Chapter Text
Hanzo woke like the flip of a switch, covered in a cold sweat. A moment, a deep breath, and then his limbs were once more under his own control and not strung up like the limbs of a puppet. The nebulous shadows of his room came into focus and coalesced into simple objects—a lamp, a desk, the closet door—and not a ring of disapproving faces that stared down at him.
Even though he could still feel the exhaustion digging its weighted hooks into his eyes, he knew that there would be no more restful sleep that night. If he even tried he would be back to that ring of faces, would feel the stains on his hands, would smell…
He rolled out of bed, pulled on the first thing that his fingers touched, and resigned himself to a night of wandering around the base like some kind of hungry ghost.
The speakers at the first junction crackled as he approached. “ Agent Shimada Hanzo. ”
Another unpleasant surprise: his mouth felt glued shut, his voice stolen by the ghosts of the past. Instead of responding verbally, he nodded. This was hardly the first time that the base’s AI had caught him like this.
At his nod, Athena said, “ Are you well tonight? ” Hanzo gestured to his jaw. “ Ah. Might I suggest the kitchen? ”
Once upon a time, Hanzo would have been suspicious of being herded around. Now, after spending long enough on base, Hanzo knew that Athena was only worried for him. So he nodded and made his way to the kitchen.
It was a valid suggestion and one he had reluctantly mentioned to Athena as a good distraction from the murmurs of his own dark thoughts. There were a lot of things to do there, but there was only one thing on his mind that was suitably complex yet mindless enough to keep him from drifting back off into oblivion.
He cleared a space at the center table and carefully wiped it down, scrubbing away coffee stains and grease left behind after a halfhearted wipe by the person in charge of that chore rotation. Then he dried the table and let it air out a bit while he washed his hands and gathered his ingredients.
A light dusting of flour made it down, then another scoop in the middle. Form a well, pour hot water in the middle, and slowly form a dough.
Mindless, repetitive.
Fold the dough and press.
Fold the dough and press.
Scrape the table, put more flour down so it doesn’t stick, fold the dough and press.
He lost himself in that simple motion. A decade ago he might have scoffed at how easy it came to him; two decades ago it might have been his dream, once. Now he could make it with his eyes closed—had actually done so before on a bet while hiding in London.
His palms, scarred and bloodstained and calloused, could still feel the nuances of the dough, could still remember the phantom hands that had once taught him to shape it.
Twisting the dough, he separated it into two ropes and tucked it beneath a clean dishtowel to rest.
There was ground pork in the refrigerator, a forgotten can of water chestnuts in the pantry, and parsley and garlic and green onions in a basket on the counter despite there being better quality vegetables in the community garden. But he didn’t want to bother Bastion so late and these would do fine. Someone had to use them, after all.
The cutting board and ingredients went on the table next to the dough, along with utensils to make and mix the filling. As always it was a struggle to pick up the blade, but this was different than the grip of a katana or wakizashi .
And the sound was different. Like the rattle of a woodpecker. It was soothing in its own way, and Hanzo had practiced hard to make the same noise, if only so it would bring him back to the serenity of a forest. Shortly after…after Genji, he had hidden like a hermit in the sea of trees surrounding Hanamura with the yūrei .
It was the only way that he could bear to pick up a knife.
“If you don’t watch what you’re doing, you’re going to cut your fingers off,” a voice said, shattering the serenity of the forest he had visited in his mind. Hanzo opened his eyes and found Genji, wearing D.Va-branded merchandise, standing with his arms crossed over his chest on the other side of the table.
Scowling, Hanzo looked down and scraped the knife against the cutting board, collecting the neat slices of green onion and running his knife over them again and again and again.
Ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta. Scrape, scrape. Ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta.
Satisfied, Hanzo scooped the onion up and poured it into the bowl. He started on the garlic.
Genji sat and watched, eerily still as Hanzo peeled, smashed, smeared, and effectively turned the garlic into a paste with his knife. Then the parsley. Then the water chestnuts, which turned out to be well within their best-by date despite spending an unknown amount of time in the back of the pantry.
His brother said nothing as Hanzo turned to wash the knife and cutting board, but when Hanzo turned around again he found Genji leaning over the bowl. Genji looked up guiltily as Hanzo returned. “It smells so good. What are you making?”
Hanzo drummed his fingers on the table. In the golden light of the kitchen and the darkness of the community room beyond, it was easy to pretend that the apparition in front of him was only a figment of his imagination.
But when Genji appeared to him as such, it was never in this form.
Deciding not to answer, Hanzo took the bowl back from Genji and poured the ground pork in. He mixed it briskly and added oyster sauce and sugar and soy sauce. Salt. Pepper.
He washed his hands briskly and set the mixture to the side. Found a spoon and a wooden rolling pin and a small paring knife. Cornstarch.
Genji peeked under the dishtowel and frowned at Hanzo. “Hanzo?”
“ Gyoza ,” he managed to croak. He tugged the dishtowel off the dough and rolled it out. With quick motions he cut little squares of the dough, rolled them into balls, and then put them aside.
“You’re fast at that,” Genji observed. “Holy shit.”
Hanzo swallowed the lump in his throat. Even though he was close to shaking, his hands were steady. They knew the motion and process. In no time there was a neat row of little balls of dough lined up like a small army.
Sprinkle cornstarch.
Roll out.
Stack.
Repeat and repeat and repeat.
“Can I try?” Hanzo’s hands faltered. He looked up at Genji with wide eyes. “Please?”
Swallowing hard, Hanzo stepped aside. If he looked down, only looked at their hands, Hanzo could ignore that this was Genji and that he had done this to his brother’s hands.
In a rough voice he told Genji how to flatten the ball of dough, showed him how to gently roll it out. The first one that Genji tried was unevenly rolled and tore as he tried to pick it up.
Genji laughed and tried again.
And again.
And again.
He demanded that Hanzo prove that it wasn’t just the dough. Hanzo rolled out a perfect sheet, coated it with cornstarch, and tossed it on the stack.
“No fair,” Genji complained. He took the rolling pin from Hanzo and snatched up another ball of dough. “I’m going to do this.”
Hanzo watched as Genji struggled and wondered if it was really as hard as Genji made it seem.
Eventually Genji groaned and scraped up his latest attempt. “I am going to fill them, then,” he said mulishly.
Nodding, Hanzo took the rolling pin back and his hands began moving again.
Sprinkle cornstarch.
Roll out.
Stack.
This time he watched Genji. He gently picked up one of the wrappers that Hanzo had just made and held it in his palm. With his tongue peeking out from between his lips—one flesh and blood, one synthetic—he scooped a comically large helping of the filling into the wrapper.
“No!” Hanzo blurted and Genji stared guiltily at him. “Too much. That is…too much.”
Genji put the entire mess down on the counter and gestured for Hanzo to do it.
Completely ignoring the one that Genji gestured to, Hanzo picked up another wrapper. Despite his discomfort with the subject of his nightmares so close, his hands still knew the motions.
Line the edges with water.
Squeeze out the air.
Pleat.
The gyoza was placed next to the cutting board, the first of many.
Genji huffed. "No fair," he grumbled. "Show me again."
It was an easy routine. Hanzo didn't need to look, but it was better than meeting Genji's eyes, better than letting his thoughts wander to the agony that Genji must have gone through.
Fill.
Line the edges with water.
Squeeze out the air.
Pleat.
"Slower," Genji demanded.
Hanzo swallowed and obeyed. Genji still put too much filling and before he could stop himself, he clicked his tongue and slapped Genji's hand away before he ruined it further. "Too much," he chided.
Grumbling, Genji carefully used the spoon to scoop away some of the filling. Despite his grumbles he still held the dumpling out for Hanzo's inspection before he tried to close it.
It made this version of Genji feel like an imposter. The Genji that Hanzo remembered was always impatient, had always been greedy; he'd always wanted his dumplings too full.
But the set of his face, despite it being covered in scars and half of it being metal and synthetic flesh, was still Genji's. He still had that little furrow between his brows, and his jaw still twisted crookedly as he squinted down at the dumpling in his hand.
"Not a lot, is it?" he asked.
Hanzo shook his head. "No," he said after a moment. "Not a lot at all.”
He showed Genji how to line the edges with water, just a little bit, how to squeeze out the air, how to pleat them. When they were done, two more gyoza lay in the row that Hanzo had started. All of Hanzo's appeared almost perfect and uniform; Genji's was lumpy, the wrapping pressed too hard on some of the pleats, some of the folds sloppy and uneven.
But Genji seemed proud of it and looked at Hanzo as if for praise. Hanzo nodded, and Genji beamed. He reached for another wrapper.
"Do you remember when we used to sneak to the kitchen?" Genji asked as he very slowly began to make another dumpling. Hanzo walked back to the other side of the table and began rolling out more of the dumpling wrappers. "Back when we were boys. Before you swallowed a seed and planted a huge stick up your ass."
Hanzo’s hands stilled. “Yes,” he said. He rolled another wrapper out and added it to his pile.
“Back when we actually acted like brothers and not two strangers who lived in the same house,” Genji continued, as if to rub salt in the wound. “Before you got us kicked out of the kitchen.”
Surprised, Hanzo looked up. “I did no such thing!” he blurted.
“No, you totally did,” Genji insisted. His brows furrowed as he thought. “I do not know what you did but I am sure that it was your fault.”
Hanzo swallowed a lump in his throat and looked down. Even after all these years, even knowing that he didn’t need to protect Genji from the truth, it was hard to pull back the veil for him. So he spoke to the dough as he rolled it, his words short and choppy. “Mother ordered noodles for an important meeting. We were playing in the kitchen and you got hungry. You thought that the noodle dough was a sweet bun and tried to eat it. When you tasted the raw flour you threw it on the ground. The cooks could not make another batch of noodles in time.”
When he gathered the courage to peek up, he found that Genji was frowning. "No," he said. "The elders used to say..." he trailed off, bending his head in through. "They told me that you had not behaved properly and so you had ruined our play in the kitchen."
They were silent for a while. Hanzo rolled out more of the dumpling skins while Genji still cupped the half-finished one in his hands as gently as if he held a baby bird.
"Funny thing, is it not?" Genji asked so quietly that Hanzo almost didn't hear him. "How the same event can give us two completely different memories?"
Hanzo made a face and looked down. "It took some thinking," he said slowly. "But it made me wonder. What if that was their intention all along?"
"What do you mean?" Despite the question, Hanzo thought that Genji knew what he was talking about.
He kept his eyes on the table and the ranks of dough balls as they disappeared beneath the steady motions of his rolling pin. " Onna-oyabun did not have any siblings," he said slowly. "And neither did the oyabun before her. They had many cousins but no siblings, no other direct heir. Would it not be better, instead of choosing a single heir and grooming them, to choose between two?
"It didn't work," Genji pointed out. "I never got trained."
Hanzo knew why but didn't say so out loud. Such revelations, drawn after many years of quiet introspection, were for another time.
"But," Genji said with a flourish that threw the half-finished dumpling into the air. He reached over suddenly and placed both hands, one flesh and one metal and synthetic, over Hanzo's. "We are here. You and I are still here. We outlasted them—" he laughed. "—and each other. We are both here."
For a long moment Hanzo stared at their hands. His own, both flesh, tanned and weathered and calloused; Genji's, one as battered as his own and the other scuffed and dented.
Looking past the physical differences, Hanzo realized that Genji was right. Even if they were missing parts or were kept up at night, prevented from sleeping the sleep of the just, they were still there.
They were still alive.
He swallowed and looked up at Genji, whose face was earnest and just as shadowed and scarred, though his scars were far more visible than Hanzo's.
"Yes," Hanzo said slowly.
Ghosts of the past—of a ring of disapproving faces, of beatings and rigorous training, of a father's fervent plea to spare his beloved son the torment of the yakuza lifestyle, of faces that had once been streaked with flour and beaming down at the young heirs turning to masks of fear and pain as they knelt before the onna-oyabun and begged—disappeared, and for once in his life Hanzo let himself just be.
He smiled but it was a new and fragile thing. Things would not get better right away—that was not how life worked.
As his most respected master once told him, perfection was bought with hours of diligence. All his life he had trained, had disciplined himself for excellence in all that he did.
This would be no different.
So he smiled at his brother. "We are."