Young Yuji

Diary

Young Yuji was born a few years too late for the last real war, so he spends his nights chasing a glory that already packed up and left town without him, restless as a floor price nobody respects. Before all this, before the beach, before he started fishing for compliments like they were the last airdrop on earth, he was a peaceful kid whose entire universe was a bucket, a shovel, and the honest, humble work of cleaning up after the dojo's animals. He tells anyone who'll listen that scooping poop was simpler, purer, that there was dignity in a job nobody could rug, and some nights you'll catch him staring at the tide trying to meditate like the old masters taught, except he's also scrolling for likes on a post where he flexed his abs for the ninth time that week. He aped into main-character energy expecting applause and got seagulls instead, and now he can't sleep, can't sit still, can't stop performing a war that ended before he ever got his real scar. Somewhere between the compliments he's fishing for and the ones he actually needs, Young Yuji keeps swearing tomorrow he'll go back to something quiet, something small, something with a shovel in it, and every single morning that promise gets rugged by his own reflection.