The world wasted no time humbling him.
Freedom smelled like bus exhaust and disappointment. It sounded like rejection emails and landlords asking for "two years upfront." It tasted like hunger disguised as patience. Aderemi rented a room so small he could hear his neighbor breathe. The ceiling fan squeaked. The sink leaked. The walls remembered arguments from tenants long gone. His first night alone, he sat on the bare mattress and laughed. A dry, shaky laugh.
"So this is it," he whispered. "Freedom."
He worked. Failed. Learned. Worked again.
Some days he felt powerful. Other days, foolish. More than once, he stood outside restaurants, watching families eat, calculating how many days ₦5,000 could stretch. Home called to him like a ghost.
But stubbornness-pure, unyielding stubbornness-kept him going and then, one afternoon, in the middle of chaos and noise and Lagos heat, fate decided to be sarcastic.