Page 5 of Pandion
“Don’t forget, all right?” Takazaki yelled after him. He needed to remember to make a note of that as soon as he got home.
Kagesawa stood at the door of his apartment and stared at the unexpected. For one, the place looked clean. When he’d left for the pub, it had already been cleaner than he’d seen it in years. Now, the rest of the clutter had disappeared from the hall, and a glance into the bathroom revealed that it had been cleaned up as well. What most surprised him, though, was what he saw in the living room.
“Harumine-san?” Kagesawa made a tentative inquiry. “What’s wrong?”
It looked like Harumine had collapsed and lay sprawled on the otherwise empty living room floor. Before Kagesawa could truly become alarmed, the young man raised his head, turned to look and, with considerable lag, let out a peculiar amused snort.
Kagesawa closed the door behind him slowly, carefully, not daring to turn his eyes away from the living room. Something was very, very awry, but he was yet to determine how. He had a few fairly good leads, though.
Harumine was flustered. He turned over to his stomach, and there was a telltale sway to how he moved. Where his eyes were normally alert and a little on the sharp side, they were now unfocused and sleepy.
“Are you drunk?” Kagesawa asked and checked the surroundings for any indication of what the man might have consumed.
“No,” Harumine said very unconvincingly. He scrambled up to sit but fell on his face on the rug. There were no signs of bottles or empty beer cans, but surely… surely this was not the result of… three, just three regular-sized pints? Not through a link. Certainly not from him. He sat down cross-legged next to Harumine and helped him up to sit.
“This is not because of me, is it? I only had—”
“I hhheard you the fhirsht time! Sheeessshhh…” Harumine leaned on Kagesawa to avoid falling over again.
“Holy shit. How did you—?” Kagesawa felt chills. He hadn’t tried projecting anything in years. He hadn’t realised he’d done so now, but Harumine was picking it up like it was no trouble at all.
“I’m ghood… vhery extrhemely ghood. Better than mosht, in fa—c.” He lost his balance, took a dive and chuckled into Kagesawa’s shirt.
“All right, well, you’re certainly sensitive. I think we should maybe get you to bed.”
“Nooo… I don’t want to shleep ye—c, I’m ‘avingfun!” It was already a challenge to parse Harumine’s drunken drawl, but him mumbling into Kagesawa’s shirt made it even more unintelligible. Worse even, having his hot breath seep through the shirt was distracting.
“You don’t have to sleep yet, but the bed is much more comfortable than the floor...”
The problem was that Harumine didn’t exactly have a bed yet. Kagesawa didn’t have the heart to make him sleep on the lumpy two-seater—not after subjecting him to this—so the least he could do was offer the only bed in the apartment: his own. Even if that left him with the uncomfortable prospect of having to squeeze his ridiculously tall frame into the figurative sardine tin.
“OK,” Harumine declared briskly and tried to get up by leaning over and pushing himself against Kagesawa. This tactic was an expected failure, but it only made the young man laugh at himself more.
“Should I drink some water, would that help you sober up? It’s strange. I don’t feel that drunk.”
Unsure what all was seeping through to Harumine, Kagesawa was nervous about letting his mind wander. He tried not to think about anything too compromising and turned his attention to the task at hand: lifting the young man up and off of himself before things got worse.
“Thish is stuphid. Why do I feel thisssh stupid?” Harumine was tearing up, but all Kagesawa was getting from him was bubbly amusement and a lack of both strength and control of his muscles.
As a byproduct of tuning in to check Harumine’s mood, Kagesawa realised he was now chuckling under his breath. The giggling drunkard seemed to be picking this up and it, in turn, amplified his amusement. A strange and highly contagious feedback loop—like that between a speaker and a microphone directed at it—seemed to be forming between them, but at least it seemed to be doing it slowly so it hadn’t yet reached a full-blown high-pitched squeal.
“Um, maybe we should dampen the link? Can you focus for a bit and do that for me?” Kagesawa wasn’t at all confident that he could do it on his own since he was barely able to stop himself from laughing.
“Prffhhh, I’d have dun ith alre— arl— ready iff I couldh—” For a short while, the feedback from the link died down, but it was back in a matter of seconds.
“I can’th concentert— ate…” Harumine clung to Kagesawa so heavily it was practically a hug, but at least he was upright andnot amidst a laughing fit. Kagesawa took the opportunity to move him towards the bedroom.
“Ahh, shittt…” Kagesawa swore. The trickle of amusement from the link turned into a steady flow of pleasurable comfort. If the source had been anything other than his newly linked, inebriated coworker, he wouldn’t have minded it at all, but this was supposed to be a professional relationship, and he wasn’t keen on ruining it right off the bat.
“Whhaaaatttt, yowr ack—chewly worried about thhat? And here I thought you din’t care much about profesh— sho… nalishm.” Harumine snorted out another poorly stifled giggle. Kagesawa pushed him into the bed before he could fall over again.
“You—!” Annoyed by the push, Harumine dragged Kagesawa along with him. “Don’t ya sshove me!”
“I’m trying to keep you from hurting yourself.”
“Oooooooooh, rrriiighhhhttt! Haha, I thought—! Pffft, hah. Well, thawas fun, lemme do that again!” Harumine tried to get up, but Kagesawa pressed him gently back down.
“Hmmmmmm, it’sh ah, supp—risingly floofded bed. Fluffered. Mmmmmmm.” Harumine scooped Kagesawa into a tight embrace, and Kagesawa was flooded by the distinct sensation of softness. It must have been absolute aeons since he’d felt anything this clear, not to mention pleasant, through a link. Not since—