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Arrows. They weren’t just artillery that split through the flesh and carved through their unfortunate target. Each one had its story; its origins, the fine materials that were picked from reputable sources, and the wielder who crafted them to be.
Undoubtedly, they needed to be treated with the respect they deserve, even if they were of one-time use. Hanzo wished that was how the world worked, but it wasn’t the case.
So he did what he did best: craft his arrows in complete silence. No blabbering fools who ran their mouths, no foolish cowboy, no zipping little brit, just him and his work. Funnily enough, he didn’t even have to pay attention. He could build arrows from a mere stick to a complete piece with a blindfold on, yet his eyes never darted away from the process. With a decade worth of experience, he remembered everything to the exact tea. He didn’t have to be concerned about making any mistakes; he could let go and let his mind wander to other things. To delve into his personal plans, to weave the future ahead himself, and to understand the emotions that may have plagued him.
Yet he couldn’t.
For the first time in years, Hanzo didn’t know how to put the metal tip on the arrow. Well, he did know, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it, no matter how much willpower yearned for him to do so.
Because she got underneath his skin.
___, was hard to even understand. Even if he spent hours thinking of her, he couldn’t crack her code. Her cheerfulness, not too sweet that it annoyed him, but enough to know she could tackle things on her own. Her warmth, soothing to the soul, yet given to someone like him. And her adamant behaviour was refreshing to see in someone, and somehow created a thorn on his side.
For a moment, he was mentally trapped, unsure how to weave himself out of this predicament until he heard a creak. He turned enough to acknowledge the sound, yet not enough to see who was the source of it. He returned to the arrow until the second creak sliced through his eardrums, making him lower his project onto his lap.
He sighed before he spoke begrudgingly, “Yes?”
“It’s two a.m in the morning,” ___ replied.
“I know.”
“Then you know what time it is.”
Sacrificing a few winks wouldn’t dampen his abilities. He could handle it. The woman before him thought otherwise.
“Hanzo, please go to bed. You’ve been up since ten p.m.”
“You were keeping track?”
“Kind of. You’re quiet as a mouse, but you have my living room light on.”
Okay, that was valid. Since ___’s room was close to the living room, the light must have snuck underneath the door’s frame, keeping her awake. She might have thought he left the light on by mistake, coming to turn it off only to see a sleep-deprived man crafting arrows in the middle of the night. For this mistake, he finally faced her. “I’m sorry, I’ll cover your bill when I have the means to do so.”
“The bill isn’t the problem, you need to head to bed,” She insisted once more.
Instead of that, he stared at her to try to see what she was truly thinking behind her stern words. However, it seemed ___ did the same, somehow seeing through those baggy eyes of his.
“Actually, let’s get a cup of tea,” she said.
He knew what that meant.
“I’d rather head to bed.”
With her hands firmly on her hips, she repeated herself. “Tea. Now.”
He couldn’t fight it since she knew she wouldn’t back down, so he put his materials on the table. “Fine.”
In five minutes tops, ___ had whipped up some tea in the kitchen. Not just any tea, it was actual matcha powder made from the finest of leaves, the one she knew he’d liked the most. With a mini wooden whisk, she made sure to get out any possible clumps. With light vanilla cream, she splashed a few droplets, creating calculated white droplets on the surface. She drizzled some honey, and her masterpiece was completed.
She hummed a fine tune as she carefully carried both cups to the table, sitting across from him. The archer gazed upon the surface of the liquid. He didn’t wish to disturb the white dots, resembling delicate pieces of snow, so he sat there and let the steam warm his face.
___, on the other hand, picked up her tea and took a sip. She let out a surprised “oh” before setting the cup down. “Fresh from the pot! Too fresh.” She wiped her burnt lips.
“That’s what you pay for your impatient foolishness.”
“I don’t like you.” She jabbed at him with a light-hearted chuckle.
“Many don’t anyway,” he added.
“Well, they don’t know what they’re missing!”
What were they missing? Well, they weren’t missing much if they weren’t within his presence. He was quite knowledgeable in life, but only gave them to those who had the patience to listen. Expectedly, not many appreciated his cutthroat attitude or his strict mannerisms. Most just see him as a grumpy middle-aged Japanese man, and it was better that way. He wished to be left alone.
Yet he had never been at his lowest. The archer had taken refuge on the streets. He was crafty, sure, finding means of survival without the use of cardboard signs and begging in the middle of intersections. He had woven beautiful pieces of artwork out of natural materials. A basket woven by sticks and dried blades of grass, a flower hat for a little girl made out of the brightest of lilies, and being creative with getting free food from certain restaurants.
The fruits of his labour were rewarded, but not by much. His stomach still rumbled most nights, his back ached from resting on spikey benches, and a “kind soul” gave him a burger to eat, only to realize that they spat in it. He had gotten horribly sick, and that ultimately was a death sentence for any homeless person in America.
Despite the illness, he had no choice but to bite the bullet and push on. His nose ran, his cough was hoarse and filled with mucus, and his voice was gritty. All he could do was wait it out, sitting against a wall in an alleyway. The people who rarely entered passed by, looking forward as if he wasn’t there, but they damn well knew he was.
Then ___ came into the picture. At first, she was another passerby, going past for a few feet. Then she stopped. Turning around and finally facing him. Obviously, he wasn’t easy to talk with, being mad at the world and himself, but she refused to leave, no matter how sour he was. Hell, she even offered to bring him to the emergency room. His stubbornness had gotten the better of her, accepting that he refused the offer, so she came up with a better one: to take him to her own house.
Hanzo rejected it, but with ___’s way of words, he thought it wouldn’t be so bad. And he was proven right; it was a pretty cozy house, filled with everything he ever needed. He claimed the empty guest bedroom and settled in. As soon as his body hit the mattress, tears began to well in his eyes as he stared at the ceiling. Overwhelmed with gratefulness, he realized he was the one who was the thorn in her side. Anything she gave him was handled with great care, no matter what it was.
That was why he was so reluctant to pick up the cup of tea. Another five minutes went by as his gaze never shifted from the surface of the cup. It was rude to just sit there and not drink it.
But he didn’t deserve it.
“Hanzo, please drink your tea,” ___ opened up, “It will get cold.”
“Hmph, putting cream inside matcha is despicable,” he half lied.
“I bet it’ll be tasty, c’mon.” She egged him on.
“I think it will be too much sugar.”
She huffed at his comment. “Your excuses are cute.”
Cute? That earned a soft scowl from his face.
But that only made her chuckle more and go on. “Hanzo, I’m going to be honest with you. Like I always do. You need to take your time to settle in. I know it’s bothering you to pay a debt you feel you can’t ever pay back, but you've got to at least give yourself a piece of mind.”
He sighed, she hit the nail right on the coffin. It got on his nerves, yet he could never put it against her. “I wish I could do something, anything rather than lounge around all day.”
“And that’s completely fine, but I don’t wish for it to ruin your time here.”
“The time you decided to waste on me.”
“It was never wasted.”
The Shimada scoffed and turned away. “Yet it could have been. You don’t know how dangerous it was to bring a new stranger into your home that could have harmed you.”
“But I knew you wouldn’t.”
How could she have known of his intentions? Anyone’s intentions, for that matter. He could have been a crazy coot and harmed her. Just knowing a potentially different outcome would have occurred if she had chosen another homeless person. And that made him clutch his fist at the thought that someone would hurt a decent woman for her hospitality. He didn’t understand the logic behind any of this.
And she sensed it after she took in a sip of tea, wiping her lips before she said, “I was there when you crafted that little girl with that flower hat. You don’t know how much true happiness you brought her. You never asked for money or drugs, usually keeping to yourself. That’s when I knew you were an honest man. Sure, you were a bit bitchy when I first met, but I would too if I had a nasty flu!”
With her perspective, he could partly understand her ways. But risks usually weren’t worth taking. There had to be a method for anything, including kindness. In his shoes, he might not have done the same. So he wouldn’t have blamed her if she left him to the fate of the streets. “I understand…but that could have been just a facade.”
“Hey, even if you were violent, I knew how to handle myself. However, life is all about little pleasures, but taking a gamble too. I know you hate that, but remember, you took a gamble when you got here.”
The last sentence stung Hanzo in his core. He saved up yen and transferred all to US currency. He traveled to Utah in search of his little brother to finally reconnect with him. However, the hotels he took refuge in took a big chunk out of his stash, and the processed junk he bought as “food” cost him an arm and a leg. And he couldn’t get a job without an address to support himself. Out of sheer desperation, he made his plan too quickly, too hastily. All because he heard signs of Genji’s appearance here.
His thoughts were disturbed once ___’s hand ventured to his. He didn’t reject it, just surprised she would even do so.
Before he could react, she had pulled away. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me.”
“You’re fine…”
The woman before him mindlessly fixed his hair, toying the the strands that don’t need adjustment. “I understand how you feel, truly I do. You came here for the sake of your family, and that’s honourable enough. I wish to help you in any way that I can. You even said you’d protect me with your arrows, so I owe you something too!”
“Owe me? That’s perpost-”
“It’s true, though! Hanzo, with my time with you, you’ve given me a new perspective on life. How to be careful in the outside world, how to prepare for the absolute worst, and how to push forward despite the odds. And especially how to be tough as nails, I got the stubborn part down.”
“Oh, you definitely do, but I’m forever grateful for your deeds. One thing I am wrong about is…”
“Is?” She piped up.
“Is not asking for what you actually want in return.”
For a moment, Hanzo believed she would blurt out her typical words. That he didn’t need to do anything for her or for him to kick back and relax. She sat there in thought with a hum, in a silly thinking pose. Then a smirk spread across her face.
Oh God. That was never a good sign. It was either going to be something he would horribly regret or something so out of the box he would be left in shambles.
“How about a date tomorrow?”
Hm, that wasn’t too bad, actually. “That would suffice.”
“I’ll decide where we will go, but I promise it’s somewhere private and quiet.”
“Then I’ll be prepared.”
“Like you always are.”
He got comfortable enough to jab back. “Y’know, taking men off the streets is one way to pick them up.”
___’s face brightened up as soon as he did. “See?! You’re smiling, that’s exactly what I want to see.”
“Oh? And what else would you like to see from me?”
“A nice suit and tie, a handful of flowers, a couple of compliments. Oh! And for you to drink your tea.”
“A-ah, I had forgotten.” He grabbed the cup, but it was stone cold. “I can’t, it’s no longer warm.”
“Eh, we can just blast it in the microwave.”
He never heard a more ridiculous solution, but he was too tired to even care. “If you wish.”
“Do you want to watch the timer count down to zero with me?”
He let out a dry laugh. “Sure, I wouldn’t mind.”
Americans and their strange little habits. Most gave him a blind eye, but there were a special few with kindness so genuine that he couldn’t believe it was real, that this situation he thought of in his dreams. But ___ was there in the flesh, taking him under her wing without hesitation.
Perhaps this date would finally be the way to settle the score with one another, perhaps the time they have in the future would never be wasted, perhaps he could give in to the temptations of relaxation. Yet he knew from now on, he’d craft his arrows with extra care.