Stresshead Rin

Diary

Stresshead Rin had knelt at sunset outside a quiet shrine near Kyoto, hands folded, mind already three disasters ahead, when the prayer he meant to whisper for calm came out instead as a vow to protect everyone from everything forever, and that, unfortunately, was the exact moment his calling clicked into place. He has never forgiven himself for it, because a vigilance that big needs a war to spend itself on, and the wars politely left without him, leaving Rin standing guard over an empty dojo, a half-eaten bowl of ramen, and a group chat he checks every four minutes in case the floor drops out from under everyone he loves. He tried meditation to quiet the alarm bells; he now meditates with a timer, a backup timer, and a written apology pre-drafted in case he falls asleep and misses an emergency that never comes. His idea of unwinding is one modest edible, which somehow always becomes three, after which he white-knuckles a plan for every catastrophe from earthquakes to his bags getting rugged, sweating through a discipline he can name but never quite hold. Still he shows up each dusk to that same worn patch of dirt, bowing to a sunset that ruined him gently, hoping tomorrow the prayer will ask for nothing, and knowing, with the tired laugh of a man who has aped into his own anxiety a thousand times, that it probably won't.