After taking care of himself, he went out to witness the first scenes of today. Walking around the village and observing people started to become his routine. He used to just climb the old tower and look at the sky, admiring the horizon, absent-minded. But now he was actively trying to look at people, listen to what they said, and examine their actions. Though the fact that he was wandering in the town, almost appearing behind people’s backs, worsened his reputation.

  Well, even before, people didn’t really care about him.

  For the common folk, he was just a weird kid, a handsome young man but who carried some type of weird energy. For them, he had the kind of beauty that you are supposed to witness once, the kind that you are not supposed to look twice. If his skin didn’t have the same color as them, they would think that he was a ghost, djinn, or a demon. He was “too good to be true.” They looked away on purpose; he kept walking.

  For the teenagers, his eyes made him stand out, and his introverted and awkward nature made him an outcast. Due to his parents’ place in the community, they didn’t dare to bully him, but they didn't go out of their way to talk to him. Instead, they created nicknames like Ghost Eyes and made up stories to scare their younger siblings; he kept his distance.

  The scavengers didn’t really care about his appearance after some time, but the fact that he was the contrary of talkative stopped him from having a long conversation. For them, he seemed to “know too much.” His expression and stare seemed to be looking at the deepest part of their soul, and nothing they could say or do ever surprised him. All those elements, added to the fact that he was the son of the chief guard, made them quietly wary of him; he let it pass.

  The only people that treated him differently were his parents and their friends, that he since then considered his aunties and uncle... and maybe Toma. For them he wasn’t weird; he wasn’t scary, and he surely wasn’t worth being wary about. For them, he was just Kazeem, and that was enough for him.

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  But... was it really? What Kazeem didn’t understand is that his parents, knowing how unique he was, created a bubble for him. A bubble that protected him from the outside world as long as he was in it. However, now that he himself chose to get out of this bubble, he was much more exposed than usual. Each time he saw children run from him, teenagers avoiding him, adults talking behind his back, scavengers putting on a fake mask around him, some emotions were born.

  The first days, he felt perplexed, then ashamed. He didn’t want to go out anymore, yet he knew that he had to.

  The next days, the shame transformed into anger. Why does he have to feel ashamed? What did he do? Was it because he was different? Why should he care anyway? Those emotions were part of the fact that he failed a lot more loops than he should have. They were interfering with his judgement and the decisions that he made. If he wasn’t feeling those negative thoughts, there is a chance that he could’ve deciphered the law of the loops much more easily.

  Finally came… nothing, acceptance. He knew that he had been different since childhood. He just had to adapt to the fact that people also saw him as different, although the process might have left him some scars. It was necessary for him to surpass the curse that he had.

  Why should I change for people that don't matter to me? When even the people that I cherish don’t need me to?

  When this thought emerged in his mind, the coldness and dullness that had settled in his eyes since the start of the loops greatly disappeared. What was left was stillness, a confident and piercing stare that wasn’t afraid of the reaction of others. He even had a nonchalant smile that made him stand out even more than usual. People were too busy admiring him instead of avoiding him. But what if they did? He simply didn’t care anymore.

  After spending some time and pinning down the day’s scenes, he went back home. He had a lot of questions to ask. The problem is that he wasn’t sure how to ask them. What kind of questions this curse would allow him to ask was the issue.

  While approaching his house, the smell of alloco made him pick up the pace, the sweet oil and fried plantain heat hung in the doorway. His food was already on the table. After finishing eating, he went to find Yasséna in the main room.

  Knock Knock

  “Come.”

  Sigh, ok let's do it.

  Closing thought: When he stopped asking for space, the day made room on its own.