Yugen, an overwatch fanfic

Yugen.

(Japanese, N. ― A profound awareness of the universe that triggers a deep, emotional response.)

"There is a vast melancholy in the canticles of the wolves, melancholy infinite as the forest, endless as these long nights of winter and yet that ghastly sadness, that mourning for their own, irremediable appetites, can never move the heart for not one phrase in it hints at the possibility of redemption."

― Angela Carter, The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories.

When clouds move in the sky, reformulating the very landscape that encompasses the biblical concept of Heaven, they make no sound. He knows it. Unless a canopy of grey disguises the roaring thunder they still make no sound at all and even so, should the lightning bolt roar, its uncontainable fierce shredding the blue of a decadent sky about to pour its crystalline fixation on the lands where mortals walk – he knows, he's sure: it's only the thunder the one that screams, summoning a rage so mystically ancient it can shake the lines of the earth.

He knows all this. He's never been a stranger to the silent theories of sound.

When the wind howls; it only howls because there's a tale that needs to be told.

Feet on the wooden edge of the balcony, the archer is an acrobat in suspended animation – eyelashes tasting skin; he surrenders his vision for a moment: he wants to listen as the metonymic movements of the whistling wind sweep the celestial floors of clouds and build and shape and form empty castles where no one will ever live.

But the wind has nothing to say tonight, he notices as he slowly opens his eyes to meet the immobile branches waiting for the nocturnal ballet to begin. There's no breeze, no whistling tune to dance to. Ankles stoic on the railing; the man looks like a quiet flag in the dead of night, quietly expecting for the musing song of wind to sing him a lullaby.

Can you hear the drums, Fernando?

There was something in the air that night.

Underneath the naked branches, a couple is kissing in the dark embrace of the streets below. The archer knows he should not be watching, yet his eyes are unable to look away. They break the kiss as the boy longs for his lover, a worried tone taking over his baritone voice. The girl answers in a foreign accent, Italian maybe, can you hear the drums, Fernando? They fight as the man witnesses their unfortunate goodbye – the girl stands up and leaves, the boy watches – he's absorbed in the commotion, he's helpless. His face reflects the convoluted memory of the one he has just lost. The path of the nomad, the indiscreet archer ponders, is not the one we leave behind for we are not made to dwell on those faces and places we adored and lost. No, he admits, the path of the nomad is the one that lies ahead, slithering and windy like a dark jungle. The Nomad has to walk blindly knowing that that cherished past is not retrievable – only the impervious, sterile future will welcome his tired bones.

No, the longing for a yesterday is a never-ending duty for the nomad. Yet his doom is to know his feet keep on marching; the distance between him and his treasured memories only gets bigger by the minute. His is a tortuous path. A ravenous, meandrous path of solitude and longing for things that now belong in some faraway, unreachable universe.

A sudden miracle catches his attention – two branches are moving, the spasm shaking the few leaves still refusing to succumb to autumn. Such cryptic movement – so capricious, so unnatural, is enough for the marksman to gaze into the night. He looks over his shoulder but to no avail: those branches that have moved, he has seen their eloquent dance. Yet nothing seems odd or out of place; maybe his insomnia is finding its delight in playing tricks on his tired mind.

Can you hear the drums, Fernando?

Right now isn't coincidental, he knows. They could be stripped of all reasoning yet they'd still be pure in their essence.

The girl that's leaving and the boy observing her departure.

Can you hear the drums, Fernando?

There was something in the air that night.

There is no love in the path of the nomad, he acknowledges. His inconspicuous skin summons a thirst that cannot be quenched. Love, eerie yet diaphanous in the light of day seems obscured and secluded by the intricate patterns of the obsidian night. A single breeze reaches his hair – the dark stray locks begin to dance the song of druids but only briefly – the smooth silk that had been keeping his hair in place suddenly falls down to the ground, light as a feather: torn in half, now lifeless, his right hand quickly reaches for the remaining part of the yellow ribbon still holding his hair up – the edge met by his intrepid fingertips is too sharp to the touch; the cut had been too clean to be true. His eyes widen in surprise as his free hand already touches the quiver; his naked arm perceiving the blue enveloping his ancestral companion. Yet the lone wolf exhales deeply, air leaving his lungs and cruising through his parted lips. Alert and not so quiet now, the man furrows his brow as his dilated pupils search for the rhetorical ghost finding its amusement by awakening his tempested senses.

No one.

No one there.

No wind, no sound, no movement; just the distant soliloquy of the boy weeping alone on the bench. His lover gone, the sounds of his tristesse get carried away by the atmosphere. Hanzo's eyes find him as he places both his hands on the railing. The whirlpool of sadness haunts him down until it finds him. There is no love in the path of the nomad, the fixation reverberating old tales of nostalgia – a mere distraction, yet another one.

Love is whimsical. Love is fleeting – love is out of his hands.

His curled up fists caress the soft dark wood underneath their touch. He knows, he's certain: no matter the case, love is the snake aiming for temptation, trying to seduce the nomad's soul. But the snake doesn't know that the Nomad has already sinned, and the root of his action is what truly defines him now; pure in all his essence, his perfidy forever echoing in the abyssal stare of night.

A sharp breeze kisses his exposed forearm – the dragon awakens in a dream he cannot understand. Still no wind, still no whistling sounds of the perpetual movement that encompasses this Earth. Yet the feeling is genuine; each pore in his skin is already reacting, each one of them ready to testify: can you hear the drums, Fernando? He takes a deep breath as he quickly scans his surroundings. Nothing, nobody, just the lunatic, sad song of a mind that needs to rest. His heavy shoulders feel the sudden weight of walking alone – the penitent path of the nomad, cruel and inclement, is the punishment for everything he has done.

He closes his eyes, nearly giving up on his own senses. There's no wind, there's no breeze – there's nothing but him and only him in a constellation of things he cannot bring himself to find. His tired bones retreat to his bedchamber, he shakes his head pensively: it's finally time to get some rest. Those branches, his ribbon, his forearm; all mere beacons – like black butterflies, like ignited fireflies trying to illuminate the path stretching before him. Wise man Shimada, he knows better than to fall for the empty symptoms of a broken soul.

He knows all this. He's never been a stranger to the silent theories of sound.

When the wind howls; it only howls because there's a tale that needs to be told.

The archer steps inside his bedroom and closes the window; the white curtains dance a brief ballet of closure and privacy as they witness the solitary man getting lost between the sheets.

Can you hear the drums, Fernando?

From afar, a half smile fades quickly from his lacerated face: the sudden realization of this singular joy being only fleeting hurts the heart underneath the carbon fiber suit. Sheltered by the night, Genji stares at the window of his brother's bedchamber – only from this distance he can understand how much has changed over the years. Those children laughing in his memories are gone; they are not coming back. Even though he has forgiven his brother, there are still many truths gravitating in the space between them that he still cannot withstand.

As he watches Hanzo turning and tossing in his sleep, the green light in his visor flickers, exhibiting the true nature of his questions. What is he dreaming; in case he is still able to dream?

Limbs pinned down to the cupola where he's standing, the youngest Shimada sighs as his nostalgia reciprocates the incompletion of the pristine waning moon. His brother doesn't even seem to recognize him now, he has made himself very clear after his visit, only a few weeks ago. Hanamura and its secluding walls, forever dividing what had once been an indissoluble bond. Yet the man he had encountered that night, the one with such fury burning madly inside his usually imperturbable gaze, the one with that rigid jawline, his screams and his soulless words – the one beyond redemption, the one unable to see beyond the metal now covering a body he himself destroyed in order to answer to the balsamic yet sickening tune of a treacherous mermaid singing songs about misplaced loyalties and crooked desires.

Yet he still is his brother, and the childish charade he had managed to create had only made him see his old sibling under a new light. The man and the lone wolf, forever blended and confused into the same being, were simply too tired to put up a fight.

Fast and diligent just like one of his brother's arrows, the youngest Shimada leaves, his shadow wrapped up in the onyx of midnight. Above Hanzo's windows, the shurikens he had thrown only moments ago were still embracing the wooden structure; silent souvenirs of a war turned into genuine peace offerings; stars trying to shine their light in the night of two obscure souls.

Unbeknownst to them, he himself had been the wind that night; the gentle breeze behind those capricious branches moving, the air caressing his brother's forearm, the one responsible for cutting his brother's hair ribbon in two.

In the streets below the boy is still lamenting his lover's departure; his sadness so heartbreaking it's impossible not to dwell on all those things that will never be the same for them. The penitent path of the nomad, he knows.

Can you hear the drums, Fernando?

There was something in the air that night.