The Phrase That Changed Everything

The first thing that I noticed about him was his internal dialogue.

At the tables when chaos was all around, he was centered.

Observing.

Calculating.

Planning.

We need this guy on our team, whatever we need to do to recruit him.

The other captains agreed, so they put me in charge of recruiting him.

We played a few games together and his attention to detail was meticulous in both his tactics and how he painted his miniatures.

Afterwards I took him out to dinner and it just happened that he was looking for a new team with the start of the new tournament season approaching.

I got him to join within the first fifteen minutes of dinner as we spent the next three hours talking about tabletop tactics, books, movies, and other interests.

I joked that to the other diners in the restaurant it must have looked like we were out on a date with all the laughing and smiling.

The team crushed the opening games of the seasons all thanks to Lucen.

He had the trifecta of strategy, being able to control his emotions when things went south, and being a genuinely personable person.

Which was rare in this world we played in.

The more time I spent with Lucen the more I genuinely liked him.

I found out he was an art dealer and ran a gallery in the city, that he enjoyed collecting rare books, and was an excellent cook.

As we learned more about each other, I felt I didn’t quite stand up to his resume.

How does one explain that all they are interested in is budo, but that does not pay the bills and can get quite expensive with travel, so in real life they are a trader, but they did appreciate fine literature and rare books.

By the end of the first tournament season I wasn’t joking when I told Lucen the team should have him sign a NCA for us.

It was after a local event one night that he said he wanted to show me the studio, the other part of his life that he ran with his partner.

I was both honored and curious as this was a different level of excitement in his eyes so naturally I accepted.

It was well after hours when he walked me in past the reception area and turned on the lights to the main room. The room was everything one would expect knowing him, perfect with every attention to detail being complete, but there was also something else.

A presence.

A feeling in the air.

Something that went beyond just the community or the commercial aspects of the place.

Over time Lucen’s studio kind of became a second home to me.

I’d often drive us to events together and pick him up or drop him off at the place and it was there that I was introduced to some of the other teachers. I’d attend events, and out of genuine admiration I attend the lectures on philosophy and spirituality he often offered there.

Many nights at the studio we would spend the time talking about different methods of movement and the difference between his movement and my movement.

I would get a laugh out of watching him try to copy my movement, and h would equally get a laugh when I tried to copy his.

It was customary after the grand tournaments to go out drinking after and in a lighthearted and playful way roast the teams that lost that weekend. We were all sitting at one such table drinking to our success and future failures of our opposing teams when Lucen said something that caught me dead stop.

Did I just hear what I thought I heard?

He was talking with another team, jokingly telling them philosophically why they failed and he used a very specific phrase.

A few brief words that had a very charged meaning but only if you knew the reference.

Could it be?

I spend the rest of the evening keeping an eye on him, listening and looking but I didn’t see anything else.

When I dropped him off at the studio and shook his hand goodnight, it was the first time that I caught him off-guard and totally speechless.

It wasn’t just any hand shake goodnight, it was a very specific one that was no accident as I reached out.

I knew it.

Lucen invited me over for dinner with him and his partner later in the week as they didn’t believe him when he told them.

There was stuff they wanted to know, but stuff that I was curious about and wanted to know also.

I made sure to bring a nice bottle of wine.

Lucen was less in shock now and equally as curious, we had known each other almost a year now and how could he not have noticed?

How would he notice, it's not something we are supposed to talk about, and not something that I ever have a reason to talk about.

That and most people just see a guy who is a bit rough around the edges.

I only realized because he had let something slip at the tournament dinner, to which his partner laughed stating Lucen is like that.

Lucen’s partner was curious how she could have never hear about me, or the group I was apart of.

I could say the same, but most likely it was because that was some time ago, almost another lifetime ago.

A few more friendly questions from them and I must have convinced them I wasn’t just a tourist.

The evening must have went well as I left with an invitation to the Equinox gathering in a few weeks and Lucen let me know he was ready to sign up for another season with the team.