Toxic Azuma

Diary

Azuma once believed patience was a blade you sharpened in silence, the way old sensei taught him to wait for an opening rather than force one, but out in the cold beneath a moon that refused to hurry, he watched his careful courtship of Rin curdle into something brittle and loud. He had meant to be subtle, poison working slow, a compliment here, a lingering glance there, but Rin only laughed at his jokes about floors dropping and never once asked him to stay, and something in him finally snapped like cheap katana steel forged by a rug-pull blacksmith. He stormed off muttering about needing better quality friends, the kind who don't leave a man shivering by a vending machine reciting haiku about heartbreak to no one. Later, nursing a lukewarm can of chuhai and swearing this was the last time he'd let his temper do the talking, he tried the old breathing exercises his master once drilled into him, four counts in, four counts out, and lasted exactly nine seconds before scrolling through his phone for people to mute. The east may be poisonous, he told himself, but even venom needs a little discipline to land clean, and clearly he still hadn't found his.