Stresshead Rin

Diary

Stresshead Rin still keeps three exit routes mapped out of any izakaya he enters, a habit left over from a war that ended before most of his sparring partners were born, and yet the vigilance never found a new war to spend itself on, so it curdled into something jumpier and sadder. The day it all cracked he was down on the crowded street near the old checkpoint, coin pouch shaking in his hand, and in a fog of bad math and worse decisions he shook down a line of poor merchants for their last ryo, telling himself it was a tactical withdrawal rather than a robbery, which fooled absolutely no one, least of all Rin. He spent the following week convinced armed patrols, angry ghosts, and his own mother were all separately hunting him, triple checking locks that did not exist on a room he did not have, journaling contingency plans for disasters that never once materialized. Every morning he swears today is the day he becomes disciplined again, lays out a schedule with the seriousness of a battle plan, then blows the whole thing apart by three cups of shochu and a fistful of someone else's coin just to feel something other than dread. Still he tells himself, teeth gritted, eyes twitching toward the door, that better days are coming, mostly because the alternative is admitting the war he is bracing for is only ever himself.