4 Profile
"Can you keep it quiet!" Within minutes, his twin sister was back at his door, this time in pajamas, fuming. "Be glad that Mom and Dad are on a business trip and won't be here to yell at you. But as your older sister, I want to make sure you stay within the lines and don't make yourself too comfortable!"
She cast a sideways glance at Yu Pengkai, who was too busy rubbing his elbow to listen, and sighed. "Why are younger siblings so immature? Legit, the few seconds of being born earlier gives me years of wisdom over you."
If he still hadn't wanted to tear up over simply seeing her alive again after nine years, he would have surely retorted that he had over ten years of life experience over her.
"Whatever. I'm out." She flipped her hair.
"Wait." He blurted out before he realized what he was doing. "I'm from the future. I was twenty eight years old, but now I'm somehow back in the body of my seventeen year old self."
Her left eye twitched. "You do realize you're really not funny, right? One April Fool's Day prank is enough. Also, you legit sound like you're still eight. Like imagine, an actual twenty eight year old falling off his chair."
Yeah...imagine.
She shut his door firmly behind her. "By the way, isn't it funny that somehow my twenty eight year old self isn't back here? Maybe it's because I'm not a loser like you, and I have something better to do in the future." Her muffled laugh sounded in the corridor.
And just like that, Yu Pengkai was left alone with his old friend again—silence. But with the words that were stuck in his throat out in the air, even though his sister took it all as a joke, he suddenly felt as if a heavy weight was lifted from his chest.
"Maybe this really is another chance to start over," he half-muttered to himself, vowing to undo his past life. "I'll make sure I still see you around when we're both twenty eight this time, Kerrie."
He glanced at the familiar Mickey Mouse clock at his table, realizing it was still only 4:30 AM. If his memory didn't fail him, high school zero period began at seven in the morning, meaning he still had at least two hours to himself. To think how the memories of high school haunted him so much that he still vaguely remembered his junior year class schedule was absurd.
He began pacing around his former room, wondering what happened to it after he cut ties with his family. Did they move? Even if they didn't, they probably threw everything he previously owned out. He smiled bitterly. They wouldn't want to see anything to do with me, he thought, shaking his head. After all, he was considered the family's worst disgrace.
He saw his formerly prized piano recital trophy sitting on his bookshelf in front of a row of mangas. Perhaps his unhealthy fixation on awards was rooted at a pretty young age. But nevertheless, seeing it made all the sealed memories come crashing back.
"If you go with those delinquents right now, the Yu family never had you for a son!" His mother's shriek echoed in his mind, the words permanently burned into his memories. "What future is there for you? It's a game! A game can't become your life!"
She had thrown the glass trophy onto the living room floor, watching it shatter into a million shards, just as their relationship had ripped apart at the seams.
What's more, he remembered his own confidant smile. "I'll bring you back a trophy the day I return home." He bowed and headed out the door with his new teammates, never to set foot back home again.
After all, how could he return emptyhandedly, knowing he had wasted away his entire life just as his mother had predicted?
He shook his head, glancing instead at his crime novel collection to replace the unhappy thoughts.
This is my chance to start over and to become the perfect son they always wanted, he reasoned. But yet, something willed him to walk back towards his computer. Patting his old Dell desktop, he fondly remembered the hours of gameplay he shared with it.
No. I cannot think of that game, he reminded himself again. He wasn't granted a second chance at a life for nothing.
Despite his conscious, in full hypocrisy, he pushed the power button, almost as if his fingers were naturally drawn to it.
The screen lit up as the machine rumbled to life.
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Password:
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He froze, temporarily forgetting his old login credentials before typing in Pentakill.
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The username or password is incorrect. Try again.
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He tried again, this time typing in Atlantis, remembering his former fixation on the lost empire.
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The username or password is incorrect. Try again.
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In a moment of pure realization, he knew he had it. 1203, the day his parents took him and his sister to Disneyland, his happiest childhood memory and his go-to password for his entire youth. He hadn't seen this correlation before, but now, it seemed like not only his future self had been fixated on the past.
The familiar Windows logo appeared, followed by a seemingly endless loading screen. For at least ten minutes, he stared at the spinning circle aimlessly, his mind blank.
There was definitely something off, but he couldn't quite pinpoint it.
After seemingly an eternity, the screen finally changed, fading first slowly to black before opening to the page he wanted to see the least: the home page on Kings of Valor.
With a new frightening realization, he discovered that it was already too late to stop his seventeen year old self from downloading the game that would change his entire life.
At that moment, every cell in his body screamed for him to immediately offload the game. You want change, don't you?
But yet his pride got the better of him.
I'm no longer that addicted teenager. I can just take a peek without falling down the rabbit hole, he reasoned as he clicked on his profile, cringing at the horrible former graphics of the game. The chunky text. The ugly and stiff character designs. Everything about this home screen screamed 2009.
Looking back at it now after patches of graphics updates, he couldn't believe he once fell in love with such ugly art, hailing it to be the absolute best thing ever to be made.
Plus, even going to the profile page took an eon on this fossil-like computer.
Loading… The little circle at the tip of his mouse spun, and he took in a sip of water.
But when the page finally loaded, he almost spat the mouthful of water back out. What a fool he was back in 2009, he thought, wanting to smack his forehead.
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King Username: yu_pengkai_1203
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He truly had no notion of digital security back then. He might as well have added his social security number to his username too. As soon as the page fully loaded, without a second thought, Yu Pengkai clicked on the button that read "Change King Username."
"Not enough coins to complete the action."
The corner of his mouth twitched as he glanced at his current Coin Balance, an outstanding zero.
Heaving a sigh of disapproval, he decided to browse his championship pool.
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Genghis Khan
Cleopatra
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He tried scrolling down for more champions, but the page simply wouldn't budge. Wait, that was it? Unless he was gravely mistaken, both of the champions were from the starter kit.
His main, the best ADC champion, Robin Hood, was nowhere in sight.
