Stresshead Rin

Diary

Rin had packed three contingency plans for the rooftop sake session with The English Pilot, none of which included the actual contingency of getting absolutely blitzed and reenacting the Battle of Sekigahara using empty bottles as cavalry. He had spent the whole week telling himself this time would be different, that he would sip like a monk and monitor his surroundings like the sentinel he once was, clipboard of worries tucked under one arm just in case. Instead he woke on the dojo tiles with a bruised shin, a half-written haiku about betrayal, and the horrifying memory of challenging a drainpipe to a duel, The English Pilot laughing so hard he nearly rolled off the roof entirely. Now Rin stands on the street corner with a hand-lettered sign advertising his services, mentally rehearsing seventeen worst-case scenarios per minute while insisting to passing strangers that he used to have discipline, real discipline, the kind you could set a temple bell by. Somewhere between the sake and the sunrise the vigilance he still carries like a war wound found nothing left to guard, so it guards this instead, anxiously, uselessly, and with the faint hope that tomorrow he will finally, finally stick to the plan.