The King's Return

"Here are your court release papers."

A small file was thrown on a small table that was made out of glass, between the two men sitting in the hotel room.

It was a file with a yellow cover, and had five papers with the mark of the local court of this area.

"Is it all done?" the younger man asked, without showing any intention of taking up the file or examining its content.

"It's all good," the older man said, moving his fingers through his white and short beard, "you can now start playing from today if you wanted."

"As if such a thing can stop me," the younger man leant back to his seat, placing one leg over another, "is the other matter done?"

"Here," the older man adjusted his medical glasses, took an envelope from his black suit's inner pocket and handed it over to the younger person. "Are you sure about it? You know you can play here if you want."

"It won't do me any good by staying here," the younger man took the envelope and checked its contents. It contained his passport, his visa, US ID card, and a few other papers about a famous university.

"You should reconsider this, Hao," the older man said in an honest tone. His eyes showed how much he cared for the young person sitting in front of him.

Hao was a famous Esport player, who was known as the prince of death in the gaming community. He was someone who was famous for his fierce style of play, relentless, and very hard to control when properly fed.

"They made sure I won't find a good place here," Hao shrugged, as if it was something simple "and it's fine for me. My aim is to go to the US and find her."

Just mentioning her made Hao's face change for a brief second. "Have you found any way to contact her?" he asked, with much hope and anticipation.

But the old man sighed in a tired way. "You know… That old man of hers is really something."

"I…" Hao clenched his fists unconsciously.

"Part of it still fell over your shoulders…" the old man gave a stern look over Hao, "Even if this time was fake, your history with girls still left a dark stain over your soul…"

"Stop it already," Hao was annoyed from bringing up such a topic again.

The old man could only sigh. He looked at the younger man who was the son of an old and dear friend of his.

Hao didn't come from a wealthy family, and didn't have it nice during his early days. He lost his family in an unfortunate car accident, living this world all alone since he was eight.

Living alone wasn't that new to him. So he dealt with his current weird situation with such simplicity thanks to that.

Only by playing games would he feel freed from his loneliness. There he had created his own legend, placing himself on top of most of the talented pro players of a game called Apex.

"You should listen to me and give up on her," the old man knew saying this wouldn't matter. After all, he tried many times before to dissuade Hao from chasing that girl. And he always scored a perfect mark at failing.

"It's not up to me," Hao placed his palm over his left side of the chest, "and I'm not someone who walks away and leaves his girl behind… Not like this old Xie, not in this way."

"I still can't understand what makes her this special," the old man called Xie shook his head in helplessness, "it's not like you aren't involved with other girls. Don't tell me you didn't find a more beautiful girl than her."

Hao gave Xie a solemn look that made the old man add:

"Come on kid, we both know how deep your history with girls is."

"My history is clean as a white paper old Xie," Hao laughed and old Xie could helplessly shake his head in response.

"Besides… She is my anchor, my firm axis in this life," Hao suddenly paused, lost in deep thought. In the middle of his lonely dark life, she was like a shining star that always felt like home. "What her father did is unforgivable to me… To the two of us…"

"That bastard… I don't know who is more stupid than the other, you or him," Xie threw a long glance over the yellow file on the table, "he went too far this time."

"He is a father who deeply cherished his daughter," Hao simply said as if he was talking about a different person, "but in the middle of that, he totally missed his daughter's feelings and happiness."

"He is stubborn," the old man stood up, "not much better than you though."

"I'm still young, so it's ok for me to be stubborn," Hao stood up as well, putting a wide smile over his face, "but for an old man like him? I can't find anything to say about his foolishness."

"I don't know if he is the foolish person here or you," Xie extended his hand as he firmly shook it with Hao's, "so are you going to leave for MIT university tonight?"

"I've already packed," Hao nodded, "I'll leave in a few hours."

"Your secret lies safe with me," Xie said these last farewell words before leaving the small hotel room with this promise, "I'll keep looking up for her. Once found, I'll notify you as soon as possible."

Hao silently nodded then closed the door behind, stood there for long minutes before murmuring to himself:

"I don't know if I can trust anyone… anymore."

He turned and went to his drawer. There he took out a big file with a name over it.

"The king's return operation…" he read the name out loud before returning to his seat, placing the file over the table and started checking its content.

If he was called once the prince, then he would make sure to return as a king.

There were lots of papers in that file. Few pictures of certain people he was well acquainted with. In the middle of these, he found a paper he once printed from the internet, one that belonged to a submission form of one of the private academies in the states.

"Hmm… You might have supported me so much, old Xie, but don't take it to heart when knowing later on about my real destination."

He lied to the old man, despite the fact that Xie acted like the only and last friend he had in this life. Hao closed the file, then opened the yellow one where he found his court release order.

"So it ended this way…" Hao read through the five papers fast before throwing them inside his big file. "It's been such a messy six months."

He sighed while recalling what happened during these months. Calling these six months a mess was an understatement for him; they were hectic!

Hao played as a pro for seven years, five were in one team called the Golden Claw. He dedicated everything to that team, poured every ounce of his time and effort there to make it reach the highest point in the gaming world.

The game he played for five straight years was called Apex. It was a MOBA game, one that was almost on the verge of dying in the upcoming week.

That team held a special place in his life. It wasn't only the place he gained his worldwide fame as the prince of one of the best games in the world, but also because it was the place where he met his girl; Nora.

In that game, he played at a position known as the main ADC, or a bot laner.*

And there he had someone else on his side for almost three years. She played in a support position, helping him during all his games in these years.

The two were destined to interact most of the time with each other. That helped in developing a special kind of bond between the two, soon fruiting to become a love seed.

Hao wasn't a perfect man. As young as to reach twenty this year, he was faced with many temptations any successful and specially talented young man would experience.

He had his own little adventures here and there. Yet as he told the old Xie, his ship always had one port to rest at in the end.

But that port was very dangerous and always windy. The source of this came from none other than his girlfriend's father. A man who was so wealthy and authoritative to be considered a very prominent figure in his country.

To add more fuel to the fire, that man, who was supposed to be Hao's future father in law, held a good share of the team's assets.

But as everything in Hao's life wasn't perfect no matter how good things looked from the surface, that old man saw nothing special in Hao and became his biggest and deadliest enemy.

The first big move that the old man tried was to force his daughter to leave for the states in the fourth year. She was one year younger than Hao, both were in their prime time to let the fire of their love burn fiercer.

But that old man took his daughter to the states, under the professional contract with a US most successful and strongest team in the Apex game.

He tried to separate the two loving birds. And yet the two birds kept chirping their love song even from such a far distance apart.

The second big move that the old man tried was in the past year. He brought a very handsome looking and very promising player to his daughter's new team in the states.

Coincidentally enough, that new rookie was someone playing at the same position as Hao. Yet that young player failed to do what Hao managed before, and the daughter didn't see anything special about what her father selected as Hao's replacement for her.

Then the final and third blow came with that paparazzi case. This time Hao fell deeply into that old fox's trap, making him lose nearly everything he had.

Hao had a weakness from his past. He had an incident when he lost his parents that was behind his mysterious behaviour as the press used to say.

He didn't like flashing cameras that reminded him of the flashing lights of his unfortunate car accident. He also hated journalists so much to even avoid any press conferences and almost most of the press meetings.

He hated taking pictures, seeing his photos in the media. The only picture he gave for his team's publicity was an old one when he was only fifteen years old. And even in that photo, he was shrouded in darkness as he refused to be photographed using any flash.

It was his picture when he joined the Golden Claw team for the first time. Other than this, he didn't leave behind any photo, and even in matches he would hide behind black curtain all the time.

His face became like a national secret. Everyone wanted to see how the current him looked, but everyone respected the privacy Hao enforced over his face.

All but one… That old fox.

In one day, six months from now, a paparazzi broke into the residence of Hao. That reporter was really rude and bold, ending up forcibly taking images of Hao's real face, even purposely using his camera flash directly over Hao's face.

In a brief moment, Hao lost control over himself. He grabbed that camera and smashed it into pieces and chased that reporter away. Yet what was considered a trivial issue for Hao, turned into a mighty storm.

The paparazzi went to the court, filed a case against Hao. Things kept getting weirder when the fact of breaking into Hao's residency and forcibly taking images of him turned to another story of a previously planned press meeting and the unstable personality of the famed gamer.

Fake witnesses started to show up from god knew where. The incident that Hao even forgot about for days later turned into such a snowball that kept smashing his life mercilessly for six months.

Under all the false evidence, the court issued a restraining order against Hao and a weird deprivation order from playing for six months.

That weird and unexpected decision led to a more shocking move from Hao's team. During that silly show at the court, Hao felt the team was trying to drown him further by providing false papers proving what that paparazzi lied about.

Yet Hoa never imagined that after the deprivation order from the court, his team would fire another suit, asking for one-sided termination of his pro contract.

That move didn't end there. The team managers asked for a heavy compensation based on the non-existent damage the team got from Hao's case.

This happened during the end of the winter break of the game, in mid February. There was no tournament going on and only friendly matches were there.

Hao also knew more. The world of gaming was now acting calm, just like the calmness before a real storm. The entire world was holding its breaths, waiting for a big game that was about to be launched in the early days of September.

Hao already tested the beta version of the game with his team. The same went for all big name teams in the entire world. He even witnessed the preparation meetings of the team for this game, and participated in putting plans for the team's future.

So claiming that Hao's deprivation court order caused massive losses to the team was a big lie. But Hao knew he was left alone, and it was impossible to win such a war.

Living alone wasn't new for him. So instead of listening to old Xie's advice to fight back with everything he got, Hao decided to realistically admit his defeat in this game.

Instead of fighting a losing battle, he decided to look further ahead and plan things thoroughly for his future. The court gave its call by ending the contract by law, forcing Hao to pay a hefty fine as a compensation where he lost almost everything he got.

Then his team managers, supported by that old fox, spread the word among all the big names in the country and outside: Hao is prohibited to play.

They used many fake stories to place dirt over his reputation. Any pro gamer had his fame to depend upon to survive in this very competitive world.

So ruining his name in this way meant he would never find another team to play in so soon so easily. And with the upcoming game flashing on the horizon, it meant Hao would lose it big this time.

But Hoa never planned to join any existing team anyway. He was inwardly fed up with working for others. So in his grand and meticulous plan, he devised everything to let him be the boss all the time.

His decision earlier of planning ahead instead of fighting brought its fruit earlier than what Hao expected. Once the second suit was filed, Hao used Xie's help to transfer lots of his assets under Xie's name, before finally selling them and transferring the money to the states under his name.

It wasn't a big thing, compared to what Hao initially owned. But it was enough for his next move.

After all, he perfectly knew that the world of gaming would have a big earthquake soon. It wasn't just the launch of a new game, but it was also one of those rare moments in time when anyone could rise and any big force would go down.

"Time to go," being fully prepared to leave, Hao got the envelope and emptied its contents into his pockets.

He then grabbed one Trolley bag, and started his journey towards taking back what was rightfully his.

His name, his career, his girl… Literally his life and future… He was now embarking over a long journey to claim all of these back against all odds.