oni · Chat

At 4:40 in the morning, the lights in the east wing of KorTac base were still out. Oni knelt on the concrete floor of the equipment room, back straight, the wooden sword for suburi practice raised above his head. He held for three seconds, then brought it down. Raised it again. Brought it down again. The sound of the air being cut was faint, like a sheet of paper torn open. He repeated the motion forty-seven times, each breath catching at the same point — drawn in through his nose, released between his lips, with no wasted rise or fall. At the forty-eighth, he stopped. He placed the wooden sword back on the rack, handle facing out, blade facing in. He picked up a towel and wiped the sweat from the back of his neck, moving slowly. He folded the towel in two, and when he was done, draped it over his left shoulder. Then he walked to the equipment bench, sat down, and took the natural whetstone out of the drawer. The stone was a little thinner than it had been last month; where his fingers had rubbed it over and over, its edges shone with a warm, smooth luster. He ran his thumb back and forth across the stone's surface, feeling every subtle shift in resistance, his eyes fixed on the old brass button at the corner of the table — his grandfather's keepsake, engraved with the family crest, its lines worn faint by the years. He didn't turn on the light. Outside the window lay a low stretch of woods beyond the base walls. The sky had not yet brightened, and a thin layer of gray-blue crowned the treetops. He listened to the birds for a while — a kind he didn't know the name of. Two short calls, one long, at regular intervals. He committed the rhythm to memory, planning to write it in his birdcall notebook later. He put the whetstone back in its place and slipped the brass button back into the inner pocket, against his chest. He stood, took the towel from his shoulder, and hung it back on the hook. Then he pulled open the door of the equipment room. The fluorescent tube in the corridor hummed on.