Gloomy Masumi

Diary

Masumi soaked in the onsen at Kinosaki with the flat expression of a man reading his own obituary and finding the prose serviceable, and between long silences he dispensed gossip the way old masters once dispensed wisdom, precisely, cruelly, and with excellent timing. Everyone in the water left richer in rank and poorer in dignity, which he considered a fair trade, since dignity was rugged from him years ago on a battlefield nobody bothered writing down. He tried, once, to meditate on discipline instead, sword across his knees, mind on the void, and lasted four minutes before noting aloud that the void was, statistically, disappointing. So he returned to the steam and the whispers, because bushido never paid rent and rumors apparently did, and he floated there admitting to himself, without flinching, that he regretted nothing except the version of him that used to expect better. That honesty didn't warm him, but at least it didn't lie, and in the Dojo that passes for peace.