Chapter Text
“Shit! My plant’s going to die!”
Jimmy Bae sat on his overly-emo couch, sighing. “Hwangmo Ju, the plant is not going to fucking die.”
“You don’t know that.” Hwangmo looked more anxious than ever, which was quite the feat since the poor orange-haired boy always looked anxious.
“Hwangmo, listen to me,” Jimmy didn’t even bother to get up from the couch. “The plant is going to live. Didn’t you feed it beer or something on the first day you got it?”
“I was a first time plant parent!” Hwangmo protested.
Jimmy ignored him. “And look! It’s still green and happy as ever. Just leave it alone.”
After ten minutes of soaking in an obnoxiously orange, five-gallon Home Depot bucket, Bob the snake plant was once again looking happy as ever. Hwangmo sat criss-crossed on the hardwood floor across Bob’s now dripping form, staring at the plant as though his intense gaze would teach the plant some sense of self-preservation.
You might be wondering why Hwangmo Ju was sobbing over a potted plant and why Jimmy felt as though he aged three lifetimes in two hours. Well, the answer is simple: they were on the meticulous, dreaded search for the perfect debate partner.
If you are fortunate enough not to have experienced this horrendous task, Jimmy envies you. Hwangmo envies you. The entire partner-less (and searching) debate community envies you. This search, as Hwangmo so lovingly titled “TNEQFAGDP,” happens every year as debate students from around the country undergo a process quite like using the app "Tinder." The only difference is, instead of swiping left or right on various profiles featuring 6’2 men who drink cold beer and fish on weekends, you scroll on a strange profiling website and stalk other people’s debate stats before pestering them on Instagram.
“There are no good single men,” Hwangmo lamented, spamming keys mindlessly and watching the webpage go up and down sporadically due to the onslaught of keyboard commands.
“That’s gay as fuck,” Jimmy replied despite having similar luck.
Hwangmo let out a heavy sigh, deflating in his seat. “I don’t understand why you won’t just be my partner! Our speaking styles work okay with each other, but you don’t want to do Parli!” He sunk further into his chair, stretching his legs out. “Then, you can suffer through the Unbeatable Duo with me!”
“The Unbeatable Duo?” Jimmy questioned, incredulous. He wasn’t usually the type to get into college debate gossip, but this name sounded oddly familiar.
“Yeah, that’s what they call Jake Ji and Wolf Keum,” Hwangmo explained. “They went undefeated the entirety of last year.”
Wolf Keum. Jake Ji. “Yeah…I’ve heard of them.”
“They’re destructive bitches…WAIT I THINK BOB IS WILTING!” Thus began the sobbing and the sighing and the aging faster than a normal young adult. Jimmy called it the “Reverse Benjamin Button Syndrome.” He told Hwangmo as such, to which he replied, “See? This is why we need to be partners next year.”
Jimmy just made a face at Hwangmo.
In complete honesty, Jimmy had no intentions to compete in debate at all. After his partner was forcibly taken away from him by his debate coach, all his appetite for tournaments suddenly vanished.
“Just figure it out,” his coach had told him, leaving him with some novice named Jack Kang and a whole lot of resentment. Jack turned out to be a pretty chill guy, and Jimmy liked him a lot. But, they were a bad team, so Jack decided to go partner searching again and Jimmy was left to his own devices yet again.
The never-ending search for a good debate partner, TNESFAGDP for short, is basically the process of creating a two-person Olympic team. Each partner must balance the other in one way or another to make the greatest, gold-trophy-deserved, debate team in human history. One such unbeatable team is the “Ji/Keum” team, AKA Jake and Wolf. The two of them were brutal in rounds as a team. Jake did verbal gymnastics around each team, and Wolf verbally beat each of the opposing views into oblivion until the poor team was close to tears. Jimmy has seen the both of them in their natural habitat before, and they were as wild as the Amazon Rainforest. National Geographic really needed to start doing research and making documentaries on crazy-good debate teams because of how strangely poised yet animalistic they act right in the environment they are most comfortable: behind a wooden podium next to a shaking freshman novice scared out of their minds.
“Your point is lovely,” Jake chides during POI, “but…” He would then go on to obliterate the poor guy’s argument, friends, family, bloodline, ancestors, descendants, and future pets. Promptly, as if in some sort of secret gang collab with his partner, Wolf swoops in for the final kill in the next speech, leaving the poor, frightened novice team in tears. Another traumatized college freshman, another win for the unbeatable Jake-Wolf duo. Woohoo.
…
“Jimmy please!” Hwangmo pleaded. “Nobody wants to partner with me and you’re my only hope.”
“Like I said a million times, I’m not doing Parli again,” Jimmy huffed, copying another article URL into his Google document.
“You’re my only hope–”
“Sounds like a you problem.”
“It would be funny.”
That caught Jimmy’s attention. He closed his laptop and looked up at Hwangmo, who was smiling triumphantly. “How would it be funny?”
“Ever since Wolf and Jake have been crushing all these debates, Parli became Team Policy, which sucks,” Hwangmo explained.
“Right.”
“What I’m saying is,” Hwangmo sits up a bit straighter in his chair now. “They can win the debates, but we can make them slightly more interesting.”
Jimmy crossed his arms and looked at Hwangmo incredulously. “Like how?”
“Using our peak, God-tier humor, of course!”
“What God-tier humor?” Jimmy deadpanned.
“We’re funny.”
“No, we’re not.”
Hwangmo rolls his eyes. “Are you going to do it or not, man?”
Jimmy ponders the question for a moment. “It’s a dumb idea, but okay.”
Hwangmo blinked. “Okay?”
“Yeah, I’ll do it.”
“Cool cool cool, man,” Hwagmo smiles lazily in a way that reminds Jimmy of Wolf Keum. It’s slightly unnerving, but makes sense since Hwangmo and Wolf went to the same high school.
Turns out “cool cool cool man” meant that they really started RIGHT AWAY. The next day, Jimmy once again found himself in Hwangmo’s apartment, sitting on a couch with a desk in front of him like he was back in high school. Was their first debate tournament the next morning? Yep. Should they have impulsively signed up for the first tournament they saw? Nope, it was a terrible idea. Did they still do it? Absolutely.
The prepping started bright and early. It would have started the day before if neither Hwangmo nor Jimmy had the penchant to procrastinate important events until the last minute. Hwangmo also took it upon himself to teach Jimmy all about their plan. If you could even call it that.
“You get about thirty minutes to prep your entire two hour ish debate, and make it interesting,” Hwangmo said, smacking the whiteboard with her dry erase marker. “One thing that most teams fail at is the ‘interesting’ part. They’re so damn boring. We are here to revolutionize. We are here to make sure that the judges do not fall asleep. We are here to get as many knocks of agreement as possible within that short timespan that the whole room sounds like an Asian grandma’s cutting board on Lunar New Year. We are here to–”
“Wait,” Jimmy cut him off. “Can you…repeat that last one?”
“We are here to make sure that judges do not fall–”
“No, the one after that.”
“Asian grandmas?”
“Yeah,” Jimmy pointed at the air. “That. Why is that the thing you decided to allude to?”
“As if you can do any better,” Hwangmo protested. “It was all that I could think of at that moment.”
“Psh.”
“And,” Hwangmo added, “I’m doing it for you.”
Jimmy huffed. “Yeah, that was because I don’t have a fucking partner anymore.”
Hwangmo’s gaze softened sympathetically. Shit, Jimmy hated sympathy. Pity. All of it. “You’re still mad about it?”
Jimmy nodded, looking away. “It’s dumb. They make a better team.”
“Don’t say that,” Hwangmo cut him off. “You two made a great team.”
“Yeah, so great that we didn’t even make it to nationals our first year teaming but they 6-0’ed every tournament.”
Hwangmo placed a hand on Jimmy’s shoulder. “Jimmy, it was your first year. Nobody expected you to be legendary.”
“I should have been legendary,” Jimmy muttered.
“It doesn’t matter what you should’ve been. Let’s look into the present, right? We’re going to win these. Kick butt.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Oh God, they were going to lose. 0-6. First tournament. Reputations tarnished. Careers ruined.
…
“THE FREAKING PRINTER WON’T START!” Hwangmo hollered from the other side of the student lounge.
There they were, the new duo, Hwangmo and Jimmy, the first ones in the student lounge of the debate tournament area, one drinking coffee and the other trying to work the printer that they brought with them for last-minute printing jobs.
“That’s your own fault for printing out your speech two hours before our first round.” Jimmy deadpanned.
“FIX IT!” Hwangmo shoved the entire HP Color LaserJet Pro M477fnw MFP Refurbished into Jimmy’s arms. Jimmy smacked the printer and the printer began printing again.
Then, as though the Universe recognized that the two were in a state of distress, Wolf and Jake walked through the heavy double doors, promptly making Hwangmo’s distress levels heighten by 120%.
“Shit,” Jimmy muttered.
Jake, always the sweeter one, was the first one to approach them. “Hey, Jimmy, and, oh, who is this?”
“That’s Hwangmo,” Wolf filled in for Jimmy, staring straight at the orange-haired boy. “Why are you here?”
Jimmy looked uncomfortably between the two of them. He made rapid facial expressions that he hoped communicated ‘WHY THE FUCK DO YOU KNOW WOLF KEUM???!!’
Hwangmo just smiled nervously. “We’re debate partners this year. Me and Jimmy.”
Wolf just narrowed his grey eyes. “Alright.”
Jake came to the rescue. He clapped his hands together like a preschool teacher. “Well, it is so nice to see Jimmy debating again!” Wolf just kept staring at Hwangmo.
The duo eventually leaves, heading toward the coffee machine.
“We’re going to fucking die. Wolf is out to kill me already,” Jimmy hissed at Hwangmo. “You first, apparently, but me too. And how the fuck do you know Wolf?”
“We were friends in high school,” Hwangmo said as if that answered anything.
“THE FUCK YOU MEAN YOU WERE FRIENDS IN HIGH SCHOOL?!”
Their first round went pretty well, if not for the fact that Hwangmo took full advantage of Jimmy’s lacking ability to beat him up mid round. As the first speaker, Hwangmo headed to the podium with utmost confidence. He flipped his imaginary hair behind his shoulder, placing a flowpad in front of himself. “When I was twelve years old, I was introduced to the wondrous world of the internet.” And, they were off.
Are imports or exports more valuable? Who knows. But Jimmy knew that Hwangmo was intentionally bashing his lacking love life, and he couldn’t do anything about it.
“Jimmy, my lovely partner,” Hwangmo smiled evilly, “Has just as much ability to pick up girls as an army vet trying to pick up a banana after having both of his hands amputated.”
They spent the rest of the round arguing through their speeches, since Jimmy couldn’t whack Hwangmo (and Hwangmo knew that Jimmy couldn’t whack him). Within the debate, these small (big) jabs became prevalent within their mostly serious speeches. Here are just a few examples:
“We import more than we export because we have no products to export,” Jimmy said. “Much like how Hwangmo has no rizz to use on women and relies on insulting his partner instead.” Hwangmo gave him the middle finger under the table.
Should being married be harder than getting divorced?
“My partner Hwangmo is extremely knowledgeable about this topic, seeing as his front teeth are currently filing for divorce.”
“As of the status quo, getting divorced is significantly more difficult than getting married, bringing significant detriments, such as increased stress and conflict between the two parties. In fact, it’s almost as difficult to get divorced as it is for Jimmy to get a girlfriend.”
“Every seeing person has an early warning system called ‘eyes.’ Thus, keeping them open is essential for many tasks. Evidently, Hwangmo’s barber had their eyes closed when they were making his mullet.”
“Jimmy’s first girlfriend probably also forgot this crucial fact, especially seeing as she decided to date Jimmy.”
“Had Hwangmo followed through on his high school declaration to marry his first girlfriend, he would now likely find himself entangled in the arduous process of divorce. Unfortunately for his hypothetical spouse, current legislative frameworks render this process particularly onerous—both in terms of time and emotional labor. The prolonged timeline not only exacerbates psychological distress, but, in cases such as Hwangmo’s, imposes the added burden of extended proximity to an incompatible partner. Unfortunately, this is the reality for many unhappy couples, whose relationship didn’t work out. A study conducted in 2022…”
“As you can see,” Hwangmo said in his final speech, glaring at Jimmy. “My partner really dislikes me. Because we are in a debate round, and because we are debate partners, I cannot file for divorce.”
Jimmy wrote “go fuck yourself” on a post-it and slapped it on the podium. Hwangmo looked down, read the statement, and then crumpled the post-it note.
…
“Isn’t this fun?” Hwangmo asked after their fifth round of…Jimmy didn’t even want to call it ‘debate’ since the whole process was so scuffed.
“Sure,” Jimmy admits. “It was only fun because I got to insult you the whole time.”
“Gee thanks.”
“Hey guys!” A voice butts in. It’s Jake, sipping his third latte of the day. Which is concerning since Jake usually has a lot of energy already, so the caffeine would probably just make it worse. Wolf was close behind him, glaring daggers at Hwangmo, who just waved nervously and smiled.
“Hey,” Jimmy said.
“How are rounds going for you guys?”
“They’re going fine,” Jimmy felt his irritation rising. “Thank you very much.”
Neither party spoke for a few seconds, before Hwangmo elbowed Jimmy in the ribs and gave him The Look. “What about yours?” Jimmy spat out eventually, glaring at Hwangmo. “Being undefeated as always?” he added.
“Now I wouldn’t say that,” Jake replied, ending the conversation.
When the duo finally left, Hwangmo whispered to Jimmy, “You’ve really got a problem with Jake?”
“Hm?” Jimmy said. “No. No problems.” Then he turned to glare at Jake’s back.
“Sure,” Hwangmo pretends to believe him, and then changes the subject. “One more round…?”
…
“I believe this round would have more debating potential if it were ‘Resolved: Table debating should be banned,’ but we can’t have all the things we want in life.” Beginning bright and early, thus was the birthing of another wondrous debate round. And what better way to start the day than a poorly phrased and oddly specific speech given by Jimmy?
Nothing. The answer is nothing.
The ending ceremony concluded the tournament, and all teams received their ballots. Jimmy couldn’t help but feel just a little smug when he saw that they had won five rounds. Of the six. Last year, Jimmy peaked at 4-2.
“Hilarious,” one judge wrote in Hwangmo’s notes, along with, “Your poor partner.”
Jimmy pumped his arm in celebration. “Fuck yes! Take that, green fool–”
“Hey guys!” Jake, stealthy as ever, popped out from behind the two of them and scared the living daylights out of Jimmy. “What did you guys get?”
“We got 5-1,” Jimmy suddenly felt defensive about his score, arms crossing in front of his chest.
He watched the corners of Jake’s mouth twitch. “Same, we got 5-1’ed. What a coincidence.”
Once Jake left, Hwangmo turned towards Jimmy, twisting his fingers together. “Is he the green fool?”
“No.”
“Alright.”