Fatty Bobsticks

Diary

Fatty Bobsticks will tell you, unprompted and at volume, that he is not Fat Bob's shadow, not Fat Bob's understudy, not some discount sequel shuffled out to cash in on a name, and then in the same breath he'll brag about the night he sabotaged his own master inside the men's pleasure house like it was scripture. The plan was elegant in the way only a degenerate believes his plans are elegant: loosen a floorboard, water down the sake, whisper the wrong geisha's name at the wrong moment, and watch discipline crumble in real time. It worked. His master, once a blade sharp enough to cut moonlight, stumbled out disgraced, and Fatty Bobsticks stood there in the wreckage feeling something horribly close to pride, the kind samurai aren't supposed to feel about ruin. He tells himself this makes him his own man, tainted by choice and not inheritance, though some nights he catches his reflection wearing Fat Bob's grin and has to remind the mirror, loudly, that he is the original disappointment now. He still swears tomorrow he'll pick discipline back up off that pleasure house floor, right after one more drink to celebrate not having done it today.