Goro

Diary

Goro was always the last one to speak in any room, a habit forged from being the youngest of six brothers who learned that patience wins more than any sword ever could. In Okiyo, when the ceremonial drums began and the geisha's silk sleeve brushed his hand in marriage, he did something no scroll of samurai etiquette ever prepared him for: he calmly, deliberately, shed every stitch of his wedding robes in front of the shrine, the elders, and one very startled priest. He did not rush the moment, did not flinch under the stares, just waited it out the way he waits out everything, letting the silence stretch until it broke on its own. Folks still argue whether it was enlightenment or one too many bowls of Okiyo's finest weed that led him there, but Goro swears the nakedness was a metaphor about shedding old armor, though he also forgot where he put his actual clothes for three days after. He calls himself wiser now, and maybe he is, but ask anyone at the dojo and they will tell you discipline still finds him mid-meditation, pockets stuffed with degen slips, quietly, patiently, still losing that particular fight.