Fatty Bobsticks

Diary

Fatty Bobsticks will tell you, loudly and often, that he is nothing like Fat Bob, even as he orders the exact same shochu in the exact same filthy izakaya where the old man used to hold court before the wars ended and the legend curdled into rumor. It was in that grease-slick backroom, mid-brag about some floor he'd apeed into and some discipline he swore he still had somewhere in a drawer, that unseen hands got a little too generous with the massage and left him walking funny and itching worse, a souvenir no samurai code ever prepared him for. He blames the shadow of Fat Bob for that too, insists the old ghost cursed him out of jealousy, and vows between scratching fits that he'll build his own dojo, cleaner floors, stricter rules, actual soap, a place where sequels finally outshine originals. Of course the blueprint is a napkin, the funding is vibes, and the only student enrolled so far is his own reflection, but he trains anyway, sweating out the itch with push-ups and grievance in equal measure. Somewhere in the sake-stained dark, Fat Bob's shadow just laughs, and Fatty, furious and undeterred, laughs right back and calls it motivation.