One-Eyed Itsuki

Diary

One-Eyed Itsuki lost his depth perception years ago, but he swears the one eye he kept works overtime, sees every mistake twice before it happens and still lets him walk straight into it anyway. In Nagoya, three sake deep and mourning a floor he aped into that cratered before the tea even cooled, he unloaded a string of obscenities at a group of women outside a ramen stall, the kind of words a disciplined swordsman would have swallowed with his pride intact. What he got back was a fist, then another, and by the time the night settled he was short a few teeth and long on regret, spitting blood onto pavement he used to patrol as a warrior with a code. He tells himself it was a lesson in humility, the same lesson he tells himself every week, right before failing it again with a fresh half-smile and a mouth that whistles now when he talks. Steady as ever, unbothered as ever, he just adjusts his stance, counts his remaining teeth like chips at a table he keeps losing at, and calls it balance.imissing a fewpieces never stopped a man from seeing clearly.