Goro

Diary

Goro had spent a lifetime being the youngest, which meant he had spent a lifetime waiting, watching older brothers and louder men burn out first while he sat quiet in the corner counting their mistakes. Inside the Dojo one humid night, half a jug of shochu deep, he finally said the thing he'd been chewing on for years and insulted a samurai twice his size, calmly, like he was ordering another round. The room went still, someone's floor price dropped in sympathy, and Goro simply waited, the way he always waits, for the blow that never quite came because the old warrior just laughed and called it the truest thing anyone had said to him in a decade. They call it enlightenment now, though Goro suspects it was mostly luck and low blood sugar, and he is recovering slowly, sitting seiza in the corner again, trying to relearn patience now that patience has made him briefly, terrifyingly interesting.aped nowhere, gained everything, and still can't finish a bowl of rice without checking the door twice.