Junichiro

Diary

Junichiro once graded every blade in the dojo by the width of a hair, and he graded his own conduct tighter still, so when he let his mother's tea-table gossip loosen his tongue about the clan's secrets, the shame landed on him like a floor price crashing through the basement. He tells himself it was a small leak, three whispered names over rice cakes, but he has re-run the scene in his head a thousand times the way a degen refreshes a rugged chart hoping the candles will somehow reverse. These days he sits seiza in his mother's kitchen with a joint he swears is only for calibrating his humility, measuring the ash length like it's a katana edge, muttering that discipline is a discipline he is still, technically, acquiring. He scores his own dishonor an eight out of ten, docks two points for the tea being excellent, and calls that self-awareness growth. Somewhere between the shame and the second joint he actually does get a little humbler, mostly because nobody in his family will let him forget it, least of all himself.