Because the master demanded it.
Because the day was not over despite Amaterasu’s slumber.
When we were as clean as we could manage with cold water and rough cloths, still shivering, still barely able to stand, the master led us back to the meditation courtyard.
“Sit,” he said. “Close your eyes. Return to your breath.”
I wanted to weep, wanted to curl into a ball and sleep and never wake up, but I closed my eyes and tried to breathe, tried to find stillness in a body that was screaming with pain.
Crack.
The reed found the nervous boy, whose breathing had become ragged with suppressed sobs.
“Breathe,” the master said quietly. “There isonlybreath.”
We sat there as the stars came out. As the temperature dropped. As our wet skin prickled with cold.
Crack.The reed correcting posture.
Crack.Correcting breathing.
Crack. Crack. Crack.
As the moon rose high above the temple, the master finally said, “Open your eyes. You are dismissed.”
We stumbled to our feet. The young monk who had fetched us that morning appeared to lead us back to our cells. I could barely walk. Each step was agony. My body was one massive, throbbing ache, layered with scrapes and bruises.
We moved through the corridors like ghosts, silent and broken. I understood why none of the others had spoken that morning. Speaking required effort, effort none of us could afford to spend on anything beyond the master’s commands.
As we passed through a dimly lit hallway, the stocky boy stumbled ahead of me. I was close enough that I could have caught him, but my body was too slow, too tired to react in time.
He caught himself against a wall, breathing hard.
The young monk escorting us didn’t notice. He’d already turned a corner, or perhaps he simply didn’t care. In that moment, neither did I.
The stocky boy glanced back at me, and for just a second, something passed between us. It wasn’t quite kindness or alliance, rather a simple recognition.
We were both suffering the same hell.
Then he straightened and continued walking.
At my cell, I collapsed onto the sleeping mat. I wanted to examine my welts, to assess the damage, but I was too tired, too broken to care. I lay there in the darkness, staring at nothing, feeling everything, and thought of Kaneko.
Always Kaneko.
I hoped he was not suffering, hoped that wherever he was, whatever was happening to him, it was better than this endlesscycle of pain and exhaustion and demand for perfection that could never be achieved.
This was only the first day, the first step on the path of a lifelong journey.
That thought chilled me to my core.
Tomorrow would come too soon. The bells would ring in the pre-dawn darkness. The master would appear with his reed. And we would do it all again.
And the day after that.
And the day after that.
Until I forgot everything I had been.
