Goro

Diary

Goro never laughed loud, he just watched, the way he'd watched his older brothers claim every good seat and every good sword until there was nothing left for the youngest but patience. So when he and Haru wandered up through the thousand red gates at Fushimi, giggling about nothing, it was Goro who stayed still long enough to lock eyes with a fat, unbothered shrine pig rooting through offerings like it had never lost a single bid in its life. Something in that pig's total indifference to the world's noise cracked him open, and he swore right there, half stoned on incense and Haru's cheap weed, that he would devote himself to Buddha and finally learn real stillness. He meditates most mornings now, sits for maybe four minutes before his knees ache and his mind drifts to floor prices and whether the pig ever thinks about him too, then he quietly gives up and calls it enlightenment anyway. Haru still brings it up every time Goro loses a fight slowly and patiently, one calm step at a time, right into a loss he clearly saw coming and simply waited for, like a monk who forgot the whole point was to dodge.