Junichiro

Diary

Junichiro had once measured the angle of his own bow to the quarter-degree, a first son trained to find the flaw before the master could, and now he measured the tilt of Legless Tom's sake cup with the same merciless eye at Fushimi Inari, muttering that a true drinker pours at exactly forty-five degrees. Somewhere between the fourth toast and the seventh vermillion gate he decided to prove his point with a demonstration, planting one foot on a stone lantern to show correct posture for both bowing and drinking simultaneously, an innovation the shrine had not asked for and his elbow did not survive. He heard the crack before he felt it, a sound so precise and disappointing that some deep samurai part of him almost respected its timing. Lying there under the torii, arm bent at an angle no scoring rubric would forgive, he graded the whole evening a failing effort and, with the wounded pride of a man who still believes discipline is one clean fall away, vowed to never again drink with Tom without a spotter, a vow he has already revised twice and expects to revise again. He calls himself wiser now, though wisdom, like his elbow, still clicks a little when it moves.