From a forgotten village in a district in Kwa Zulu, there lived a young man by the name of Xolani. He was a young man structured like a basketball player, with hands as rough as those of a woodworker, probably from all the work his grandparents always gave him with their livestock and garden.

Xolani was considered an outcast in his village, because being half Zulu is a big deal when you are born in a village full of Zulu people. His time at school was torture, mainly because he always got bullied and teased for his Sesotho attributes. His voice was sweet and fluorescent, and even with a thin body that was sculpted like a basketball player, he was much shorter than the average boy. Most of his peers were different shades of a dark brown, but he was a light coffee colour, which made him seem like the odd one out.

Xolani spent lots of time alone. If he was not reading, he was working, and if he was not working, he was exercising. He did not just exercise to keep fit, but he did it to keep fit enough to fight off bullies who came his way. That was his way of life, and it seemed like it had always been like that for his family.

Xolani’s father had gone out of the village and came back with a Mosotho bride that most of the villagers resented. After giving birth to Xolani, she passed on, and his father got chased out of the village. He was then raised by his grandparents who loved and adored him, but they also resented his difference from his peers.

On one specific day, Xolani did his daily routines before bathing and heading to school. School went on as normal. There was a mini fight here and there by the bullies, and then when break time came, a young girl approached him.

The young dark skinned girl with vivacious attributes and a shy face went to Xolani, but he was too engulfed in the book he was reading to realise that she was standing beside him. Terror clouded his face when he realised a girl was standing before him, not because of who she was, but because he had never had a conversation with any girl before. They all considered him an outcast who did not deserve any of them.

The girl introduced herself as Nokthula, and she had a shy nature to her already dreamy body. She was not the prettiest or sexiest girl in school, but no decent man would reject her. They spoke for a while, until they both began to loosen up. They found out that they actually had a lot in common, from their taste in food and music, to what they aspired to be. They could not put a label on what they felt, but to anyone who saw them, it was love.

The two of them began spending a lot of time with each other, to such an extent that their peers began to resent them both. They called them the “Outcast Couple”, but a lot of the boys were jealous because they could not get a girl as decent as Nokthula, and the outcast could, even though he was not even trying.

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Tell us: What do you think is going to happen between Nokthula and Xolani?