Page 56 of Pandion

He pulled himself up against the side of the sofa and leaned on the wall behind him. Then he wiped his face and took in the view. Kagesawa did the same.

The living room was in a state of complete chaos.

“Takazaki.” Satoru took some unsteady steps towards the front door.

Kagesawa had half a mind to stop him but followed him instead. That scream was still fresh in his mind. “He’s not an empath, so he’s safe, right?” Even if they were after Takazaki for his extracurricular activities, he wasn’t an empath. Killing him would not free an organism. Unable to justify murder, they must have just roughed him up for not cooperating. “Right?”

Kagesawa followed Satoru into the corridor. The door to Takazaki’s apartment was ajar.

Before they entered, Satoru turned to look at Kagesawa, but he was still dampening and his expression was difficult to read.

The apartment had been destroyed similarly to theirs, but it was now dead silent. Despicable cowards. Satoru stopped at the kitchen door and let Kagesawa pass him into the living room.

“Takazaki?” Kagesawa saw the man lying on the floor, unmoving. “But why?” He knelt at Takazaki’s lifeless body. There were no obvious lethal injuries, but the pungent odour of burnt flesh and hair was too strong to miss. Kagesawa turned his friend’s head carefully, to confirm what was there. The port was scorched beyond recognition, but because of its size and location, there was no mistaking it. “Shit.”

Kagesawa glanced at Satoru, who’d turned to face the wall and leaned his forearm and head against it, clenching his teeth.

Shit, I take it back. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. We weren’t done. I was supposed to be angry with you for a while, you’d keep apologising a couple more times, and then things would go back to normal—Kagesawa choked.

There would have been time. He could have rushed over, called or sent a message to warn Takazaki as soon as he’d heard the noise. Surely, he could have prevented this, had he realised it was needed.

He’d already been through this once. He’d thought he was smart enough to learn something from his mistakes, yet he’d let it happen again.

Kagesawa felt dizzy. Breathe, stupid! Steadily! But he couldn’t focus on it for long enough for it to make a difference.

Why hadn’t he noticed Takazaki was an empath? He was such an idiot! Everyone around him would end up getting themselves killed like this, one by one, because he couldn’t pay attention like a normal person, like he was supposed to. He couldn’t even breathe properly, for heaven’s sake! Breathe!

He was too much of an incompetent birdbrain to stop any of it from happening. Everyone was going to die because of him. Everyone was…

He glanced back at Satoru.

Shit. What if… w-what if… In that moment, the thought was simply unbearable. Kagesawa broke down crying, gasping for breath between his panicked sobs. Takazaki was dead. Satoru had nearly died. What if— what if all of them really—? They would all— He swallowed. What if Satoru, as well—

He could feel Satoru leaning over his back, heavy. He was still there.

Sorry. I know this sucks, but we can’t stay here. We need to call the police, let them handle this and find somewhere safe fornow.Satoru tried to help Kagesawa up, but in his condition, it was surprising he was even still standing on his own.

This was not the time to be having one of his idiotic panic attacks. It was disrespectful to Takazaki and an unreasonable burden for Satoru. Things needed to be taken care of. He needed to pull himself together and dust this off.

“You’re right. We need to go.”

It was too late to help Takazaki, but Kagesawa swore he would do anything andeverythingto keep Satoru safe. He’d managed that much for now; he’d make sure he’d do the same again, as many times as he needed to.

Chapter 22

Harumine woke up half past nine and finally felt better. He was scraped and bruised from the night’s ordeal, but that was a small price to pay compared to Takazaki. The past few days were a blurry mess from the brain fog and the painkillers, but he could piece together most of what had happened.

He wasn’t in his own bed; it was Kagesawa’s. Kagesawa was asleep on the floor, surrounded by tools and spare parts, with a BCI and a computer that looked like it had been smashed into the wall. Harumine tiptoed out of the room.

Everything that could be broken by throwing it around had been thrown around and broken. He had to watch his step to not step onto glass or other rubble. There was no sense trying to sort it out since they probably wouldn’t be able to stay. What a wasted effort to have made it livable.

Harumine heard a noise from the corridor. Skittish from the previous night’s events, he hurried to check what it was. There was someone there, in the corridor. Harumine didn’t recognise him.

Was he alone, or…? Judging by the man’s shifty behaviour, he was trying to remain inconspicuous. The noise Harumine had heard was the sound of him breaking into the apartment next door. What in the world?

Since there was no obvious size-difference and the man didn’t seem very menacing, Harumine decided to step in. He wasn’t about to let some stranger break into Takazaki’s apartment unchallenged, even though under the circumstances it probably didn’t matter.

“Excuse me.” Harumine opened the door and faced the man head on before he had time to disappear into the apartment. The man turned to look.

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