Chapter 2
The Boy with the Sun in His Eyes
Pietermaritzburg in the mid-nineties was a sepia-toned world of red brick Victorian lanes and rolling green hills that seemed to cradle the city in a permanent, sleepy embrace.
The air always smelled of burning sugar cane from the distant fields and the ozone tang of impending thunderstorms that rolled off the Drakensberg escarpment.
For Emi, the capital was less a city and more a series of hiding spots.
She was seventeen, a girl composed of sharp angles and silence, existing on the periphery of the high school’s social hierarchy.
While the other girls in her year were experimenting with loud frosted lipstick and louder gossip, Emi was a phantom haunting the edges of the rugby fields and the library stacks.
Her sanctuary was the Great Oak at the far corner of the school’s soccer field. Its roots were massive, gnarled knuckles of wood that broke through the earth, creating a natural throne where she could disappear.
It was a Tuesday afternoon, the sky a bruised purple, threatening rain but holding its heat.
Emi sat nestled between the roots, her knees drawn to her chest. In her hands was a dog-eared paperback—a gothic romance where the hero was brooding and the heroine was doomed.
A unlit cigarette danced between her fingers, a nervous habit she had picked up to ward off the world.
Through the curtain of her dark bangs, she watched him.
Ran.
He was on the track, finishing his final laps.
Even from this distance, he was undeniable.
In a school of khaki uniforms and conformity, Ran moved like a riot.
He was the only boy who could make the standard-issue athletic shorts look like high fashion.
He was six feet ofkinetic energy, his stride long and eating up the grass.
He wasn't just popular; he was a gravitational force. The "bad boy" with the motorbike who somehow managed to be the captain of the streetball team and the darling of the teachers despite his terrifying reputation.
Emi watched him slow to a jog, then a walk, his chest heaving. He wiped his face with the hem of his shirt, exposing the rippling abs that made half the girls in the grandstand pretend to study while watching him. But Ran didn't look at the grandstand. He never did.
His head turned, scanning the perimeter until his gaze locked onto the oak tree. Even from fifty yards away, Emi felt the impact of those blue eyes. It was like being struck by lightning in a clear sky.
He jogged over, ducking under the low-hanging branches, invading her shadowy sanctuary with the smell of sunshine, sweat, and expensive cologne.
"H-hey," he breathed out, the slight stutter catching on the single syllable. He offered her a lopsided grin, the one that crinkled the corners of his eyes. "You hiding again, Em?"
Emi closed her book, marking the page with her thumb. "I'm not hiding. I'm observing."
Ran laughed, a sound that seemed to vibrate in the humid air. He dropped down beside her, not minding the dirt on his uniform. He leaned back against the bark, his shoulder pressing firmly against hers. It was a claim. I am here. You are here. We are here.
"Observing what?" he asked, tilting his head. His hair, a jaw-length curtain of dark brown and gold, fell over his face. He blew a strand out of his eyes, looking like a grunge rock god who had taken a wrong turn into a prep school.
"You," Emi said simply. "You run like you're angry at the ground."
"Maybe I am," he grinned. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a fresh, unopened pack of Peter Stuyvesant. He tossed it into her lap.
Emi blinked, looking at the red and white box. "Ran... I still have some."
"I know," he said, his voice dropping an octave, losing the stutter and gaining that fierce, protective edge that made Emi’s heart stutter instead.
"But I saw that guy, the one with the shaved head from the grade below, trying to sell loose ones behind the gym.
I don't want you talking to him, Emi. You need something, you come to me. Always."
It was a small thing—a pack of cigarettes—but in the language of Ran, it was a vow. I provide. I protect. No one gets close enough to even sell you a smoke.
"You're ridiculous," she whispered, though her fingers curled possessively around the box.
"I'm your boyfriend," he corrected, stealing the unlit cigarette from her fingers and tucking it behind his own ear. "Come on. Walk me to the court?"
He stood up and extended a hand. Emi looked at it—large, calloused from throttle grips and basketballs—and took it. He pulled her up with an effortless strength, and then, he didn't let go.
This was the ritual. The walk from the soccer field to the basketball courts was the most public gauntlet in the school. It was where the hierarchy was enforced. And every day, Ran shattered that hierarchy by lacing his fingers through Emi’s.
They walked across the grass, the popular girls watching with narrowed eyes, the rugby boys nodding respectfully at Ran. He ignored them all. His thumb rubbed circles on the back of Emi’s hand, grounding her.
"My mom is making melktert tonight," Ran said, ignoring the stares of the student body. "She asked if you were coming over. Said she bought that specific vanilla essence you like."
"I... I can come," Emi said, looking down at their boots moving in sync. "But don't you have to go to the workshop? You said the Road King needed a new clutch cable."
"The bike can wait," Ran said, squeezing her hand. "Or I can fix it later. I'd rather watch you and Ma argue about how much cinnamon is too much cinnamon."
Emi smiled, her deep dimple finally making an appearance. "She uses too much, Ran. It’s a tart, not a spice rack."
Ran stopped walking. They were in the middle of the quad now. He turned to her, blocking out the rest of the school with his height. He reached out, tucking a strand of her black hair behind her ear, his touch gentle, reverent.
"There it is," he murmured, staring at her dimple. "Best thing I've seen all day."
Emi felt the heat rise in her cheeks, not from the humid Pietermaritzburg air, but from the sheer intensity of being loved by him. He made her feel like royalty. He made the invisible girl the center of the universe.
The Victorian house on the hill was Emi’s second soul. If her own home was where she slept, Ran’s house was where she lived.
It was a sprawling, slightly chaotic place filled with the smell of engine grease and baking butter. Ran’s father was a mechanic, a man of few words who communicated mostly in grunts and nods, but who always ensured Emi’s chair at the dinner table was the most comfortable one.
But it was Ran’s mother, Mrs. Coetzee, who was the heart of the home. She was a round, bustling woman with flour permanently dusted on her apron and a laugh that could crack a window.
That evening, the kitchen was a war zone of pastry. Ran was gone—he had eventually succumbed to the call of the workshop in the garage, leaving the two women alone.
"Hand me the sieve, lovey," Mrs. Coetzee commanded, pointing a buttery finger at the counter.
Emi passed it over. She was leaning against the heavy oak table, feeling a peace she never felt anywhere else. "Ran thinks you put too much cinnamon on, too," Emi lied, grinning.
"Ran doesn't know a spatula from a spanner," Mrs. Coetzee scoffed, though her eyes softened at the mention of her son. She paused, wiping her hands on a rag. She looked at Emi, her expression turning serious. "He’s a good boy, my Ran. But he’s... intense. He loves hard, that one."
"I know," Emi said softly.
"He worries about you," the older woman said, returning to her dough. "Came home yesterday pacing the floor because you looked sad in the hallway. He wanted to go punch the headmaster. I had to talk him down with a plate of koeksisters."
Emi laughed, but her heart squeezed. "He doesn't need to protect me from everything."
"He can't help it," Mrs. Coetzee said. "You're his person, Emi. Some men spend their whole lives looking for their person. Ran found you before he could even drive. It scares him, I think. Losing you."
The back door creaked open, and the subject of their conversation walked in. Ran was covered in grease. There was a smudge of black oil on his cheek, and his white t-shirt was ruined, but he looked triumphant.
"Fixed it," he announced, grabbing a glass of water and downing it in one go. He looked at the two women—his mother and his girlfriend—and the tension left his frame.
"Wash your hands before you touch anything, you hooligan!" his mother scolded, swatting him with a tea towel.
Ran dodged the blow with the reflexes of a street fighter, laughing. He moved behind Emi, wrapping his grease-stained arms around her waist, careful not to touch her dress with his dirty hands. He rested his chin on top of her head.
"Smells good," he murmured into her hair. "Smells like home."
Emi leaned back into him, closing her eyes. She could feel the steady thrum of his heart against her back. It was a strong, slow rhythm.
Ba-dum. Ba-dum.
"Go shower, Ran," she whispered, though she didn't pull away.
"In a minute," he said. "Just charging up."
He turned her around in his arms, ignoring his mother’s theatric sighs of disapproval about the grime. He looked down at her. Under the harsh fluorescent kitchen lights, his eyes were startling—a blue so bright they looked like shattered sapphires.
There was no stutter now. No lisp. Just absolute, terrifying clarity.
"I love you," he said. He didn't say it like a question, or a statement. He said it like a fact. Like gravity. Like the sun rising in the east.
Emi looked up at him, at the stubble darkening his jaw, the gentle curve of his mouth, the way he looked at her as if she were the only structure left standing in a ruined world. She felt that warmth spread through her, the feeling of being chosen, of being elevated.
"I know," she said, reaching up to wipe the smudge of oil from his cheek with her thumb. "You're my king, Ran."
He caught her hand and kissed her palm, the grease and the grit and the love all mixing together in the Pietermaritzburg heat.
"Then that makes you the queen," he grinned, his lisp slipping out on the 's', making him sound suddenly young again. "And the queen commands me to shower."
"She does," Emi smiled.
As he bounded out of the room, shouting a joke back at his mother, Emi turned back to the window. The storm had finally broken outside, rain lashing against the glass, washing the red dust of the city away. But inside, it was warm. Inside, she was safe.
She didn't know then that storms don't last forever, but neither does the sun.
She didn't know that this kitchen, this boy, this feeling of absolute safety was an hourglass running out of sand.
All she knew was that she was Emi, the loner girl with the books, and she was loved by the boy with the sun in his eyes.
And for that moment, in the quiet of the 90s, that was enough.