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Being still had never come easy for him. He’d always been a precocious thing, as his father would put it. A pain in the ass, as his brother would. Whether precocious or a pain, the point remained: sitting still was hard.
“I do not see how this is helpful,” Genji groused, wishing that he could still scowl properly. He instead resigned himself to lighting his visor, glaring green at the omnic monk floating beside him. Must be nice , he thought, shifting where he was seated. The cold ground was uncomfortable to sit on, even in this armored hell-suit of a body.
Zenyatta gave a low hum, tilting his helm to regard his newest and most difficult pupil to date. “In what way do you find this lesson to be unsatisfactory, my student?” he asked, the carved orbs suspended from his neck still pinging at odd intervals that Genji couldn’t place a pattern to.
He continued to glare, his only means of communicating his frustration without getting up and stomping off. He huffed an impatient sigh through his vents, the hot air steaming off of him as soon as it met the mountain cold.
“Sitting still does not make me hate this body less,” he said, knowing by now that general complaints such as I hate this and This is pointless only had Zenyatta repeating the question he’d asked until he got an actual answer out of him. “It’s uncomfortable,” he said, fidgeting to demonstrate.
“How so?” Zenyatta asked, the orbs settling silent around his neck. “If it is physical discomfort, I can retrieve something softer for you to sit on--”
“You know that’s not what I mean,” Genji snapped, setting what was left of his jaw with an audible, stubborn click. “You tell me to clear my mind but how can I? Just sitting here, I--” he started, balling his hands into fists against his thighs. “All I can think about is how inhuman I am. These are not thoughts that can be cleared,” he said, his sigh this time one of loathsome defeat.
Zenyatta hummed again; it was an infuriatingly calm sound. Genji had yet to find something to rattle the monk, and oh had he tried. The damn omnic was a never-exhausted font of patience, it seemed. It was maddening. Zenyatta considered his response, the air between them heavy with what had yet to be said. Genji found himself leaning forward, anticipating his reply even if he told himself that all the monk spouted was nonsense.
Finally, after a few long moments: “I am not human,” Zenyatta said, nothing personal to the statement. It was just a fact, offered for Genji to assess and work with.
“You are an omnic,” he replied, refusing to agree and give Zenyatta even that much cooperation. Precocious , his father had called him.
Pain in the ass , said his brother.
“Both statements are true,” Zenyatta said, a warmth in his voice that Genji still didn’t understand the possibility of. He was all circuits and steel, a service-sector drone repurposed as a part of this ascetic cult full of nothing but metal. And yet, Zenyatta managed to exude a warmth unlike any Genji had experienced. The closest comparison he could think of was Dr. Ziegler, her voice and presence soothing in a way that came from years spent treating the sick and dying.
“I fail to see your point,” Genji said, growing impatient again with his tangle of thoughts.
Zenyatta chuckled and Genji almost wished he was less of a good person; he wanted to pick the monk up and hurl him down the mountain’s face, but he managed to curb the murderous impulse. “Clearly,” Zenyatta said, a gentle smugness in his tone. “I am not a human. You say that you are inhuman and therefore you cannot begin to meditate,” he said, nodding his head to get Genji to follow his logic.
Genji followed, but he gave the monk his bright visor-scowl anyway. “You are what you have always been,” he countered
“Ah, but that is where you’re mistaken, my student,” Zenyatta said, and Genji couldn’t help tilting his head, his curiosity suddenly piqued. “None of us are what we have always been. You are not what you once were,” Zenyatta said, nodding as though he were conceding that point. “And a year from now you will not be what you are today.”
Genji clenched his jaw again, feeling backed into a corner. “What were you then? If you have not always been what you are,” he asked, wanting to redirect the pressure, keep the monk talking so that he eventually grew tired of the prodding and let them both leave. And he’d be lying if he said this was not a story he wanted to hear.
“I am sure you have seen my kind during your travels,” Zenyatta replied, and Genji immediately regretted asking. Somehow, still, Zenyatta managed to pin him with words. “I hear the Shimada Clan owned the the largest amount of omnic servants than any other one family in Japan,” he said, his tone free of bitterness or blame: again, just presenting a fact. “My past is part of who I am but it has never been entirely what I am,” he said, his orbs starting to spin once again. “Yours, too, does not have to own you.”
A snort slipped through again, a petulant and childish sound, by Genji’s own admission. “You have not done or seen what I have,” he said, shaking his head to clear the memories that threatened to fill his mind like a dark cloud bringing thunder and rain to his brain. “There are thoughts I cannot be free from.”
Zenyatta didn’t make a sound that time - no hum, no chuckle. He was quiet as the carved orbs about his neck started to quietly spin, the warmth of the energy rolling off them meeting Genji’s metal skin in the cold of the room, like a constant pulsing wave of warm.
“I have not seen what you have seen,” Zenyatta said, again nodding to concede the point. “But I have heard of your exploits. Shimada Genji, the Sparrow of the Shimada Clan,” he said, tilting his head. “Your talents as a martial artist and assassin precede you.”
Genji felt himself go cold, the warmth from the spinning orbs doing nothing to soothe this chill.
“Did your martial arts training include meditation?”
The laugh that managed to cough through his cybernetic lungs was an ugly sound. He couldn’t help himself. “Yes, but I never attended those lessons,” he said, the irony of that hitting him like a punch to the gut. “My father always found a reason to excuse me.”
“Even so,” Zenyatta pressed. “Did your prior profession not require some amount of stealth? You must be capable of sitting still for long periods of time,” he said, and Genji realized he’d been taken on a ride. A logical circuit of seeming non sequiturs that had driven them back to the task at hand.
He was convinced that only a machine could execute something so well, but the kindly self-satisfied air about Zenyatta felt overwhelmingly human.
“That’s different,” Genji spluttered. “That’s being still but not for nothing -- there’s a reason for it,” he said, his hands balling into fists against his sides. “It is stillness with a purpose. This,” he said, gesturing to the both of them just sitting there, “is without purpose.”
Zenyatta hummed. “Meditation is not a means to an end, Genji,” he said, a sigh slipping through his warm composure. “It is an end unto itself. A challenge. Stillness with purpose,” he said, looking at Genji with a curious tilt of his head. “Would you try it again?” he asked, holding out a hand and Genji realized he’d balled up on himself, his posture taut and totally unsuitable for the exercise at hand.
He sighed, knowing that he could get up and stomp away, vents steaming, and Zenyatta would let him go. But he watched his new teacher, his master, his hand outstretched -- not demanding for him to comply, but inviting him to. He felt himself relax, his metal muscles giving into the warmth and his body unfurling until he was seated as he should be.
“I still do not see how this helps,” he grunted, but he placed his hands on his knees and watched as Zenyatta’s hands took their place against his own. He dimmed his visor, willing his mind to slow, the darkness hiding in the recesses of his memories a terrifying thing to fight off on his own.
“You may not see it yet,” Zenyatta said, his voice a warm chime in the depth of the tangled thoughts warring within him. “But I want to help you understand. This is but your first lesson. Healing will come with time.”
This was but his first lesson. Genji expected to feel dread at the prospect of having to do this again, but as he let himself breathe deeply and tried to let his thoughts go, he understood that what he was feeling wasn’t dread. It was a fear of failure; a fear of always being like this . Like this did not mean being a cyborg, he realized. Being angry; being lost, trapped in a body he hated with people he hated in a world he hated most of all.
That is what he was afraid of.
He breathed deeply again and heard Zenyatta hum beside him. The monk was willing to help him and it was the only chance he’d get to be something other than pissed at the world. He sighed, trying to make the most of it for now; he wanted to learn. Zenyatta could show him how.
The first lesson of many.