If it wasn't for the alarm built into the cellphone, Jihyo Park would've had no idea what time it was, or even how much time had passed. Another year of college had come to a close, and being in the mathematics department her final few weeks were spent with books ope, mind memorizing complex formulas and numbers, pencil writing out lengthy equations and solving them while on a timer. If she could finish the problems before the timer went off, she was ready for exams. Numbers didn't exactly come naturally to Jihyo, she wasn't that much of a stereotype - just because she was Asian, Korean at that, it seemed that her classmates expected her to be the top of the class. She wasn't, and she silently hated anyone who made such an assumption. Regardless, the past few days, exam days, had come and gone with Jihyo feeling confident that she had passed, just one more year of trigonometry and calculus and math that she was pretty sure only existed inside a college campus. 

To celebrate a successful year, Jihyo had returned to her small apartment located just close enough to Rosenbush College to be considered 'on campus housing', it only took one year of rooming in the dorms for Jihyo to realize that she didn't want to do that again. Setting her backpack down in the corner - it'd be used after summer but until then she didn't want to so much as look at the thing, Jihyo sat on her couch and picked up the [url=http://gouki.com/Images/eaf72eb7-54a6-479b-82f3-f675fa39b391.gif]fight stick[/url] with its [url=http://fast1.onesite.com/capcom-unity.com/user/the_d3v/stick_templates/large/87a26d7de25194ca39763fd2ceff36cb.png]custom artwork[/url] and turned on the Playstation to work out her mathematical exam rage on some random strangers online. 

It was her love of fighting games, and to a lesser extent games as a whole, that brought her to E3 that one year. She had to make a choice, only having enough money for one gaming related trip. E3, or EVO, the premier fighting game event in the country where she'd get to test her abilities against the top players. She went with E3, not because of a lack of confidence in her skill, but because the plane fare was less and gave her more spending money. It turned out well in the end, it was there that she met some friends who, coincidentally enough, attended the same college. The reason she fell in with them, despite their...idiosyncrasies, is because one of them could tell she was cosplaying as Chun Li in her Alpha outfit instead of the traditional outfit that most associate with her. People that could make that distinction were the kind of people she wanted to spend E3 with. They even won a contest, no doubt helped by Jihyo's demonstration of her version of Chun Li's [url=http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20080822015735/streetfighter/images/e/e0/Chun-Li_Kick.gif]kicks[/url]. All those years of martial arts training finally paid off, and they paid off by Jihyo fake kicking a crowd of people while cameras took pictures. 

They had remained friends after their initial meeting, but Jihyo rarely made an appearance outside of her apartment, her studies were important - moreso to her parents than her, and since she had a tendency to lose track of time when playing, her time with her 'hobby' was limited. But she didn't have to worry about studies for months now, and it was time to make up for lost time. And just as soon as she was about to have her tenth match that afternoon, her phone went off. Taking it out of her pocket, she noticed it was for a scheduled event, just labeled 'Dyl's Jar'. It was a joke. Jihyo called Dylan 'Dyl' and couldn't help but associate that with pickles. 

"Shit, was that today?" Jihyo had remembered being invited to the Jar but had completely forgotten that it was happening so soon after the end of the semester. "Whatever, I'll be late." 

Another twenty matches later, Jihyo was outside and walking towards Dylan's place, her fight stick in a bag in her left hand, along with the copies of fighting games that she was clearly better at than her friends; if she was feeling generous she might even let them win a few. She didn't bother knocking on Dylan's door upon arriving, for one thing it was open. Jihyo stepped into the apartment, and her otherwise neutral expression turned sour, not from the presence of familiar people, but because of the annoying noise coming from the single-seat which, if Jihyo had remembered past visits to the Jar, was off limits. 

"Turn that shit off or you're going to get punched. Hard. Not even joking about this, Tyler, turn it the fuck off. I just got here and it's going to give me a fucking headache." Jihyo shot a glare in Tyler's direction before greeting the others who had arrived with small nods. "Surprised you guys showed up. Don't know why, none of you assholes are gonna beat me. Especially not when you're gonna be drinking all this shit," she tilted her head towards the various carbonated and alcoholic beverages, "Dyl, you better have some water, and not from the fucking tap, I mean actual bottles of natural spring water and shit with minerals. Oh, Alexis, what's up. Thought I'd be the only one with both X chromosomes here." 

Jihyo took a seat, placing her bag in front of her. "I'm fucking serious, Tyler, turn that off." 

And so Jihyo had arrived.