Chapter Text
Genji remembers the day she moved next door. She had a pink dress on and was roaming around a tiny moving truck while one of his neighbors hauled in box after box into the upper middle class single family home. His other neighbor was a smaller man. The man was the same height as Genji, which the boy always found hilarious. Genji never really liked that man. He always screamed at Genji for digging through his garden for worms. On numerous occasions, his parents would drag him to the man’s front door and make him apologize for being such a rascal.
The next day he’d be back in the garden tearing up the roses by the roots.
He watched her from his window, forbidden to go outside as punishment for something completely other than destroying the garden. Needless to say, Genji was quite the handful. If he could get into it, he would.
The girl, wearing sandals, swung her leg back and forth to scuff them against the concrete sidewalk. Her shoulders were slumped as she stared at the ground.
A bud of envy sprouted in his chest as he watched his older brother Hanzo approach the girl. Genji’s jaw dropped and he pressed his face against the glass. The girl perked up like a sunflower, and Genji strained to hear the conversation. He slammed his fist on the window, and Hanzo’s shot his gaze up in the direction of his little brother. Hanzo’s bottom lip puffed out as he glared at the window. Even from this distance Genji could see the damage he’d done. None of that mattered really to him. Genji pulled up the window.
“Ew, a girl?! Who are you?” He called out, his gnawed on fingernails digging into the mesh screen.
“Genji, you’re supposed to be grounded!” Hanzo yelled, folding his arms over his chest. “Do you want me to tell mom and dad?”
“I’m in my room!” Genji retorted. “I want to know who she is too!”
“I was just in the middle of asking. If you’d give me a second to talk—”
“That takes too long! If it were me I’d already know who she is, where she’s from, AND what her favorite color is!” Genji folded his arms.
Meanwhile, the girl kept glancing back and forth between the two bickering brothers, blonde ponytail swishing with each movement. She said something that Genji couldn’t quite hear from such a long distance, but it made Hanzo laugh.
“Are you talking about me?!” Genji asked, pressing his palms against the mesh again. It didn’t hold his weight this time. The screen popped out of its place, launching toward both the new girl and his brother. Genji fell forward, stomach landing on the windowsill and knocking the air out of him. “Ooph!” He gasped. He straightened, scrambling back into his room. “I’m still in my room!”
Genji could probably get hit by a car and bounce back. Hanzo just smacked his forehead with the palm of his hand. “Genji, you almost hit us!”
“But I didn’t!”
“The screen is out of the window now!”
“Hanzo stop yelling at me you’re wasting time!” Genji stomped his foot onto the floor.
“Well, I’m not going anywhere,” The girl called up to him. “I do live here now. I’m Angela, by the way. I’m guessing you’re Genji? Is that right?” She flipped her blonde bangs out of her face with a brush of a hand.
“That’s right! I’m Genji Shimada, and that’s my big brother Hanzo. He can be a huge jerk sometimes but he’s pretty cool! Where are you from, Angel?”
“It’s Angela with an ‘a’ at the end. I’m from Switzerland. That’s in Europe, if you didn’t know,” She stated in a very matter-of-fact manner.
“Genji, go inside and clean your snake’s cage!” Hanzo commanded, picking up the window screen Genji had so carelessly pushed out.
Genji could practically feel the annoyance radiating from his older brother. It was as if a hive full of bees were buzzing around Hanzo’s head. It made Genji smirk. He gave a little half wave before shutting the window. There would be another time for Genji to press Angela for information. He lingered at the window for a moment, watching her talk to Hanzo for a bit more before retreating into her house.
At this point in his life, Genji could only see girls as targets for pranks. He firmly believed that there was supposed to be an unspoken war between boys and girls. Instead of leaving it to subtlety, he was as open as he possibly could be about ‘cooties’ and the seriousness of the disease. He’d claim that their touch alone was deadly.
Genji reached into his snake’s home on his shelf. The reptile slithered onto his hand. He’d named the snake Ryu, after the Japanese word for dragon. He looped Ryu around his shoulders, and the snake seemed content to just lay there as the boy ventured about his room, or rather his prison for the next two days.
What sucked the most was that today was the last day of summer. He’d lost his last week for his offense. No matter how much protesting he did, they asserted that their word on this one was final.
Genji sat down on his bed, snake still wrapped around his neck. He rubbed a knuckle on the top of Ryu’s head between the eyes. Ryu’s forked tongue poked out and tickled Genji’s neck. The boy snickered and set the snake down on his bed. It rested there for a moment, curling up beside Genji to leech off his heat. “At least I have you for company, Ryu,” He said with a grin that spread from ear to ear.
It was around dinner time when Genji noticed that the truck holding all of the girl’s things had disappeared from the driveway of Mr. Torbjorn and Reinhardt’s home. A knock on his door drew him away from the window. He nearly crashed into his brother trying to leave the room.
Hanzo grunted and grabbed Genji by the shoulder with a single hand. His older brother had definitely gotten stronger over the past few months, starting to lose the scrawny boyish figure and instead gaining the broad, lithe one of a teenage boy. Genji puffed out his lower lip.
“Hang on there, Genji.”
With reluctance, Genji finally stopped struggling against the stone wall that was his brother. The younger brother folded his arms, shifting his weight onto one side. “What? I’m hungry, let me through!”
Hanzo rolled his eyes. The irritated one was swelled shut. “You really need to learn how to be patient, Genji. Besides, I wouldn’t come let you out early unless it was important.”
They both stood there in silence for several moments. Genji gestured for him to continue on, for once deciding not to speak. The brothers had always been very close with one another. Hanzo had been Genji’s best friend for a long time. Ever since this summer, though, the two had begun to drift apart. Hanzo didn’t even tell him why. Thus the reason Genji had acted the way he did.
“I wanted to ask you to be nice to Angela.”
“What?! No! She’s a girl. You should know girls can’t be trusted. You’re tearing apart the very foundation of what we’ve believed in!” Genji squeaked.
Hanzo let out a long, exasperated sigh. He brought a hand to his forehead. “Most kids give up their belief in ‘cooties’ before sixth grade. Will you ever give it up? You’re twelve. It’s time to stop acting like this.”
Genji snorted. “Hanzo, it seems as if you have caught it. I will not let that girl take me like she’s taken you.”
Hanzo rolled his eyes again, unblocking his little brother’s path out of the room.
Genji scampered out in a flash. His feet slammed against each step and sounded as if a herd of elephants had decided to run down the stairs. Genji skipped the last four steps, landing with a heavy thud against wooden floors. The boy skated down the hall. His socks had no traction to them which made the floor as slippery as ice. He skidded into the dining room. He slipped and slammed his shoulder into the wall.
Audible gasps escaped from his parents, but the resilient boy didn’t seem to notice. He scrambled to his feet and started running again.
The smell of food made his stomach growl. Since he was locked into his room, he’d not been allowed to get snacks from the pantry. His only food source came from the meals that his parents made. Genji jumped into his chair. He knew it was his because rather than porcelain dishes, there was plastic in its place. The boy had a knack for breaking dishes easy. He either ‘accidentally’ dropped them or purposefully slammed his silverware down into the dish too hard.
Hanzo, rather than immediately go to sit down, went to help his mother bring the food to the table.
They ate as a family, making small talk. Hanzo talked about his classes and aspirations for the future. Genji talked about a new video game that he had wanted badly for Christmas, even though Christmas was months away.
“So we have a new neighbor?” Genji’s mother quipped, raising an eyebrow at her boys.
Hanzo dipped his head in a polite nod. “Yes, her name is Angela Ziegler.”
“Oh, what an interesting name. Where is she from?” Their father asked.
“Switzerland. That’s in Europe,” Genji mocked in a high-pitched voice. Hanzo narrowed his eyes at his little brother. It was obvious that Genji had forgone his advice.
“She moved in with her uncle and her uncle’s cousin. Both of her parents are in the military and have been shipped out. She couldn’t go with them into a combat zone so she came to Anaheim,” Hanzo explained with ease. He stood, stacking each of the dishes up and taking them to the sink. He turned on the faucet, starting to clean off their dishes.
His mother smiled at Hanzo with a fondness she could never direct at Genji. Not as if the boy would notice, anyhow. Genji left the table, hopping off the chair. He tread up the stairs and back into his room, shutting the door behind himself. He passed by his window. The sprinklers in Torbjorn’s garden were on, moving to a rapid hissing beat as they changed directions.
The sun was sinking below the California hills. Street lamps flickered on, emitting a cool amber color from the bulbs. Time slipped by too quickly for Genji’s liking. Each minute that passed was another minute closer to getting up and starting the same tiring routine of going to school for the next nine months. He’d choose room arrest over going back.
He fed a mouse to Ryu, watching with sinister awe as the snake attacked the rodent. It squeaked, screaming as it tried to fight for life. Ryu, as always, never let his food win the fight. There was just something so intriguing about the way the snake struck, the way it consumed its food. A single mouse would feed Ryu for a long time before the next meal.
After that, he shut off his light. He snapped his head in the direction of a glow that leaked into his room. He realized that it came from his neighbor’s home. Grumbling to himself, he rolled off his bed and gazed out the window.
He could see the girl, Angela, passing back and forth. She carried various things in her arms, placing them around her room with meticulous care. For awhile he just sat there and watched, studying the ‘enemy’ in her domain. As she flicked the light switch off, Genji huffed.
Rolling out of his bed, he knelt beside his toy box. Despite what his brother may think, he didn’t play much with his action figures or cars anymore. He’d switched to using Nerf guns and video games. Fishing through the box, he reached in and pulled out an old favorite.
His Darth Vader action figure was missing an arm and the plastic had been melted down in the face. He remembered the day he stole his parents lighter to create a dramatic scene where Vader died to Luke Skywalker’s hands. It became his most treasured after his Luke Skywalker action figure fell into a storm drain. He would never admit that he cried.
With Vader in hand, Genji approached the window. It’d been five days since he’d set foot outside the house. He hoped his friends hadn’t forgotten about him—but how could they? He was the best at kickball and sword fighting with sticks. If anything, they were relieved because now things might just be even. Genji pulled up the window and crawled out of it.
Balance was the key to success, is what his Judo master taught him. Genji grounded his feet, steadily approaching the end of the roofing. The grits in the shingles tickled the bottoms of his still soft feet. He wound up and threw Vader. Vader smacked against the window with a loud ding. Somewhere off in the distance a dog barked in someone’s backyard.
Genji sat on the roof, bringing his knees up to his chest. His toes curled as night chill bit into them. Yet he waited. The girl’s window slid up.
“What are you doing?” She asked in hushed hiss.
“What are you doing?” Genji fired back in an accusing tone.
“I was just getting ready for bed. Why are you on the roof? You know that’s not very safe,” Angela chastised.
“Join me.”
“No way, you are insane. I’m going to bed.” She went to shut the window.
“Wait! I have to tell you something!” Genji said with a little less care for volume.
“Shh!” She hushed. He could practically feel her rolling her eyes. She opened the window up again, leaning against the screen. “What?” She sighed, begrudging herself for being too curious to leave.
“I just want you to know that I think girls are disgusting, and if you try to make any moves on me I’ll shoot you with my Nerf gun,” Genji explained.
“And boys aren’t disgusting?” Angela queried. There was a hint of a smile in the way she said that. “Why even try to talk to me?” She added.
“Don’t take it personally,” Genji said with a shrug. “It’s just a fair warning to you. I’m not afraid to shoot a girl with my Nerf gun and I thought you should know that. Also, I need to know my enemy. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, that’s what they say.”
“Well I’m not interested in a boy who is shorter than me.”
Genji’s jaw dropped and he stood up straight. “You are not taller than I am!” His balance wavered on top of the roof, but he caught himself.
“Yes I am.”
“Prove it, then!”
“What are we going to do? Jump from one roof to the other? No way. You’ll see tomorrow at the bus stop. Besides, why would you care? I just said I didn’t like you. I don’t even know you.”
Genji’s cheeks burned with embarrassment and anger. “I’m going to shoot you anyway! Just for that!”
“You’re really funny, Genji. Shoot me if you’d like, but it’s you who will be ashamed when you look like a jerk for doing it. It’s really up to you,” She paused. “I’m not inclined to tell you whether or not you should. Either way, your words don’t hurt me and neither will your little foam bullets.” Angela smiled. She had braces.
Genji snickered at that. “I’m funny, you’re right,” He answered arrogantly. “But so is your metal mouth.”
“Oh you mean my braces? My orthodontist said I should have them off within a year. A lot of people have braces, did you know?” She was so matter-of-fact about everything that it lit Genji’s fuse. This girl was not the typical easy target for him to mess with. Angela could and already was fighting back. “My teeth will be perfect. You’ll likely end up with braces too. Few people actually have perfect teeth. There’s no shame in hygiene and caring for one’s appearance. So, I’ll remember what you said today if you were to end up with braces.”
He hated this girl.
He hated her more than anyone or anything else. Except for school, but she was practically just like it. She acted like a condescending teacher. It made him ball up his fists in anger.
It was almost too easy for her to shatter his confidence and ruin his entire plan. Perhaps this is what Hanzo had warned him about. Be nice to Angela. Now he knew what happened if he wasn’t. She was too smart. She was completely outplaying him.
Of course Genji wouldn’t give up. He had ideas in mind for what he’d do as an act of revenge. Nothing too petty, but something that would stick with her like her words did to him.
“Nice chat that we had here tonight, Genji. I look forward to whatever terrible scheme you have in store. See you tomorrow.” She shut the window, leaving Genji high and dry to stand out on the roof with smoldering rage in his brown eyes.
He crawled back into the window and shut it, locking it as if that would somehow help. It wasn’t as if she were going to climb onto his roof, anyway. She didn’t care about what he did.
To Genji, that would be the first time.
--
He overslept past his alarm clock. He knew that because Hanzo had to rip the bed sheets off of him. Genji shivered without their warmth, letting his complaints be known through angry wailing. “I’m sick!” He tried to reason. “Tell mom and dad I’m sick.”
Hanzo sighed. “No you’re not, Genji. Get up before mom and dad pour cold water on you. You can’t miss the first day. Maybe if you didn’t stay up all night playing video games you wouldn’t have this problem.”
“I wasn’t playing video games last night.”
“I don’t care what you were doing, you’re gonna make me late. Get up.” Hanzo shoved his arms beneath his brother, lifting him and setting his feet to the floor.
Genji let his body go limp. He crashed into the carpet with an overdramatic thunk. It hurt, but he wouldn’t budge.
“Genji, you don’t want them to keep you in here even longer, do you? Your friends miss you. You’ll get the chance to see them today for the first time in days. Does that mean nothing to you?”
Genji whined. It was high-pitched and earsplitting, and it made Hanzo roll his eyes. Finally Genji brought himself up on his hands and knees, stumbling with a slouch out of his bedroom and to the kitchen for breakfast.
A simple bowl of cereal, only Captain Crunch with the berries was acceptable, and trudged upstairs to the bathroom. Getting ready was easy enough, he’d had seven years of schooling before today to practice it. What made it so hard were the actual act of getting up and the feeling of dismay blossoming in his chest. Angela would be there. He doubted that she’d missed a single day of school in her life.
Genji was vigilant as they walked to the bus stop. He was constantly checking over his shoulder for Angela. He knew she’d be there, she wouldn’t miss it for the world.
Hanzo adjusted his backpack as he intervened with their friend from across the street, Jesse. Jesse was the same grade as Hanzo, and Genji always loved to tag along with the older boys. It had admittedly been a long time since Genji had seen Jesse, though, and it shocked him just how hard it was to recognize him after a summer of many room arrests.
Jesse’s hair had gotten long, nearly the same length as Hanzo’s. Yet that wasn’t what shocked him. Jesse stood at nearly a head taller than Hanzo. His shoulders were much wider, and his facial features had begun to lose the childish softness to them. “S’good to see you out of your room, Genji.” The changes had gone beyond just appearance. His voice had a scratch to it, somewhere in the mix between a boy’s voice and a man’s.
Genji was green with envy. He hadn’t noticed it before Jesse’s arrival, but Hanzo too had begun to transition. They both were much taller than him now, much more manly. He never really dwelled on himself before, but he found himself shrinking just the slightest. “They can’t keep me locked in there forever. I’ll find a way out.”
“You probably shouldn’t say something like that when your older brother is right here,” Jesse commented with a lopsided grin, nudging Hanzo just the slightest bit. Hanzo just grunted, looking off into the distance at the red stop sign.
Others had already gathered there, plenty of the neighborhood kids. Genji shrunk in on himself even more when he saw Angela among the mix. How could he miss her? She had her blonde hair tied up high in a ponytail. She was gleaming with excitement. It disgusted Genji how anyone could be so excited for what he considered his personally tailored hell.
As they got closer they realized that Angela was the center of attention, answering questions about Sweden and her home life in that foreign accent of hers. She was in the middle of telling a story when her eyes caught Genji’s. Genji averted his gaze from that blue one. She was taller than him.
“Genji, your neighbor is so cool!” Lucio exclaimed. “She promised to babysit me if my parents ever leave home.”
Genji’s lower lip puffed out in a jealous pout. Genji was the one who was going to get that job. How dare Angela just walk in and take what was rightfully his? This girl was grinding his gears, digging up. “I don’t think she’s very cool. She’s boring and has braces.”
“At least I’m motivated to something other than causing trouble for everyone around me. I know what you’ve done to my Uncle’s garden. You’re really lucky that he hasn’t called the police on you yet.”
Genji sneered at her, taking a step forward only to be yanked backward by the backpack.
Hanzo leered at him. “Be nice, Genji,” He warned. Jesse averted his gaze from the two brothers, not wanting to get involved.
“I have no idea what her problem is,” Genji shouted, throwing his arms up in confusion.
“Likewise,” Angela replied with a nod of her head. “The bus is coming, better get out of the road.”
Hanzo sighed, dragging his exasperating little brother by the hood to the sidewalk to wait with the other kids. The bus was already crowded from children in other spots. The younger kids in elementary sat three to a seat and the high school students were doubling up in the back. Genji took a seat beside a skinny boy with spiked hair. It appeared as if he’d burn his brows.
The middle school kids were starting to triple up now. Genji tried to scoot toward the edge to prevent people from sitting there.
Of course out of all the people and all the seats in the world, his seat was the last one with a spot open. And of course the only person who didn’t have one would be Angela.
Genji folded his arms. He would never give up that spot. She’d just have to find somewhere else to sit.
“Move your stuff. This is the only seat left,” Angela demanded.
“There’s seriously no other place?” Genji growled. “I will not let you sit here.”
Angela furrowed her brows at him. Her frustration had been unmasked. The bus had to wait until she found a seat before moving. By now everyone had turned to watch the scene unfold. “Set aside your pride and stop acting like a brat.”
Genji didn’t budge. He pretended not to hear Hanzo shouting at him from the back of the bus.
Angela huffed. “Fine. If that’s how it’s going to be.” She sat down.
But she didn’t just sit down. She sat down on top of him. Genji yelped, struggling to move, but he wasn’t strong enough to push her off. As the bus lurched forward he whined about cooties and how gross it was that she was sitting on him.
“Okay! Okay! I’ll move my stuff, just please get off of me!” He finally cried.
Angela scrunched up her nose, lifting herself up and his bag so that he could scoot closer to the boy with the burnt eyebrows. She sat at the end, holding her bag in her lap in a considerate manner.
The ride to school felt like it took an eternity. Genji made sure to keep as much distance as possible as he could from Angela.
Angela on the other hand, pretended that he didn’t even exist. He wasn’t sure why it bothered him so much, but it did. How was it that he had to be so cautious and aware of her, but Angela didn’t even give a rat’s ass about him?
He felt as if he could finally breathe when they stopped at the middle school. As soon as his feet touched the ground he was sprinting to the front door. This was probably the first time he’d ever run to school. It would definitely be the last.
He swung his bag over one shoulder, the other half hung down. This year he’d gotten Mrs. Bard for a teacher. The woman was everything from his nightmares. She was strict, gave a ton of homework, and hated any tomfoolery in her class. It was no surprise that Genji had been assigned there with any child who had a knack for getting into trouble.
He opened the door and immediately went to go sit in the back, but a quick clearing of the throat made him groan with annoyance.
“I don’t appreciate bad attitudes in my class, it pollutes the learning environment. You will be assigned a seat. Stand in front of the class with the rest of your classmates and as I assign your seat you will get your planner and locker number.”
Mrs. Bard did not sound like a bard. She sang no songs with a voice as shrill as claws raking down a chalkboard. She wore glasses with a string of beads, like a librarian but worse. She talked.
Genji leaned back against the whiteboard, dropping his bag onto the floor and folding his arms. The other boy he’d sat next to on the bus stood beside him. Each name was called out like the caw from a crow.
“Jamison Fawkes.” The boy beside him, with an eye twitching and a newly formed grin on his face trotted over to Mrs. Bard. Genji caught the look of disdain in her eyes at the boy with burnt brows. She shook her head as he went off to his new seat.
Genji snorted at Jamison’s luck. Of course he got the seat in the far back.
“Genji Shimada!” Her voice cut through the air like the scream of a banshee. Genji was pulled out of his brooding. He trudged over to her desk. Why was he always given a seat in the front row? She glared at him. “When I call your name, you will answer. I have a zero tolerance policy for daydreamers, Mr. Shimada.” She handed him his planner, a sticky note with a locker number and combination on it.
He didn’t say anything, just took the short walk to his seat in the front row with his tail between his legs. He’d already taken enough and the day had hardly begun.
On the more optimistic side of things, at least he got a good view of the clock. He was also closest to the door, meaning he could make a quick escape from the room.
Throughout the entire eight hours of agony Genji had to listen to this nightmare of a teacher bark about her rules and their curriculum. She gave out percentages of what work was worth. It was the usual droll that came from the first day.
It was like that for the entire week, as well. Mrs. Bard had a particular loathing for him. He’d disappear off into some distant world. After all, it’s a lot of work to plan the downfall of his newest neighbor.
She had to pay for what she’d done, after all. Humiliation was not something that Genji took lightly. He wasn’t stupid, he knew that. Every time Mrs. Bard would eye him like a hawk, squawking a question at him, he’d return and answer it with ease. He could see that it angered her by the way her upper lip twitched.
And even still, as more time passed, Genji watched from the shadows. He sized up his enemy, learning her schedule and her allies. Even if she was a grade over him and they hardly saw one another, he’d figure her out. The plan was going to work, he just knew it.
His parents were shocked by his diligence in attending school. He never complained or batted an eyelash. It was too good to be true. At every opportunity, Genji liked to skip. In a way, he was still avoiding class. He’d leave Mrs. Bard’s room to go to the bathroom, only to end up not going to the bathroom and disappearing for half an hour.
He didn’t even complain when he was forced to go Trick or Treating with Angela’s group of friends, rather than Hanzo’s because Hanzo was hanging out with the older kids. He suspected that Hanzo had asked for it to be this way. Little did he know that Hanzo’s plan was mutually beneficial to both brothers.
As the air grew crisp, a cutting cold that forced him to throw another blanket on his bed, he knew it was time. Angela Ziegler would fall to his elaborate scheme. She’d be smiling for now, but that cheery metal smile would succumb to him. He had a Christmas present to give her, and it wasn’t a nice one.