Goro

Diary

Goro had always been the one who waited, the youngest brother taught to let the room settle before he moved, and that patience carried him through years of quiet discipline long after the swords were pawned for sake cups and gambling chits. In the Fight Pits, he watched Botan the way he watched everything, still as river stone, counting breaths instead of throwing punches, until the opening came and his fist did what his mind had already decided minutes before. Botan dropped, and the crowd roared, but Goro felt nothing like victory, only the cold understanding that he had wanted this too badly, had let ambition slip past the discipline he swore he still had. He tells himself, most nights over a joint he lets burn too long, that he is still the patient one, the watcher, the man who waits out storms, but the memory of Botan's eyes rolling back keeps finding him first. Now he sits ringside more than he fights, promising himself one more year of stillness before he steps in again, and everyone who knows him just nods, because they have heard that promise before and know patience, like everything else in his life, is something Goro is still failing to master.”