He pushed the door open; Yassena was on the bed with a comb, a small bowl of water, and a tin of shea already set out.

  The smell of shea butter filled the room. Comb teeth clicked lightly; warm oil lifted a soft, nutty sweetness. The main bedroom didn’t have anything fancy, like the rest of the house. It was smaller than the living room but not by much. It had one king-size bed, with a simple wooden frame sturdy enough to support Zokou’s weight without creaking; some drawers for the clothes and Zokou’s “tools.” There, Kazeem saw the blade he had borrowed from his father while going near the vines. There was a window on the right side of the room and a big mirror next to it. The main bedroom was the same size as Kazeem’s room, but it was the only room with a bathroom. Overall, it was a simple but cozy room.

  Yassena was sitting at the foot of the bed, her beautiful skin and her dark amber eyes illuminating the room. She looked like she had just finished undoing her hair and was combing her hair, while humming a song that only she knew the lyrics to. Her usual braid had transformed into a beautiful afro. Her striking dark hair with golden strands made her look like an elegant lion. In fact, the whole family had beautiful features or a special aura, making them stand out from most of the villagers. Her “mane” was usually seen only two days a month before she changed it to another hairstyle. She found her afro too cumbersome, as her hair was extremely long, so long that it started to affect her movement.

  “Come sit, I will do your hair. No, wait, go wash it first; you can do it in our bathroom.”

  “Alright, Maa,” said Kazeem, running to the bathroom. There, he spent half an hour washing and combing his hair enough that his mother wouldn’t need to. He knew that if he went there with uncombed hair, she would do it herself, and it was a pain that he didn’t want to go through ever again.

  Although his hair was hard to comb, he was able to finish quickly with a quarter of his dad’s shampoo. After spending another 30 minutes to dry it, he went out of the bathroom. His curls were damp-stretched, clean, and obedient for once.

  “You finished your dad’s shampoo again, didn’t you?”

  “… hum… Maa, do you know that you have beautiful hair?” Kazeem said, running to her to give her a hug.

  chuckle “Wait till he finds out. Alright, sit between my thighs in front of the mirror. Today I will do two-strand twists, ok?”

  “Ok!” said Kazeem while sitting.

  After parting his hair in a zigzag and applying shea butter on the hair and some drops of light oil on his scalp, she started speaking.

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  “Did you understand what we said yesterday?”

  “Yes… I think.”

  “Do you have any questions?” she said while starting to braid.

  “Yeah, first, how did we win the war?”

  “Well, we speculate that although the sunsums were extremely talented at absorbing Tumio, there were too few powerhouses due to the difficulty for them to reproduce. Although humans were weaker and less talented, we had more people but also our wit. Well, cunning would be a better word…”

  “Why?”

  “… The sunsums were kind; they believed in coexistence and harmony. They never thought that they would be backstabbed by humans,” she said with a trace of pity in her eyes.

  “But for humans it was the logical thing to do. At first, the powerhouses of the two races had an agreement. They would leave this world and search for other worlds with resources.”

  “WAIT, WAIT, WAIT—OTHER WORLDS?!” exclaimed Kazeem, almost horrified by the news. He tried to look at his mother, but his hair was still grabbed tightly in her hand.

  “BE QUIET!”

  But you are yelling too…

  “What I am telling you now is something that you should never say to anyone else. If the wrong person hears it, let alone your life, the whole village might turn to ashes,” she said, staring at him directly through the mirror.

  “Alright, Maa.” What she said made him rethink the importance of that information.

  “They weren’t sure about their existence either. However, the technology that they had at the time seemed able to detect traces of life and resources beyond the sky. It was the only thing that they could gamble on, so they decided to do so. However, the human powerhouses left a message for their descendants. They told them that if they weren’t back after three centuries, there was little chance that they would be able to come back. They should then make a plan to eliminate the rest of the sunsums.”

  “That’s…”

  “Cruel? Yeah, I know, but at that time Tumio played the same role as air today. All the creatures of this world weren’t supposed to survive without it, and they only started to breathe air because of the increasing lack of Tumio.”

  “…I see. But how?”

  “I don’t know, evolution, maybe? But it wasn’t possible until years after the primordial era. After the war, both races paid a great price. The sunsums went extinct.”

  Sigh…

  Kazeem felt conflicted. He knew that it was a question of life or death, that nobody was in the wrong in this story, and that there is a chance that he would have done the same as the human powerhouses. However, hearing his ancestors betraying left a bad taste in his mouth.

  “Now that you are opening your eyes to the world, you have to understand something very important. The concept of good and bad is set by humans. The truth is, something that I judge good for me can have bad consequences for someone else, but does it mean that I should renounce it? The answer is no. Be happy first, then take care of others. This is how you live comfortably.”

  “…”

  “Does it seem heartless?” she said while finishing the last braid.

  Kazeem didn’t say anything but just slightly nodded.

  “Sigh, baby, I’m not telling you to never care about others or to intentionally hurt someone. What I’m saying is take care of yourself, and you should prioritize what is good for you before thinking about what is good for others. In that war, if the humans didn’t win or had chosen to coexist with the sunsums, what do you think would’ve happened?”

  “Both races would’ve been extinct?”

  “Exactly. The humans just chose what was good for us… even if it means that they had to do something bad to their friends.”

  After finishing his hair, she told him to look at himself in the mirror. Short two-strand twists sat in a neat zigzag part, roots clean and ends sealed.

  “Look how gorgeous you are. If they hadn’t done it, no girls would have the chance to appreciate this face,” Yassena said, pinching his cheeks, which made him grimace awkwardly.

  After a brief silence she said, “But this war wasn’t without terrible consequences.”

  Closing thought: Some truths sting at the root; you sit still and let them set.