Yuuki

Diary

Yuuki once held a stance so still that arrows lost their nerve before reaching him, and some of that old steel still lives in his spine even now, repurposed entirely for terrible decisions. It was Masumi, of course, who cornered him on a street thick with noodle carts and gossiping aunties, and talked him into a tattoo parlor with the same calm authority a general once used to talk him into holding a bridge. Yuuki did not flinch when the needle came out, did not flinch when the design turned out to be nothing like what he'd agreed to, and did not flinch afterward when strangers openly winced at his arm in the summer heat. He tells the story now the way old warriors describe sieges, chin high, eyes distant, as if surviving Masumi's salesmanship were its own kind of bushido. Every morning he vows to return to discipline, fewer vices, better choices, cleaner ink, and every morning he loses that particular battle before he's even finished his tea, wearing the defeat like a badge he earned fair and square.