So consumed by his pain is Genji that he does not notice anyone that might be approaching. Even when Zenyatta settles beside him, pulls him close, Genji doesn’t bother to confirm who it is. He latches his arms around the omnic, face hidden against Zenyatta’s lap, and he cries. He weeps harder than he’s ever wept in his entire life. He cries for himself, he cries for the pain he felt and continues to feel, he cries for Hanzo and all that they lost. All that Genji has lost. Finally mourning the sparrow whose wings had been clipped all those years ago.
He’s overwhelmed by so many things: five years since he willingly showed his face. Since he’s been touched like this. Since he’s been held. His emotions are like a tsunami, and Genji feels as though he is being destroyed from within.
But like a tsunami, after the storm passes, there is calm. The tumult within him settles, and Genji feels exhausted, but not empty. Slowly, he lifts his head from Zenyatta’s lap, though he does not loosen his hold on the omnic. He takes stock of his surroundings, of the destruction he caused, before looking up into Zenyatta’s face. His own feels naked, too exposed like a nerve, but his own eyes stare back at the omnic. Vulnerable and afraid.
“I—” He starts, stammers, then starts again. “Master, I—I am so sorry. I… I do not know what came over me.” He pulls away from Zenyatta, but only to sink into a deep bow, one so low that his forehead nearly touches the ground. “Please forgive me. I will help repair the damage I have caused.” He realizes, too late, that the words have a dual meaning: the shrine, certainly, but also the damage he’s done to himself.
There is nothing to be done but to let Genji grieve, and Zenyatta lets him. Sits with him throughout the duration of the storm and remains silent. Words aren’t necessary here and he knows it. What is necessary is to let the wounded pupil that clings so desperately to him have his own time. To remain for support but to allow the hurt and the anguish to run its course through his heart, mind, and soul just as it had always been meant to do.
Slender metallic fingers continue to move in a soft pattern, stroking languidly across hard-metal shoulder blades and restructured spine. It continues through the waves of sobs; more insistent when they grow louder, and slow and pleasing when they fall soft. Perhaps Genji’s body is not so human anymore, but Zenyatta will always take care to treat it as if it is. The pupil on his lap is still a person. Still a human at heart. More human than Zenyatta will ever be.
Hands pull back when the injured young man raises his head, and Zenyatta wishes that he could smile. They’re irritated with tears, but it’s the first time that he’s seen Genji’s eyes. So warm and faded brown. It sends his circuits into a whir.
“You do not have to apologize--” The deep bow takes the monk by surprise, and he can’t help but to let out a gentle and empathetic laugh. “Please, rise. Look at me. What came over you is what needed to come over you... If it happened at the expense of a shrine, then it is at the expense of a shrine, but I am not angry with you... How do you feel?”
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