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Genji is seven. He wears his shoes inside, leaving behind muddy footprints. A junior size 10, chevron treads with a circular gap in the bottom of the shoe — it was meant to leave behind a dragon curled around the moon, but these shoes have been worn for too long, too many years, too many outdoor adventures. Hanzo considers running along after him, rubbing the incriminating marks from the floor. He had, of course, the other day admonished his brother. He had tried. Surely, he had said with all the authority of an older brother, your actions will bring you regret in the future.
And Genji, face round with baby fat but with a grin far too crooked for a child, had simply said: Only if it can catch me.
—
Don’t act like an old man, Genji says. His feet — shoes, audacious chartreuse high tops — resting on the couch arm, body splaying out across the rest of the cushions. His hair is bright red, today, and two days ago it was violet tinged with orange and Hanzo can only guess what it will be next week. He’s slouching, a careful practiced pose where one shoulder is jaunty and the other is faux-humble. His head tilts back a little, his words carefully enunciated in a way that his tongue peeks from between his teeth.
Somehow, it’s a picture that’s almost inviting — like Genji is part of a secret club and he’ll let Hanzo in if he knows the right password. Something exclusive, fun, a little forbidden. (It reminds Hanzo of a few years before, Genji caught behind the school with his pockets stuffed full of cigarettes, bubblegum and stolen pens. There hadn’t been any real rhyme or reason to what he picked up — but he did because he could. Reminded him of a notebook of girls’ numbers that Genji wrote down, by hand, recorded each one in his handwriting because it was more personal then, even if there were so many of them. Don’t worry, I remember all their names — a wink, brushing off concerns, advice, the seething anger at irresponsibility).
Get up and do something with yourself, I know that you’re better than this, Hanzo parrots one of their uncles. The line bounces between them, foreign to both of their ears — for now.
I’ve got something to sweeten your temperament, Genji responds, winks. The joke is that Hanzo doesn’t have a sweet side, not if he wants to make something of himself. He digs into his pockets, reveals a series of wrapped candies — a sweet milk candy, chocolate heart and melon taffy. Each one he lobs at Hanzo’s head, in a perfect arc.
A reminder, of course, that Genji almost never misses. Just as Hanzo is a skilled archer, his brother has his own set of tools. A reminder, of course, that Genji could be more than the younger son but a true power in his own right. A reminder, to Hanzo, that their family could be so much more if Genji just applied himself a little.
He swats each candy out of the air, not bothering to catch it and they clatter to the ground.
But what will it take to change your temperament? He has to answer back.
Hey, you know me, what’s the point of it all? You work and work and work and what for? Genji wiggles his fingers at Hanzo, Seems like you don’t get anywhere but premature white hair and a stick up your ass.
Someone has to be responsible here. Hanzo crosses his arms. He is sure that Genji doesn’t understand because he’s the younger brother, because no matter what filth he drags into the house their father will forgive him. Genji, who has been seen with more girls than he has partners of the family. Perhaps, Genji doesn’t understand that without a steady hand on the helm, the entirety of what was built will fall down. When Hanzo is generous, he imagines that Genji simply has no idea. When he is less than charitable, he takes it as a personal attack.
Genji slides off the couch, briefly sitting on the ground with his feet curled up underneath him. There is almost something predatory about his pose, fingers resting against the hardwood as he looks up at Hanzo. There are three different ways he could lunge at his brother, at least.
And I wonder, when was the last time you were truly happy, brother? Genji asks, before adding, Someone has to be the one who enjoys himself. Then he stands, leans back, arches and tips into a backwards handstand. His obscene shoes dangle in Hanzo’s face before he drops down, rotates on his elbows and stands properly. With another wink he heads out of the room, leaving behind the three candies on the floor — that Hanzo picks up and pockets.
—
(Hanzo is three. His mother holds both of his hands in hers and smiles. She is happy, so he will be happy as well. He will remember the way she squeezes his hands, picks him up and bumps foreheads with him. He will remember her words, even disjointed as they become, by the amnesia of growing up.You’re going to be a big brother. My brave young man. I know that this family will be great. Take care of everything for me. You’re going to be a big brother. I love you. My responsibility passes to you.
Memory is so faulty, but that isn’t something a child thinks about.)
—
The newest girl that Genji brings home is tall. She is tall and has a swimmer’s shoulders and a loud laugh that matches Genji’s perfectly. They make themselves known all through the living quarters, bumping shoulders and nesting within corners. Hanzo cannot pass by a single alcove without hearing their gossip, the sound of cloth on cloth, or in particular Genji’s whispered promises.
He makes the same promises to every girl. We could rule the world, let me treat you like a princess and sweep you off your feet — and occasionally, something more sincere, They don’t suspect a thing.
Your brother is a liability, one of the aunts says when she catches Hanzo around the corner. Her fingertips dig into his elbow, even through the thick material of his sleeve. She is not simply warning him to pass it along to Genji, but also for Hanzo himself, Distractions and outsiders bring nothing but trouble to us.
He is an idiot. Hanzo replies, crosses his arms — she is forced to let go, but in turn she also crosses her arms. Her spine is rigid, her feet square under her shoulders. Immovable.
And yet, between the two we might consider him the more gifted. It is not the first time that he’s heard the sentiment. (Hanzo is eleven and Genji’s shuriken splits his arrow — just outside the bullseye in half — and a second hits dead center).
There’s nothing to worry about. If he continues to be a disappointment, I will handle him. It has always been his job to wrangle his brother. Even when his mother — how old does she look now? How strong, with both of her hands wrapped white knuckled around the throne — had acknowledged Genji’s proclivities she had simply said in fewer words: Prove to me that you are worthy of this family.
Somehow, it is always Hanzo that must prove himself.
It is only after Hanzo has scheduled another meeting, smoothed the wrinkles from his sleeves and fortified his confidence that he sees his brother again. Genji, laughing and breathless with both his hands braced on his new girlfriend’s knees with his face buried between her legs.
—
Hanzo is fifteen and an uncle’s heavy hand sits on his shoulder. All will be taken care of, once you prove yourself. He carves that message into his mind and into his body. Nothing will distract him from succeeding.
—
The tip of the arrow enters Genji’s jaw, just behind his left ear. Then it fragments.
Six split shafts spread and continue on their journey. Two tear down through his collarbone, one angles toward a lung and the other strikes the bones of his upper ribs. A third shatters his shoulder. The fourth and fifth split continue up into his skull and the last, through his neck.
Hanzo knows the arrow hit, but he had already loosed the dragon before seeing the damage done. Spiraling blue fire coalesces, forming teeth and claws and the dragon is unleashed. The red blood splattered across Genji’s clothes and skin burns dark immediately. The wooden shafts of the arrows — the fletching protruding from his skin — burn away to nothing.
Genji’s fingers spasm and clench around the sword, the blade clacks and bangs against the ground with the force of his struggles. There’s no scream that can be heard over the dragon’s hunger, but Hanzo hears the wet choking gasps anyway. He hears the crackling of skin and smells nothing but burned flesh. The dragon keeps moving, each coil takes another piece of Genji with it. Eventually it ends, the tails disappearing through him and the sword finally stops making that awful noise on the rocks.
He stayed until Genji’s chest stopped moving, until the sword slipped from his grasp, but then he flees. He runs, vaults over the railings, across the cobblestones and out the front gate. The sound seems to follow him, flames burning through his ears at the same pace of his desperate footsteps. The food stalls in front of the arcade selling meat skewers and grilled bites make him think of burning blood. He runs past the fighting games — he never learned their names, but Genji holds number 2 on all of them — out the back of the arcade, into the side streets.
There isn’t even blood on his hands, only specks on his shoes. He is bruised and cut, but the tingling in his fingertips and toes tell him that he may be numb. The bile at the back of his throat is more mucus than vomit, he spits and cries all at once as his body rebels.
He is angry. He is sad. He doesn’t know what has happened. The sound of omnic feet on the road nearby is too much like a sword held in a shaking hand beating against stones. Hanzo grips his own hands, tries to ground himself in the sound of his knuckles popping.
—
There is no funeral, it is better to forget disappointments than celebrate them.
—
Genji is seven. It has been seven years since Angela Ziegler picked pieces of shattered jaw out of his cheek and removed the shrapnel from the scatter arrow from his brain. It has been six years since he relearned how to form words with his newly constructed mouth, five since he regained feeling in his left hand and three since the burn scars stopped aching every time he breathed.
He can’t feel the snow in the mountains of Nepal. His brain processes that ‘it’s cold’ but the sensation he remembers of snow is lost. The wet softness that puddles into spreading water in his palm is gone. Instead it’s just logical statements that are sent to the part of his brain that recalls something. Cold, wet, snow to water, a memory pulled from his childhood. He thinks about the time he threw himself at his brother, sending both of them tumbling through the high drifts of snow in the courtyard. Hanzo had been so angry, tried to brush the snow from his clothes as soon as possible — but had smiled, briefly and dunked Genji back into the snowbank. Genji also has to think of the last Christmas they had, before their father died, shopping for Christmas cake together — you have to help me pick it so my new girlfriend is impressed, Genji had lied, and he suspected that Hanzo had known the truth as he had gone along with it, grumbling but without the true venom he reserved for Genji’s promiscuity. It had been the first time they had walked side by side in years.
The village is quiet. The subtle noise of living things — the thrum of a city, the breathing of humans, the sound of crunch of snow under the weight of men, women and children is entirely absent. In all his time — seven years of a new life — Genji had learned that noises of humanity. It grated on him, rolling through his reconstructed ears (Angela could not salvage his eardrum from the fire or the splintering arrow but she had made sure he didn’t wake up blind or deaf, she had said, she wanted him to be able to see and hear her, she thought it would reassure him) with a kind of deafening truth. He no longer walked among them as he had before.
Lost in his thoughts he trips. The wooden bucket skitters away from him — reminds him of the footprints he left behind, of how he would never truly be an omnic either. For all that some have told him that they stand shoulder to shoulder with him, that he belongs, that he will be missed and they appreciate him as a person he knows. It’s the way that people look at him — they can’t immediate place him as human or machine. That before he started wearing the full mask they would stare at his scars or look away, eyes falling anywhere but on the ruin that remained of his cheeks and lips, at the pale puffy skin around his eyes.
(Angela, an exception, had been businesslike of what she could and could not reconstruct, but also the name of a very good omnic detailer who could customize his new cybernetic body to any look he wanted. A lot like wearing a wig, she had said with a bit of a grin and an admission that she did the same for her Valkyrie system. People care quite a lot about how you carry yourself, so you may as well take pride in how you look. She had said. And, wryly, there are certain scars that you will probably never accept, but no one else needs to know that.)
It’s unnecessary, the way that he unsheathes his sword and pulls the blade through the wooden bucket. It’s nothing more than miscellaneous anger that bubbles up in him and tastes like sulphur and sweetness and reminds him of his brother and who he used to be.
He doesn’t hear the omnic come up behind him, only becoming aware of his presence when the metal fingers rub across the top of his head, as if to ruffle his hair that he no longer has, Peace be upon you. The greeting and completely unfamiliar sensation of an overly-affectionate greeting throw him off. His demands die on his lips, strangled out by his anger and shock.
Wood, when cut remains wood. Even charred or decayed, it remains what it was in some sense. Now, what brings you here?
—
It's hard to say who he'd be more disappointed by.
Hanzo sounds more bitter than he intends to. His shoulders feel strangely light, even as the rock that he swallowed after he killed his brother still sits in his stomach. Beside him Genji snorts, voice echoes slightly — Angela explained it to him, that the arrow also tore through Genji’s voice box and she crafted a replacement, but also that Genji had requested they make his voice sound cooler. It may have been a joke. Hanzo didn’t know his brother well enough to say, now, and certainly he got the feeling that Dr. Ziegler always held more cards close to her chest than she shared.
You almost sound wistful, brother. Genji nudges him with his shoulder, it’s only barely familiar. Hanzo recalls, from a long time ago, a younger brother that crashed into him eagerly. Come on and have fun with me, Genji used to beg and grab at Hanzo with both hands. And then, it was Genji rolling his eyes saying, at least I’ll have fun. And then, there hadn’t been any Genji at all.
His guidance is sorely missed, even if he had many blind spots. There isn’t any way to resist pointing it out, not with Genji at his side. Perhaps, I have also had some. Hanzo admits, as well.
It seems as though it’s time for us to make our own decisions. Genji advises.
Perhaps it’s the way that Genji says it, as if he’s seen the world, as if he’s become wise. Or because Hanzo keeps expecting to hear his wayward brother make a comment on fast cars, on girls, on the new video games at the arcade even though they were both far too old for those kind of games. Or perhaps it’s everything with them both in a new world, both rejected from their family and both for the first time in years, on the same side.
Hanzo laughs. He throws back his head and laughs until he cries. His nose runs and his vision is blurred. Beside him, he thinks that Genji might also be smiling.