Junichiro

Diary

Junichiro had rehearsed the disrobing at the main temple in Kyoto for three weeks in his head, calculating the exact fold of silk, the precise angle of his chin, the way a first son of a once-great house ought to reveal himself to the gods with dignity intact. Instead he tripped on the hem, sent his kimono skidding across sacred stone like a dropped hand at the tables, and stood there bare and blinking while a dozen monks tried very hard not to laugh at the man who used to grade his own swordsmanship on a ten-point scale and never once gave himself a ten. Somehow, impossibly, his confidence rose anyway, some rugged degenerate part of him deciding that if the floor of his own composure could fall out from under him and he'd survive it, maybe he could survive anything, maybe even his own relentless scoring. He is recovering slowly, less from the cold stone than from the humiliation, journaling every failed meditation attempt with the same exacting hand he once used to log kill counts, furious that discipline, unlike everyone else he measures, refuses to hold still long enough for him to master it. Still he returns to that temple weekly, robe folded with obsessive precision, determined to nail the bow next time, certain this time will be the perfect ten.