From A Producer To A Global Superstar

Chapter 463 463: Hope.....2

The apartment looked wrong with everything packed.

Frosh sat on the edge of the mattress, a cardboard box open at his feet, staring at the walls that were now bare except for the pale outlines where posters used to hang. The landlord had left two hours ago, but his voice still echoed in the room, sharp and final, settling into the corners like dust that could not be swept away.

Three days. That was what remained between him and the street. Three days to gather whatever he could carry and find somewhere else to sleep. The mattress would stay until the last morning, along with the small plastic table and the two stools they used for eating. Everything else was already taped shut and labeled, stacked against the walls like a monument to failure.

From the corner of the room, his sister watched him.

She was eleven, small for her age, her knees drawn up to her chest as she sat on the floor with her back against a box. She had not cried when the landlord shouted. She had simply shrunk into herself, her eyes moving between the man's angry face and Frosh's frozen one, understanding enough to be afraid but not enough to know what would come next.

"Brother," she said now, her voice barely above a whisper.

Frosh looked up from the box. "Yeah?"

"We go stay with Aunty?"

He nodded slowly, though the answer felt like a lie. Their aunt had a single room in Surulere, already crowded with her own children and the remnants of a business that had not done well in months. She had said yes when he called, because that was what family did, but he had heard the hesitation in her voice. The calculation of how much more space two extra bodies would consume.

"For now," he said. "Just for now."

She accepted this the way she accepted most things, with a quiet that broke his heart more than tears ever could. She was too young to be learning that home was temporary, that the adults who were supposed to keep her safe could not always keep the walls from falling down.

Frosh went back to sorting through the box at his feet. Old cables, a cracked phone case, lyrics scribbled on paper that had gone soft at the edges from humidity. He paused on one of the papers, reading the words he had written six months ago, back when he still believed that persistence would eventually open a door.

The paper said nothing about what happened when the doors stayed closed.

He set it aside and reached for the next item, but his hand stopped halfway. His mind had drifted, unbidden, to a memory he had been trying to bury since it happened. The studio in Ikorodu. The call that had come two weeks ago, when everything still felt possible. The voice on the phone telling him to come, that they had seen his work, that someone wanted to hear him perform in person.

He had gone. He had scraped together transport money he did not have, borrowed from a neighbor who was still waiting to be paid back. He had arrived at the address with his heart beating too fast, his palms damp, his voice rehearsed in his head a hundred times on the bus ride over.

And they had turned him away.

Not cruelly. Not with malice. A young man at the door, polite but distant, had told him that the people they were expecting were not ready yet. That something had come up. That he should try to reschedule, that they would call him.

Frosh had stood there in the doorway, looking past the young man at the equipment inside, at the space that had been prepared for something that was no longer happening. He had nodded, because that was what you did when someone told you to leave. He had walked back to the bus stop with his notebook still in his bag, his throat tight, his eyes burning with the particular shame that came from being unwanted.

He had known, even then, that they would not call back. Reschedule was the word people used when they did not want to say no directly. He had heard it before, in other studios, from other people who smiled and made promises and then disappeared into the machinery of an industry that had no space for him.

The transport money was gone. The hope was gone. And now, two weeks later, the eviction was here, and the only thing he had to show for years of trying was a stack of boxes and a sister who was too young to understand why her brother could not make the world work for them.

Frosh exhaled and dropped the paper into the box. He reached for the tape to seal it, his movements slow and mechanical, when the phone rang.

The sound cut through the quiet room, sharp and unexpected. Frosh flinched, then looked at the device on the mattress beside him, at the screen that lit up with a number he did not recognize.

He almost ignored it. Unknown numbers had brought nothing good in recent months. Creditors, scammers, more people with offers that dissolved when he reached for them. His sister looked at the phone, then at him, her eyes widening slightly with a hope he did not share.

He picked it up on the third ring.

"Hello?"

"Na Frosh be this?"

The voice was male, unfamiliar, carrying the same rough edges he remembered from two weeks ago. Frosh's grip on the phone tightened, a cold feeling spreading through his chest.

"Yeah," he said carefully. "Na me."

"Good." The voice paused, and Frosh could hear movement in the background, the low hum of a space that sounded like a studio. "I dey call you about the session. The one wey you come for two weeks ago."

Frosh felt his jaw tighten. "The session wey una say make I go, come tell me say people no ready?"

"Yeah." The voice carried something different now. Not the distance of before, but something closer to apology. "That one na our fault. The team wey suppose show up, something happen for their side. Delay wey we no expect. We try reach you after, but things scatter for our end."

Frosh stood up slowly, the box forgotten at his feet. He walked to the window, pressing his free hand against the glass, needing something solid to hold onto.

"So wetin una want now?" he asked, keeping his voice flat, protecting himself from the possibility that this was just another false start.

"We still want make you come," the man said. "Properly this time. No excuse this we apologize for the last time. We go send you location. New one. Closer side. And transport, we go sort am."

Frosh closed his eyes. The offer should have felt like relief. Instead, it felt like a hand reaching down to pull him up from a ledge he had already jumped from. He had spent two weeks mourning this opportunity, burying it alongside all the others, accepting that it was one more door that had closed before he could step through it.

"Why?" he asked, the word coming out rougher than intended. "Why una still want make I come? After everything, after the way the last one end, why me?"

"Because your voice no change," the man said simply. "The reason we call you first time still dey there. We dey look for real talent. People wey get story. You still get am, abi you don sell am?"

Frosh almost laughed. The bitterness of it caught in his throat.

"I still get am," he said quietly.

"Then come and show us."

Silence stretched between them, filled with the noise of Frosh's own heartbeat. He thought about the landlord's ultimatum, about the boxes stacked against the wall, about his sister sitting on the floor looking at him with eyes that had seen too much disappointment for someone her age. He thought about the transport money he did not have, the time he could not spare from packing, the risk of leaving his sister alone in an apartment that might not be theirs much longer.

But he also thought about the bus ride to Ikorodu two weeks ago, the hope that had carried him then, the belief that his voice was worth something even if the world kept telling him otherwise.

"When?" he asked.

"Tomorrow afternoon."

"And una go really show up this time?"

"We go show up," the man said, and there was a firmness in his voice that sounded like a promise being made by someone who understood why Frosh needed to hear it. "And Frosh?"

"Yeah?"

"Sorry for the last time. That no suppose happen like that."

Frosh exhaled, feeling something shift in his chest. Not trust, not yet. But the beginning of space where trust might eventually grow.

"Send the location," he said. "I go come."

The call ended.

Frosh stood at the window for a long moment, the phone still pressed to his ear even after the silence came. Then he lowered it slowly and turned back to the room.

His sister was watching him, her eyes wide and alert, picking up on the change in his energy even if she did not understand its source.

"Who be that?" she asked.

Frosh walked back to the mattress and sat down heavily, his knees suddenly weak. "The people wey call me before. The ones wey I tell you about. The studio."

"They call back?"

"Hmm, They call back." He looked at her, at the small face that was waiting for his next words with an intensity that made him want to be careful. "Dem say make I come tomorrow. Dem say the last time no suppose happen like that. Dem still want make I sing for them."

His sister's expression flickered through several emotions too quickly to name. Confusion, hope, fear that this would end the same way as everything else. Then she settled on something determined.

"You go go," she said. It was not a question.

"I go go," Frosh agreed. "But I need to finish packing here first. And you need to stay with Aunty while I dey go."

She shook her head, sudden and fierce. "I go stay here. I go finish packing. You no need worry about this side."

Frosh looked at her, at the eleven-year-old girl who was offering to handle the dismantling of their home so that he could chase a possibility that might still turn to nothing. He felt his throat tighten.

"You too young to do am alone."

"I no dey alone," she said, though her voice wobbled slightly. "Aunty go come help. You call her. Tell her say you need to go somewhere. She go come."

Frosh wanted to argue. He wanted to tell her that he could not leave her in a space that was falling apart, that his first responsibility was to her, not to a studio session that might be another dead end. But he also knew that if he did not go, if he let this opportunity slip away because he was afraid, he would be choosing certainty over possibility. And the certainty was that they had nowhere to go.

"Alright," he said quietly. "I go call Aunty. You go stay with her till I come back."

She nodded, her small shoulders dropping slightly with relief. She had been afraid he would say no. Afraid that he would give up before he even tried.

Frosh reached out and pulled her close, feeling her arms wrap around his neck, her face press against his shoulder. She was so small. So much smaller than the weight she was trying to help him carry.

"I go do my best tomorrow," he whispered into her hair. "If this thing real, if they mean am this time, then everything go change. For both of us."

She did not answer. She just held him tighter.

When she finally pulled back, Frosh stood up and walked to the desk in the corner, the one surface in the room that still held his work. The laptop was there, closed, its battery long dead because he could not afford the electricity to keep it charged at night. Beside it sat his notebook, the one with the lyrics he had planned to perform two weeks ago, before the door had closed in his face.

He opened it and flipped through the pages, his eyes moving over words he had memorized long ago. Songs about hunger. About wanting more than what life had offered. About standing at the bottom and finding the strength to look up.

He stopped on one page and read it through. Then he read it again, this time hearing the melody in his head, feeling the rhythm that had always been there, waiting for someone to notice.

Tomorrow, he would sing this. He would walk into whatever space they gave him and he would offer everything he had left. Not because he believed they would accept it, but because his sister was sitting in the corner of a room they were about to lose, and she deserved to know that he had tried one more time before the last door closed.

Frosh closed the notebook and set it on top of the bag he would carry tomorrow. Then he walked back to the boxes and picked up the roll of tape.

His sister joined him, taping shut a smaller box with the focused precision of a child who had learned to be useful out of necessity. They worked in silence, the evening light fading through the window, the city outside moving on without knowing that inside this small room, two people were holding onto something fragile and refusing to let it go.

When the last box was sealed, Frosh sat down on the mattress and looked around the apartment. It was empty now, stripped of the small decorations and memories that had made it feel like home. The walls were bare. The floor was clear. The only things that remained were the essentials they would carry out in three days, and the notebook that would travel with him tomorrow.

His sister curled up beside him, her eyes already heavy with sleep. He pulled a thin blanket over them both and lay there, staring at the ceiling, listening to her breathing slow into the rhythm of rest.

He thought about the call. About the voice that had apologized, that had asked him to come again, that had offered to sort transport like they understood he had nothing left to give. He thought about all the times he had been turned away, all the doors that had closed, all the versions of himself that had slowly eroded under the weight of repeated failure.

And he thought about what it would mean if tomorrow was different. If this time, the door stayed open. If someone finally looked at him and saw what he had been trying to show the world for years.

Sleep did not come easily. It never did, not in this apartment, not with the weight he carried. But eventually, the darkness outside the window deepened, and his sister's breathing became the only sound in the room, and he felt himself drift toward something that was not quite rest but would have to do.

Tomorrow, he would sing.

Tomorrow, he would find out if the world was finally ready to listen.

And if it was not, if this turned out to be one more disappointment in a long chain of them, then at least he would know that he had answered the call. That he had shown up. That when the possibility returned, he had been brave enough to reach for it, even with empty hands.

The last thought he had before sleep finally took him was of his sister's face, the small, determined expression she had worn when she told him to go. The trust in her eyes. The belief that he could still change everything, even when he no longer believed it himself.

He held onto that image.

And in the darkness, with three days left and nowhere to go, Frosh let himself hope one more time.