I met Mark for the first time at an orientation party, two weeks before the classes for my second year in college started. I was not the person for parties but our sunbae, Yoon Bora, had threatened to make my life miserable if I did not attend. Of course, Bora was not the mean sunbae that everyone feared, and she was never a bully (at least not to the female students) but I could never say no to her. If it was me, I would have stayed home and played League of Legends or tried my new Playstation console if it was any good with Black Ops.

"Eunhye-ya," I heard a female voice say as I entered the restobar that we reserved for the whole night. I recognized Kim Hyorin, who was two years my senior. "I didn't think you'd really come."

"And have Bora-eonni talk about it until she graduated? No way."

Hyorin laughed in that husky voice that even as a girl, I found y. She gestured to the whole place. "Just sit anywhere."

"Thanks, Eonni," I muttered before searching the place for my friends. Spying my female classmates Lee Moonbyul and Park Lizzy, I approached them. "Where's Amber?" I asked, seeing she was missing. There were only four girls in our class and we just had to stick together.

"Still not back from the States," Moonbyul answered.

"Hey ladies," Lee Jaehwan, whom we all call Ken (because he looked good dressed up as a Barbie), joined us and sat next to Lizzy. "How's it going? Oh? Eunhye-ah. I didn't know you'd be here."

I rolled my eyes. They did not have to really point out my lack of social life so early in the night. "Tell me about it. You guys should prove to me this is way better than winning four rounds of League of Legends."

Finally we would no longer be the Freshmen. There would be younger students who would call us "Sunbae". I actually came there, hoping to meet some who would like to join the society club I had been planning to found. On my early days in college, given that our school prided in its engineering department, I was very disappointed that there was no society club for those who played video games. Now that I was old enough (and after recruiting a few of my upperclassmen, too), I planned on founding a club that would solely be for Gaming. E-sports should also be considered a sport just like basketball, right?

"I know what you're here for," Ken told me, getting up and sitting beside me instead. "And I know just the right person to introduce to you."

As if on queue, Ken stood up yet again to wave at the three guys who came in. I had never seen them before and guessed these were the new students. The tallest one among them found Ken and smiled from ear to ear, hurrying towards us to greet him. I could only shake my head at my friend who was acting as a sunbae now that we were second years.

"Sunbae!" Tall-and-all-smiles greeted Ken and returned the embrace the older one offered.

"Good to see you, Bin-ah," Ken said. With arms around the newcomer, he gestured to me. "This is Eunhye. She's the prodigy of the Gamers club."

All three faces turned into o's at the introduction and they all bowed. Mr. Smiles bowed twice.

"I'm Lee Hongbin," he said.

"Lee Minhyuk."

"My name is Yoo Kihyun."

"There's really a gamers club?" Hongbin asked Ken, sitting down.

"It's not really official yet," I said. Even though I was usually bad at social gatherings, talking about video games with like-minded people was easy. "We're hoping to get more students to join so the school will acknowledge it. Apparently, they don't consider it 'development-based' enough."

"That's what happens when a bunch of old people run the school." We were joined by another person, who sat right across from me. His face was too familiar I was almost sick of it. Woo Zico's father was one of the Board members of the school, so he threw those comments around all the time. "They don't see the passion."

In only a few minutes, the place was packed with college students, all in the Computer Science Department. Now that everyone was gathered, it seemed that the department was not that small, after all. Soon more upperclassmen came and we were back to being the younger students.

When it was time for the first years to introduce themselves, I finally noticed Mark. The whole time he had been there, he was not talking to anyone, until my classmate, Jaehyung (Jae for short), whom he seemed to know, sat down beside him. He introduced himself in English. I noticed the looks from the others when he started talking, and suddenly felt bad for him. They seemed a bit prejudiced, although most of them tried to hide it, but I would be lying if I had not thought about the word 'racism' when I saw the eyes of some sunbaes turn away as Mark kept on talking.

Having grown up in Itaewon, I was used to foreigners. which was another reason why I felt bad about the treatment that Mark was getting and classes had not even started yet. Thankfully, Jae was there to caution it, being the life of the party despite having grown up in the US as well.

I also took note of Mark because he said his hobbies included playing video games all day. If we got enough freshmen to join the Gamers club, maybe the school would actually let us sign up as an official society club and receive the allocated budget. If not, then I would just create a Gamer's Guild, which also meant I could invite other friends from high school who went to different colleges now.

Halfway through the night, with approximately seven bottles of beer in my system, I found myself sitting next to him. By that time, I was downright asking people to join me in trying to make others see that playing video games were not just a hobby, but a passion.