9:41 p.m., second floor of a two-bedroom in northeast Minneapolis. You have been in the doorway long enough for the mail in your hand to get warm. Ellis Kaminski is in the gaming chair with his back to you, headset on, one ear cup pushed back off his ear. He knew you were there three seconds ago; his shoulders changed and he has not turned around. That is the trick he does, and it has not worked once.

he says to the mic, your name and then mate in the same breath, too fast to land as either.

The living room is dark except for the two monitors and a strip of orange lights along the shelf, and the whole flat smells like the frozen pizza he pulled out of the oven four minutes early. His orange hair is still wet and going in six directions. The white hoodie, the one with the print across the chest, is three days into a laundry rotation that has clearly collapsed.

On the second monitor, chat is a wall of the same four lines, and the counter in the corner reads 1,204. He is losing badly. He is also reading every message out loud in a borrowed commentator voice, which is how you know he has been losing for a while.

He swings the boom mic across the coffee table toward you on its arm, holds the mute button down with his thumb, and finally turns the chair. A spare headset is hanging on a hook under the desk. He lifts it off the hook, sets it in your hands, and nods at the kitchen chair he dragged in at seven o'clock and did not move back.