Stories submitted by: The Order Archive - Brother Nakamura

Editor’s Note: The following account has been preserved from the Order’s archives. Some minor adjustments to wording have been made for modern readability, but the spirit and substance of the original telling remain unchanged.

Empires rise and fall; a shared drink after a round endures. That is all I will say, and perhaps it is enough.

Kobe, late autumn of 1938. The air was sharp, the fairways pale under a sky heavy with news no one spoke aloud. Two men walked with me that day: one in a uniform, one in a suit. Their swings were measured, their words few. The officer struck first, a clean drive that hummed through the mist. The trader followed, his ball rolling short, and he smiled without mirth.

At the third, the wind shifted. A paper blew across the green, inked with headlines neither man wished to read. The officer bent, smoothed the grass, and said nothing. The trader marked his ball, hands steady though his eyes were not.

By the fifth, the silence had grown deep. The officer’s shot landed near a maple, its leaves burning red against the gray. He paused, watching them fall, then played on. The trader’s ball found a bunker, and he laughed softly, as if to break the weight of the air.

At the seventh, a sound carried from the hills, a distant crack like wood splitting. No one spoke. The officer adjusted his cap, the trader his cuff, and they walked on. Their strokes were true, then faltered, as if the world pressed on every club.

The ninth was a study in grace. The officer’s ball kissed the green, and he bowed his head slightly, a gesture that said more than words. The trader offered him a line, quiet and precise. He nodded once. That was all.

The match ended without cheer. No wagers, no applause. Only three men walking back through a garden where the maples burned against the dusk. In the quiet room beyond the course, I poured sake. One cup, then another. No toasts, no boasts. Only the sound of liquid meeting porcelain and the faint breath of men who understood that tomorrow might scatter them like leaves.

I kept no ledger of that day. I wrote no names. But I remember the way the officer’s hand lingered on the trader’s sleeve when they parted, and how the door closed softly behind them.

The world burned soon after. Yet the ritual endured. And if you ask me why, I will tell you only this: a round is never finished until it is shared, even when the sharing is silence.