LOS ANGELES -- They needed a leader, so Son Min-seok grabbed the spicy noodles and started mixing.

Sitting at a cramped, circular table between two South Koreans who spoke little English and three Westerners who spoke even less Korean, he battled the heat of the Korean BBQ grill and patiently answered questions -- in two different languages -- about the cuisine.

“It’s not Korean original samyang,” he says after sniffing the pepper paste placed on the table, to general nods of agreement from those who have spent time in Korea.

MORE COVERAGE: The Dallas Morning News announces first foray into esports coverage, focused on the Overwatch League's Dallas Fuel

The bulgogi is good, but the marinated short ribs are “too sweet,” Son authoritatively says.

The Sunday-night meal in K-Town is the unofficial start to a two-week break at the end of June, one that Son hopes will help him refocus. It’s a break he has needed for some time. His employer and teammates need him to make the most of it.

Son, better known as “OGE,” is the 19-year-old main tank of the Dallas Fuel, a wildly popular Overwatch League team backed by the powerhouse Envy Gaming brand.

As a teenager who has been in the United States for barely a year, he's playing in a leadership position for one of the most popular Overwatch teams on the planet, communicating to teammates from seven different countries while scrutinized by fans from even more.

He claims he isn’t a leader, despite his authority at the table. But he knows he needs to try to be one.

Son is thousands of miles from home, where he is a polarizing figure. He’s still coming to grips with his hero’s sendoff in Dallas earlier this year.

He was the Fuel’s lone All-Star representative a few months ago, and at times is recognized as one of the best main tanks in the world.

Oh, and he was also benched -- for lack of a better term -- during the Fuel’s worst stretch of matches this season, a fortnight before the end of Stage 3.

No one wants to sit on the bench, Fuel head coach Aaron “Aero” Atkins explained, but it was welcomed by Son.

“Benched comes across as a negative, like he wasn’t good enough... I think he understood the reasons why. And he was OK with it,” Atkins said at the conclusion of Stage 3. “I wouldn’t say he was unhappy or happy.

“It was just kind of a mutual understanding of the reasons why.”

The seeds of a leader are there.

A Rollercoaster ride

OGE, sitting in Los Angeles' Koreatown, laugs while friend Jeon Kyoung-Min, right, looks on. (Special to The Dallas Morning News / Patrick T. Fallon)

Son wants to take Jeon Kyoung-min and Kang Dong-han to Six Flags. But it’s only hours after their flight across the Pacific, so Son is talked out of visiting Magic Mountain (for now).

They settled on dinner at Kang Ho Dong Baekjeong, later spending time wandering around K-Town.

The three teenagers have a couple of weeks to enjoy themselves in Southern California while Son is on a break from daily Fuel practices. No need to rush to the amusement park. Jeon and Kang will be here for about a month.

His high school friends are a welcome taste of home, though there are some back in Korea who still see him as a gaming pariah.

Don't get the wrong idea -- his hometown Fuel fans loves him. There's video evidence of that.

But try to find a current player who had a rougher start to his OWL career.

“OGE has been on a rollercoaster where his home hates him but the U.S. embraces him,” Atkins said. “It was a really weird dynamic when he first came over here.”

Son was tasked with replacing Felix “xQc” Lengyel -- arguably the most popular player in the league at the time, who had a mutual parting with the Fuel after two suspensions.

OGE waits to have dinner with friends Kang Dong-Han and Jeon Kyoung-Min in Los Angeles' Koreatown neighborhood on Sunday, June 30, 2019. (Special to The Dallas Morning News / Patrick T. Fallon)

A tough act to follow.

As soon as Son joined the Fuel, he was hit with a four-match suspension. Son was guilty of boosting in Korea, where he accepted payment for playing a different player’s account.

Another gut punch.

Son said he was paid the equivalent of about $200 while playing in the lower rungs of Korean esports, but even that relatively small amount of money -- top OWL players will comfortably make six figures -- is criminal in Korea.

“It’s treated the same way as if you were paid to throw a game,” Atkins explained. “You are changing the outcome of a game because you are playing on an account that you shouldn't be playing on.”

“If you do that, you’re literally the worst person in the world,” added Mat Taylor, Fuel general manager.

Son said he needed money and didn’t want to keep asking his parents for cash to fuel his budding gaming career, which was still in its beginning stages. It all happened when he was just a student, he said.

Son accepted his punishment. He speaks about his mistakes candidly.

“I used to get a lot of hate,” Son told OWL earlier this season. “Just because my mistake of account boosting happened in the past doesn’t mean I can disregard what happened and that I should just focus on the future. I need to take responsibility for what I did and stay humble.”

More signs of a leader emerged.

He overcame the start and won over fans, even though the team won just a single match in the inaugural season (The Fuel finished 10th out of 12 teams).

His English continued to improve and he became one of the most popular players on a team that already had more established stars

As the Fuel improved in the start of season two, so did Son. The Fuel posted winning records in each of the first two stages, qualifying for the Stage 2 playoffs and electrifying the home crowd at the Dallas homestand in the Allen Event Center.

In front of a capacity crowd, he cried when there were chants of “OGE, OGE.” He was finally appreciated.

“It was a (warm feeling), just warming,” he said after Stage 3. “I never expected someone to cheer for me or someone chanting for me. You know? I don’t know, it was just amazing.”

Staying motivated

OGE takes a nap at the Dallas Fuel team facility in the Los Angeles area while general manager Mat Taylor sits at his computer. (Special to The Dallas Morning News / Patrick T. Fallon)

Between Stages 2 and 3, Son was named an All-Star for the second straight season. He continued to rise. He wants to be the very best. There’s not much that stops him, assistant coach Justin “Jayne” Conroy said.

One thing that does stop Son, though, is himself. During the team’s poor stretch of form, OGE wanted to find out what was wrong with the team.

He wanted another main tank on the roster. He wanted help. His coaches agreed, and Son stepped away from the starting lineup. It also gave Atkins more flexibility to tinker with the roster.

“Maybe I can see the problem if I’m watching the screen,” Son said.

Son’s coaches recognize his ability. He can be among the best tanks in the world when he’s on.

“He has his ups and downs,” assistant coach Louis Webel-Wong said. “Being so young he’s got so much talent just within himself that it seems like sometimes he takes that for granted, so it can be up and down just day to day, so our struggle is just keeping him motivated.”

When he’s not on, he gets frustrated.

“He does kind of get down on himself sometimes when things go wrong outside of his control,” Conroy said. “He knows that if he could do everything himself, he could probably do it. But he’s one man.”

When he was relegated to the bench, the Fuel promoted Ash “Trill” Powell, a rising Contenders player from the Fuel’s academy team.

Son has started to recognize that he can’t control everything. He's found he also has value to his team when he isn’t playing.

“We will watch each other,” said Powell, who played as main tank in the final three matches of Stage 3, “or he will sit behind me or that sort of thing and he would give me tips and tell me something he disagrees with or something he thought I did good or something I could do differently. He would just let me know.”

OGE runs through the crowd as he was introduced for the Overwatch League match between the Dallas Fuel and the Houston Outlaws in Allen, Texas on Sunday, April 28, 2019. (Brian Elledge / Staff Photographer)

Son and Powell started off Stage 4 sharing time. The latest meta plays into Powell's strength on Orisa, while Son is noted for his Winston and, when needed, Reinhardt ability.

Fuel veteran Johnathan “HarryHook” Tejedor Rua knows Son wants to be a featured player. He even thinks he could be a leader for the Fuel, despite his young age.

“If you have the energy to do it all the time, he could be a very good leader,” he said, “but he has to grow as a player and as a person still because he’s young.

“It will take time for him to do that role.”

Time is one thing Son has as a young player, though he eventually will need to return to Korea for his mandatory military service. For Son, it’s still several years away. He has time to perfect his game.

And he has time to show that those signs of leadership can carry the Fuel into 2020 and beyond.

He came back for Stage 4 motivated, Atkins said, and the tank continues to embrace the addition of Powell. It's allowed the main tanks to split time and focus more directly. The platoon is already helping Son, Atkins observed.

Son now won't only lead from the front lines of a match -- the Fuel don't need him constantly worrying about his own internal pressure. But whether or not Son recognizes his own leadership qualities rests on his own shoulders.

But he is starting to come around.

“I can say I should be a leader but sometimes for me it’s kind of hard,” Son said during his late-June K-Town visit. “I’m just still learning.”

On Twitter: @TommyMagelssen

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