Pandion (Genera #1)

Chapter 25

H arumine had been fairly confident about being able to arrange temporary lodgings for the night on campus, but once Kagesawa’s identity as the mysterious benefactor had come to light, Hase-sensei had taken care of everything with such enthusiasm that, for a brief moment, Harumine felt a pang of jealousy.

It wasn’t as if Kagesawa hadn’t earned that respect. It was good that he was getting some recognition for the impressive body of work he called a mere hobby. Perhaps this recognition would help with his self-esteem?

Kagesawa seemed distracted. Harumine had tried to give him a tour of the campus and the dorm on the way to the guest accommodations to drop their bags, but he’d barely been listening.

“Is it boring?” Harumine asked, reminded of his earlier conversation with Yajima. Granted, the student living room and shared kitchen weren’t the most riveting areas, even if the SEU was famous for its fresh and frequently modernised living facilities. Yajima was still trailing behind them, periodically stifling a yawn.

“Huh?” Kagesawa at least responded to the question. Harumine didn’t bother pressing for an answer.

“I suppose since Hase-sensei was kind enough to arrange for the VIP badges, we could go get dinner at the cafeteria.”

They’d skipped lunch, busy at the lab. Hase-sensei had wanted to tag along to chat with Kagesawa, but since Kagesawa looked distracted and tired, Harumine had suggested they take their leave for the day. Since he knew the place, there was no need to appoint a guide, and the professor no doubt had other duties to attend to.

Apparently, Kagesawa’s mood was independent from the professors’ company. Perhaps he was grieving for Takazaki? In the middle of all of this, there hadn’t been time to process that properly yet. The life within the SEU campus seemed so deceptively normal to Harumine, it was easy to push everything else out of his mind. It was probably not as easy for Kagesawa.

It could also be Yajima’s presence bringing back unpleasant memories? With Kagesawa dampening so well and his face giving away so little, it was impossible to tell.

He was so good at making himself unnoticeable, Harumine periodically forgot he was there and only realised he’d fallen behind when he wasn’t even within sight anymore. This, of course, startled Harumine and made him double back in a mild panic until he found Kagesawa some ways back randomly staring at something or otherwise lost in thought.

“Can you at least try to keep up?” Yajima snapped after the third time. Kagesawa gave him his signature apologetic look. Chastising him about getting distracted was not going to help. He was likely tired from having had to focus on the diagnostic tasks at the lab.

“Could you stop dampening? It would help to be aware of where you are,” Harumine said.

“Oh, ah, didn’t I mention? Fujitani-sensei recommended I dampen and keep it as passive as possible until they figure out what can be done.”

“What?” Harumine experienced a surprisingly visceral stress response to not knowing when he’d be able to feel the link again. He felt out of breath like he was about to have a panic attack. What was this, PTSD?

“Yeah, they said something about it not being good. Uh, I’m sorry, I kinda zoned out midway.”

“Figures.” Yajima gave him some side-eye and walked over to the nearby cafeteria ticket machine to choose his dinner.

“Sorry,” Kagesawa repeated. “I su—”

“Let’s just get something to eat. I’m starving.” The knee-jerk apologies only made it worse, so Harumine tried to push through by moving on. He followed Yajima, selected a ticket for his usual favourite, katsudon, and watched Kagesawa struggle to make a choice.

“Yaki udon with shrimp, maybe?” Harumine suggested based on Kagesawa’s past preferences. Kagesawa accepted the suggestion without comment, and they moved over to wait in line. This early at the start of dinner service, they didn’t have to wait for very long.

On their way to a vacant table, they passed a group of students chatting. The conversation was still audible when Harumine, Kagesawa and Yajima had taken their seats.

“The EA has started planning for mass evacuations for empaths from the larger cities. Where do they think they’ll go? Everywhere’s the same,” one of the students said.

“I’m heading back to Kōchi to help my parents next week. I hear it’s safe there for the time being if you don’t actively make it known,” another one added.

“I wish I could do that. Fukuoka is a complete cesspit after the SAI event yesterday attracted a lot of foreigners and out-of-town nut-jobs to flood the area.”

“I can’t believe I got this far in my studies, and it’s practically all for nothing. I was about to graduate ahead of schedule at the end of May. Why did I even bother with Link Dynamics? They’ve stopped matching links. There are no jobs. Seven years down the drain.”

“I guess it’s a blessing to not be linked yet. Imagine being stuck with someone unemployed. Are they still doing link removals? Or has that stalled as well?”

Harumine tried to concentrate on enjoying his katsudon, but the gloomy atmosphere was getting to him. Kagesawa was in his own world, ignoring everything. Yajima was reading something on his palm reader while he ate.

Harumine tried to make sure he had Kagesawa’s attention before he spoke.

“What do we do, where do we head once we’re done here?” Maybe this was the time to see the world a little, head abroad.

“It depends…” Kagesawa had wolfed down most of his meal, but he’d forgotten the last few bites. “What does it mean to be done here?”

“What do you mean?”

“If it keeps growing, what else can they do but ‘remove’ the link?”

If the only way to stop it from developing was with disuse, the safest course of action was to make sure the link was unusable. Since the organism couldn’t be removed, and suppressing it had already failed once, removing the link without replacement seemed like the only option, unless the SEU research department had developed something new that wasn’t part of the EA arsenal.

“What will happen if it does? Is it really that bad?” The organisms had mostly been useful so far, so how bad could it be?

“I don’t know. I don’t think they know either. It seems most empaths retire when they reach this point. That’s probably why the average age for retirement is so low.” Kagesawa poked at the remnants of his udon noodles. They were probably already cold.

Retirement. It shouldn’t have even been on the table yet. Harumine swallowed. Was that why Kagesawa was so subdued? Was he busy thinking about his future without the link and possibly also without Harumine? It made sense he would distance himself if they were indeed about to go their separate ways.

To think of it, they’d already been over this once, and Kagesawa had taken off as soon as they’d lost the link. He’d come back, yes, but there had been hope that the link would recover. If there was no link at all and nothing to recover, had he decided there was nothing worth staying for?

Harumine wanted to ask, but with Yajima there and projecting off-limits, he couldn’t bring himself to. He’d barely been able to discuss it before with no audience. It was too much to ask to bring it up now.

Kagesawa had been gracious and tolerated a lot so far, but this was supposed to be a professional partnership. The amped-up link-induced side-effects could be excused as unavoidable and understandable, but only if Harumine could keep his feelings out of it. This? This mess was a major failure of character. He should have known better. He had no right to hold any expectations, and it was unethical to even entertain the thought.

Considering how easy it was to influence the other person through the link and knowing full well how the sex was clouding his judgement, anything Harumine said or did could be construed as coercion if the link hadn’t been dampened for a sufficient amount of time to allow Kagesawa to clear his head.

When it was dampened, the difference was drastic: Kagesawa was distracted and uninterested. It didn’t take a genius to understand why. If they weren’t feeding each other, and if there was no feedback loop, the attraction was so nonexistent, it might as well not have been there at all.

“Harumine-senpai?” Interrupted mid-thought, Harumine didn’t recognise the voice, and upon looking up, the face also looked unfamiliar.

“Wow, it’s really you! What brings you back? Is this your link?” they said, looking at Yajima. Again, Yajima had drawn the longer straw. What was it about Kagesawa that made him not look the part, even cleaned up in a suit? The hair?

“No, he’s a friend.” Harumine tried to remember where he knew this particular underclassman from, but he’d been involved in a lot.

“You don’t remember me, do you? Nimura Jirō. You were tutoring my friend Inoue-kun last year. We were also working in the same group assignment for the Link Ethics seminar.”

“Oh, right! This is my link, Kagesawa-kun, and a mutual friend of ours, Yajima-kun.”

“He seems old,” Nimura blurted out. “No, I mean, not like an old man, of course, like uh, a seasoned veteran. Experienced, right? I was expecting that, since it’s Harumine-senpai, senpai would have a more… well, never mind. These are my friends.”

Harumine glanced at Kagesawa, who looked to be taking it with his usual relaxed amusement. Considering how sensitive he was to this type of remark, the front really was quite impressive.

“Are you free tonight? We would love for you to join us. We’re hosting a get-together at the C-house common area since a bunch of us are leaving next week.”

“I don’t know…” Harumine turned to Kagesawa for his input.

“I don’t mind.” Kagesawa shrugged.

“I suppose.” Harumine had leaned towards declining, but if Kagesawa wanted to go, maybe he considered it a welcome distraction? Perhaps there would be other slightly more familiar underclassmen there to meet.

“Oh, you were in the archery club, right? Some of Seto-kun’s friends are coming. Since it looks like none of us will be getting matched and linked any time soon, it’ll be great to have someone there who knows what it’s like. Maybe you could grace us with your experiences!”

Oh, yes. The glorious days of sorting trash and research data. That was sure to impress anyone. R-red. The very thought of it made the corner of Harumine’s eye twitch.

Thankfully, the link was dampened, and the involuntary trash codes were stuck echoing only in his own mind.

Having one’s academic career and future prospects be reduced to practically nothing overnight did produce a rather unusual headspace for a lot of otherwise relatively carefree university students. Some were amidst depression; some were relieved, unexpectedly freed from the stress of passing their courses. Regardless, this led to liberal consumption of alcoholic beverages and less guarded tongues.

Harumine refrained from drinking as per usual, so once the novelty of getting to chat with his former schoolmates wore off, and he realised how difficult it was to identify with any of them, socialising became a chore. Yajima had long since retired into one of the two rooms designated for them. Kagesawa sat surrounded by half a dozen students from the link tech circle, dissecting some old port extensions and a broken BCI.

He was surprisingly popular and seemed to be in a better mood than earlier. Having to entertain a couple of drunk underclassmen seemed a small price to pay for that improvement, even if Harumine was having to dodge some rather intrusive questions about his link and career. It was getting late, though, and the past few days had taken their toll, so he decided to take his leave.