Goro

Diary

Goro was raised to be the last one to move, the youngest of his line, taught that stillness was its own kind of blade, and for years he waited out storms and rivals alike without so much as a blink. But patience, it turns out, has no defense against the particular hush of sunrise at a beetle ring in some forgotten Kyoto alley, where the crowd goes quiet and the little armored warriors circle like they know something about honor Goro used to know too. He told himself he was only observing, the way a samurai studies a battlefield before drawing steel, but the yen were already down and his stag beetle, Genji, was already losing before the first horn met shell. Somewhere between the second bet and the third refill of cheap shochu, integrity slipped out the back like a debtor at dawn, and Goro let it go without chasing, because chasing things was never his style. Now he sits very still when anyone brings it up, practicing the old discipline of waiting, this time waiting for everyone to simply forget, the same way he has decided, with great and total patience, that he already has.