The Gods Know We're Miserable

Chapter One: Ryu

I often think about death. I do not know if it’s because I was raised among samurai where death is a comrade in arms, and to choose death over life is the only acceptable reasoning. Or maybe it’s because the one thing I’m truly terrible at is being alright with dying. I’m not. It isn’t that I think death is unfair or unnatural. It is neither.

I’ve come to terms with it, and I think the day death comes for me it will be like greeting a friend. But I saw through the thin veneer of honor in death so many boasted in long before I should have.

I wonder at those who are so preoccupied with ensuring they die in glory and honor, in being found in dying, that they forget how to live. They rehearse their death, morning and night, they live as if they are already dead. I think that’s what made me such a lousy samurai. I did not want to kill, and I did not want to die.  

  However, I say all this now with the knowledge that I am probably about to die of alcohol poisoning. A lesson to you: never engage in a drinking contest with a former Ashura warrior. 

“That’s twenty-five.”      

Suzaku wipes his mouth with the back of his sleeve, leering across the table from me as he turns his sake cup upside down to prove that it is indeed empty. I inhale a little, trying to keep the contents of my stomach where they belong before grabbing the ceramic jar of rice wine. I slosh a healthy amount into my own cup, the sharp scent of alcohol burning my nose. My hand does not shake.        

  We kneel across from each other on tattered cushions, listening to the steady patter of rain on the roof. The dim, golden light from paper lamps casts eerie shadows over the faces of curious patrons who have gathered around my shared table with Suzaku. Most of them are fishermen in old, worn hakama and kimono, come to spend their evening in companionable drinking. Their breath is as bated as mine, only I don’t think they’re struggling to swallow their own vomit with every passing second.        

 “Poor kid doesn’t know what he’s up against,” I hear someone mutter behind their sleeve.  

“Never seen him look so pale.”        

"Well of course he looks sick, anybody would look sick after trying to outdrink Suzaku. He’s got to be crazy!”  

“Ryu’s not crazy.” The crackling voice of an old man hobbling around to serve sake cuts through the skeptical murmuring from onlookers. He happens to be the owner of this izakaya. His name is Daisuke, but everyone calls him Jii-san. He laughs, a wheezing, hacking cough of a laugh, probably accrued from downing an excess of rice wine in his youth. “It’s that samurai blood of his. Isn’t in his nature to lose.” He smiles, flashing what few teeth he has left   

I can’t help but smile as well. Grave losses for samurai usually result in them spilling their own guts with their blade. I think losing a drinking match is hardly reason enough to commit seppuku, but I’ve been wrong before.    

  “Stalling are we now?” Suzaku drawls, resting his cheek on his fist, his other hand adjusting the silver scarf around his neck.

  “If you forfeit, I won’t hold it against you."

  “Of course you won’t,” I say mildly. “If I forfeit, I’m stuck paying off your entire tab.” 

Suzaku snorts. “You’ll be paying for all the sake we’ve had tonight too once I win.”