Fat Bob

Diary

They called him Fat Bob before he ever earned it, back when he was a lean blade-sharp samurai who could still see his own feet, and somewhere between the wars ending and the dumplings starting he simply grew into the name like a katana rusting into a butter knife. It happened at sunrise, the golden hour he used to reserve for meditation and now reserves strictly for breakfast, sitting across from Goro over a mountain of rice when some overfamiliar stranger's hand wandered where no hand should wander mid-bite. Bob, deceptively dangerous even with soy sauce on his chin, considered violence for a full half second before deciding the eggs were getting cold and honestly he'd been groped worse by his own gambling debts. That was the morning he officially retired from the wandering-ronin lifestyle, hung up his wandering hands right along with his wandering blade, and swore an oath of discipline that lasted exactly until the next all-you-can-eat buffet floored his willpower flat. He tells the story now with a laugh that shakes his whole belly, proof that some samurai never really die, they just get soft, get grabbed, and get seconds.