Page 6 of Pandion
In an instant, the memory created a nastier version of the feedback loop and sharp pain cut through the softness, spreading like thin ink on rice paper. Harumine stopped to stare at him in a manner that seemed almost coherent.
“No, no, no, don’t, don’t, don’t!” The strange chant washed away the momentary sadness. This was definitely different from anything before. Kagesawa had never had anyone so forcibly and successfully override his mental state through a link.
Harumine pulled him closer and whispered right in his ear, “That’s better.”
Soft. Warm. Wet. Wait, what? Whose thought was this? Why?
“Aa—?!” Kagesawa backed away. The feeling of a tongue at his earlobe was real. “What are you—?!” He could tell his confusion had reached Harumine, but it was momentarily dampened and replaced with heated arousal. Wait, is this me? How is it so clear that I can’t even tell which of us it is?
“That’s definitely you, uh,” Harumine responded.
“Shit, really? Sorry… I didn’t mean to…”
“Go ahead.” Harumine pushed himself up, and before Kagesawa could make sense of it, there were lips against his own. The following flood through the link was overwhelming. Wasn’t this against proper conduct?
“Yes, but screw proper conduct.” Harumine laughed and kissed Kagesawa again.
The laugh was infectious despite Kagesawa trying to fight against it. What was worse, though, was that it was not the only thing amplified by the feedback loop: the more aroused either of them became, the easier it was to pick it up through the link. Picking it up was infinitely more arousing. Consumed by it, Kagesawa pushed Harumine back down and kissed him ravenously. Shit, if it could feel like this, he’d just fly into the sun and self-destruct. After everything he’d been through, it was a rare opportunity and much too good to miss. Although, in this state, he wasn’t sure if he could have stopped even had he wanted to.
Harumine opened his eyes to another view of the ceiling. Not the same room as before. Where? He turned to look to his side. Unhelpful. The other side? Oh.
Even the quickest, most rudimentary assessment was enough to convince him that no amount of panicking or countering said panic with steady breathing exercises would have made a difference, so Harumine skipped his instinctive response and simply took in the view.
Kagesawa was asleep next to him, although at the other edge of the bed, ready to fall off. His hair looked much longer now that it hung loose over his shoulder. At least he was still wearing a shirt. The same could not be said about Harumine.
Despite not being himself the previous evening, Harumine didn’t have the luxury of blacking out or the consequent memory loss. He tried to make sense of what had happened and could only assume it had had something to do with his inexperience with alcohol and there being something wrong with the link.
He had no behavioural schemas he could refer to or pre-existing training for how to cope with his senses feeding him incorrect data. He’d spent years actively training to optimise his senses, increasing the sensitivity and accuracy with which he interpreted that information. To have them be thrown askew like this was a fairly disconcerting eventuality he’d failed to anticipate. The very concept that his senses could be thisunreliable was new to him. If he was to gain anything useful from this, it was to heed this as something he needed to work on.
The feedback loop, on the other hand, left him at a loss. There was no protocol for what to do in case of a feedback loop. Something like that shouldn’t have been possible. Thankfully, the consequences, while undesirable, hadn’t been outright disastrous. But how was he to stop it from happening again if he couldn’t work out what had caused it or even how to troubleshoot it?
Kagesawa fell off the bed. Harumine felt a stab of pain in his side and instinctively rubbed at it for relief. Responding with a mere murmur, Kagesawa sounded like he was going to resume his sleep where he lay. Harumine peeked over the side to confirm: indeed, the man lay there with his eyes closed, and the feedback from the link remained largely unchanged—he was still dreaming about something.
Harumine sighed. Could he save this somehow without it being completely unrealistic, demoralising or soul-crushing? There was no sense cultivating the link if he intended to have it severed, but wasting the months it took for the switch to be granted mucking about aimlessly sounded equally unappealing. Moreover, if this was what they paired him with now, would the next one be any better? A dreadful thought.
Maybe he should have strived for a more positive mindset, even if that wasn’t among his many strengths. What exactly did he have to work with here? He peeked over the side again.
The only other perks besides the passable looks and height were that Kagesawa seemed reasonably honest and kind. But if his dampening skills were anything to go by, as an empath, he was nothing more than a talentless hack.
Even so, Harumine found himself oddly eager to fix this. It was either due to his stubborn perfectionism or a by-product of the night before, which—to his horror—he had enjoyed. He waslikely rendered unable to make rational decisions after being exposed to such an enjoyable physical experience. Something like that could easily become addictive if he wasn’t careful.
Harumine was admittedly not in the mood to retrieve a work assignment, but with their score under 80%, he knew he’d have to if he wanted to afford the rent and other necessities. He threw a pillow over the edge to wake Kagesawa.
It was a little sad that he was using his hard-earned specialist skills to determine how much force he could use to throw something at his link partner without hurting himself in the process if whatever was wrong with this link was still screwing up with his ability to dampen. He executed this to perfection, yet it still lacked the expected accuracy.
“Ow—! Who? What?” At least the hit had been sufficient to do its job.
“Work,” Harumine said.
“Give me a break, Satoru-kun…”
‘Satoru-kun’? Ah shit, yes, he’d permitted that yesterday. Considering their age difference, it didn’t sound unnatural, but Harumine couldn’t help but harbour some mixed feelings hearing the man refer to him by his given name.
“We’re going to be late.”
“Late? How? The doors are open all day.”
“There will be nothing but scraps left.”