Page 75 of Pandion

“Yes.”

“We were looking at the data integrity earlier today and after a few adjustments to our reader, the improvements were impressive. Any other time, I’d like to see what you’ve got in there. I wouldn’t mind upgrading myself if I’m honest.” He pointed at the screen. “Start from the top. This should be familiar to you.”

It was the same set of tests that Kagesawa had done, only when Satoru started going through them, it was obvious he wasn’t doing them for the first time. At around test number five, Hase-sensei, who thus far had seemed nothing but kind and supportive, looked up from his screen, grim.

“You’re lagging behind,” he said, voice matching his expression. Kagesawa frowned.

“I know.” Satoru knuckled down and picked up speed.

Having been babied and allowed to skip half of the tests because he was tired, Kagesawa could tell how pathetic his efforts had been and how easy they’d been on him all day.

“That’s an error,” Hase-sensei pointed out. Satoru had already corrected it by the time it was mentioned but looked like he’d bitten right into a particularly sour lemon to be caught making it.

Once done with test seven, he redid it before moving on—this time flawlessly. This retake cost him a couple more minutes, so Hase-sensei eyed him sternly over his glasses and shook his head.

The last few tests, the atmosphere was so tense and uncomfortable, Kagesawa wanted to tell them to stop but felt too much of an outsider to intervene.

“Done.” Satoru slapped the desk. Was this where he’d developed the habit…? Hase-sensei checked the data and humphed.

“You’ve been slacking.” The feedback seemed needlessly harsh.

“I know.” Satoru sounded disappointed, annoyed even. He didn’t try to give a reason or an excuse, merely acknowledged the feedback.

“Well, at least it was a personal best time-wise, but it’s a laughably miniscule improvement. And what was that error in test seven? What are you, a freshman? Is that why you scored under eighty?”

Satoru was taking in the feedback, nodding and looking increasingly distressed, which in turn made Kagesawa want to jump in to defend him all the more. It seemed the type of situation where, if Kagesawa said anything, it would have made it even more humiliating, as if he were an overeager parent protecting his child. He knew he needed to keep his mouth shut, but it didn’t seem right.

“At least you picked it up a little towards the end. I did expect more from you, but I guess this goes to show we cannot influence what happens after graduation. Some people peak in university, and that’s the sad truth of it.”

Hearing this, Kagesawa had to close his eyes and count to ten to quell the anger that was bubbling dangerously close to the surface. He was well aware that sometimes being strict and unforgiving could push people to excellence, but this was unhelpful and demoralising.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, he’s had to deal with continuous bullshit since being linked to me. He’s had no chance to do any link maintenance since we calibrated. Can’t you cut him some slack?”

“He is an SEU graduate. He should have made time. We do have standards.” Hase-sensei shrugged and compared the results. “Obviously we can’t have you do the calibration sequence right now, but based on this, I don’t see why you couldn’t reach a better score, other than negligence. 78,8%... I sure hope, for everyone’s sake, no one else learns about this.”

As if such an arbitrary score would make any difference considering the EA was facing dissolution and the whole empath profession was about to become obsolete. The corner of Kagesawa’s eye was about to start twitching.

“Oh, how wonderful!” The professor’s mood lifted in an instant.

“What?” Satoru leaned over the desk to see what he was looking at.

“They’ve omitted the score from your record. It must have been a clerical error. I knew it couldn’t be 78,7. That would have been absolutely ridiculous!”

Apparently, despite not receiving what they’d been hoping for from Satoru, the EA had removed Kagesawa’s existence from his record. Perhaps they thought that since Kagesawa no longer had a licence and was practically a nobody there was no need to even mention them having been linked. Satoru sat back down.

“Your performance today was appalling, though. I suggest you brush up on your basics at your earliest convenience. I don’t care if the world is about to end, you’re from the SEU, and you need to act like it.”

“I understand.”

“Good.” Hase-sensei eased a little. “Your BtI response time has gone down five percent, so some decrease to your overall time is to be expected. It looks like it’s caused by your organism being at a tendril growth phase, so there’s definitely some synchronisation happening between the two of you. However, I’m detecting significant degradation, I’m assuming, due to high stress levels and neglect. You need to take better care of yourself, or it will affect your performance. You should know better than to overexert yourself.”

Kagesawa had momentarily envied the SEU students for their access to superior tech and quality education, but the more he listened to Hase-sensei berating Satoru, the happier he was he’dnot had to deal with something like that for seven years to gain that access.

“I understand.”

From these curt responses and with the link dampened, it was tricky to gauge how this was affecting Satoru. Maybe he was used to it. He looked irritated, but that was not uncommon. Unsure of what to do, Kagesawa decided to stop dampening for just a teeny tiny moment to take a peek at Satoru’s mental state.

R-red, r-red, r-red, r-red, r-red…

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