He stood alone on the snowy balcony of his Berlin apartment. The cold bit at his skin, but he didn’t feel it—he was used to pain. Michael Kaiser looked out at the city where everything began and thought of her.

Victories, titles, millions—none of it mattered without her. She was his muse, his weakness, the love he'd always craved. Once, he was a broken boy with empty eyes. His mother had left, his father hit him. He swore he'd grow strong, rule like an emperor. Kaiser.

But now, standing here, he felt like that same boy again – helpless. Because she was gone.

“He deals the cards like a meditation...” echoed in his head. Not cards, but him. His heart wasn’t a game. It was survival, a chessboard of tactics. He always played to win. But now he asked, “For whom?”

He remembered her fingers on his tattoo—a blue rose hiding pain. She never asked what it meant. She just knew. She saw the real him.

She came into his life not like lightning, but like snow on lashes—soft, quiet, unforgettable. He didn’t know why he sought her voice, her face. She wasn’t afraid of him. She didn’t worship the football god. She saw the man.

"You are the only one who looks at me and is not afraid to see a monster."

He was possessive, afraid he wasn’t worthy of love. He didn’t know how to be gentle—only how to win. And in love, he lost.

Her gaze didn’t flinch at his jealousy. She saw through it—to the loneliness beneath. The cry to be needed, understood, loved.

In the evenings, he read psychology books, trying to decipher the one thing he couldn’t: her smile. She was the only thing he couldn’t calculate. And he didn’t want to. He just wanted to stay close.

He didn’t play for fame now. He played for her. So that one day, when he gets up off his knees, she'll say yes, not to the Emperor... but to the boy who lived.

“This isn’t just football. This is my confession. If you understand the shape of my heart... I’m yours.”

He doesn’t say I love you.

He says, “If you leave, I’ll destroy the world. And build a new one—just for you.”