The moment Femi stepped off the plane, Lagos wrapped around him like a feverish embrace. The air was thick with the tang of diesel and fried plantain, a far cry from Amsterdam's crisp, sanitized chill. He tugged at his collar, sweat already pricking his neck, and grinned at the chaos—haggling porters, mothers scolding children in rapid-fire Yoruba, the rhythmic thump of Afrobeat bleeding from a taxi's speakers.
"Femi! Omo mi!" His mother's voice cut through the noise. She stood at the barrier, arms wide in a buba dress blazing with gold thread, his father beside her in a crisply ironed agbada. Femi's little sister, Dami, darted forward first, nearly tackling him. "Big-time European star, abi? You forget us now?"
He laughed, hoisting her up. "Never."
The Adeleye compound buzzed. Aunties stirred pots of jollof rice, uncles argued over Premier League tactics, and cousins blasted Wizkid from a crackling speaker. Femi's mother pressed a steaming bowl into his hands. "Eat. You're too thin—oyinbo food can't nourish you."
His father waited until the laughter died. "They say you're playing defense now." The words hung like a challenge.
Femi stiffened. "Left-back, yes."
"Hmm." His father sipped palm wine. "A lion does not hide in the grass. But… a wise lion adapts." He leaned closer, voice softening. "You carry Lagos in your feet. Don't let them tame it."
Mushin, 10 years earlier.
Barefoot on a cracked pitch, twelve-year-old Femi weaved through oil drums and broken bricks, a half-deflated ball glued to his feet. "Oya! Pass!" his friend Tunde yelled, but Femi was already gone, dodging a tackle with a hip-swivel he'd copied from a YouTube clip of Jay-Jay Okocha.
Coach Bola, a grizzled ex-pro with a limp, whistled sharply. "See this one!" he barked to no one and everyone. "Feet like fire, head like oyinbo calculator. He'll play in Europe—mark my words!"
The memory faded as Femi traced the scar on his knee—a souvenir from a rusty goalpost. Europe got the calculator. But where's the fire?
"Na wa! You're too famous now," Femi's cousin Deji teased, swerving past a danfo bus with Lagosian audacity. The city pulsed around them—neon signs, smoke from suya grills, the gbedu bassline of a nearby party.
Femi rolled down the window, letting the chaos rush in. "It's not fame. It's… a mask. Over there, I'm 'the project.' Here, I'm just Femi."
Deji snorted. "Here, you're Adeleye's boy. Better pray you never disappoint."
Ahead, a group of kids battled under a flickering streetlamp, their shadows stretching like giants. Femi's breath caught. One boy, skinny and relentless, nutmegged a defender and raised his arms in triumph. That was me. Is this still me?
Later, Femi climbed to the rooftop, escaping the noise. Below, Lagos throbbed—a living, breathing beast. He pulled out his phone, scrolling past Ajax press photos to a video Coach Bola had sent: Femi, age 14, dribbling through three boys and scoring with a backheel.
"Oya! Magic!" Coach's voice crackled from the clip.
Magic. The word felt foreign now. In Amsterdam, they praised his "positional discipline." But here, under the smog-stained stars, he missed the boy who played like every touch was a rebellion.
At the airport, his mother clung to him, her perfume a mix of nutmeg and defiance. "Don't let them shrink you, ọkọ mi."
As Femi turned to leave, a boy in a faded Messi jersey blocked his path. "You're… you're the Femi Adeleye!"
Femi knelt, eye to eye. "And you?"
The boy puffed his chest. "Future Eagles. Left wing!"
Femi slipped off his Ajax wristband and pressed it into the boy's palm. "Then run faster than I did."
On the plane, he stared at his reflection in the window—Lagos fading beneath him, Amsterdam ahead. I'm not choosing, he realized. I'm carrying both.
Somewhere over the Sahara, Femi slept. And dreamed of dusty pitches and Dutch tactics, swirling together like adire patterns—unfinished, alive.