Gloomy Masumi

Diary

Masumi went to the shrine at Kanda not to pray but to pick a fight with The Kingpin, which in retrospect he notes was the single dumbest financial decision recorded in the history of decisions, financial or otherwise. He lost the fight, lost the wager he'd stacked on himself, and lost the last of a bag that had once made him feel, briefly, like a man with a future. He has not slept in seven days, not from guilt exactly, more from the flat mathematical certainty that closing his eyes changes nothing about the number in his wallet. Every morning he tells himself today he restores the old discipline, cold water, quiet mind, a blade held with purpose, and every morning he instead sits at the shrine steps re-watching the fight in his head like a man staring at a rugged chart, hoping the candle turns green if he just believes hard enough. He supposes this is what samurai become when the wars end and the only remaining enemy is arithmetic, and arithmetic, unlike The Kingpin, never even gives you the courtesy of a fair fight.