TW: Graphic violence.
"Carry on, my wayward son…"
Hana leans back in her seat, yawning, feet up on the dash.
"There'll be peace when you are gone…"
The riffs of a guitar ring loud in the enclosed space of the car. Genji can see that Hana's mouthing the lyrics as they play.
"Lay your weary head to rest-"
"You like rock-and-roll?" he asks. Hana glances at him, her startlingly dark eyes narrowing in thought.
"-don't you cry, no more."
"I would call it less 'liking rock-and-roll' and more of 'liking guitars and loud drums,'" she says thoughtfully. She blows an upwards puff of air, sending her bangs flying. "But yeah, I tend to listen to rock. Kansas, Led Zeppelin, Blue Oyster Cult, and the like."
Genji stares out the windshield, at the red sun floating in the sky. They'd been driving long enough to watch the entire sunrise from inside the Hana-mobile. The beat of the drums pulse from the radio, rattling his teeth; it wasn't an unpleasant feeling.
"I know that the South Korean pop music is very popular with teenage girls, so I was under the impression that-"
"That I liked K-pop?" she interrupts with a snort. "Naaaaah. Not my thing. Why, what do you listen to?"
Genji grins, raises a hand off the steering wheel, and then performs a peace sign by his eye, striking a feminine pose. "K-pop! I wanted to use this meeting as opportunity to discuss with a fellow fan my favorite girl grou -"
Hana groans and shoves him, causing the car to swerve dangerously. He laughs and grips the steering wheel again.
Hana flops back in her seat dramatically, hand to her head in mock agony. "Agh- I just had- I just had a mental image of you dancing in a pink skirt. My eyes, oh how they burn-"
"-from how indescribably hot I was in this vision of yours," Genji finishes smoothly. Hana snorts with laughter.
"Say, where are those Talon people, anyways?" She stares at the rearview mirror, lowering her hand slowly. "I thought they'd catch up to us by now."
It's Genji's turn to snort. "That would be a pointless endeavor on their part. Most likely the agents from Juseong have long since returned to their base. It is far more practical for the Talon agents undoubtedly stationed in Seoul to try and ambush us from there."
The Korean girl frowns and taps at the dash as if it is a piano. "So… they'll try to block the road off, or… or something?"
He imagines the Hana-mobile crashing through a row of black cars, Mad Max style. "If they wanted to block us off, they'd have to find some way to block all five major highways to Seoul simultaneously, as they do not know which path we will take. Which I can safely say if impossible if you consider how much traffic these highways receive." He glances at Hana. She's still absorbed in the task of drumming her hands on the dash. "No offense intended, but I do not think they prioritize your capture to that extent."
She pops a piece of brightly colored bubblegum in her mouth. Genji had noticed a while ago that she tends to do this whenever she's talking about something potentially stressful, and wonders if he should tell her to stop- it's sort of a bad habit. "Something to be glad of. What do they want me for, anyways?"
The question is phrased carefully. Not accusing, and neither pessimistic nor optimistic. It's a difficult one to answer.
Genji's spent three, no, four- technically five days with Hana. Despite her closed-off nature, he's gotten to know a little about her. Enough to know that she'll put up a brave front and smirk and make some quip about weak Talon agents if he answers her question honestly.
Enough to know that no matter how casually she delivers the question, she's secretly very, very afraid.
Genji thinks of Amelie, Gerard Lacroix's lovely wife, with her blank stare and purple skin. He thinks of Reaper, the mysterious agent that leaves nothing but dried-up husks of corpses in his wake. He thinks of the stench of burning flesh and throat-tearing screams of hundreds of unwilling lab experiments gone wrong in Eritrea, left to die in the explosion caused by Blackwatch intervention. He thinks of how pale Angela's face had gone upon viewing the data they had retrieved from the awful place.
But he speaks of none of this.
Instead, he shrugs. "I suppose they want to deter you from joining-"
"That's bullshit, and we both know it," cuts in Hana, changing tactics in the blink of an eye. She sits on her palms, chews her gum viciously. The young girl is still draped in oversize bunny printpajamas, and yet she's intimidating enough for Genji to avoid her eyes.
"You've been tiptoeing around why they actually want me this entire car ride. Be honest with me from now on, because who knows? I might not take this whole thing seriously if you don't talk straight." A pause." They're going to kill me, right?"
Hanzo glares at him from his seat. He wears the look of a kumicho, not an older brother. "Genji, you need to take this seriously." A pause. "Or they will kill you."
Hana's still insistent. "Please, Genji. The truth."
The truth.
He quashes the lonesome memory of Hanzo, stares straight ahead at the winding road. Raindrops are pattering gently on the windshield, creating watery tracks down the smooth glass.
The stares of the elders heavy on his back, Hanzo's warning still ringing in his ears. I don't want to frighten you like that.
Hana is useful to Overwatch, and so she's useful to the adversary- that was just how the world works. She was like money- could be used for anything, really, for good or for evil, and she retained her value no matter how many times she swapped hands. Talon no doubt found the girl via connections to Overwatch, and now they were being a goddamned nuisance by hampering their extraction.
"All I know is that Talon is following us. Anything beyond that is an assumption," he says slowly. "I am not a Talon operative, after all. However, I doubt… I doubt they want to kill you." They want to do something worse.
He doesn't miss how Hana's shoulders drop a few millimeters in relief.
They leave the Hana-mobile in a parking lot that looked as abandoned as the old school it belonged to. Genji puts the keys on top of the car, intoning that he'll "miss the Hana-mobile." Hana pats the car fondly, retorting that she "hopes that the Genji-mobile will find a loving owner."
The only thing they take with them is the duffel bag Genji had picked up in Juseong, the contents of which Hana still hadn't seen. After years of scrounging for every spare dime in the gutter, it definitely feels a little odd to just leave the sedan there. Of course, if reformed Overwatch has even a fraction of the funding that the old Overwatch had received, then Hana assumes it's probably okay for them to splurge a little.
It only takes a few minutes of walking before they're plunged back into civilization- honking taxis, flashing lights, the general hustle and bustle of Busan's metropolis. Hana keeps her talking to a minimum, instead opting to watch the strangers carefully. The crowd isn't nearly as dense as the one back at the night market, but it's still large enough for her to be wary of being swept away from Genji. The consequences of such a separation would be disastrous, given the circumstances.
Genji. Hana can't shake the feeling that he's trying to shield her from this new world, even though it feels safer to Hana than her old world had ever been. Of course, it's not like Genji would understand this- she'd been very, very careful about not telling him about life with Nara Song, the Ssang Kal, the loan sharks, her mother's boyfriends, her father-
"Hana, are you hungry?"
She blinks and looks up. Genji's pointing at a street vendor, who's baking boongobahng- a fried, crispy goldfish-shaped bread stuffed with sweet red bean paste. The smell is absolutely heavenly, and the warmth radiating from the stand feels like a blanket on her icy skin.
"Yeah!" she cheers, pretending to be perfectly content. Genji pays a couple won to the vendor, who was another old lady, though considerably cheerier than the jewelry vendor (she patted Genji's hand, called him a polite young man, and gave them an extra boongobang; Genji reckoned that she must've been blind) and Hana's soon sinking her teeth into the crispy bread.
"Shouldn't we be hiding or something?" she asks as she chews, scrunching up her nose. She feels more like she's on another casual trip to the night market, not on the run from international terrorists.
Genji snorts. "And then what, get jumped? Crowds are much safer than places where you are alone. It's harder for them to spot us, and harder for them to attack."
Hana thinks about this for a moment. It would be more difficult to navigate through so much people. And…
"The crowd acts as a shield?" she guesses aloud. Genji pauses to turn and look at her. She stares back, mindful of how his body language has shifted from casual to grim.
"You're not entirely incorrect," he says slowly. "But you can't underestimate… well, just make sure you're careful. Talon's not above sacrificing a few pawns to capture the queen."
It takes a moment for Hana to understand the metaphor. "Pawns meaning the civilians, and queen meaning…?"
"Meaning you." Genji looks ahead and begins to move. "You might not know it yet, but you're very important in the grand scheme of things."
The grand scheme of things. How cliché. A giggle escapes from her throat, and Genji turns, amused-
A woman in a red jacket slams into his side; he grunts from the impact and Hana leaps back, startled, dropping her goldfish bread. The lady's a middle-aged woman wearing a beige scarf and leather boots. It's such a departure from the black-outfitted Talon agents that had besieged their motel-
But it makes sense, because why the fuck would Talon agents dress like Talon agents in a crowded area? Hana'd been looking out for black and gray and strange masks this entire time, which was so damned stupid-she mentally berates herself as Genji and the woman tussle on the ground, the crowd stepping away from them in a seething circle of hands and limbs and whispers, and then the woman pulls out a gun.
The screams are sudden and earsplitting; people scramble away from the scene like a crazed herd of animals (which they are, DVA thinks) while Hana pushes forward, through the surge of people, and she's not scared of them this time- she's just scared for Genji-
The gunshot rings and then the yelling becomes impossibly louder. Hana breaks free and sees the woman drop to the muddy ground, a bright red smile across her throat, right by the smoking hole in the cement. White plates of Genji's sleek armor are covered in flecks of crimson, and he's holding one of his shurikens- she's staring still, uncomprehending, until she feels his hand close around her wrist.
"The police are coming. We need to leave, now."
It's not Genji's words that snap her out of it. It's his voice. The fact that it's him. Her breathing quickens and she begins to move.
They run towards a disconcertingly quiet alley, lined with closed shops and collapsed trash cans. Hana feels a surge of adrenaline and picks up the pace, legs a blur, but she's not tired and her legs aren't sore anymore. She's going numb, she can't feel anything- not her body, her limbs, or the hot, sticky liquid all over Genji's hand.
Sirens wail over the chaos in the distance. One of Hana's boots fall off and she's left hobbling after Genji, thin socks tearing on the sharp gravel that pokes mercilessly at the soles of her feet. Without pausing, Genji scoops Hana up in both arms; she lets out a squeak of surprise that he ignores.
Now that she can't hear the flapping of her own feet, she realizes that Genji's rapid footsteps make no sound at all. She swallows, and all she wants is to ask did you kill that lady? because even if it were obvious that he had, she just can't wrap her head around it-
She was going to shoot Genji. As they round the corner, Hana buries away the strange, irrational guilt that she feels creep up in her heart. She deserved it.
Genji lurches to a stop. Hana's hands clench over his shoulders involuntarily.
Facing them is a row of… not Talon agents, but normal people. They're dressed in fluffy winter coats, leggings, jeans, hoodies, t-shirts- a wide variety of average clothing.
They're also armed with guns. There isn't an ounce of hesitation on any of their faces when they begin to fire.
Hana's dropped suddenly, and Genji's arm is raised in the blink of an eye, the duffel bag falling to the ground. He has his sword, and with a spattering of sparks, the blade flashes up and down in a green blur- several of the people crumple to the ground, and there's no sudden spray of blood to indicate that they're dead- just a silent, red stain slowly creeping across blouses and jackets and Mickey Mouse logos.
He deflected the bullets, Hana realizes slowly. With. His. Fucking. Sword.
The remaining civilians- (no, they're with Talon, they're obviously with Talon, DVA thinks)- stop firing, the barest trace of confusion flickering over their faces. There's a clatter as they discard semiautomatic weapons in favor of smaller guns that they unclip from their belts. Hana scrambles backwards, and terror is rising in her throat again. She's freezing up-
But Genji's not.
His sword's a blur, and then his entire form disappears in wavy green light. The cyborg is almost lazy as he cuts down three more agents, his katana a ribbon of silver silk, dodging their bullets with ease. His arms snap up and hits an agent; they go flying with a bend in their neck as one of the other agents lose control and begin to yell, terror contorting his face. The shots ring loud in Hana's ears, and she's hit with the realization that silly Genji-
-the one that bought her bracelets and sweets, made pancakes for breakfast, drew little pink stripes on her face that one time when she was asleep, the one that helped braid her hair on Thursday-
-is a killing machine, built to destroy.
But also to preserve, whispers DVA.
Her senses return. Hana stands up, because while Genji's holding them off, she should leave-
An arm snaps around Hana's neck, pulling her roughly into something solid and black. She looks up- the formidable shadow of a Talon mask is above her. The arm pulls in more and she chokes, flails, but she might as well be standing still because his grip is like iron.
Genji turns while finishing off the last agent, who's scream is cut off in a horrendous gurgle. The alley is a mess of dark red and large pieces of… meat, Hana thinks vaguely… and Genji himself looks like something out of a nightmare. His sleek, gunmetal form looks to have been splashed with red paint, and his green ports glow in the shadows.
Genji, the living nightlight. He scares away the things I am afraid of.
His katana is still brandished when he takes a step forward, in their direction. Something cold buries itself into Hana's hair, into the soft area right behind her ear. Click.
"Drop the katana," says the agent, voice deep and distorted. Genji draws himself up, but remains silent.
Hana's prayer is fervent, insistent. Genji has this under control. Everything is under control. Everything is under control. Everything is-
Genji places the weapon on the ground reverently, never taking an eye off of the agent. Hana's heart drops like a stone.
"No," she croaks. There's an almost imperceptible catch in her voice. "It's okay. I'm going to die anyway."
And she's telling the truth. It is okay. Everything is okay, because Hana's been prepared to die since the first day her mother had drowned herself in alcohol. She's been prepared to die since the first day the Ssang Kal had walked in on her life. She's been prepared to die since the first day she had lost consciousness and woken up in the closet, listening, paralyzed, to Mr. Seon reassuring the police that there was no girl named Hana living here, you hear me?
The time she spent with Genji was brief, and she'd known deep in her heart that it had to end sometime. She would have to return to reality eventually-
The rain is cold on her skin. It drips from Genji's armor and pools at his feet, tinted red. She focuses on the glittering drops of water rolling off his shoulders.
The Talon agent takes a step back. And then another. He's speaking into something, a microphone maybe.
"I've secured the girl unharmed. Grid B sector F36, there's the cyborg here, too. No, no- it was a fucking massacre, we need more troops- don't bother to bring the heavies, he'll just deflect all the shit you throw at him-"
He drones on. Hana tries to listen, and notices that the sirens have stopped. I wonder if the police are all dead, too.
Genji's still kneeling on the ground, the sword lying near his feet. Rain trickles down his armor in rivulets of blue. Hana mouths Just go.
He tilts his head quizzically.
Please, Hana begs silently. There are tears burning in her eyes now, and she can't seem to figure out why. Was she mourning her own life, or Genji's? Was she just scared? Perhaps she was just losing her mind.
"I'll meet the sect there… yeah, the cyborg is coming with me too. Fucking hell, what a mess." The agent lowers his hand from his mic, points at Genji. "You. Come with me, or the girl dies."
"Don't," she whispers, ignoring the cuff to her head and the growled "Shut up." She didn't deserve Genji. That much had been obvious from the very beginning. If he were to get hurt because of her, she'd-
Hana almost has a heart attack as Genji suddenly lunges, his katana in-hand so fast that she can't tell when he had picked it up. He's just a ribbon of green in the red-stained world again, flashing forward, so fast that it just might work-
The cold metal pressed to Hana's head disappears and Hana's staring down the barrel of a gun, pointed straight at Genji, and for a wild moment it feels like she's the one pulling the trigger as the gloved finger presses down.
The gunshot is impossibly loud, right by Hana's ear. She screams, she squeezes her eyes, shuts out the world. Something hot and liquid splashes on Hana's shoulder; the Talon agent is yelling profanities at the top of his lungs. The ground is twisting and turning, she ought to be scared but all her shell-shocked mind can process is that Genji's dead, Genji's dead, Genji's dead, Genji's dead, Genji's dead, Oppa-
-is most definitely dead, but the gun's not to your head anymore, hisses DVA.
She's still screaming when she twists in the agent's grip and pushes against him with all her might. He yells as he tips over, crashing to the ground with Hana on top of him. There's a helmet over his face, glistening in the rain, and glowing red lights where his eyes should be. He swings his arms up at her, then cries out in pain as his left arm flops uselessly at his side. Ivory bone gleams from the exposed wound at his shoulder; Genji's last mark on the world.
The agent looks stupid pinned underneath Hana, he really does- just your classic video game lowlife, the minion that just so happened to kill a major character.
There's blood roaring in her ears as Hana grabs his head and then smashes it against the curb.
He screams, and Hana quivers in fear and disgust but DVA lets out a cry of rage. She brings his head down again- again- again- the helmet splinters in her grasp, shards of plastic dig into her palms but she's okay with it, really, because unlike Genji she was prepared to die-
"It's not fair!" she screams. Thud, thud, thud. Hot drops of red rain fleck across her pajamas, her face, her shirt. Her fingers are burning now, blistering from the impact. The hair's plastered to her face, the unfeeling rain rolls down her back. She's hardly aware of what's coming from her mouth, but it rips from her throat anyways. "It's not fair! It's not fair!"
The smell of iron is thick in air. This wasn't a video game- it was nothing like a video game, because the noises, the rush of emotions, the scent of blood- there was no strategy, no plan of attack, no rhyme nor reason to any of it because it was all so visceral-
Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.
Hana keeps going until the agent's hands aren't scrabbling for her neck anymore.
His head falls from limp fingers, hits the curb with a sickening squelch. At least, what's left of it. She made a goddamned mess of him, there's- there's stuff all over the place. Bile rises in her throat; she scrambles off of the agent's body and throws up the rest of the goldfish bread onto the sidewalk.
"…Hana?"
The modulated voice is tentative. Unsteady. It stutters and beeps. Hana wipes her mouth with a shaking hand, then crawls over to Genji, who lies on his back on the cold pavement, hoping for a miracle- maybe he wasn't shot at all, maybe he's okay-
There's blood oozing from his torso. The bullet had punched clean through the armor on his chest. She stares and stares and stares.
He speaks slowly, carefully. "Hana, what-"
"I thought you were dead, you FUCKING ingrate," she curses, and her voice is so brittle that it breaks near the end. She wipes the moisture from her face, hopes that it's just rain, not tears. Her body is physically sagging in relief, and her heart is so light that it has disappeared. She must look a mess right now, drenched in rain and blood and trying so hard not to cry. "I- you-"
"I fell unconscious when I was shot. Fortunately, my body's nanites began to do some repair as I was unconscious." He sounds so unconcerned, as if he's simply reading a status report. Hana feels sick.
Genji tries to raise himself on one elbow, wincing. "Are you okay? What happened? You're covered in bl-"
"Stop asking me if I'm okay," Hana hisses, and defying all logic, she's suddenly infuriated at Genji, the two-time savior of her life. Seething at the fact that even now, he refuses to- to show proper concern for himself. He stares at her, clearly befuddled with her response, and hell, so is she. What sort of sick bastard got angry at someone who got hurt saving their life?
She tries to stand up, dragging his arm with her. Genji curses in loud Japanese, presses his hand to the wound.
The blood that runs down his armor isn't black, like oil, or green, like his lights. It's as red as everyone else's. What had she expected? He was only human, after all.
"Are you fine with walking?" she asks. Genji is swaying dangerously on his feet.
"Not for a long distance. Moving will- moving will definitely hamper my regeneration," he replies. "I'm not sure if my nanites will be able to... handle this amount of… damage.
She squints at him. "Nanites?"
"From Angela," he responds, as if that explains everything. And then, after a moment: "Help cells repair themselves, but only to a certain extent. Also, Hana, why are you covered in-"
"The blood isn't mine, michin nom. Lean against me," she commands. Her tone leaves no room for argument.
Genji uncertainly puts his weight on hers as she pulls his arm over her shoulders, dragging the duffel bag he had brought up with him. He's far lighter than Hana had expected- she'd seen how high he could jump, it was only natural- and so she puts on her brave face and begins to move forward. Her heart hasn't stopped hammering yet, and it throbs like the beat of the drums.
I can do this. I have this under control.
They take one step. Then another. From how close they are, Hana can feel the rise and fall of Genji's sides, how labored the quiet, metallic rasping of his breathing is. All of those green lights studded into his armor flicker every once in a while.
"Why the hell did you do that?" Hana asks, voice calm and steady, trying to keep his attention focused on the present. Another step. She focuses on the door that lies all ajar near the end of the alley. It's so far away.
"He obviously… obviously wouldn't shoot you first… shoot the immediate threat," says Genji haltingly. His body seems to get heavier with every passing moment.
Okay, forget calm and steady. "So you knew he was going to shoot you," Hana says flatly, and something inside her dies at the thought of what could've happened.
Another three steps.
"I am fast… enough to move any vital organs out of… way of, bullet," he says. There's a strain in his voice Hana's never heard before. She spares a glance downwards; the armor around his wound is slick with red.
"So you knew he was going to shoot you," Hana repeats, pressing down that strange flare of anger that threatens to spill out. They're making progress faster now, they're halfway there. Hana doesn't weigh more than one hundred and ten pounds soaking wet, she can't keep dragging the full-grown man for much longer. Her shoulders burn, body aches- just- just a little longer…
"Talon is… Talon is not above sacrificing… few pawns to capture… the queen," Genji slurs. He sounds happy, as if he's drugged out, when he chuckles mechanically. "And. And neither am I."
"I'm not a queen, and you're not just a pawn, Oppa." Closer. Closer. Just a few more steps. It's not Hana's imagination, Genji is definitely getting weightier, as if he's not up to supporting himself anymore. She heaves him forward, eyes watering from the burn. The darkness of whatever room the door opens to gapes directly ahead. "Why would you say something like that?"
No response. Hana pauses, turns to look at him. His mask flickers.
"Genji?" she prompts.
They're only three steps from the door when he collapses.
I'm hella sick right now so I wasn't sure if I was going to write anything this week, but all of your wonderful comments really motivated me. So here it is, the next chapter. I know you all hate me for leaving you on a cliffhanger, but this chapter dragged two thousand words over how long I originally thought it was going to be (at first I thought Genji was going to get shot, and I'd just leave it at that!), and I had to end it somehow…
Translation Notes:
Oppa- a term of endearment basically meaning 'older brother'.
Boongobahng- literally translates to 'goldfish bread'. It's a typical Korean street food that is fried bread stuffed with sweet red bean paste. The bread is made by pouring batter into a fish-shaped mold, and then cooked until golden-brown, giving it its name.
