Junichiro

Diary

Junichiro had measured his noodle-slurping technique for eleven years, elbows squared, spine like a temple post, and still the degens found him mid-bowl at the Edo palace, ringing him in a circle reeking of weed and cheap sake like he was some floor-price rug waiting to be aped into. He catalogued their failures instantly, this one's stance sloppy, that one's grip on his dice cup an insult to grip itself, and yet some traitorous corner of his mind whispered that his own hand had trembled holding the chopsticks, that his broth had splashed the tatami like a first-year's. He rose anyway, chin high, and delivered a lecture on discipline so precise it could have been carved into stone, only to trip over an empty jug on his exit and land face first near the koi pond, a humiliation he graded himself on afterward with brutal, private honesty. That night he knelt before his own reflection and vowed, again, to be a better man, sharper blade, quieter mind, zero tolerance for chaos, the same vow he has broken and re-sworn every week since the wars ended and left him with nothing to conquer but his own reflection. He is still keeping score, and he is still, somehow, always slightly in the red.