“Stop wasting time everyday on video games!”, the shrill voice of Faker’s mother came to mind. As Faker lounges lazily in his chair at the cheapest local internet cafe by his school. Ever since the passing away of his hard working, over the top mother, Faker had become increasingly immersed with the daily lifestyle of school, internet cafe, home, sleep, rinse and repeat. Although he understood what a terrible son he was for not listening to the only thing his mother had always told him not to do, he continued. He gamed away his pain, his regret, his time. After all, nothing interested Faker, life was meaningless and he felt destined to become a failure. How could someone who already wasted his time up until now still have a future for himself?

That cold winter day, the day before winter break, Faker was just dismissed from school and lifelessly dragged his cold, sluggish body towards the usual corner seat in the internet cafe. Automatically like a robot, Faker started a match in the usual game, the single game he spent almost his entire life on. At this point, everything had been as per usual for Faker, the usual monotonous day at school and easily won matches. All of this would’ve been true until after a crushing victory, Faker had exited the game into the lobby to see a peculiar message. “Hey, you’ve got talent. Are you interested in joining our team, SK Telecom?”. The game Faker had just played was no ordinary game of League of Legends. It was a game of Challenger tier, the highest ranking players in the entire game. Only 200 players may have the title of Challenger at a single point in time and yet, Faker had easily triumphed.

A curious Faker with nothing better to do, replied jokingly, “Oh yeah, how much is the pay if I join your SK Telecom? It’d better not be any less than 100 dollars a day.”. Of course, Faker was not really expecting to paid nearly as high as he’d asked, after all League of Legends was just a game. This should’ve been so until Faker looked at the reply, “You’ll be getting way more than that if you join our team and win consistently. 100 dollars? You’ll be earning thousands, tens of thousands, or even hundred of thousands if you’re good. You are invited to our gaming house, free food and housing will be provided.” Faker, after reading this shocking text could not believe himself. How could he possibly let such an opportunity up? Thus, he travelled to the given location hurriedly the next day.

“Welcome, Faker, to the SK Telecom Gaming House.” greeted a man approximately a few years older than Faker. He was surrounded by people who looked relatively young, varying between 18-25 years old. “This will be where you live starting from today on, and these people here are your teammates.” the man said as he introduced the other three people in the room and finally himself, “I am this team’s captain, and also the person you had thoroughly destroyed in a match last night, I hope to see you display your skills from last night in the upcoming tournaments”. Faker immediately understood what he had gotten himself into, this was not a permanent thing. He would most likely be kicked out of the team and gaming house the moment he showed that his skill was not enough for the team. Faker surprisingly out of character, decisively swallowed his fears and accepted his position in the team, slowly getting used to the life of becoming a professional gamer.

By the end of the winter break, Faker had become relatively used to the ins and outs of the team and knew most of the strategies they used. The winter cup was coming up, it was the first major tournament since his joining the team. Faker knew that this was his proving grounds, where it would be decided what his future would be. If he let go of this chance, he may never be able to get it back again and return to his former dull life. The life he was destined to face from wasting his time on video games. As the days quickly passed, Faker became more and more anxious, until at the blink of an eye, the fateful day came.

Faker and his team slowly took up their team uniform and walked to their first game. Their enemies wasn’t the best team yet, were no pushovers either. If they lost here, they can just pack it up and go home in shame. Faker and his team played extremely well, however, the only difference from usual was Faker’s playstyle. Usually a huge offensive player that took huge risks, Faker was unusually passive this game, playing extremely careful and not going in for the high risk high reward play he was known for. As such, the team was unable to get a huge lead like they always did in their practice games. This would only continue to prolong the game until it came to the point where one mistake in the game could decide the winner and loser of the game. Tension was high, both teams could not afford to make a single careless mistake. It was at this moment that the captain of the team, could not take the intensity any longer and made a risky move that was usually Faker’s role. However, this play had been the tipping of the iceberg not of SK Telecom’s favor, but the enemies. As the team dived in to follow up on the captain’s reckless charge, death was imminent and eventually only the passive Faker was alive. It was a 3 versus 1, Faker could only cowardly retreat. If he died now, the game was over, however, if he couldn’t defend, the game would still be over. Time ticked as Faker stressed himself over the best choices.

*boom*, two turrets left. *crash*, one turret left. *bam*, zero turrets left. This was it, his base was laid bare. Faker at this moment, was overcome with a flashback of his past, “Why are you wasting time on video games every day?”, “STOP WASTING YOUR LIFE ON GAMES!”, his mother’s voice flowed all around his head. At this moment, Faker felt something bubbling inside him. An emotion he’d always felt when confronting his mother, in contrast to his regular passive attitude with his mom, this was a feeling of resistance. All at once, the feeling shooted up, exploding within himself. “THIS IS NOT A WASTE OF TIME!!!” Faker mightily roared, has his character turned around from his three pursuers and leaped right back at them. The enemies, surprised by this sudden change in playstyle and turnaround, was unable to react in time. Faker easily destroyed one enemy with his entire combo and immediately, worked on the next. Giving no time for the enemies to get into position, Faker disarmed his enemies gave them swift, powerful finishing blows.

“Hurraaaah!!” screams of joy poured over Faker. His team was surrounding him and praising his astonishing play at the end. Although this was only the first match of all the games to come that day, Faker felt an unexplainable joy. This was an excitement he hadn’t ever felt in his life. Mom, so what if I wasted my time on video games? This was the greatest waste of time there is that life had to offer him.