"You are distracted, my student."

Genji swallowed, tilting his head with his optical band still shut off.

"I am now..."

"Sarcasm is unbecoming of you." The cyborg chuckled sheepishly, looking over at Zenyatta and rubbing at his own neck.

"Apologies, master."

"Not at all, brother." A gentle breeze blew over the hill top, making the grass beneath them rustle and tickle Genji's knees slightly. "Your aura shifts like the ocean, Genji. What troubles you?"

"Nothing, master," he replied perhaps a bit too quickly. He grunted quietly, fidgeting. "Well, nothing of importance to you, at any rate."

"Everything is of importance to me. Most certainly when it worries you in such a way." Genji looked down into his lap, twiddling his thumbs. "Is it your brother?"

"... I think it probably is," he sighed, hanging his head.

"Do you feel not much progress is being made?"

"Not as such..." Genji licked his lips under his mask, searching for the right words. "... I feel... that I have changed too much."

Zenyatta tilted his head, back firmly straight, ever vigilant but at peace. "That concerns you?"

"Normally it wouldn't! I am so very close to fully coming to terms with... what I am...! But..." He watched a daisy dancing in the wind by his foot, the crisp sunlight bouncing off of the morning dew still lacing its petals. "... then I see the way Hanzo looks at me... he will deny it, but I know he often forgets who I am. He hears my voice and looks... only to not recognise his own brother under the metal, merely... a peculiar creature that shares his brother's name."

Zenyatta sat silently before him, listening and contemplating his friend's thoughts and acting as a firm base to be relied upon. He bowed his head. "I see..."

"I have changed in more ways than body, but also in soul! So much so, he doesn't seem to want to believe I am Genji... but who else could I possibly be but myself?!" Genji's fingers dug into the grass, arms and shoulders shaking as he struggled to contain his frustration. He just wanted to tear and rip at the earth, until he'd dug a hole deep enough to bury himself in. "I just... I don't know what I'm doing wrong, master...!" The cyborg stared at his clenched hands forlornly, as they slowly went lax. He closed his eyes beneath the mask, still trembling.

A slimmer hand reached out, lifting one of Genji's from the dirt to rest in its palm, and the other resting on top of it. Genji looked up pleadingly at the Omnic.

"Neither you, nor Hanzo, are in the wrong," Zenyatta assured him in his smooth tone. "You are both simply settling. It has been many years since the two of you last met. Hanzo battled with his own demons, and adjusted his view of the world to one of which you were not part of. One in which, he believed you to be dead. And suddenly, here you are." The Omnic tilted his head, a warm, understanding smile in his voice, gently patting his student's hand. "Very much not dead, and having lived a life separate from him. The paths the two of you have walked have always been connected, but took side roads from one another for a time. Hanzo is not the only one who is displaced, and you, my student, are not the only one that has changed."

Genji slowly straightened up, beginning to understand where Zenyatta was heading.

"You mustn't dwell on what Hanzo can and cannot comprehend. You cannot understand for him. Instead, focus on understanding who he has become."

Genji was quiet for a long moment, throat taut and sore as he struggled with his voice. He took a shaky inhale, then bowed his head. "I... I asked him a few weeks ago what he had been doing all this time..."

"A good start," Zen praised. "And what did you learn?"

Genji looked back down at the daisy as the wind died down, seeing it bow to the direction it had been pushed, and rest.

"... that he was conflicted," he replied. "He is unsure whether he is relieved, guilty, or furious to see me."

Zenyatta nodded. "Good, you understood this from your brother right from the start." He closed his hands around Genji's encouragingly. "Through this, you will be able to fully process and understand your own feelings in this situation. Forgiveness is a process, as is learning. Both are things I truly believe the two of you are capable of."

Genji stared at Zenyatta, processing everything he'd been told, and what it all meant to him. He then clutched his master's hand in return.

"... thank you."

"You are most welcome, my brother."