Unavoidably Yours.

Chapter Five: Putting Things in Order.

KITAN

By the third week, his father’s transfer to the Executive Oncology Wing at Crest view Specialist Hospital has already stripped the illness of its initial shock, replacing it with an unsettling familiarity.

Tucked away on the top floor of the premium Victoria Island facility, the wing is designed to mask the grim reality of its purpose.

It features muted cream walls, polished mahogany paneling, and plush leather armchairs meant to evoke the atmosphere of a five-star boutique hotel rather than a cancer ward. The heavy, customized doors effectively seal out the frantic energy of the lower floors, replacing it with a hushed, climate-controlled stillness.

Yet, to Kitan’s trained eyes, the luxury is just a thin veneer. He still smells the faint, chemical undertone of medical-grade disinfectant beneath the automated lavender air fresheners.

He still recognizes the sharp, distinct hum of the chemotherapy infusion pumps hidden behind the bedside cabinetry, and he knows that the rear service elevator moves twice as fast during peak visiting hours.

The specialized unit has imposed a rigid, sterile pattern of habits that his body has begun memorizing entirely against his will.

People should not get used to places like this. Yet somehow, they always do.

When he steps into the private suite this afternoon, the television is muted, and a pair of reading glasses is perched low on his father’s nose as he flips through a document resting atop the hospital tray table.

Kitan stops near the door, his eyes narrowing. His father is wearing a proper light blue button-down shirt instead of the standard-issue hospital gown, though the collar is noticeably wrinkled.

“Tell me that’s not what I think it is.”

His father glances up over the rims of his glasses, completely unbothered. “Good afternoon to you, too.”

Kitan drops into the armchair beside the bed with a heavy sigh. “Dad, please.”

“What is it?”

“You’re supposed to be recovering.”

“And what is the issue? Is it the documents?”

“You should not be working in this state.”

His father adjusts the file calmly. “I’m not doing anything strenuous. I’m just putting things in order, that’s all.”

Kitan shakes his head, though the sheer predictability of the stubbornness makes him fight back a smile.

Recovery is moving in slow, agonizing increments, but the small victories are starting to show. They are currently halfway through his first round of chemotherapy to shrink the tumor, and the terrifying, violent sickness of those first few days has finally begun to level off.

The severe drop in blood counts that had left his father looking entirely translucent last week is lifting, the bone marrow finally doing its quiet job of rebuilding.

As a doctor, Kitan knows how to read the body’s braille, tracing the subtle shifts that a regular visitor might miss. The haunting, hollow look beneath his father’s cheekbones has softened just a fraction, and the constant, frustrating tremor in his hands appear less pronounced today.

Total exhaustion still shadows his every movement, but the sickly, yellowish tint to his skin has finally faded, allowing a hint of natural color to creep back into his face.

His appetite is improving too, though he still complains about the bland, low-sodium hospital diet with enough consistency to reassure everyone that his personality remains fundamentally intact.

Kitan clings to these details privately. The complaints. The sarcasm. The unyielding stubbornness. He values them more than any lab report or clear scan.

Turning away from the paperwork, Kitan reaches for the insulated flask on the side table instead. “Mummy sent food for you. It’s yam porridge with soft vegetables. It should help with the digestion.”

His father watches him ladle a portion into a small bowl before speaking again, his voice dropping into a softer register. “Your mother is the happiest to have you around.”

Kitan focuses entirely on the bowl, carefully wiping a stray drop of porridge from the rim. “You should eat before this gets cold.”

His father studies him for a moment longer, tracking the guarded posture, before accepting the bowl. He takes a single, dutiful spoonful before setting it down on the tray table.

“I’ll try again later,” his father announces.

“That’s fine,” Kitan says, reaching over to gently but firmly slide the corporate folder out of his father’s reach. “But absolutely no working in this state.”

His father grudgingly turns his attention to Kitan as he studies him with unhurried deliberation.

“How much longer do we have you around for?”

Kitan leans back into the depth of the armchair. “All things being equal, I’m supposed to head back next week.”

“Supposed to?”

“I’ve already extended my leave once. Twice if we are counting my impromptu departure. I don’t want to push my luck.”

His father nods slowly. “You will have to return eventually.”

Kitan rubs absentmindedly at the textured edge of his watch strap, the leather cool against his thumb. “I’m trying to finalize things with Dr. Afolayan regarding your ongoing treatment plan before I fly out.”

“Kitan Bobo,” his father says gently “While you are here... what do you think about showing up at the office? I want you to start picking up a few things about the business. You don’t need to grasp everything at once. Just enough to see how the wheels turn. Mr. Lawson can guide you through the basics.”

Kitan stiffens slightly. “Daddy, I have a job.”

“And what does that have to do with anything? Have I asked you to quit your job?” His father’s tone sharpens just a fraction, the familiar executive authority bleeding through his physical weakness.

“All I am saying is that while you are here in Lagos, just visit the office. Get familiar with the terrain. Know what is what. This one that you are frowning as if we are fighting, have I said something offensive?”

“No, I genuinely just want to understand.” Kitan leans forward, his forearms resting against his knees as he tries to pierce through his father’s guarded expression.

“You’re recovering. The chemotherapy is doing its job. The consultants are incredibly optimistic. So what is all this about? Why are you sounding like you have given up?”

Beside the bed, the infusion pump continues its measured, mechanical hum, serving as background soundtrack for the uncomfortable silence that engulfs the room.

His father reaches for the glass of water, his fingers steadying against the glass with a slow, deliberate effort before he speaks.

“When did I say that? Or do you think I don’t want to survive this?”

Kitan shakes his head immediately, his hands cutting through the air. “Then survive. Survive first, and let’s deal with all of this later. Plus, God forbid, even if anything were to happen to you, we both know I am not the sensible choice for this. What do I know about corporate business?”

“That is exactly why I want you to learn.”

“I HAVE A JOB.”

The words rip through the stillness of the room. Kitan exhales hard through his nose, tearing his gaze away to look out the window. Outside, the sky has begun to bruise, darkening with the threat of rain.

“This is actually madness,” he says, his voice dropping into a bitter undertone.

“Kitan—”

“No, please, let me talk.” He turns back, the frustration spilling over. “Mummy is praying every single day as if the world will collapse if she mistakenly stops for one second. Oyinda looks at you like she’s trying not to burst into tears every time you so much as cough.” His voice tightens, a sudden, unwanted fracture appearing in his tone. “And now you’re sitting here asking me to learn the business like—”

He stops. The rest of the sentence refuses to leave his mouth, hanging like smoke in the space between them.

His father watches him, entirely unmovable. He removes his reading glasses slowly, placing them carefully on the folder beside him. “I’m not dying, Kitan. But I would be a foolish man not to prepare my family properly in case this recovery becomes more complicated than we hoped.”

“You don’t get to do that,” Kitan grits through his teeth.

His father looks up. “Do what?”

“You don’t get to sit here talking like you’re preparing us for your funeral while everybody else is exhausting themselves trying to believe you’ll be fine.”

The emotion arrives fully now, rougher and heavier than he intended, stripping away the composed, clinical detachment he had tried so hard to maintain since landing in Nigeria.

“When I was your age,” his father says, his voice dropping into a resonant, memory-laden register, “my own father died overnight. He left before I had the chance to ask half the questions I needed answered.”

Kitan’s chest tightens, a sharp ache flaring behind his ribs. “This isn’t the same thing.”

“No,” his father agrees softly. “It isn’t. Because I am still sitting here.”

“Great. If being stuck in this room makes you think about death and drives you into drafting a succession plan, then by all means, carry on. But you will not die. Not on my watch. Also, find somebody else to replace you at the company. I am not the one.”

His father’s expression gentles, the hard-nosed executive fading to leave just a parent looking at his child. “I am not asking you to abandon medicine, Kitan.”

“So what exactly are you asking of me? Because you are speaking in riddles. What is the point of learning the ropes if you have no intention of cornering me into taking over the company?”

His father’s gaze sharpens, the old, formidable clarity returning to his eyes. “Is it a sin to want my only son to understand my life’s work?”

“With all due respect to your life’s work, Dad,” Kitan says, standing up to break the suffocating proximity of the bedside, “I am telling you that I have my own life. And I want no part in any of this.”

“You speak as though everything I built exists to trap you.” His father’s breathing changes, growing shallower beneath the weight of the strain creeping into the space between them. “Do you think I wanted less for you than this?”

“I never said that.”

“You don’t have to commit to anything today,” his father says, his voice tightening. “I am simply saying it is time you understood what I built.”

Kitan lets out a sharp, fractured breath, caught between disbelief and mounting frustration. “I spent years building my own life. My own career for God’s sake. You know exactly how hard I worked to get where I am.”

“And I am proud of you.”

“Then why does this conversation feel like you’re asking me to become somebody else?”

“Because you are my only son and this work is my legacy”

Something twists painfully inside Kitan’s chest. He hates the direction the words are moving, and he hates the massive implication beneath them even more.

“Olakitan. I am your father. I will always want the best for you.”

The room suddenly begins to close in around him. His breath hitches in his throat, making it increasingly difficult to swallow.

If he didn’t know his own biology, he would have suspected a panic attack, but the sensation pulsing through him in shocking waves is actually a muted, concentrated form of anger. His whole body vibrates with words he doesn’t dare utter aloud.

“I am trying,” his father continues slowly, the words measured and deliberate, “to make peace with the possibility that my life may look very different after this.”

Kitan’s throat tightens into a painful knot.

“And I am trying to understand,” his father adds, looking directly at him, “why the thought of standing beside me feels like a punishment to you.”

“Because I already have a life of my own!” Kitan turns on him, the volume of his voice breaking the carefully cultivated stillness of the VIP floor. “Why must honoring you mean stripping myself of my own desires? Does my own personal ambition not matter at all?”

When his father speaks again, his voice is in a much lower, exhausted register. “I am asking you to stand beside me while I am still strong enough to teach you myself.”

Kitan grabs his phone blindly from the armchair. “I can’t do this right now.”

“Kitan...”

“I said I can’t.”

He turns toward the door, his steps too fast, too urgent.

Behind him, the bedsheets rustle violently as his father tries to push himself upright too suddenly against the mattress, one hand gripping the metal bedside rail for support.

The physiological stress registers instantly on the equipment, and the infusion monitor erupts into a series of louder, rapid, high-pitched beeps.

“Olakitan!”

The raw strain in his father’s voice nearly anchors him to the floor, but Kitan forces his feet to keep moving.

He knows with absolute certainty that if he turns back now, the anger holding him together will collapse into a terrifying, unmanageable grief and he does not yet know how to survive that version of himself.

ENITAN

Enitan is halfway through typing a reply to an email when the sound of raised voices cuts through the heavy wood of the hospital door.

They are not speaking loudly enough for her to catch every syllable, but the sharp, jagged cadence of the tension is unmistakable. She pauses in the hallway, her fingers instinctively tightening around the cardboard coffee tray she is carrying.

Inside the suite, Mr. Peters is speaking in a rough, strained register that sounds entirely unnatural given his usual executive composure. It is quickly followed by Kitan’s sharp reply, thick with an edge that makes her freeze.

In all the years she has known him, Kitan has been many things - stubborn, teasing, and fiercely protective, yet emotionally evasive whenever he is cornered. But he is rarely ever harsh with his parents. Especially not his father.

Before she can decide whether to retreat down the corridor to give them privacy, the heavy door swings open with an abrupt force.

Kitan storms out, the momentum of his exit nearly sending him colliding directly into her. He cuts himself short, his boots clicking sharply against the polished floor. Enitan freezes in place.

For a long beat, neither of them says a word.

His expression betrays him completely. His jaw is clenched so tight the muscle pinches, and one hand is still gripping his phone with white-knuckled intensity. He drags his other hand restlessly through his short cropped hair before letting it drop heavily to his side.

And his eyes. Gosh. There is a raw, vibrating fragility in them that she has never seen before. It is the look of someone on the absolute brink of shattering, carrying all the crushing weight of tears without a single drop actually falling.

“Kitan?” she calls softly.

He blinks, the focus slowly returning to his eyes as if he is only just remembering that an entire world exists outside the storm in his head.

“When did you get here?” he asks, his voice rough.

“Just now.”

A lie. A small, mercifully offered white lie.

His breathing still comes out ragged, the shallow rise and fall of his chest betraying the havoc within. Behind him, the urgent, frantic beeping from the infusion pump gradually slows, returning to its regular cadence through the half-open door.

Enitan’s gaze flickers briefly past his shoulder into the suite, where Mr. Peters is leaning back against the pillows with his eyes closed. A nurse has already appeared by the bedside, her movements practiced and efficient as she adjusts the monitors and checks the line.

Something cold and uneasy slips into the pit of Enitan’s stomach.

“Kitan,” she says again, softer this time. “What happened?”

“Nothing.”

The answer arrives entirely too fast. She studies the sharp lines of his face for another moment, refusing to let him retreat into his usual emotional evasion.

“You’re visibly shaking.”

Only then does he seem to notice the faint, vibrating tremor running through his fingers. He curls his hand into a tight fist immediately, hiding it by his side.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re clearly not.”

A muscle shifts aggressively in his jaw, but he doesn’t argue. Around them, the upscale oncology wing moves on with indifferent efficiency. Nurses glide past with charts.

Well-dressed relatives speak loiter near the waiting lounge. A porter wheels a piece of equipment farther down the corridor. Yet, the immediate radius around the two of them feels strangely suspended, insulated from the rest of the world.

Enitan lowers her voice further, stepping closer. “Did Dr. Afolayan say something? Did they find something else?”

“No.”

“Then what is it?”

For a long beat, he says nothing. She can see the restraint happening in real time. The words rising to the surface, retreating, and reorganizing themselves behind his teeth as he fights to maintain his composure.

“He wants me to take over the company,” Kitan says, the admission sounding like it was dragged out of him.

Enitan momentarily stutters, caught off guard. “Oh.”

“He’s already planning contingency structures.” He lets out a short laugh that comes out thin and entirely frayed around the edges. “Apparently, we’re discussing succession now.”

“Kitan…”

“He keeps talking like—”

He stops abruptly. The rest of the thought remains suspended between them, a hefty, unuttered truth that he cannot bear to hear fully formed in the open air.

Enitan looks toward the room again briefly before returning her gaze to him. “Maybe he’s just trying to put things in order.”

“He’s alive!” Kitan’s voice cracks, the volume cutting sharply through the hushed corridor. “He is still alive.”

Several heads turn faintly down the hall before looking away just as quickly, respecting the unspoken boundaries of the floor.

Kitan exhales sharply through his nose and drags a hand over his face, as if trying to wipe away the sheer exhaustion. “He’s responding to the chemo. The consultants are optimistic. Everybody keeps saying that.” His voice drops into a desperate whisper. “So why does it suddenly feel like he’s preparing us for something else?”

His voice breaks entirely near the end.

Enitan takes a step closer. “Kitan.”

He looks away immediately, his eyes darting toward the floor-to-ceiling windows at the far end of the corridor, watching the rain wash over the city below. He looks toward anything except her face.

“I shouldn’t have shouted at him.”

Her chest tightens painfully at the raw guilt in his tone. “What did you say?”

He lets out a hollow laugh beneath his breath. “I don’t even fully remember.” His throat moves roughly as he swallows. “I just—”

Words fail him entirely.

Enitan reaches out, her fingers closing gently around his wrist before she can think too hard about the boundary she is crossing. The skin beneath her palm is burning hot, his pulse racing.

“You’re terrified, Kitan, and that is completely okay,” she says softly, her voice steady enough for both of them.

His eyes snap back to hers then. For one suspended, breathless moment, she thinks the dam might finally break. She thinks he might actually put words to the grief and terror coursing through him.

Instead, a familiar guard drops behind his eyes. He pulls in a slow, calculated breath and steps backward, gently but firmly slipping his wrist out of her hold.

“I need air.”

“Kitan—”

“I can’t stay here right now.”

She watches him rake both hands through his hair before turning on his heel. He walks down the corridor too quickly, his broad shoulders rigid beneath the weight of a realization he is still running from.

Halfway toward the elevators, he stops briefly. He doesn’t turn around to face her, his back remaining a stiff, unyielding wall.

“Don’t tell my mother we argued.”

Then the elevator doors slide open with a soft chime, and he walks away.

Enitan remains standing outside the heavy mahogany door for several seconds after the elevator numbers begin their descent.

Through the glass panel of the suite, the monitor continues its steady, indifferent clockwork, while the rain taps softly against the windowpanes.

And somewhere beneath the ache gathering in her chest, a thought unsettles her with frightening clarity: Kitan wasn’t just running from his father’s succession plan. He was running because he knew that if he stepped into that office, if he learned how the wheels turned, he would be admitting that a world without his father was a world that could actually exist.

A world that none of them was ready for.

She swallows hard, forcing down the sudden, hot knot gathering in her throat, and leans back against the cool wall of the corridor just to stay upright.

KITAN

By the time Kitan gets downstairs, the rain has arrived in heavy, deafening torrents.

Near the entrance, the security guards are busy dragging their plastic chairs farther beneath the deep concrete awning, while visitors scurry toward the parking lot with handbags, folders, and umbrellas clutched protectively over their heads.

Kitan barely notices any of it. He walks straight out into the downpour, the cold water soaking through his shirt in seconds before he reaches his car.

He climbs inside, pulls the door shut against the deluge, and grips the steering wheel with both hands without starting the engine.

His father’s voice keeps replaying itself in fragmented loops.

While you’re here, I want you to start picking up a few things about the business.

It was such a simple sentence. Yet it hangs in the air like miasma, suffocating and impossible to clear out.

Kitan rests his forehead against the cool leather of the steering wheel and shuts his eyes. The real problem is that he knows his father too well. He knows the way the man operates.

The executive detachment that allows him to plan six steps ahead even while everyone else is still drowning in the emotional aftermath of step one.

The conversation hadn’t been an impulsive thought. His father had been sitting in that VIP suite, watching the chemo drip into his veins, and calculating this for weeks.

And the absolute worst part is that the request isn’t even unreasonable. A part of Kitan understands the cold logic of it completely, but understanding a terrifying thing does nothing to stop it from paralyzing you.

It does nothing to ease the sudden, tight panic seizing his chest as he tries to measure the sheer scale of the ripple effect. Accepting that folder meant letting go of the life he had fought so hard to build for himself.

A sharp knock lands against the driver’s side window.

Kitan flinches, his eyes snapping open. Through the rain-streaked glass, the family driver is standing there, holding a massive black umbrella and gesturing uncertainly.

“Oga?”

Kitan lowers the glass halfway, a gust of wet air blowing into the cabin. “I’m fine, Monday. Go back inside.”

“Sir? Mummy said I should—”

“I’ll drive myself,” Kitan cuts him off, his voice leaving no room for argument. “Just go home.”

The driver hesitates, looking at Kitan’s soaked shirt, before nodding reluctantly and stepping back into the rain.

As the window rolls back up, his phone buzzes against the centre console. The screen lights up with a picture of his mother. Kitan just stares at it, watching her name flash until the ringing finally stops and the car plunges back into darkness.

He presses the engine start button. The dashboard comes alive, and he shifts into drive, pulling out into the blinding sheets of water without any destination in mind.

He navigates out through the hospital gates and hits the main road, past Falomo, bleeding into the slow, agonizing crawl of early evening traffic. Rainwater pools across the asphalt, reflecting the fractured yellow glare of the streetlights, while yellow danfo buses force their rusted noses recklessly into the slightest gaps between lanes.

Driving in Lagos is always an inconvenient madness, but tonight, the chaos feels strangely grounding. It demands enough of his immediate attention to keep him from completely falling apart.

On the passenger seat, his phone vibrates twice more. He keeps his eyes locked on the brake lights ahead and ignores it.

A danfo bus cuts abruptly in front of his bumper near an intersection, and Kitan slams on the brakes, his tyres catching wet asphalt with a dull screech.

“Olori gbeske”, he swears, the raw Yoruba insult ripping out of him as he swerves into the next lane.

He regrets the outburst the instant it leaves his lips, his grip tightening around the steering wheel until his knuckles turn white. He isn’t angry at the driver. It is the suffocating weight of the conversation that has scraped against an old, deeply buried wound inside him.

He drives without a destination for another forty minutes, the windshield wipers slapping a steady, hypnotic rhythm against the glass, before he realizes he has circled the exact same grid of area twice.

He has spent over the last decade building a life that belongs entirely to him. He remembers arriving in London at sixteen with two oversized suitcases, a fierce sense of pride, and absolutely no idea how profoundly lonely a foreign country could be.

Everything he has now, he built by hand, deliberately. The grueling eighty-hour weeks as an intern. The brutal post-graduate exams. The exhausting years of proving his competence over and over again in rooms where people often underestimated him first.

He earned his autonomy. And now, his father is speaking as though returning home to inherit a corporate empire should be an obvious, painless choice. As though wanting to keep the life he built for himself somehow means he is somehow rejecting his own blood.

The profound unfairness of it drains the remaining energy from his limbs.

A sharp, impatient horn blares behind him. Kitan blinks, realizing the traffic light has turned green. He moves through the intersection and finally pulls over into the gravel setback of a quiet side street, cutting the headlights.

On the centre console, his phone buzzes once more. He glances at it warily.

Enitan.

An instinctive, involuntary wave of relief moves through him before he even touches the device. He picks it up, the device cool against his palm.

Enitan:

Did you get home safely?

Kitan stares at the text for a long moment, the cursor blinking like a tiny pulse in the dark.

Kitan:

Not yet. Just driving around.

The three typing dots appear almost immediately. They dance for a second, disappear, then return.

Enitan:

You want company?

His throat tightens unexpectedly at the simple offer.

Outside, the heavy torrents have finally tapered off into a soft, steady drizzle, leaving rainwater to gather in transparent, glowing trails along the pavement.

And for the first time all evening, the exhausting urge to stop running from his thoughts presses harder than the instinct to keep moving.

---

Author’s Note: This Emotional support Enitan is offering, e don pass “we are family o.🌚” Someone is falling and that person is Enitan.🙃

Catch up: Chapter one, Chapter Two, Chapter Three, and Chapter Four.

See you next week Monday.🫶🏽