The morning air was thick with the scent of rain-damp earth and burnt incense. Lagos had woken under a heavy, gray sky, the kind that pressed down on the soul and made memories feel sharper, more urgent. Iyi's stall stood quietly amidst the shifting crowd, the soaps neatly arranged like fragile promises of healing and renewal.
He was arranging a fresh batch when a shadow fell across his table. Looking up, Iyi saw a man standing there — familiar, yet distant — a ghost from a life he had tried to leave behind.
The man's eyes held a hardness, a sharpness that cut through the noise of the market. They were eyes that remembered. Eyes that judged. Eyes that knew secrets Iyi thought were buried deep.
"Kareem," Iyi breathed, the name a knot in his throat.
Kareem was a figure from the world of scams and shadows — a man who once was both rival and ally in the games of fast money and quick escapes. Their past was tangled with betrayals, risks, and desperate survival.
"What are you doing here?" Kareem asked, voice low but steady.
Iyi met his gaze without flinching. "I'm building something different now."
Kareem's eyes narrowed. "This city doesn't forget, Iyi. And neither do I."
The crowd buzzed around them, oblivious to the tension thickening the air.
Iyi felt the weight of those eyes — the eyes that remembered every lie, every fall, every stolen moment.
But beneath the hardness, there was a flicker of something else — a question, maybe even hope.
"I'm trying to change," Iyi said quietly. "To make amends."
Kareem's lips twitched in a reluctant smile. "Change is hard in Lagos. But maybe… maybe you've got a chance."
They talked beneath the gray sky, the city's pulse a distant drum. Old wounds surfaced, but so did the possibility of forgiveness and new beginnings.
The eyes that remembered were not just mirrors of past mistakes, but windows to redemption.
As rain began to fall softly, washing the dust from the streets, Iyi felt the stirrings of a future shaped not by hunger, but by healing.