Later that morning, back in the common room of Smith Hall, the boys had gathered around the ancient tube television that buzzed faintly in the corner. Tyrel stood proudly with the remote like it was a sword of destiny and flipped through channels until he nded on a sports highlight reel.

  The screen exploded into action - hulking men in tight uniforms crashing into each other like angry rhinos, a marching band bring in the background, and slow-mo repys of a helmeted pyer diving dramatically into the end zone.

  “Yo,” Tyrel said, pointing at the screen like Moses revealing the Ten Commandments. “Y’all know football?”

  “You mean… this football?” Bharath asked, gesturing vaguely toward Bobby Dodd Stadium, which loomed across the street like a Roman colosseum made of concrete and bad acoustics.

  “Yeah,” Tyrel said, grinning. “Not that soccer ballet y’all py back home. This is real football.”

  Ravi squinted at the screen, confused. “Wait… I thought this was rugby.”

  “This is football,” Tyrel decred, spreading his arms like a preacher. “The real kind. Pads. Helmets. Passion. Pain.”

  “What’s with the gear?” Jorge asked, watching a slow-motion repy of a guy getting fttened like a pi?ata. “They look like crash test dummies.”

  Tyrel chuckled. “That’s the point, man. This is strategy and violence with cheerleaders and marching bands. It’s war with school colors.”

  “Is it… popur?” Bharath asked, genuinely confused.

  Tyrel blinked. “Is it popur?”

  The room went silent for a beat. Tyrel looked at Bharath like he’d just asked if water was optional.

  “This is America, dawg,” Tyrel said solemnly. “On Saturdays? Football is religion. Down here in the South? It’s the gospel, communion, and rapture all rolled into one.”

  “Georgia Tech has a team?” Ravi asked.

  “Hell yeah we do,” Tyrel said proudly, puffing up. “We ain’t Abama or Florida State, but we hold our own. This year’s gonna be fire. Joe Hamilton is our quarterback. That man’s fast, smart, throws like a damn rocket. If anyone can take us back to glory, it’s him.”

  “Glory?” Jorge said skeptically. “You mean winning?”

  “Beating UGA,” Tyrel said, with the weight of centuries in his voice.

  “UGA?” Bharath asked.

  “University of Georgia,” Tyrel said with a sneer. “Athens. Our mortal enemies. The Bulldogs. We hate them. They hate us. If you don’t feel deep irrational hatred toward anything red and slobbery by the end of the semester, you’re doing it wrong.”

  Ravi leaned over to Bharath and whispered, “I thought this school was all algorithms and robot competitions.”

  Tyrel heard him. “It is. Monday to Friday, it’s all bs and lectures and nerddom. But come Saturday? We’re warriors in gold and white.”

  “Do students actually go to the games?” Jorge asked.

  Tyrel ughed. “Are you kidding? Everyone’s there. Frats, nerds, alumni, babies in bee costumes - hell, even the band kids walk around like they own the pce.”

  Bharath tilted his head. “And what exactly do we do?”

  “Yell,” Tyrel said immediately.

  “That’s it?”

  “Oh no, my sweet FOB prince,” Tyrel said, cpping a hand on Bharath’s shoulder. “You scream. You chant. You wave terrible towels. You learn songs you never knew existed. You lose your voice, your dignity, and possibly your shoes by halftime.”

  “And this is fun?” Ravi asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “This is college,” Tyrel said, like it expined everything.

  Ravi folded his arms. “Still looks like armored rugby to me.”

  “You’ll learn,” Tyrel promised. “Come game day, I’ll take y’all. We’ll tailgate. I’ll get you barbecue. Teach you how to boo properly.”

  “You’re going to teach us… how to scream and eat?” Bharath asked.

  “Exactly. It’s an art form.”

  “Are there rules?” Jorge asked.

  “Yes,” Tyrel said seriously. “Rule one: always boo the refs. Rule two: if the other team fumbles, you scream ‘FUMBLEEEE!’ as if your life depends on it. Rule three: you’re not allowed to say ‘football is confusing’ out loud once you’re inside the stadium. They’ll hear you. They’ll sense it.”

  “Who will?” Bharath asked.

  “The alumni. They’re everywhere.”

  There was a beat of silence as another pyer on-screen got unched into the turf.

  “Is that guy okay?” Jorge asked.

  “No,” Tyrel said proudly. “But he got the first down.”

  Ravi sighed. “This is insane.”

  Tyrel grinned. “This is the USA. USA. USA. USA”

  Then louder, “Shout it with me boys! USA! USA! USA!”

  Suddenly as though there were some magical harmony in the dorm, shouts of “USA” heralded from every corner of the building. It appeared as if some mystical voice that existed in the very walls of Smith came to life with that war cry.

  “Patriotic, aren’t they”, whispered Ravi to a confused Jorge and Bharath.

  Later as the morning sunlight filled the Smith Hall common room, and the screen bred with crowd noise and helmets crashing, the three international students stared at the screen - part horrified, part fascinated.

  They didn’t understand it yet. But somehow, Tyrel knew they’d be screaming by midseason. He would make it his mission to convert these football ignoramuses into raging Ramblin Reck fans.

  The rest of the day unfolded like a fast-forward button pressed on a brand-new life.

  After their first meal of protein-and-Tabasco salvation, the boys gathered in the Smith Hall lounge with a flurry of printouts, course guides, and fluorescent highlighters.

  Ravi spread his schedule out like a map of the known universe. “Okay, so CS 1331 is MWF at 10 a.m. Recitation on Thursdays. That one’s locked in.”

  Jorge highlighted his econ elective. “I somehow nded in Microeconomics at 8 a.m. on Mondays. Pray for me.”

  Bharath circled Discrete Math with a thick red line. “This one has a waitlist. Should I panic?”

  Tyrel walked in wearing sungsses and a grin. “If you ain’t got your books yet, that’s what you should be panicking about.”

  The Georgia Tech bookstore was a zoo.

  Students crammed into every aisle, bancing piles of textbooks with names like Data Structures in Java, Discrete Math with Applications, and Modern Physics: Concepts and Connections. The air smelled of new paper, coffee breath, and panic.

  Tyrel led the charge. “Listen. Rule one of college economics - don’t buy new books.”

  “But they look so - ” Bharath started, reaching for a shiny hardback.

  “Put that down unless you want to spend your tuition on page gloss,” Tyrel snapped, batting his hand away.

  “Used books are in the back,” Jorge transted.

  They maneuvered through the byrinth of shelves and finally found the smaller, less gmorous section: bent covers, scribbled margins, the occasional highlighted mess.

  Perfect.

  Jorge grabbed a Java textbook with only mild water damage.

  Ravi found one with a doodle of Batman swinging across the recursion tree diagram.

  Bharath unearthed Discrete Math with all the answers faintly penciled in. He hesitated - then hugged it like treasure.

  Tyrel gave him a thumbs up. “Now that’s a win.”

  But first they needed money - they were yet to open a bank account. Hiding their treasures in a corner where they wouldn’t be discovered, the four of them entered the SunTrust Bank branch at the Student Center like explorers entering a temple of adulthood. The office smelled of leather, paperwork, and air conditioning. The carpets were too clean. The pens were on chains. The counters were too high.

  Bharath had never opened a bank account on his own before.

  Back home, everything was joint, ritualized, overseen by a parent or uncle with godlike authority. Here, it was just him, a passport, an I-20, and a hesitant signature.

  The teller, a kind woman named Susan, guided him gently through the process.

  “You’re international?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Bharath said proudly. “India.”

  “Well, welcome to Georgia, sugar.”

  She smiled and handed him a small envelope.

  Inside: a temporary debit card, his first bank statement, and a blue-checkbook with his name printed at the top.

  He stared at it like it was an award. It looked so official. So permanent.

  He didn’t even care that he didn’t know how to write a check yet.