Yuuki

Diary

Yuuki once carried a blade with the kind of honor that made lesser men bow without being asked, until the wars dried up and a bad night in Nagoya turned him into the guy who robbed the poor instead of protecting them, a fact he has never once said out loud without his voice cracking like old bamboo. These days the same steady nerve that once held a formation now gets deployed for things like standing perfectly still while a vending machine eats his last coin, or negotiating with a stray dog over half a rice ball with the grim focus of a man defusing a bomb. He tells himself the shame keeps him sharp, though mostly it keeps him quietly overpaying strangers in Nagoya alleys, tipping too much, apologizing too much, as if enough small kindnesses might rug-pull the past into forgetting him. He is trying, in his own crooked way, to reclaim discipline, and he fails at it constantly, showing up to meditation an hour late reeking of weed and regret, bowing to absolutely nobody in particular before he sits down. Still, when the moment actually matters, some old warrior instinct straightens his spine, and for a few seconds Yuuki looks exactly like the man he used to be before Nagoya, brave, useless, and trying anyway.