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Zenyatta had fallen in love.
He was rather sure that was what it was, anyway. The sensation of friendship, even something akin to the deep and abiding affection a human might feel for a family member was not new to him, but this was different – intense, volatile, consuming.
He tried simply observing the feeling first, hoping to gain better understanding and control. Sometimes it was dormant and he could forget about it entirely, but it would always rear its head again, like a memory loop forever stuck in the recesses of his vital processes. When it rushed back in like a storm-beaten wave swamped a beach, it would be both pleasant and disturbing, an input of joy and pain that came even though there was no sensor to have triggered the feelings.
“Why would it be painful?” Mondatta asked, after Zenyatta had taken him aside to tell him of his troubles. They were seated by the elephant statue overlooking the valley, vast and white beneath them. “Has this person left?”
“No, he’s around a lot. But that does not make it easier.”
“Why do you think that is?”
Though they were both founding members of the Shambali, Mondatta, older and wiser, still was a teacher to Zenyatta. It made him mournful that Mondatta often chose to speak to crowds these days rather than individuals because his focused guidance was invaluable.
“I think it is because I know there is no way to fulfil the desire since I wouldn’t tell him,” Zenyatta said honestly.
Mondatta made a contemplative noise and turned his gaze up. It was a cloudless morning, the blue sky like a polished gem.
“Who is it? If you meet him often, I must know him.”
“It’s Genji.”
Though it was odd to say it out loud for the first time, Zenyatta was not nervous to tell Mondatta. He had yet to treat a secret with less reverence than it deserved in all their time together.
Mondatta glanced at him.
“That is a surprise,” he said, slowly. “Although it would also have been my first guess.”
The answer made Zenyatta chuckle. It was rare for Mondatta to give in to a fancy and talk in riddles, unbefitting of his elevated status as leader of the Shambali, but he still did it sometimes when they spoke in private.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand how these go together, brother.”
“You and Genji spend a lot of time together and obviously you have come to care for each other, so he was an obvious option. However, I don’t understand why you would not even consider telling him.”
“He is my student,” Zenyatta said simply.
“But you hold no authority over him. You are simply a guide in his studies. You can’t take anything from him and he is free to leave you at any time.”
“That’s true. Still, he took so long to accept the teachings of the Shambali into his heart to help him heal. If I were to approach him and he had to reject me, then maybe he would miss a pillar he had been leaning on. I wouldn’t be as – stable for him.”
“You think too little of Genji in that regard. He’s a grown man and he has seen a lot of the world and of people, more than you. Do you truly believe he doesn’t think you capable of your own moods and feelings?”
Slowly, Zenyatta folded his hands in his lap.
“I suppose you are right. It seems an unnecessary risk to take, though, when our relationship functions so well as it does.”
Mondatta’s voice box gave a small noise, approximating a huff of breath, amusement.
“I think you are just scared, Zenyatta.”
“Scared?” Zenyatta asked, surprised, turning to look at him.
“Yes. We do not usually have to risk much of ourselves when we talk to our students. Although I do remember Genji’s induction into the monastery did leave a few marks on you.”
There was still quiet reproach in his voice that Zenyatta chose not to react to. At first, Mondatta had not been happy about Zenyatta’s idea to integrate Genji. A few of their preliminary talks had involved sparring, managing Genji’s anger and aggression. The scratches from the shuriken were still on his chassis. It was more than Mondatta was willing to risk of Zenyatta initially, but Zenyatta had insisted.
“They must bare a lot to us, but we do not get involved so deeply because this process is about them, after all,” Mondatta continued. “It is easier for us, since it is frightening to show parts of your true self when you do not know how they will be received.” He plucked two of Zenyatta’s balls out of the air, holding one in each hand. “So you must either learn to live with this uncertainty or you must address him.”
Slowly, Zenyatta let his gaze wander between the two balls.
“It seems selfish to do that just to alleviate my burden.”
“If you want my opinion, Genji has long grown strong enough to carry a few other concerns than his own. The choice is with you.”
Mondatta handed the orbs back to him and Zenyatta drew them into the circle around his neck, lowering his head. He had not considered fear, but that was because he had not, in his mind, put himself into a position where he confessed to Genji at all. He had prevented that possible reaction by circumventing the situation from the very start.
“Thank you for your time, brother,” he said. “I will think on it.”
-
It soon occurred to Zenyatta that meditation did not make a good canvas for the kind of inner monologues he was having. There were disturbances around every new line of code that flitted through his processors: excitement, longing, hope, and yes, as Mondatta had pointed out, fear. The tune that his orbs sang, usually a harmonious melody, became dissonant and disturbed others around him and even when he meditated on his own he did not find the rest he wanted.
Instead, Zenyatta wandered between the parts of the monastery, which was built into several levels of the mountainside, straying from the way here and there to achieve solitude. Here, he could pace or stand still like a dead thing, make the orbs rotate in odd patterns and play whatever song they pleased as they projected his thoughts. These actions better matched his mood, but might have attracted attention from worried brothers and sisters had he done them in company.
An answer still escaped him, however. Perhaps he was simply putting it off.
One evening that he had wandered off the path, he found himself distracted by a small shoot that clung to the foot of a stone wall, its thin twigs barren this time of the year. The wind tore terribly at it, so Zenyatta gathered some stones to create shelter. Nature was supposed to handle these things, root out those unsuited for survival, but it was perhaps the impulse of conscious creatures to reward pluck and tenacity even in other, probably thoughtless lifeforms.
He had just finished his wall and made sure to support it with snow and earth so it would not crush the shoot when he heard a voice behind him.
“Master, I was looking for you. You weren’t at the evening meditation.”
“Ah, Genji.” He straightened, looking back at him. “I was gardening.”
Curiously, Genji stepped closer to see what he had created. When he’d surveyed the shoot, he looked up again.
“You’re always trying to save the ones that make it the hardest on themselves, don’t you?” he said bemused.
Zenyatta had to laugh.
“Well, I suppose I have my habits. I find courage charming,” he answered with a nod to Genji himself.
“It’s been a while since anyone called me that,” Genji said, glancing skywards to the thick blanket of clouds. “We should turn back. Your sensors must register the cold, too.”
His hand lightly touched Zenyatta’s back, possibly to push him back towards the road. Zenyatta could feel the wires winding along his metal spine shift under Genji’s fingertips and the sensation created a much bigger feedback than his processor expected, exceeding the allotted CPU usage by leagues. He found himself stumbling forward, briefly blanking out as his main processor scrambled to account for the difference.
“Master?!”
Immediately, Genji was by his side, taking care not to touch him again even as his hand hovered nervously over his shoulder.
“Just a glitch,” Zenyatta assured him.
That was what it had to be, though caused by a known factor: the great importance that he placed on Genji. What an odd thought that he could react in such diverse ways to touch depending on who performed it! He had the necessary parts and mods installed from factory settings to partake in physical intimacy, but he hadn’t expected anything to come of a normal pat on the back.
“Let’s go home,” Genji said, clearly not satisfied with the answer and eager to bring him some place safer than the naked mountainside.
The inextinguishable human decency that had survived education in a criminal empire and the mutilation of his body as well as years of black ops work surprised Zenyatta time and again with Genji. How many people could have kept a flicker of kindness throughout the life Genji had led? He was truly remarkable. If Zenyatta’s receptors reacted more strongly to him, then that was a feature, not a bug.
-
“Genji, may I speak with you?”
Before him, his student lowered the book he had been reading, a novel a Japanese visitor had left here. Zenyatta considered asking him what it was about, but stopped himself. It was just a distraction he was inventing for himself instead of getting to the matter he wished to discuss – had to discuss before his behaviour would trip Genji up.
“Of course. What is it, master?”
Genji got up, but Zenyatta waved him down and took a seat next to him on the futon he slept on. Grounded instead of floating, Zenyatta was eye-to-eye with him.
“I have a problem I want to discuss with you if that is alright.”
The man next to him straightened and nodded his head eagerly.
“I did think you were acting off lately, master. I was worried. Please tell me what’s going on.”
For a moment, Zenyatta was silenced. Perhaps Mondatta was right – he did have a tendency to underestimate Genji. The strides he had made had impressed him, but Zenyatta still saw too much of the wounded man he’d dragged into the monastery all those months ago in him.
But Genji had noticed already and now he was listening. The risk-calculation in Zenyatta’s brain was rattling numbers and simulating outcomes again, but it was thankfully too late to listen now.
“It might change our relationship,” Zenyatta warned him.
“Oh. Did I do something?” Genji asked, taken aback.
“In a manner of speaking, but not in the way you mean,” Zenyatta said, trying to keep his tone light even as he searched for the correct phrasing. He started anew: “My affection for you has grown beyond that of a master for a student, or even that of someone for his friend. You are the reason for that, but certainly not at fault.”
For a moment, Genji sat in silence. His face was as unreadable as that of an omnic when he had his faceplate on, but Zenyatta saw the way his fingers tightened and relaxed in the fabric of the futon several times.
“I don’t expect anything from you,” Zenyatta said, “not even a word if you choose not to speak on the matter. However, I thought it fair to tell you. In fact, you probably would have noticed eventually. You’re obviously much more perceptive than I gave you credit for.”
“How long have you been in love with me?” Genji asked slowly.
“A month or two?” Zenyatta said, after pausing to go through his own log files. “I can’t really say. It was gradual. I have never felt anything like it before, so I’m somewhat innocent to these matters by personal experience. It took me a while to recognise it at all.”
“After everything I’ve told you about the things I’ve done and the life I’ve lived?”
“You are much more than a collection of your worst moments, Genji,” Zenyatta said gently. “That much I was sure of after a few days of knowing you.”
Genji averted his gaze, glancing at the entrance to his room where the wind played with the curtain. Zenyatta abruptly cancelled the subroutine that tried to fill his processor with reminders of the manifold outcome analyses that had pointed to this negative end point. Regret could come later.
“I won’t disturb you any further, Genji. I hope you can look past it. I still value our friendship very much and I’d be happy to continue helping you when you feel you need it, too.”
“Wait-”
As Zenyatta got up, Genji’s hand closed tightly around his wrist and pulled him back down. He fell with a surprised noise and Genji let go, apprehensive.
“Sorry, I – do want to talk to you.”
“Ah, alright,” Zenyatta said, trying not to sound baffled.
Genji stared at him through the line of green light that hid his eyes, then turned his head away and gave a humourless laugh.
“Would you believe that ten years ago, I could talk people into my bed when I was too drunk to remember my name? Now I have no idea what to say.” He paused and shook his head. “Of course, it never meant that much back then, did it? If I struck out, I just moved on.”
Lifting one hand to his faceplate, Genji unlatched it and laid it on the ground. It had taken a long while for him to do that in front of anyone and even now it was a sight mostly reserved for Zenyatta. The skin beneath was burned, his eyes mechanical, his upper lip split by a deep scar and the lower lip a silicon replacement.
“Where do I kiss you, Zenyatta? I’ve never been with an omnic.”
A flood of garbled positive feedback rushed Zenyatta’s system, but he tried to hold it off with reason.
“Genji, if you’re just grateful, you should know that I think others will listen to your stories like I have and still find you worthy of their affection.”
“You were the only one who wanted to hear them back when I really didn’t deserve anyone’s attention.” Genji cocked his head and smiled. The expression always looked a bit strained because the scarred skin was stiff, but Zenyatta knew it was honest. “I would be a fool to let you go. Anyone would be.”
“I see it took you no time to master your way of words with a lover again,” Zenyatta said, the relief allowing amusement to touch his voice. “And I am already in your bed.”
Due to the burn scars, Genji’s face grew red in blotches. The reaction made Zenyatta laugh. Genji pulled him close with one hand in the back of his neck. The spot he chose for the kiss was the array of lights on Zenyatta’s forehead; they shone especially bright as his lips touched them.