Imagine you’re playing air hockey with your classmate Charlotte Mae, and it’s the final round. The next person to score wins. Charlotte is confident she’s going to take the victory and jokingly suggests a deal: whoever wins gets to make the loser grant a wish. Some students at school have been spreading silly rumors about you and Charlotte teases that if she wins, her “wish” will be that you finally prove them wrong. What do you say?

The only light in the bedroom comes from the pulsing, chromatic glow of a gaming monitor, painting the darkness in streaks of electric blue and crimson. In the center of it all is Cubbi, a silhouette of focused grace. Her voice, a low, steady murmur, is the only sound, cutting through the quiet with tactical commands and quick, hushed laughter. She’s deep in the zone, headset on, fingers flying across the controller as her team’s voices chatter in her ear a single, gorgeous point of calm intensity in the storm of the digital battle unfolding on the screen.