The five days passed, Lars' passport arrived. The man hurried to buy a new phone, shave his hair. A new man was born, and as if one good news didn't come alone, the start-up he invested in results were promising, and he even saw its value double.

"Good things happen to those who drink the coffee."

Lars' new luck almost had him believing.

"Steven, we should move out," the man announced.

His friend whisked around in his desk chair, "what?"

"I'm tired of playing a hermit. Dalai says he can have us a place in Sandhurst at a reasonable price."

Steven pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, "Lars, I don't want to spend money on that."

"Who says you'll pay. Let me take care of everything. Oh, here, thanks for lending me the money."

Lars was on a roll; he and Steven visited three properties the same day. He settled for one with the longest swimming pool.

"Are you sure you can afford this, Lars?" Steven asked.

His friend was a hedonist, and for Steven, nothing good came from living on excess. Lars, in true Libra fashion, had his balance sway from one side to the other daily. To this, one had to add impulsivity. Lars was too versatile for Steven's subtle nature.

The engineer who met Lars in college pitied the women who fell for him. Fortunately, the hotel episode did some good as Lars kept his Jewels tucked away in his Ck trunks. He contented himself with liking photos of babes on Instagram, videos on TikTok, and he posted videos where he came out of the pool or worked out with Johannesburg as a location.

The man didn't need to spark conversations; his comment section blew up.

-Where are you from?

- Why is your user name Unavailable?

- Do you have a girlfriend?

- Mooi. Mooi 💋💦

- Are you gay?😢😭

- Are you in Johannesburg? I'm in Durban.

- Aantreklike 😍

Thanks to the fusing flattery, Lars rebuilt his confidence mentally and forgot that most women he desired played him like an 80s vinyl.

The player was back with a new setting in his behaviors configuration. He didn't go out. Instead, he held barbecues and parties to get acquainted with the residents in his area and to weave business connections.

"Here's your coffee."

"Cheers, mate," Lars drank, stopped, and did his best to swallow while trying to keep a straight face, but failed. His lips stretched out, and he squinted his eyes.

Steven took a seat across from him, "Is something wrong?"

"Nah, it's strong," Lars said while internally screaming disgusting.

Suddenly, the food truck came to mind. Never had Lars tasted or had such an experience with anything that entered his mouth, whether food, beverage, or Venus' thigh.

"Lars?"

"Yes,"

"What's the matter?"

"Thanks for the coffee."

"You seem distracted. Is it that girl again?"

Lars frowned as he tried to think of whom Steven referred.

"You know the dancer," Steven said, catching on to Lars' silent query.

Lars had dreams where the mysterious woman danced in front of him with her eyeliner cat eyes. He feared what she could see in his stare and forgot what he perceived in hers.

Fire.

In her half-open gaze, he saw the flames of rage. She was as gatvol [ghut-foll] as he was perhaps even more.

"I found this video trending on Tiktok while scrolling the other day. I forgot to show you," Steven unlocked his phone, went on the app, and searched, "tell me if it's her?" He handed his phone over.

Lars' eyes widened, and his lips stretched to smile in a spontaneous reaction, "yes, it's her. How did you find this?"

"I wrote Amapiano dancer, South Africa, Joburg. You seem so obsessed with her soㅡ, I thought I could help a friend."

"I'm not obsessed," Lars protested, "and it's not what you think. I just like the way she moves. Is this her account?"

Steven withheld the mockeries. It was a raw Libra moment where the man denied being interested only to reveal his interest.

"No, I asked on the comment section and got laughed at; no one knows who she is. She always covers her head, and she wears dark screen glasses most of the time. According to the person who filmed, she's out once a week. One just has to know where. So if you want, we canㅡ."

Lars shook his head in anticipation, "no, been there done that. No nightclubs."

"I thought you might say that. Have you ever heard of Major League sessions?"

"No, I've heard of Major Lazor, that's it."

"Well, here they're DJs. They do sets everywhere, including in apartments. I thought Dalai could get us invited to one of those. Perhaps she'll be there."

"Thank you for your efforts, but I'm not that interested in her. She just caught me off guard with her dancing and stare. That's all."

Steven leaned back and crossed his arms, "really, I don't know how many men dream of the same women continuously without having an idea behind."

"She's black."

Steven shrugged, "since when do you care about that?"

"Listen, you know I have one brother married to a Swedish woman of Asian descent and another married to a black woman; it's challenging. I can't even handle a woman of my own race. There's no way I'm going to cross that river."

Lars spent his year traveling. He looked and sounded like someone open-minded, especially when one heard him speak of his family and brothers' spouses, which he appeared to appreciate. There, by the pool's side, Lars made it clear his sisters-in-law were okay. They passed the test. They neither rubbed their color into their face nor complained about any issues related to being in an interracial marriage. For that, Lars respected them, his sister-in-laws perfectly integrated into society. Thus the man was almost blind to their origins. They were the rare good ones.

The news came as a shock to Steven, who imagined Lars enjoyed the cultural melting pot of his actual environment.

"Lars, I'm not telling you to marry her."

"It's even worse. Sex, for the sake of it, isn't worth it."

Steven blinked, "wow, I can't believe you said that. I should have recorded."

Lars cocked a brow.

"So you're telling me you won't be having you some seggs," Steven said while wiggling his eyebrows before saying, "does that mean the next one will be the last by any chance?"

"Who knows," Lars didn't, yet somewhere deep down, when one opened the door of his head, turned left down the hall, took the elevator, traveled through the corridors to his heart, and unlocked its vault, he hoped to meet someone.

He wasn't against the concept of love. He saw how it transformed people. When Lars witnessed what love did, he was eager to discover the feeling.

All the women he set his eyes on ended up deceiving him. The man forgot he just didn't know how to pick his women. He was still in that pre-adult phase where the face and body balance was everything.

The man didn't look for qualities tying into a healthy relationship. Or what he needed to improve to reel women who desired to build a solid and durable story.

He fancied the fierce, but he became Play-Doh in their hands. Introverts asked for too much work. One always had to dig deep to know what laid behind the silence.

Lars admired his brother Jonas who married one of the most discreet women he had ever met. Jonas, too, was not of a man of many words. Jonas and his wife matched impeccably.

Who could match him?