Chapter Text
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i.
It feels wrong to walk into the room uninvited. Everything in it is too still, as if frozen in time, waiting for the man who lives here to return. There’s no window, but there’s still a row of small pots beneath a grow light. A quick check with Athena tells him the light runs on a timer, but there’s no timer for watering them.
Cole fills the small watering can from the bathroom tap, and with Athena’s guidance he waters each. It’s finicky. Each plant needs a different amount.
It’s not technically what he’s here for, but it seems rude to let them shrivel up.
He checks the desk first, not quite sure what he’s looking for. It’s not the first job he’s had to start by flying blind. Not even the first time he’s had to do it for this reason.
He gave twelve years of his life to the original Overwatch. He’s seen dozens of MIA cases, investigated more than a few of them himself. It’s not new. It’s just that now the organization’s so small; it makes it feel a lot more personal.
Winston gave the order. He can’t argue with the logic that he’s the one whose background best fits this particular task. But it was Genji asking him directly — trusting him with this in a way he knows it’s hard for Genji to trust — that made him agree to it.
So he rummages through Hanzo’s desk in search of anything that could help, any evidence of where Hanzo might go if he couldn’t get back to Overwatch, who he might turn to for aid, threats he might have received. Plane tickets or hotel reservations are too much to hope for, but he wouldn’t hate to find some piece of correspondence. Hell, even a matchbook. What he finds are empty drawers.
The bedside table isn’t empty, but neither is it helpful. He smirks at the unopened box of condoms. Aside from revealing Hanzo’s apparent wishful thinking, there’s no story here.
Nothing falls out of the dog-eared novel on the nightstand. It’s spotless under the bed. The only thing his bathroom reveals is that his shampoo probably costs more than all Cole’s toiletries combined.
All that’s left now is his closet. Cole’s hopeful when he spots the box on the shelf above, but it’s only a valet housing several expensive-looking watches and cufflinks. It’s amusing, considering he’s never seen Hanzo in anything fancier than a nice pair of jeans, but there are no engravings or anything to reveal something more than that Hanzo owns accessories he never wears. Hardly a unique feature.
There’s a spare blanket folded on the shelf too, huge and fluffy enough that it can’t be the one that came with the room. When he pulls it down, it’s far too heavy. “Gotcha.”
Wrapped in the blanket is a wooden box almost as long as his forearm. There’s a lock on it, but it’s flimsy, the kind of lock that exists mostly for peace of mind. It’s obviously only effective against someone polite enough to respect his privacy in the first place.
Cole is not that person. Not under these circumstances. He tosses the blanket aside, sits on Hanzo’s bed, and opens the box.
He groans when he sees the whole stack of notebooks inside, and he hopes instead that the objects will help him out. There’s an arrowhead, obviously one of Hanzo’s. Cole thinks the miniature snowglobe might be the clue he’s looking for until he realizes he knows where it came from: Mei gave it to Hanzo after a mission. There’s a D.Va keychain, a label from a bottle of sake, a doodle on a napkin with what looks like Lena’s handwriting.
He hadn’t expected Hanzo to be the sentimental type, especially with the sparseness of the rest of the room. It feels invasive, picking through these things. It feels like the box holds Hanzo’s heart, and nobody gave Cole permission to touch it.
When the keepsakes don’t offer any immediate clues, he pulls the first notebook out. There are loose pages stuffed into the stitch bound notebook, more haphazard than he would’ve expected. He’s careful not to jostle any free as he opens the notebook.
He has to use his comm to read the first page, scanning and translating Japanese kanji to English in real time, words clustering and shifting as greater context makes the precise translation more apparent. It feels worse than opening the box did. He wonders if any of these letters made it to their subject, or if they were only practice for things Hanzo wanted to say. He wonders if Hanzo’s ever said any of this to Genji’s face.
He’s five pages in, skin crawling with the invasion of privacy without any clues to show for it, when he comes across one written in English. There’s no name, no designation of who it’s for.
I dreamed last night that we got to redo the day we met. This time we kissed, and I woke up smiling.
If I were a capable poet, I might find a way to describe how that kiss felt.
He shuts the notebook. His heart pounds in his throat.
This feels different somehow. The letters to Genji are private, but they don’t express anything a close observer couldn’t guess. They’re full of remorse and gratitude in equal measure, as well as clumsy efforts to reconnect with someone Hanzo didn’t speak to for a decade.
Those letters make sense. But this one feels like something no one else is meant to know.
It takes him so long to process that he nearly forgets it might count as a clue. Unlike the letters to Genji, this one’s in English. Almost certainly a shared language with the addressee, and an indication that he might have meant to send it at some point.
The letters to Genji suggest they were written recently, and this letter is still threaded into the notebook. Written after those, then. Within the past few months.
There’s a person this letter was written for. If they aren’t someone here at the Watchpoint, it might be a lead.
Cole flips the notebook back open. The next letter is for Genji again, this time recounting a memory of a festival they attended as children. It’s sweet, and it reveals nothing new.
Most of the letters are to Genji. Some of them are obviously drafts, repetitive in places. Sometimes angrier or more remorseful than the previous version. He tries to skim them quickly, leave Hanzo what semblance of privacy he can, but he’s stricken over and over by the unexpected vulnerability from someone whose sole outward emotion is often anger.
Maybe this is why he writes things out the way he does: as a way to organize thoughts and feelings he’s not equipped to deal with any other way. He can empathize with that, although his own writing isn’t nearly this intimate. His is more a way to keep his brain busy when things are slow. There’s nothing quite like idleness to invite the demons in his head.
A third of the way through, he finds that the rest of the notebook is blank, and he’s suddenly struck by something glaringly obvious in hindsight. This is on top because it’s the one Hanzo’s still using. It’s the newest. There are three other notebooks to go through, and a quick flip through them shows they’re all full.
“Prolific son of a bitch,” he mutters before he’s instantly slapped by guilt. He’s already figured Hanzo’s working through some shit here, and if there’s a lot of writing, that’s just a sign he’s doing the work, isn’t it?
There’s no reason he has to read these sitting in Hanzo’s room, though. He packs up the keepsakes and puts the box back where he found it, minus the stack of notebooks. Those he bundles together and tucks under one arm, off in search of a better reading spot. It feels good to get out of that room, but he feels as if he’s exposing something private of Hanzo’s just by carrying the notebooks down the hallway.
In his own room, he pours a glass of bourbon, and he opens the notebook at the bottom of the stack this time. The first letter here looks different, the lines thin and frantic, ink smudged in places, and the translator tells him it’s another letter to Genji. A few sentences in, he thinks it might be the first letter to Genji. There’s disbelief in every line, fear that Hanzo’s grief has finally driven him to wild delusions. It has to have been written shortly after Genji visited him in Hanamura.
Genji’s never told Cole everything that went down there, only that he revealed himself and asked Hanzo to join Overwatch. The way Hanzo tells it, things weren’t that simple. He thought he was going to die. The letter is pages and pages long, near raving in places, the form of the words as erratic as their meaning.
There are places the pen has carved straight through the paper, and a little cluster of wrinkled circles. The remains of something wet hitting the paper. He unthinkingly rubs his thumb over one of them. Anguish bleeds off the page, and Cole only realizes he’s been holding his breath when he reaches the final line:
You should have killed me.
“Jesus.” His next sip of bourbon is more like a gulp, and it doesn’t go down as smooth as it should.
The next several letters are just as harrowing as the first. (It was crueler to leave me alive. Is this your revenge?)
Hanzo processes the revelation that his brother still lived by cycling through the same stages of grief most people experience when a loved one dies. (Of course you cannot even leave me to grieve. Of course even my greatest misdeed was only another failure.)
He’s twenty-six pages and three fingers of bourbon in before there’s any change of pace, and he lets out a heavy breath at the sight of a name other than Genji’s on the page. His relief does not last long.
Shimada Yosuke gave the order. — Dead.
Shimada Jun supported the order. — Dead.
Hayashi Umeko supported the order. — Dead, cancer.
Shimada Kaito supported the order. — Dead.
The list continues down the page, each person’s name alongside their role in Genji’s near murder, each followed by a note on their present status. A scattered few have more information — cancer, pneumonia, “very old” — but most are merely “Dead.” The only reason to distinguish some is if they’re the exception to some rule.
It’s a kill list. One in which nearly every name is a Shimada. Cole would bet the rest are still closely linked to the family.
There’s no list of future targets. Either Hanzo got all of them, or he’s only marking off the successes. Cole snaps a picture and sends it to Genji. Anyone missing? he texts along with it.
Without an immediate response, he trudges forward. The letters to Genji aren’t only fraught with a thousand emotions; they’re also exhausting. He likes to think of himself as an empathetic man, to a point, but he’s never given this much thought to Hanzo’s inner life.
Now it’s here, laid bare on the page. Hanzo’s laid bare, and it casts him in a light that’s far too intimate for Cole’s comfort. In truth he’s never wanted to empathize with Hanzo on this level. Maybe he always knew deep down it’d be this damn grim.
Maybe he always knew deep down that they shared a morbid streak. It’s not a death wish, not quite. Hanzo wanted to die to Genji, but he doesn’t want to die in general — if anything, Cole would guess Hanzo’s afraid to before he makes good. But they share a certainty that when it comes, it’ll be long overdue and well deserved.
He’s almost managed to numb himself to the content of these early letters when he comes across one written in English and damn near does a spit take. This is addressed to one Dr. Angela Ziegler.
It’s frustrated and full of false starts. Slashes through words and furious scribbles, notes in the margins, Hanzo working desperately to find words that are never quite enough. Halfway down the page, the only thing left legible is a single, emphatic Thank you .
The next letter has no name, but it too is in English.
I do not believe you like me very much, but I respect that more than if you had welcomed me with open arms. I am grateful to you for what you have done, and I think, in another life
The letter stops there, as if Hanzo was interrupted. Or as if he wasn’t sure what to write next, or ready to admit it even on paper.
There’s page after page of letters to Genji, and not one of them says anything useful or even particularly new by now. They’re all variations on a theme. The notion that Hanzo’s using these letters as some kind of therapeutic practice only solidifies with each passing letter.
But then there’s another in English:
Yesterday I watched you in the field. I watched you put yourself in danger to rescue innocents. Some of us lose sight of them in battle, but not you.
I thought I had set these feelings aside, but it was a foolish thing to believe.
A few pages in, another:
You put liquor in your coffee this morning. I should find it distasteful, but like so much else about you, it was charming instead. I have seen how hard you work. I admire it. Enjoy your simple pleasures.
And another:
I think about telling you, and then I imagine the pity in your eyes. I am not sure I could bear to see it in reality.
Buried between pages of grief and anger is another ache, the kind that Cole knows from experience is practically addictive: thrill and agony side by side. (You mend my heart only to break it.) Hanzo is in love with someone, and Cole knows exactly who it is.
ii.
The only possible lead in the first notebook is the kill list. There’s still the object of Hanzo’s affection, but they’re here at the Watchpoint. The timing of the letters would make that obvious even if Hanzo never mentioned any missions.
Cole takes a break from reading to get some dinner. He’s poking at warmed over chili and trying to digest all he’s read when Angie and Fareeha plop down across from him. Fareeha looks as well rested as ever, and Angie looks as hassled as ever: bags under her eyes and blonde hair falling free of her ponytail, and yet...
He gets it, really. He’s never once considered barking up that particular tree, but he fully understands. Even at her most frazzled and poorly rested, Angela Ziegler is radiant. Smart as hell, genuine in her compassion for people, hard-working; if Hanzo’s letters are to be believed, even her distaste for Hanzo represents something he approves of.
She splashes a little bit of liquor into her tea — and if he knows her at all, it’s brandy for tea and whiskey for coffee — then she waggles the flask at Fareeha and Cole, smiling like she’s getting away with something she shouldn’t. He feels the fondness swell alongside a funny pang he’s not sure he can name. He waves off her offer mostly because he’s still got a bottle waiting for him back in his room, and he’s not trying to get drunk as much as make the stuff he’s been reading go down easier.
“How is the investigation?” Angie asks.
“We might have a lead, but it ain’t much yet.” He shrugs and doesn’t say more. Hanzo went to a lot of pains to hide even the existence of the notebooks. Cole’s not going to violate that any more than he already has.
“Poor Genji,” she sighs.
He doesn’t overlook that there’s no poor Hanzo to go with it, but he doesn’t say anything about it either.
iii.
He takes notebook number two outside with him along with a cigar and a mug of coffee. Bourbon might ease the way for dealing with Hanzo’s issues, but it’s going to be too long a night to do it without caffeine.
This one opens with another unaddressed letter.
My brother thinks I need to socialize more. He says he cannot be my only company if we are ever going to repair things, and he is right. I am trying, but I don’t want any other company than yours.
It is infuriating.
I have not desired anyone else’s approval since doing so drove me to hurt my brother. I don’t know why I should suddenly need it now, and from someone so intent on withholding it.
You may be right to disapprove, but some days I still resent it.
He snorts. Maybe he shouldn’t be amused by Hanzo’s frustration, but it’s a better fit with Cole’s mental profile of him than any of the moping was.
There’s more for Genji after that, and he skims but finds nothing useful for his current endeavor. He learns Hanzo likes animals, though, from a fond retelling of some long-ago time when he and Genji begged their father for a dog. The glimpses into the brothers’ past slowly reveal little details that Cole realizes he already knows about his other teammates, but would never have known about Hanzo without reading his letters.
He enjoys food that reminds him of the rare pleasant childhood memory. He has opinions about omnics and their related politics, and those opinions have shifted since learning his brother is a cyborg. He thinks he resembled their mother as an adolescent, and he hates that he favors their father more now. He’s ambivalent about Overwatch, at first because he is skeptical of their goals, then because he is skeptical of the limits of their reach; he regularly wonders how their purpose measures up against their illegal status. Hanzo observes far more than he lets on, and he struggles to process it all against his particularly twisted experience of humanity, but he certainly tries.
Amid half a dozen letters to Genji, there’s a letter to Zenyatta, as stilted and full of scribbles as the one addressed to Angela, and just as grateful too.
When Cole finally reaches the next unaddressed letter, the sheer aggression in it startles a laugh out of him.
You are a stubborn, judgmental, unreasonable fool. Why you? Are these feelings some cosmic punishment?
Fuck you too.
He thinks the next letter will be just as amusing, but instead it makes something uncomfortable twist in his chest.
You apologized.
Every time I think I can finally move beyond my feelings, you are unexpectedly kind, and the cycle begins again.
It is crueler than when you were only ever cold.
The next letter is to Mei, praising her kindness in the face of a cold world. After that is one to Lena, and the theme is the same. Then Reinhardt, then Lúcio, and on and on through each of their teammates. They are brief and sometimes awkward, but it seems something made Hanzo determined to appreciate each of them in turn.
When he reaches the one addressed to him, Cole lets out a breath, and he’s surprised to find he was holding it in the first place.
Cassidy,
Sometimes I almost think we could be friends.
There are marks on the page where it appears Hanzo set his pen down and picked it back up, but there are no more words. He flips to the next page only to find Hanzo’s resumed his letters to Genji. There’s also evidence that several pages have been ripped from the notebook, as if Hanzo couldn’t bear to keep, even in secret, whatever those pages held.
Cole’s letter is the shortest of all. It’s barely a letter; it’s practically a fucking footnote. He feels it like Hanzo hit him.
Worse, he’s not sure he doesn’t deserve it.
Cole was definitely in the camp of folks less-than-pleased to meet Hanzo and less-than-willing to give him any more of a chance than they absolutely had to for Genji’s sake. But that was months ago. He’s been nicer since. Sometimes he’s even gone out of his way to do it, because he’s always kind of suspected Hanzo feels a little isolated even among his teammates.
It occurs to him that there’s no way to know when this was written. It could’ve been last week, but it easily could’ve been six months ago. Given the sheer number of pages left to go, the latter seems more likely. He lets that soothe his injured pride as he packs up to head back inside. The breeze has picked up, and he’s restless after the caffeine anyway.
Determined as he is to shake it off, the phrase keeps echoing in his head: Sometimes I almost think we could be friends.
iv.
Genji finally texts back, Missing an uncle and a few cousins. Thank you.
Cole rubs at his eyes and keeps reading, but there are no more clues to go on, and he finally falls asleep with the notebook splayed open on his chest. When he wakes, it’s still dark out, and he makes himself go through five more pages before he’s allowed to get out of bed.
He’s not looking for his own name to appear again. Not that or the unaddressed letters. He’s just… staying on task.
He doesn’t find his name, but he does find more for Hanzo’s unnamed crush. These are as frustrated as the last, anger practically vibrating off the page.
I haven’t felt for another person in so long that sometimes I’m almost grateful to be reminded it’s even possible. Then I remember that it’s you.
Stubborn, rude. You think you know everything. Smug.
It’s a curse. There are days I don’t even like you. There are days when I am disgusted with myself for it.
You may be kinder now than before, but some barriers can never be crossed. I don’t want your pity or your disdain or whatever it is you feel for me. I only want to stop caring.
There are more missing pages after that. He sighs and takes a shower.
He can’t stop thinking about the missing pages, though. He wants to know what’s on them. What is so secret that Hanzo cannot even share it in this private space he’s crafted?
His conviction that the letters are for Angela hasn’t swayed, even now that Hanzo’s written other letters to other teammates. She’s the only one who makes sense to him. He wonders if it’d be nicer to tell Hanzo she just doesn’t like men; at least then he could put all that anguish into a simpler context. Might help him move on.
But that would mean admitting that he read the letters at all, and he’s not sure he’s going to do that. Honesty might be the right thing to do, but maybe lying by omission will leave Hanzo with some dignity intact. Maybe there’s some other way to drop the hint.
He’s not sure why it matters. He’s not sure why he’s still thinking about it at all. It’s bad enough that he’s stuck reading so much about Hanzo’s private life; it’s worse that it’s invading his thoughts elsewhere.
After the shower, he makes some coffee, then he’s back to reading.
There’s a story of an old argument Hanzo and Genji once had. One story about their mother, a memory Genji would have been too young to have firsthand. Another about an old instructor of theirs. The details of a mission Hanzo went on without Genji.
Cole stops skimming and goes back, resetting the comm’s translator and beginning the scan again. It’s not that he cares so much about the mission details; it’s what’s at the end that matters.
I think I am in love, brother. I don’t know how to know for sure.
Perhaps this was not what you intended when you told me to socialize. I’m not sure I can tell you outside of writing either. Maybe you will not care. Maybe you will care a great deal. Maybe you think that I do not deserve someone.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think I deserve someone either. We both know what happened to the last person I loved.
Cole recoils like someone slapped him, and it only gets worse in the pages that follow. The next is unaddressed and in English again.
I love you. I have come to terms with this. I do not know what it means. I hope it is temporary, but it seems best for now to accept it as fact and move forward. I don’t expect reciprocation.
Even if you do not like me, it is enough that you treat me like I am a person, not a monster. Even though you know what I did.
Sometimes I dream about it exactly as it was. Sometimes I dream about it, except someone else is in Genji’s place. Last night it was you.
I loved him. I am sure some find that difficult to believe, but I did. I loved him, and I did it anyway.
Would I sacrifice you too if someone applied the right pressure?
He sucks in a breath through his teeth, and then he sits back. He feels tired again already, absorbing months of emotional processing in the span of hours. There aren’t many pages left in this notebook, and at least the rest are easier to read.
There are no more torn out pages, and no more letters to anyone but Genji. Maybe Hanzo only needed to get all of that out to settle his mind. Lance the wound so it can start healing. In any case, Cole reaches the end of the second book with no more hint of where Hanzo might be than before, only a cluttered mind and a troubled heart.