The morning Chuka arrived in Johannesburg, the sky felt unfamiliar. The sun, though radiant, hung differently above this land. Its golden light filtered through airport windows as he walked past strangers and announcements in languages that twisted the tongue. Everything here moved faster—cars zoomed like afterthoughts, people marched with purpose, and even the air smelt foreign: a cocktail of cold steel, expensive perfume, exhaust fumes, and big city dreams.
Chuka's boots, dusty from the Odu earth, seemed to carry the weight of two lives. In his ears, echoes of Atirola's voice still clung. Her laughter, her last whisper in the night before he boarded, "Promise me you won't lose yourself." But promises were easier made than kept, especially in cities where everyone was already searching for pieces of themselves.
He had come with a mission: to sharpen his fists into flames, to chase the kind of glory he had only read about, and to make something immortal out of pain and discipline. But underneath, quietly, he was also running—from the softness of her touch, from the weight of her absence, from the fear that maybe, just maybe, love and ambition couldn't coexist.
His new trainer in South Africa was nothing like Coach Olowo. This man, Leonard "Lion" Dlamini, was a former heavyweight legend with scars on his knuckles and a cigarette always hanging from the corner of his lip. He didn't care about stories, only sweat. Didn't care if you were Nigerian, Zulu, or Martian—as long as you showed up on time and bled on the mat.
"You think you're tough, bush boy?" he said during Chuka's first session, lighting a cigarette in the gym. "I don't train tough. I train champions. There's a difference."
The gym was in Soweto—a harsh but vibrant heartbeat of Johannesburg. Graffiti screamed on concrete walls outside, music pumped from corner shops, and inside the ring, dreams lived and died every day. Chuka watched fighters crumble under the weight of Lion's expectations. But not him. Not the boy who had survived Odu, who had outrun leopards in the forest, who had fought with sticks long before gloves.
He trained like a madman. Morning runs before the sun rose. Sparring until he could taste blood in his mouth. Weight sessions that left his arms quivering. His knuckles split open again and again, and he didn't complain. Each drop of sweat, each sting of pain—he offered them like sacrifices to whatever god watched over boxers.
But at night, when he lay in the small room Lion had found him above a car repair shop, the silence was unbearable. His fingers hovered over his phone screen too many times, opening messages from Atirola, reading them, never replying. A part of him believed he was doing her a favor. That she deserved someone stable, someone present. Not a man who slept beside punching bags and woke up to the sound of fists.
She sent pictures sometimes. Her smile, her eyes, a new dress she bought. Once, a selfie in front of a painting, captioned: "This reminded me of you. Fierce but distant." That one he almost replied to.
Weeks turned into months. Chuka's name started to echo in local circuits. A viral knockout at the Cape Town arena. A gritty comeback in Pretoria. Fight after fight, he climbed, leaving bruised bodies and gasping reporters in his wake. He was fast becoming "The Lion of Lagos," as newspapers had begun calling him—ironic, considering he was no longer from Lagos, nor did he feel like a lion.
He lived for the bell. For the crowd roar. For the seconds before a punch landed—the suspended breath, the intimate moment between chaos and control. But outside the ring, he was unraveling.
One night, after a brutal ten-round match, he sat outside the gym, knuckles raw, breathing heavily. He pulled out his phone and typed a message to Atirola: "I miss you." He stared at it. His thumb hovered. Then he deleted it.
Lion walked up behind him, throwing a towel over his shoulder. "You keep fighting the wrong enemy, boy."
Chuka blinked, startled. "What do you mean?"
"You beat men in the ring, but you lose to the silence in your chest."
Chuka laughed bitterly. "I didn't come here for advice. I came here to fight."
"Then stop looking like you're trying to disappear."
That night, Chuka couldn't sleep. He paced, drank water, stared at the ceiling. He thought of Atirola's warmth. Her hands. The way she said his name when no one else was listening. What was he doing? Fighting for glory while love withered back home? And yet, wasn't he doing it for them—for the future, for something greater than Odu, greater than Lagos?
He started writing her a letter. Not a message. A letter. On paper. Each word tasted heavy. He poured in everything: his fears, the victories he couldn't celebrate alone, the nights he reached for her ghost beside him.
He posted it.
Two weeks passed.
No reply.
Then, just before his next fight, a package arrived. Inside was a small scarf—the one she had worn the last time they sat by the roadside suya joint, giggling like children. Tucked in the folds was a note, written in her neat hand:
"Even fire needs something to burn for. Don't forget why you started. I'm still here, but I won't wait forever."
Chuka folded the note, kissed the scarf, and tucked it into his gym bag. That night, he fought with more fire than ever. Not for the crowd. Not for the press. But for her. For himself. For something that still pulsed between them, fragile but not broken.
After the fight, the ring announcer asked what fueled his victory. Chuka looked straight at the camera.
"Love," he said, breathing hard. "And the fear of losing it."
He walked out of the ring, shoulders heavy, but heart just a little lighter. Outside, the Johannesburg night shimmered with stars. Somewhere across the continent, a girl was probably asleep, her heart whispering the same name his lips longed to say.
And for the first time since arriving, Chuka smiled. A real one.
He was still fighting—but now, he remembered why.