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I should have walked away. I couldn’t. It wasn’t a case of being nosy—this was none of my business, I knew that—but for some reason Malakai felt like he was my business, and even though he didn’t know I was there for him, I wanted to be.
When his father’s voice spoke, it was quiet and crackling, the menacing spark of fire in a sleeping house. A flicker with the potential toraze to the ground, to destroy. “I will pretend you didn’t say that. For your sake.”
Malakai’s laugh was dark and hollow, painful to hear, a cruel pastiche of his usual bellow that was dense with light. “You know what’s mad? I chose a business studies combination because after everything,everything,some small part of me thought that might make you happy. Ain’t that wild?”
His father cleared his throat into pungent quiet. “Malakai. I have paid for my errors—”
“How?”
“By allowing you to speak to me like I am your mate. But it is my job to make sure that you become a man.”
“I’m involved in a decision for my life for once. Ain’t that manly?”
“Being a man is about making stable decisions. This is reckless, frivolous, and indulgent. I’m worried you weren’t in your right mind when you made this decision.”
His father’s voice had barely risen a decibel, and yet it rung loud and clear, the words leaving his mouth like a salvo.
There was a silence that could slice through sinews.
“Yeah, you’re right, Dad. I guess the months I couldn’t get out of bed weren’t very manly.”
“Malakai, that’s not what I—”
“This decision helped make my mind right.” Malakai’s voice was quiet and ferocious, but still, I heard the break in it.
I didn’t need to see Malakai to see him. I should go. He didn’t need me. I knocked.
When Malakai opened his door, his eyes were glistening. I could see the effort he put into pulling the fragments of his face into something resembling casualness, affability. I wanted to tell him that he didn’t have to do that.
“Kiki, hey—”
Malakai’s father stood behind him, slightly shorter, in a smart, slate-gray wool coat over a white shirt and navy chinos, a business casual demigod. It was as if he were controlling the air in the room, his familiar, handsome face imperious. He pushed his hand into a pocket as he regarded me with gentle curiosity behind expensive frames. I saw the tension in his gaze morph into a calculated amiability.
I forced my voice to sound bright. “Good evening, sir.”
He nodded at me, the gesture almost imperceptible. “Good evening.” He turned to Malakai, voice placid, slipping into Yoruba, “Sé ise?re? Se nítoríeni tí o se fé s?ayé?nù ré? Má d’ àbí èmi,” to inquire, “Is that your work? Is this why you’re throwing your life away? Don’t be like me.”
Malakai straightened, his posture somehow both softened by the presence of his father, but also frigid, defensive. “You don’t have to worry about that. And you don’t get to talk about people I care about like they’re not in the room. This is Kikiola.”
“Or?ni wa, sir,” I said to Malakai’s father. “We’re friends,” I repeated, as if to emphasize the point, as if to draw the battle lines, to make it clear that I was present as emotional backup here, if need be.
Malakai’s father studied me carefully before I saw the tiny movement of his mouth that could have been a smile, if you squinted with hope.
I moved further into the room, kept my voice jovial. “We almost weren’t friends, though, he was competing with me for the top spot in class, which was irritating. Then I saw his short film and decided he was worthy competition, which was even more irritating as I really don’t like conceding brilliance to men.” My smile was wide and bright, and the shadows in Malakai’s father’s eyes receded slightly, his expression sitting somewhere between bemusement and amusement.
Malakai’s expression was inscrutable when I turned to him. “I can go.”
He shook his head. “No. No, my dad was just leaving. He has a flight to catch early tomorrow, back to Nigeria. This was a quick visit.”
Malakai’s father rubbed his jaw in a gesture reminiscent of his son.“We’re not finished here.” He hesitated and for the first time I saw a hint of uncertainty in his gaze. His eyes darted between Malakai and me. Malakai just stared at the wall behind his father’s head, jaw taut, fists balled.
His father nodded deeply, more to himself than anyone else. “Take care, son. Lovely to meet you, Kikiola. Help me keep this one out of trouble.”
“I’ll do my best. But no promises.”
He smiled at me, and he looked so much like Malakai in that moment, I almost gasped. It wasn’t a big smile, but it was present, enough to let me know that when it stretched it could hold the same shine as his son’s. “Your Yoruba is good, by the way.”
It was somewhere between an apology and an acknowledgment of something that had nothing to do with my skills in my ancestral tongue. “Esé, sir. Ìrìn àjò áá dára.”
