture of Sumi, but that would mean explaining me and Hannah. And how can I explain something I don’t even really understand?

But Sarah seems really interested. And disturbed.

“So what are you going to do?” she says. “You know this is never going to work, right? They’re not interested in you. And I don’t mean just helping you become the best player you could be. They’re just using you to help with the ratings, to sell soda.”

I don’t know what to say. Because hearing it like that, I know it’s true. I’ll never overcome the language barrier. The players are never going to accept me. I could stay with Team Anaconda for years and still be a second-tier player.

“You’ve got family at home—right?” Sarah asks.

“Sort of,” I say. And tell them about how my mom has joined some sort of cult. And my dad, always on the road. “Personally, I’ve been trying to figure out how I could wrap things up and start college.”

“So you could get a degree, come back and teach English like us, right?” Guy says, with a sad smile.

“But I don’t know,” I said. “I think I screwed that up too. It’s so late. Kids are already getting acceptance letters.”

“You taken your boards?” Sarah asks.

I give her a lost look.

“You know, like SATs.”

“Oh, of course,” I say. “Well, sort of. I took them in eighth grade.”

“People take SATs in eighth grade?” Sarah asks.

“It was some sort of talent identification program thing,” I said. “You take the SATs and then a bunch of colleges try to get you come for these really expensive summer programs.”

“So what did you get?” Guy says.

“Get?”

“You know. On the test.”

“Oh, I don’t remember exactly,” I say. “I know I made this stupid mistake on one of the math questions. So I got a 760 there. And on the English. I’m not that good. I think I just barely got 700. We didn’t have to do the essay.”

“Christ, that would be 1460,” Sarah says. “And you were, what? Fourteen?”

“Thirteen,” I say. “I sort of skipped a grade somewhere in there.”

Sarah and Guy exchange glances.

“You should take it again,” Sarah says. “It’s not too late. I’ve got a couple of kids taking it again in three weeks. You’ve got a couple days before the deadline. Sign up.”

“I don’t know,” I say. “It’s complicated. I’d have to get permission. Figure out where it is. How to get there.”

“Bullshit,” Sarah says. Pulls out her cell and makes me give her my number. “I’ll text you the url and you sign up. You do have a credit card?”

I nod.

“Ok, now give me your address.” She keys that in too. “You sign up and I’ll pick you up. It’s given on Sundays here. That’s your day off?”

I nod again.

“Fine. I’ll pick you up and take you to the test. Least I can do.”

And when I cab home a few hours later, I go online and sign up for the SATs. I just hope they don’t have any questions on the last half of The Scarlet Letter.

32.

So three weeks later, I’m sitting at dinner with Kim and Annie and say, “Guess what I did this morning?”

The two of them look at each other and shrug.

“Beat the world record for Mario Kart?” Alex guesses.

“Not quite,” I say. “I took the SATs.”

Kim and Annie exchange another sort of look.

“I’m thinking of winding down my Starfare career.” And realize that it’s the first time I’ve actually said it out loud. It feels surprisingly good.

“But you just started,” Alex squeals. “You haven’t won the World Championship yet.”

“Well, that’s true,” I admit as Annie gently tries to shush Alex.

“Why don’t we talk about this after dinner?” Annie says, shooting at glance at Alex. I nod and turn to him and say, “So what’s this I hear about a school trip to the natural history museum?”

“They’ve got a huge shark!” Alex says. “His teeth are this tall!” He holds his hands as far apart as possible. “I mean it’s not a live shark. It’s shark bones. But it’s huge!”

We let Alex finish his tour of the museum. And then Annie sends him to play some games. And I tell them about the problems with the team. I leave out the pissing in the laundry thing.

“It’s just not working,” I say.

Annie looks so sad I think she’s going to cry.

“Oh Seth,” she finally says. “We had no idea. We were like Alex. We thought you were living a dream.”

“Oh I am,” I said. “This was exactly what I wanted. It’s just that I had no way of knowing…”

“No, you couldn’t have,” said Kim. “But you are so young. And have so many options.”

I nod. Wondering if it’s true.

“Anyway,” I say. “I was thinking of talking to Song. About studying math in the U.S. You know, where I might go. How I might get in. Pay for it.”

“Yeah, you definitely need to talk to Song,” Kim says. “If fact, let me give him a call. He lives only five minutes away.”

When Song arrives I give him a shorter version of my sad story. But he doesn’t think it is sad. He keeps saying things like, “Very good,” and “All for the best.”

“And you just took the SAT test today?” he asks.

I nod. Kim and Annie and Song are all sitting in a circle with me, leaning towards me and speaking softly, as if Alex might be around the corner, trying to listen.

“And how did it go?”

I tell him that I thought I got all the math right. Unless I did something really stupid. And the English wasn’t as hard as I remember. And I thought I did OK on the essay. I chose the topic about whether or not the grading system in high schools should be revised. I did this essay on why it should be because it didn’t reflect the real world.

“Think about it,” I say. “Let’s say you study three hours a day and get an A in math. And someone else gets an A without studying at all. If you have a job and it takes you ten times as long to do something, even if you do it just as well, you’re not nearly as valuable to the company. So I wrote about the need to add an effort component.”

They all look a little puzzled.

“Hey, it was just a stupid essay. Don’t worry. I made my case. I even made up a study to support my argument that I said was done at Yale. Who’s going to take the time to check it out…”

They laugh at this.

“So you are committed to this course,” Song says. “You are going to leave all this behind? I mean, you’re the only person I know who has been on the Tommy Min show.”

“Or has his own soda,” Annie adds.

And I realize, in a flash, that I must look to them so different than I look to myself. Like some sort of success prodigy. The amazing sixteen year old celebrity.

“I’ve got a few ideas for you. Brown might be a really good match,” Song finally says. “Let me do a little work and I’ll bring you up to date in a few days.”

“And no matter what you decide,” Annie says, “you know you are always welcome here, in this house. If it gets too bad for you downtown, with the team. You call. We’ll put up a cot in the playroom and you can stay with us.”

“Absolutely,” says Kim. “It would be our great pleasure.”

33.

I’m ready to face Yeong the next day. But think better of it. I want to get things worked out first. Make sure I have an alternative. Access to the money in my account. Which is somewhere around $30,000 now, depending on the exchange rate.

So I do my best to put up a good face. Smile at the guys at breakfast. Try to concentrate during the practice sessions.

At the end of the week I get a call from Song. He says that he’s got some information for me. That we can go over it at Kim’s on Sunday.

That takes the bite out of any initiative I have left. Yeong stops by and watches over my shoulder at morning practice, sniffing and grunting as I try to ramp it up under his eyes. He watches for about ten minutes and then walks away, not saying a thing.

We have another dual match on Saturday and it’s against the Analogs, one of Anaconda’s biggest rivals. I’m praying Yeong comes to his senses and leaves me out of the lineup.

So Saturday afternoon it’s the familiar scene. The team gathered back stage around Coach Yeong. The sound of the crowd in the background, fast-paced Korean pop music over the PA system. The team all dressed in our green snake shirts, shifting nervously. The outcome of these duals determines who makes the playoffs, and the bonus pool for the teams that make it is a big deal. A team can double their annual salaries by making it to the finals.

Yeong calls out the names, one at a time. The tops dogs, Sang-Chul and Tae-Uk, and then another four names, all expected. Then coach looks directly at me and my heart falls.

“ActionSeth,” he says.

Immediately the other guys start moaning and shouting stuff out in Korean at Yeong. He waves his hand and puts on his best scowl. Then he begins berating the team in Korean, no translation necessary. And of course, we all know it has nothing to do with winning. It goes directly to the sponsors and endorsement deals. Which Yeong must get a huge cut on.

Then before the players can say another word the PA system switches from music to voice and I know from the routine that the player introductions are about to begin.

As the team heads toward the stage I get jostled from one side, then the other. One of the guys, I can’t even tell who in the scrum, leans in and grunts, “You win. Or else.” It’s amazing how much English these guys have when they need it.

As the pairings are announced I have one hope. The Analog’s top player, Jun Hwa Jung, is the hottest guy on the circuit. The only guy on the team who has a chance against him is Sang-Chul, and I bet the coach would not like to see that matchup. Because Sang-Chul is automatic against anyone else on the Analogs. So if I draw Jun Hwa and lose, it really won’t hurt the team.

But as the lineups are announced Jun Hwa draws our number four player and I get a matchup against one of Analog’s rookie pros. A match the team could expect to win.

As the match slowly gets away from me I feel myself starting to sweat out my shirt. It’s not just losing. I’m furious at Yeong for putting me in this spot when he knows I’m not ready. I can already feel the heat from the other guys too. God knows what they’re going to do to me. Especially if the team loses.

My loss is the first match done. I have to sit on the sidelines and watch the excruciating process as we win one, lose one, win one. And then drop the deciding match to lose 4-3. The van ride back is silent. I’m wondering if the guys are looking for an opportunity to jump me. I bet at least half of them studied martial arts. I can see them kicking the shit of me in some dark corner.

So I’m the first one out of the van and I scramble up to my room, lock the door. I sit back on the couch with a sigh of relief. When my breathing gets back to normal I decide to do a little research on Brown. The home page has a video and it opens with these cool-looking buildings and then some dancers, backlit and in silhouette this one dancer looks just like Hannah and my heart just leaps. I check out the math department and the courses and only when I dig a little deeper do I realize the school’s right in the middle of Providence, Rhode Island. It’s a long way from Kansas, but a lot closer than Seoul. Then I remember Annie is from Providence. I make a mental note to ask her about what it’s like, living there.

34.

On Sunday Song is waiting for me when we get to the Kims’. He seems as pleased to see me as Alex, who must have been briefed on my availability. Alex runs up, gives me a big hug and then runs back to his playroom.

“OK, OK,” Song says. “Sit down. I’ve got stuff for you.”

He’s got a big folder and he motions me to sit next to him on the couch. He thumbs through it and shows me a couple printouts of forms.

“I’ve talked to a few of my old colleagues in the Brown math department,” he says. “They say they’d be very interested in hearing from you. So here’s what you have to do.”

He pulls out a page.

“This is just the first page of the online application. You have to fill this out when you get home.”

Attached is a checklist of things I need to do. Email North and get my high school transcript sent. I mentally add the same for UMKC. For letters of recommendations I’ve got Song. I have to get hold of my prof from UMKC and get him to write me a second one. Get Mom and Dad to fill out this complicated-looking form for financial aid. Make sure that Brown gets my SAT scores.

“This is also online,” Song says. Handing me another printout. It’s titled, Hershman Fellowships for Undergraduates. “Brown got his huge gift a few years ago. It provides for full scholarships, merit based. Make sure you fill it out carefully.”

Then he shows me a handful of copies of the math paper.

“This is your trump card,” he said. “I’ve already forwarded copies to the math department and I’ve emailed you an e-copy. You’re going to need to attach that to your Hershman application.”

I just nod as he goes through it all. I mean, I still don’t know much about Brown. Kim said that they were known for their applied mathematics. They have a nice website. That’s about it.

But I’ve got this feeling. Like a warm spot inside my chest that’s slowly expanding. A feeling that maybe things might work out after all. That I could go back home, see Hannah, go to college like a normal kid. Study stuff I liked and was good at. And throw the Team Anaconda laundry back in their faces. Or maybe just throw it out. Just to spite them. After I get my money out of the bank, of course.

When I get back to my apartment I sit down at my laptop to find out more about Brown. But there’s a Skype message from Hannah. I call her on her computer, but she’s not online. So then I have to add some money to my account so I can call her cell.

“Hey,” she says, picking up after the first ring. “When you didn’t answer? I was worried. Thought maybe you got strangled by those Anacondas.”

“Funny,” I say.

“So are you getting along better?”

“Worse,” I say. “I dropped a match last week and the team lost 3-4.”

“Doesn’t that mean that three other guys lost too?”

“Sure, but that’s not the way they see it.”

“No offense,” Hannah says. “But it sounds like those Koreans are really messed up.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I say. And I mean it.

“No?”

I want to tell her about the latest development. But it’s all so iffy. I can tell her when I know more for sure.

“Anyway,” Hannah says. “I’ve got more good news!”

“Yeah?”

“You know we had the opening at the museum last week? It was so great. I got to meet the other kids. They had such amazing work. There’s one kid, from this magnet school in downtown Kansas City. He does these charcoal drawings that are so…”

And in an instance I see what’s happened. Hannah and this artsy boy from the inner city. Hitting it off immediately. Soul mates. Sneaking off to some dark corner of the museum. And then, after the reception…

“Sorry. I mean, you’d have to see his work to understand. Anyway, getting back to the good news. At the reception I met this really cool lady who runs a gallery. It’s in the Plaza. Right down the street from FAO Schwartz. I bet you’ve walked by it a million times.”

“I can picture it,” I say. Although I can only really picture the toy store with its giant stuffed animals.

“So she sees my photos and tracks me down. We chat about this and that. She asks if I have more work. So yesterday I take my whole portfolio to her gallery and I just about died. She says she’s interested in representing me. Picks out six photos. I have to get them printed up in a limited edition. She’s going to try to sell them for $400 each! I get $300 for each one she sells!”

“That’s a lot of hours at Saviano’s,” I say.

“No kidding. Plus she wants to see my new work as I do it. So who knows…I mean, Seth, I don’t know if you understand this. But to get represented at a gallery like this. It’s so unbelievable. I mean, there’s plenty of artists who’ve been studying and working for years. People with MFAs, who do really great work, who would kill to be in this spot. It’s just so unbelievable.”

“I told you you were good,” I say.

“Well, yeah you did. So maybe you do have a future as an art critic. In case this gaming thing doesn’t work out.”

I’m thinking that it’s going to work itself out all right. And soon, if I have anything to do with it.

“And I’ve got to email you this form. It’s a model release. For the kiss photo. Maybe you could print and sign it and scan it back?”

“It’s going to cost you,” I say. “After all, I already have one big endorsement deal.”

“How about I give you a percentage. If I ever sell one.”

“How about we get together and practice making another one,” I blurt out. As soon as I say it, I’m sure I’ve crossed some line.

And sure enough, there’s a silence.

“Seth?” she finally says.

“Yeah. I’m sorry…”

“No. It’s just that it’s not the same. Here. With you away. I don’t know.”

“What if I told you I was coming back?”

“For a visit?”

“For good.”

“Seth, are you joking around?” I can’t tell if she’s excited or worried.

“I’m serious. I’m not sure I can take it here much longer,” I say. “And I do have a return ticket.”

I’ve had that ticket in my hand a few times over the past weeks. Sitting there in my apartment. Holding it and thinking about how easy it would be to call a cab and just head out to the airport. Without even a goodbye to my dear teammates.

“If it’s as bad as you say, then you ought to just do it.”

I’m thinking, that’s me. The just-do-it American.

“But, Seth. It’s not going to be the same.”

I’m not sure what she means. But I’m thinking it has to do with that tall guy in the environment club. Or the guy with the charcoal drawings.

“OK,” I say. “I know…I’ve been gone a long time. And I know there are other guys…”

“It’s not like that,” she says. “It’s just that it’s never the same. People go away. They come back. They’ve changed. Things change.”

“I’m pretty sure I haven’t changed,” I say. “Although I do know how to bow a little.”

“OK, wise-ass,” Hannah says. “You’re blond and have a weird haircut. Case closed.”

“I can dye it back.”

“Yes you can,” Hannah says. “And maybe you should. But in the meantime, just sign that form, will you?”

I promise I will. But what I’m thinking is, be prepared. I might just deliver it in person.

After she hangs up I get online, see what I can figure out about what courses I could be taking in the fall if this Brown thing works out.

35.

I have to get up on Monday for team breakfast. As soon as the alarm goes off I’m thinking about what I read the night before. About how little I know about colleges. For instance, Brown is in the Ivy League. Like Harvard and Yale. That’s how bad I’d fail a test on American universities. And then I’m thinking about my slack-off semesters at North. Why would a school like that be interested in me? Plus it costs like $60,000 a year, which is going to give Dad a heart attack if he finds out.

He’d just remind me how Garrett got a free ride and graduated on time on top of it. Mom and Dad were so grateful they both showed up. Mom sent a bunch of blurry photos of the ceremony and Garrett in his graduation costume. Naturally, not a single photo of the three of them together.

So I think about my salary and the bonus I might get if I hang in there the whole season. I keep swinging back and forth. Work my ass off and show these guys that I deserve to be on the team. Or just screw it and do as little as possible. See how long they’ll keep me.

After breakfast Yeong pulls me aside.

“No more Korean lessons. Not during season. You stay, work hard.”

“Yes Coach,” I say. But what I’m thinking is, up yours. Even though the “best teacher in Seoul” is a fraud, it was better than hanging here all day.

But, like always when we do afternoon practice matches, I don’t have to fake it. I’ve always hated losing. I take two of the lower guys on the team into the third game in best of threes and probably should have won both of them.

You know, it’s kind of the same thing Garrett told me once. He was out in the driveway, shooting free throws. I stood out on front stoop and watched him for a while. Two bounces, spin the ball, shoot. Retrieve the ball, do it again.

“How can you stand to do that over and over,” I finally said. “For hours. It looks totally boring.”

Garrett turned and looked at me. That look of total condescension.

“You get better whether you’re bored or not.”

I’m also finding out it takes forever to get all these forms completed and transcripts and scores sent. I go online every day and check out my admissions status. So far all they have is my electronic application. Meanwhile I imagine the number of openings dropping on a daily basis.

I call Song up.

“Don’t worry,” he says. “You’re in a special situation. They don’t get many prospective students who are gamer pros who have co-authored a paper accepted for the Southeast Asian Mathematics Society annual meeting in June.”

“They took it?”

“Of course,” Song is saying. I can picture him grinning. “You did very good work.”

“You did the work,” I insist, and I congratulate him. He says that I should plan on coming with him to present. That I would enjoy seeing Bangkok before I returned to the United States to start my promising career in mathematics.

But it seems clear to me that I’m going to be around for a while. The pro league season goes all summer, with the playoffs in the fall. After the loss to the Analogs we’ve been picking up win after win. It looks like we’ll be in the playoffs for sure. And that could mean big bonuses.

So I’ve got that working for me.

36.

I get emails from both Mom and Dad. They’re both freaked out about the FAFSA forms for college aid.

Mom, I talk through. They’ve got a high school at the Institute. So they’ve got counselors who can answer the questions. Help her fill it out. I know she’s making just enough to pay her expenses, so that’s good for my prospects.

Dad, on the other hand, is paranoid. He thinks I’m going to hit him up with some enormous college bill.

“Just so you know,” he writes. “With the divorce and the problems at work and the economy. I wish it wasn’t so. But I don’t have anything saved for college. And this year was probably my worst in a decade.”

I try to calm him down. Explain that I’m not asking for money. Tell him that I’m saving some money. And I still have my account in Kansas City, with the $2,000 from Nationals. That he just needs to fill out the forms. I even give him the name of my old counselor at North, in case he has questions.

So that night I complete Hannah’s model release. Scan it on the team’s copier and email it back. Think about the picture of the two of us. Hanging in some fancy gallery in the Plaza. How totally weird it would be to walk in there and see it. Me and Hannah.

Wondering if that’s what we are. A photo in an album. A little snippet of ancient history. Hannah thumbing though her work years from now. The tall guy from the environmental club sitting next to her, arm around her. I imagine him going bald.

“And who’s that in the picture?” he will ask.

“Just a guy I knew for a while when I first moved to Kansas. We worked together in that pizza place that used to be in the strip mall. Around the corner from KenTacoHut.”

And then they turn the page.

37.

As we get into summer Yeong seems to be getting better at how to use me. I sit out the close ones, play when we win 6-1 or 5-2. If I had any time outside I’d probably admit that I like Korea better in the summer than the winter. It was certainly more pleasant to run out for Tost-us. When I can, I sneak outside during breaks. I like to look at the Korean girls. As the weather warmed they shifted to short skirts, leather boots. Sometimes a small group of them will stop and cover their mouths and laugh in my direction. I’ve never said a word to any of them.

If I forget to put something over my Anaconda team shirt, everyone seems to recognize me. Take pictures with their cell phones. Occasionally ask for an autograph. Young guys in business suits will try to corner me to practice their English. It’s actually pretty annoying.

By the end of June Anaconda is right at the top of the standings and the players are basically leaving me alone. Over the past few weeks I actually had won a few matches, surprising everyone. But even when I lost it wasn’t affecting the outcome. So I guess they were resigned to putting up with me.

We’re about two thirds of the way through the season when Choi hands me a package at breakfast. It’s a big white envelope with Brown University stamped on the top. I don’t want to open it there, so I slip out and take it back to my room.

My heart’s racing as I rip it open.

I read the first line, “We are pleased…” and then skim, looking for anything on the scholarship. Because getting in was not the same as going. Not at $60k a year.

It’s in the second paragraph. “The Hershman Fellowship is intended to cover all of your tuition, living and academic costs for your entire undergraduate program, assuming that you maintain the standards itemized in the attached…”

I have to shake my head and read it again. Which I do. And then I just have to tell someone.

So I sit down at the laptop and send off IMs to DT and Garrett. Write a quick email to Mom and Dad. Send a text to Hannah. Then I send a note to Song, thanking him for all the help and the recommendation. And one to Annie and Kim, telling them the news.

Then I open the drawer with the airline ticket. Go to the American Airlines site and begin looking at schedules. I’m deep into this when someone bangs at the door.

“Not feeling well,” I yell.

They bang again.

“I’m sick. Leave me alone.”

That seems to do it.

So I book a flight out Monday morning. Send out my itinerary to everyone back in the States. Then I sneak out of my apartment and take the elevator to the lowest level. Walk out the back through the loading dock so the doorman doesn’t see me.

I know there’s a Woori Bank branch down the street. I go in, cash out my entire account in won. Take it down another block to a Citigroup branch. Just in case Yeong or someone tries to muck with my earnings. Sit for about ten minutes until an English-speaking banker is available. Set up a new account, which I’m told I can wire out to a bank back home without any complications.

I hold out enough money to cover a few special expenses. From the lobby I call Sarah and we have lunch.

When I show her the letter from Brown, she says, “Omigod. This is fantastic!”

I nod. Thank her for the help. When I walk her back to work we stop in front. She reaches out with both hands and holds my face and plants a sharp kiss on my lips.

“You are just so adorable,” still holding me. “And smart too. I wish they made you in my age!” We say goodbye and she makes me promise to write.

When I get back to my apartment I check my messages. Kim and Annie and Song have sent notes of congrats. I’ll have one more Sunday dinner with them and Song will come too. My emails arrived late back in the U.S. and I’m betting no one has picked them up.

I hang around until team lunch. This will be the fun part.

38.

When I walk into lunch no one pays any attention. Most of the guys have their trays of food. They don’t even look up. When Yeong sees me he walks over.

“You feel better?”

“I’m OK,” I say. Now that I’m getting ready to announce my resignation, it no longer feels like such a great moment.

“Look,” I say. “I’m not very good at these things. So I’ll just tell you straight out.”

Yeong is looking at me in the eyes, puzzled.

“I need to resign from the team.”

Yeong shakes his head. “No, this is not possible,” he says. I imagine he’s thinking about the endorsements and the publicity I’ve been getting the team.

“I have a flight out on Monday,” I say. “It’s been a great experience. But it’s not going to work out.”

“Yes, yes. We are working out good!” Yeong seems totally unwound. “Season playoffs soon. Players get big bonus. No one leaves teams now. No one.” His voice is raised and the players are now looking up from their food. Trying to follow the English.

“Well, I am. I’m starting school at the end of August. I’ve got to get back home and get prepared. I think I should say something to the other players.”

Then I walk up to the front of the room.

“Can I have your attention please!” I say loudly. “I just want to tell all of you that I am leaving the team. As of today.”

There is an immediate buzz as the players collectively try to translate. I look over to Yeong, to see if he is going to translate. But he looks stricken. I try to keep it simple.

“So this is goodbye. I learned a lot from you. Thank you for putting up with me. Good luck with the rest of the season. I know you will do well.”

Then I turn and walk out the door, into the hall. As I head to my room I feel so much lighter that its like floating.

39.

The next few days are a whirlwind. I spend Saturday morning with the crowds in the Myeong-dong shopping district. Wearing a baseball hat and sunglasses, which seems like a pretty lame disguise. But I’m amazed that it seems to work—no one bothers me. I’m trying to find presents for people back home. But mostly something for Hannah. You would think that with hundreds of shops it would be easy, but it’s just about impossible.

Finally I decide I need help and I call Annie and Kim’s home number. Annie picks up. I explain that I’ve trying to find presents for my mom and dad and brother. And this special girl from back home. Who I haven’t seen in more than six months.

“Hang on,” Annie says. I wait for a couple of minutes.

“You say you’re in Myeong-dong? Kim’s got Alex for a few hours. I can meet you at one o’clock.”

I protest. Say that I was just looking for a couple of ideas.

“Are you kidding?” Annie says. “I love to shop. Especially in Myeong-dong. And I’m very good at it, thank you.”

She tells me to meet her in the coffee shop at the Ibis Hotel. “It’s right in the center of the district. If you need help finding it, just ask anyone.”

I figure I’ve got well over an hour. That gives me time to get something for the Kims and Song. I still beat Annie to the hotel, sit at a booth and order a Coke.

After about ten minutes Annie bustles in. Just about everyone in the café turns to look at her and I realize that I’ve only seen her at her apartment. I can see why they’re staring. Not just because she’s tall and blond. But I’ve never really thought about how pretty she is.

She sits down and starts talking a mile a minute. Pulls out a little notebook and starts asking me questions about everyone on my gift list.

A couple hours later I’m carrying about twenty pounds of gifts in a half-dozen shopping bags. Shopping with Annie was like watching Anaconda’s top player in a Starfare groove. We share a cab back and she gets dropped first. She makes me promise to come over early Sunday afternoon. For Alex’s sake.

When I get back I throw the shopping bags on the couch and get on the computer. Everyone has gotten back to me. Mom wants me to book a trip to California “for at least three weeks.” Garrett says he’s working basketball camps for the summer while he’s waiting to hear from the European teams. Dad says he’ll stock the refrigerator but that he’s going to be at a show all week and can’t get out of it. So I’ll have to take a cab from the airport. Hannah has left me this message, “Congrats on Brown! Call me when you get back!”

So she can tell me about her new boyfriend? An environmental artist who just won a MacArthur genius award for his multi-media performance art?

After starting and stopping about ten times I finally send a short message, asking if she’d consider picking me up at the KC airport. I get in at 9 p.m. local time. Hoping she comes alone.

I bought some wrapping paper before Annie arrived and I fold up one of my ActionSeth team shirts, wrap it up and write “Alex” on it. For the Kims I wrap up Hannah’s sailor photo. And a really cool small framed oil painting of the cherry blossom street I found in a gallery. For Song I wrap a small, polished box made of black stone filled with spiral-shaped fossils. I think it will make him think of the Bernoulli spirals we calculated for the optimal Starfare mineral harvests.

For Garrett Annie suggested a goofy K-pop outfit, so he could dress up like Psy. When I cab over to Kim’s house on Sunday, the whole way I’m trying to figure out what to tell them. Like how much I appreciated Annie’s shopping help. I have this whole little speech worked out but when I get there and begin she just laughs it off. I have my presents in my backpack, for later.

I hang out, play some games with Alex. When Song arrives we all head to the parking garage and cram into Kim’s car. I’m relieved when we end up at a place that serves Korean-style barbeque. Kimchi optional. I fill up on these sticks of meat which are spicy but not so hot that they make you choke, like some Korean food.

Back at Kim’s I explain I have to head back to pack. I’m really bad at these kinds of things. I never know what to say and whether to hug people or shake hands. But I do try to tell them all how much they helped me. And how much I’ll miss them. I get out my presents and everyone opens them. At first the Kims seems kind of puzzled by Hannah’s photo, so I have to give them the background. And they seem to like the cherry blossom painting. Song smiles as he holds up the spiral-encrusted box and I know he gets it. Everyone is kind of emotional but when Alex pulls out his shirt and starts crying it somehow breaks the ice. We all hug again. Kim insists on driving me home, but we don’t say much.

Back at my apartment I pick up a message from Hannah. Saying she’d be able to get the van and pick me up at the airport. Not that’s she excited or delighted to pick me up. Just that she will. I’m thinking she’ll want that nice, quiet, forty-minute drive to explain where things stood.

Still, I’m not without hope. So I Skype a call to Garrett, who thankfully picks right up.

“Christ,” he says. “What the hell time is it over there?”

I tell him it’s 9 p.m. on Sunday.

“Sunday? This is frickin’ confusing as hell. Anyway. Sorry to hear your pro career is coming to a premature end.”

“Yeah. No tears. I gave it an honest shot. How ‘bout you?”

“I’ve got a maybe offer from a Greek team. Pay is OK. I just don’t know if I want to play overseas.”

“Yeah, I can relate to that.”

“So are you going to come up and visit me when you get home?”

“Sure,” I say. “Why not? Unless you’ve still got snow on the ground.”

“Up yours, it’s summer here.”

We chat for a bit more before I drop my real reason for calling. I explain the situation with Hannah. How I’m pretty sure she’s in some sort of relationship.

“But you’re still hot on her right?”

I sort of mumble something, and he says, “I’m taking that as a yes. And you want to know what you should do.”

“Sort of,” I admit.

“Sort of my ass,” he says. “OK, here’s my advice. Do not, whatever you do. Do not give her any indication of your interest.”

“Huh?”

“You get off that plane and say you’ve been pining over her for months you’re just going to look pathetic.”

“But I thought girls like that romantic stuff.”

“Are you looking for advice or do you want to just totally fail?”

I say advice.

“Then trust me. If you come on like a love-lost puppy you’re going to panic this girl. You’re not just some dorky kid who she used to neck with. You’re a celebrity. You’ve been worshipped abroad. You’re now a man of the world. You have no interest in juvenile romances from your past.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. And if she wants to confess that she’s fallen in love with some college guy, she’ll tell you. At least you’ll know where you stand.”

“OK,” I say, even though I’m skeptical. “Thanks for the tip.”

He makes me promise again to fly up to Fargo. That Dad has plenty of mileage points.

But even though I left the Kims’ promptly I’m still up at 1 a.m. getting everything crammed into my suitcase. I leave behind a couple of beat-up T-shirts and all but one Team Anaconda shirt.

Who knows, I might go to a costume party some day.

40.

I don’t realize how exhausting the whole process has been until I finally settle into my Korean Air seat. I feel like I’m sinking into the softest sofa in the world. I have some vague sense of a flight attendant making her rounds. When I wake up for a moment, groggy, we’re already in the air and there is a pillow and blanket in my lap.

So the first ten hours of the trip is just a thankful blur. I finally wake up to activity in the cabin and get to the bathroom before the meal arrives. It’s breakfast, I think, although the time is so screwed up who knows for sure.

When I stumble out of the plane in Los Angeles I feel like a zombie. But even zombies can walk and I find my way through customs and to the connecting flight. Watch an animated movie with hot-air balloons and talking dogs. Think about meeting Hannah at the airport. And what Garrett said.

The last leg of the trip is endless.

We’re only a half-hour late arriving and I see her as soon as a crowd of us walk past the security gate. She’s standing off to the side. Hasn’t spotted me yet. Which is good. Because I’m literally short of breath, seeing her. She’s cut her hair. Looks worried, kind of shifting from foot to foot. Like maybe I’m not on the flight? Or that maybe I am? I try to pull myself together. Step out from the crowd and she sees me. I head right towards her, drop my carry-on bag just short of her toes. I was thinking a Korean bow would impress her, but I just wrap my arms around her and give her a deep hug. Her hair smells like flowers, like cherry blossoms.

I step back, her hands still on my shoulders.

“Oh my God,” she says. “I can’t believe it!”

“Me either,” I say. Thinking how I could have forgotten how amazing her eyes are, deep amber in this light. Wondering if she means, “thank God you’re back” or “was I ever an idiot to agree to do this” or “Oh my God he looks like he’s just spent the better part of a day crammed into an airline seat.”

She’s staring at me so hard that I want to turn away.

“I think you got taller,” she says.

“Korean food,” I say. “It’s very nutritious.”

We just look at either for another moment before she says, “So, how does it feel to be back in the U.S.?”

“Han gaji jim mun mot hae,” I say, and then bend over to pick up my backpack. It’s one of the totally useless phrases my Korean teacher had me memorize. Translation: “one language is never enough.”

“Wow,” says Hannah. “What does that mean?”

“It means, ‘there’s no place like home.’”

“Well, that may be true. But you’re not in Kansas.”

“Missouri,” I say. “Close enough. Come on, let’s get my bag and get out of here. The farther I get from airports, the better I’ll feel.”

“Can you say that in Korean?”

I think for a second and say, “Geu.”

“You can get the entire sentence into one word?”

276

“Actually it’s a common article in Korean, similar to our word ‘that.’”

She blinks for a second and then smiles. “So you can say ‘that’ in Korean!”

“Exactly.”

As we wait for the luggage carousel to start I ask about her photos and the gallery. She says that she’s just started showing, but nothing has sold so far.

“I have a confession,” I say, as we stare towards the stationary carousel.

“You don’t have to tell me about all those Korean girls,” she says. I look over at that familiar, sly smile. “That would be too much information.”

“I’m sworn to secrecy about that,” I say. “Actually, it’s about your photo.”

I tell her about the Kims and how nice they were to me. That I gave them the kissing photo. That I had shopped for hours but had found nothing nearly as good.

She doesn’t seem upset. “I’ll print you another one,” she says as the carousel starts beeping and then turning.

A few minutes later I’m wrestling my bag off the belt and we’re off for the parking lot.

As we cruise out of the airport Hannah glances over at me.

“You must be exhausted.”

“That obvious?”

“That obvious.”

We drive in silence for a bit.

“I brought you something back from Korea.”

“You brought yourself. That was enough.”

I may be exhausted, but I’m alert enough to wonder if she’s just saying that. Or if it means something.

Then she asks when I start school.

“Freshman orientation is August twenty-ninth. How about you?”

“After Labor Day weekend.”

So we have almost five weeks. If we are we.

At my place I punch in the code for the garage and am thankful that it opens. I still have a key, but where I don’t remember.

Hannah insists on helping me carry in.

When I flip on the light I see everything just the way I left it. The velour couch across from the flat screen TV. Hannah’s favorite seascape over the larger couch.

“Now this is home sweet home,” Hannah says.

“Just a second,” I say as I bend over and unzip the big suitcase. I dig around a bit and come out with a white box.

“I would have wrapped it,” I say. “But they tell you not to wrap presents that are going on planes.”

Hannah looks uncomfortable as I hand it to her.

“Go ahead,” I say. She backs over to the couch, sets the box down and opens it with a gasp. Pulls out the present that Annie helped me pick out and holds it up.

“Oh my God,” Hannah says. She lifts the bright red, silk Korean dress head high. The gold highlights sparkle, even in the uneven light of our living room. I told Annie that I wanted to get something really special. That cost wasn’t an issue. She took me at my word. It was one of the most expensive hanboks in the shop.

“I don’t know,” I say. “I thought maybe you could use it in one of your photos.”

Hannah is sort of dancing forward with the hanbok stretched out.

“I bet you stole this from one of your Korean girls.”

“Actually,” I say. “It was a princess. We’re secretly engaged. She’s got dozens of these. Won’t ever miss it.”

“A princess? They have princesses in Korea?”

“Of course.”

“And when is this betrothal date?”

“Open ended,” I say. “Unless she finds out about the dress. Then it’s off.”

“Can I try it on?”

“Sure.” And then I just about faint when she peels off her T-shirt.

“A blue T-shirt would spoil the effect,” she explains, as I stare at her black bra.

She looks up at me as she lifts up the dress. “I’m not making you uncomfortable, am I?”

“Uh, no, of course not.”

Then she has the dress over her head.

“Help me with this belt or sash or whatever,” she says. And I help her wrap it around and she ties in front. Skips across the carpet into the downstairs bathroom. The tail of the dress behind like a shadow. Looking like the real princess.

“Wow,” she is saying. I can see her turning and twisting over her shoulder to see that back. “So what kind of photo were you thinking?”

“Your department,” I say. “I’m just in costumes. And by the way, there’s something else in the box.”

“Oh Jesus, Seth,” she says. “This is too much.” But she glides back across the room to the dress box and finds the smaller one. Opens it and shakes her head. Holds the gold earrings up to the light. Each is a series of gold loops which highlight the gold patterns in the dress. She takes out a stud from each ear and back in the bathroom puts on the earrings.

“OK, Mr. Gamer Boy,” she says as she comes out of the bathroom. “What is this all about?”

I shrug. Tell her it’s not about anything. Other than coming home. That I bought gifts for my mom and dad and brother too.

“After all,” I say. “It’s the first time in my life I’ve had the cash to do anything like this.”

“And it doesn’t have anything to do with you picking Brown?” She’s giving me a hard look now, like I had pulled some sort of major cheat or something.

I’m shaking my head and if I look honestly puzzled it’s because I am.

“You know I accepted the RISD offer?”

I shake my head, trying to remember what RISD stood for. “I don’t know…”

“I told everyone. Are you telling me I forgot you?”

I really don’t remember and I say so.

“And you picked Brown because?”

“I didn’t really pick it,” I say. “It was where my friend Professor Song went.” I try to explain the circumstances. But Hannah interrupts me.

“You must think I’m really slow,” Hannah says.

Now I’m really at a loss. I shake my head.

“OK, let me spell it out,” she says. “I tell everyone I’m going to RISD. And then a couple of months later you tell everyone where you’re going.”

“And…”

“And where is Brown?”

“Providence,” I say. “It’s in Providence.” But the fact is, from Korea it all seemed like Never-Neverland. I still wasn’t thinking of Brown as a place. More like an act of God.

“And what state is Providence in?

“Rhode Island?” I answer.

“And what does the RI is RISD stand for?” Hannah has one hand on her silk-clad hip and is looking at me with what I take is total disdain.

“Rhode Island?” I say, and actually feel my heart rise. We’re going to be going to college in the same state!

“And how far apart are Brown and RISD?”

“I don’t know,” I admit, and add lamely, “It’s a big state?”

“Right. You honestly don’t know? I find that hard to believe.”

Now I’m thinking if Hannah had told me where she had decided to go to college I would have remembered. I’m almost sure I would have remembered.

“I could Google it,” I say.

“I’m sure you could,” Hannah is saying as she carefully removes one earring, then the other. Then steps out of the dress and drops it back in the box. Pulls her T-shirt over her head.

Then she steps right up to me, face to face, inches. Looking deeply into my eyes.

“How can I believe someone as smart as you could be so stupid?”

“Because you know me?” I say.

“You almost have me believing you,” she says. Then her eyes soften as she leans forward gives me a kiss. On the lips. Not like the sailor kiss, but it has the same effect. It lights up my travel-weary body like an injection. The urge to grab her and pull her close is overwhelming. But I remember Garrett’s advice.

She steps back. “The dress and the earnings…beautiful.”

She leans over and packs the dress and the earnings up, holds the box in her crossed arms. Backs towards the door.

“You need to get some rest,” she says. “And I need to do some thinking.”

“OK, great,” I say. Step over and open the door for her. Watch her walk onto the landing and turn back towards me. In the dark I can’t tell if her eyes are sparkling or full of tears.

“And just so you don’t have to bother Googling,” she says. “They’re five blocks apart.”

I watch her turn. Watch her step down the stoop and walk down to the street all the way to the van. Put the box on the passenger’s seat and then walk around the van, disappearing. Never once looking back up to the doorway where I’m still standing. The van pulls slowly away.

Five blocks? Five stinking blocks? Wondering if those five blocks just ruined my next five weeks or whether they might, just possibly, make the year to come.