Page 64 of Pandion

Harumine had taken Fujitani-sensei’s introductory course on Link Dynamics, but it had been a large class. She mainly instructed the research students, so their paths hadn’t crossed since.

“Harumine-san, Yajima-san, could you please wait in the observation room next door?” She escorted them to the door of said room.

It was a booth large enough for four or five people, connected to the lab with a one-way mirror. It served two purposes: as a discreet vantage point to evaluate the students’ skills during an exam or to allow the students to observe experiments without causing a disturbance.

The booth was also sound proof, and since Harumine was unfamiliar with any of the controls, he had to rely on lip readingand the link to determine what was being said at the other side of the glass.

Yajima sat down and eyed the control panel in hopes of finding a switch to flip or button to push to eavesdrop, but after giving a few of them a go to no avail, he gave up.

“Does he still zone out mid conversation?”

“Hmm?” Harumine hadn’t expected to be spoken to. “Not that I’ve noticed.”

“Maybe he was doing that on purpose then.”

“Maybe you have a boring voice.” Harumine could recall being ignored occasionally but not while still in the middle of something.

Fujitani-sensei was hooking up the electrodes and calibrating the scanner. Kagesawa looked distracted but was answering their questions relatively promptly.

“Fair enough, I guess.” Yajima sat down and lifted his feet onto the edge of the control panel. “What about the moods?”

“What moods?”

“You know. That oppressive darkness that sneaks up out of nowhere. His face betrays nothing—he could be relaxed and laughing—yet that stuff oozes through like he’s not even aware of it. He doesn’t try to dampen it at all.” As if reacting to what Yajima had said, Kagesawa glanced at Harumine and dampened the link. “He can’t see us, right?”

That he’d looked straight at Harumine had admittedly been a little startling, even if he’d merely sensed Harumine’s rough location and made a lucky guess. There was no way he could have known it with such accuracy through the link.

“Did you relay my words to him?” Yajima sounded annoyed. “That’s unfair. I wish I could hear what they’re saying. Can you…?”

“He dampened the link just now.”

“Oh?”

“He’s getting quite good at it.” Annoyingly good on occasion.

“Considering where he was at, that’s a surprise. You must be a great teacher.”

“He’s doing it on his own.” The link had improved considerably lately, and alongside that, Kagesawa’s skills as well.

“What were the two of you chatting about?” Kagesawa popped into the booth.

“Your atrocious dampening skills.” Yajima made no effort to hide it.

“I think I missed that class.” Kagesawa laughed. “Seimei tried to teach it to me for ages, but I could never quite grasp it.” He reached for the bag Harumine was carrying, dug out his port extension and handed the bag back.

“Yeah, well, the way you were doing it was more like desperate strangling. I’m surprised you didn’t do damage by doing it like that.” It had worried Harumine initially, but since Kagesawa had never complained about it, he’d assumed it must have not been as bad as it seemed.

“Oh? That was how Shimizu taught it to me. I thought it was supposed to be a little painful.” Kagesawa attached the port extension, closed the door and returned to his seat in the other room.

Yajima looked at Harumine. Harumine slapped himself on the forehead and leaned down to tap said forehead to the control panel repeatedly.

“Shimizu? Who is that?”

“A previous link. A bit of an asshole what I’ve gathered.” Harumine heaved a deeply frustrated sigh to conclude his forehead abuse.

“He had another one? What happened to the old guy after me?”

“He retired.”