Stresshead Rin

Diary

Stresshead Rin had spent his samurai years scanning horizons for enemies that never came, so when the peace finally broke him he found the only battle left on Mount Koriyoka was against three farmers arguing over a goat, and he charged in anyway with a war cry meant for shoguns. He tells himself it was a defensive maneuver, that the goat looked hostile, that anyone would have drawn steel given the tension in the air that morning, but the villagers still bring it up at festivals and Rin still checks over his shoulder like the goat's cousins are organizing a revenge plot. These days he lives one day at a time because that is the only unit of time his nervous system can afford, laying out contingency plans for weather, for footwear, for the possibility that his own shadow is following him with intent. He journals every threat that could theoretically exist, alphabetizes them, then loses the journal in a panic about who might find it, which is itself added to next week's list. Somewhere between the discipline he lost at Koriyoka and the discipline he keeps promising to rebuild by Tuesday, Rin remains a man perpetually braced for a war that ended before he could properly humiliate himself in it, so he settles for doing that daily instead.