Li Ming hailed a taxi and pressed on a tablet to designate his destination and swiped his credit card. He was headed to Va**bond Inn, located about 20 minutes away from the staples center. It was the cheapest place that he could find given the amount of time he was given.

Upon reaching the Inn, the tablet emailed him a receipt. Li Ming was so shocked he almost puked blood all over the tablet. 16 miles trip had costed him well over 50 US Dollars! This wasn't a taxi service, this was Daylight Robbery! His budget had already dipped under 1100 dollars.

Li Ming staggered over to the check-in area of the Inn, praying that there would be no additional costs.

After getting his room key from the kiosk, he immediately headed over to his room and flopped onto his bed. The 8 hours of travel and the steep price of the taxi ride had tired him out physically and mentally. Now it was time for a quick nap.

'If I wake up in 4 hours, it'll be noon or something..." Li Ming mumbled as he dozed off.

---

Li Ming sat on the hotel bed, frustrated. He had forgotten to set an alarm to wake him up, and it was now about 1 in the morning. Although he was fully rested, he was now extremely hungry.

He got up off the bed and went to wash his face.

*bzzzzz bzzzzz*

His phone received an alert.

'Oh? Its from Counselor Watanabe.'

"Li Ming. Of course you won't be coming to school this coming week. Its Golden Week, remember? Are you alright? Do you need to talk? Call me if you do!"

Li Ming's face darkened. He felt conflicted inside. He felt angry, but also homesick.

'Of course I'm not alright! You basically called me a failure in my face... and now you're texting me and asking if I'm alright.'

After a moment of conflicted emotions, Li Ming decided to get food before doing anything else.

'Hmmm, whats open right now?'

Li Ming browsed his phone for a while, but with no results besides bars, clubs, or convenience stores.

'...'

As a teenager, he had never been to a bar or a club before. The only option left was to go to the convenience store for his first meal in over 24 hours.

Regretting his mistake of forgetting to set an alarm, Li Ming pulled on a change of clothes and walked out of his hotel to the nearest 24 hour convenience store near him, which happened to be across the road.

He entered the convenience store, hoping to find some edible food that were to his tastes. But to his disappointment, the convenience store he had entered was quite different from the ones he'd had experiences with in j.a.pan.

There were little to no Hot Foods on display and the cold foods area was filled with nothing but salads and desserts. There was quite a bit of coffee, and there were also no bento boxes. He had never been as regretful as he was at this moment. Not only had he flown over 5000 miles to reach this country in possibly the worst possible plane in the history of mankind, but he had also managed to force himself into a situation where he would starve on the first day that he was there.

'Hmm?'

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed something weird. It was similar to a small blob that was quickly sorting through the shelves, looking for something. Looking closer, he noticed that it was just a really short girl, except she was wearing an extremely baggy sweater as well as a some very short shorts. However, her face looked oddly familiar.

"Mato? Are you Mato from the Seoul Gladiators?" Li Ming called out. He immediately froze, not know what had gotten the best of him. How could it possibly be her? Now whoever it is would just look at him if he was a creep.

But despite his thoughts, the girl looked at him straight in the face and said, "Yup, that's me! Want an autograph?" while throwing out a thumbs up with her hands.

'...huh?'

Li Ming couldn't believe it.

However, the girls expression became despondent as Li Ming didn't give her an answer for a while.

"Its okay if you don't want to," she said as she cast an awkward smile, "I know we didn't make it to the finals this year."

"Oh no, that's not it!" Li Ming hurried to salvage the situation. "I was just surprised to see that it was you..."

'wait a minute...' He noticed something odd.

"You can speak j.a.panese?" He asked. Although he started out by calling out to her in English, after his initial shock, he had defaulted back to j.a.panese, and she had responded in it as well.

"Of course!" Mato was responded pridefully. "I've been an international level player for a while, of course I'd pick up a lot of the languages by now. So how about it? You want that autograph?"

"Umm... I'd love to, but the thing is, I don't have anything for you to sign." Li Ming felt embarra.s.sed. He had come all they way here to the heart of the main compet.i.tion in his favorite game, yet he had failed to bring any of the fan essentials to interact with the star players. "To be honest, I only came out here tonight because I wanted some food. I'd just arrived this morning, you see, but I pa.s.sed out before I could go to a restaurant"

"Oh is that so? Then why don't you come down to my team's hotel block?" She suggested, "I'm sure we've got a couple of light bites that you'll find quite delicious!"

"Huh?"