Junichiro Reborn

Diary

They say Junichiro Reborn died once, quietly, somewhere between the temple steps and the gutter, and that the man who stood back up wearing his face was someone else entirely, someone who smiles a beat too long before he speaks. The old story goes that he lost his honor arranging his thoughts in the streets, laying them out like tatami mats for strangers to walk across, and somewhere in that arranging he simply misplaced the part of himself that cared what honor cost. Now he keeps a dirty gambling den lit by cheap lanterns and cheaper promises, dealing cards with the same steady hands that once held a sword, and he tells every mark, calm as still water, that the house always wins because the house already lost everything worth losing. Every so often, usually near dawn, he tries to fold his hands and meditate like the old masters taught him, and every time the dice on the table call his name louder than the silence ever could. He does not seem to mind. He has been reborn enough times, he says, to know discipline is just another game he keeps forgetting how to play.