chapter ix.

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┌──────── ∘°❉°∘ ────────┐"I'm on the run, and you're home alone

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┌──────── ∘°❉°∘ ────────┐
"I'm on the run, and you're home alone."
- The Neighbourhood, Softcore
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Athena returned to the office the next day.

She was greeted with flurried worries, as her coworkers fussed over her physical and mental state.

"Returning to work so early." Haruto scolded, pressing a flat palm into the crown of Athena's hair. Athena smiled meekly up at him. "You are truly a workaholic. Working in the hospital? Really, Kiritani?"

"I'm not a workaholic." Athena protested, fixing the hair he had disheveled. He tsked before shoving her gently towards the door.

"You can not be back so soon." Haruto fussed. Athena planted her feet, causing Haruto to stumble comically. She steadied him.

"I am needed." She spoke in a hushed tone. "Hizashi is still in the hospital and I have a lot of things to get done. I've missed enough."

"What is needed is for you to get some rest," Haruto grumbled. "Fine, but you are leaving by 5:00 pm sharp. Understand?"

Athena sighed and nodded, before finally slipping away to the elevator and to the top floor where she could get a moment's peace. When she arrived at her desk, she found it littered with flowers and get-well cards. Athena smiled to herself before gently placing the flowers on the window sill and gathering the cards into one of her desk drawers.

In a small plastic bag on the desktop, was her telephone. It must have been returned once the police had finished clearing the sight. However, when she pressed the power button, it was dead. With a sigh, Athena plugged it in before grabbing her laptop out of her bag.

Athena left her phone unattended until the clock finally reached 8:00 pm. Far later than she had promised poor Haruto, but she was behind on so much work. Perhaps she was starting to see the workaholic tendencies her coworkers kept harassing her about. Her phone booted up after a minute and Athena wrinkled her nose at the flood of texts once she unlocked the screen. She swiped past the missed calls from an unknown number in favor of her messages. She scrolled through them mindlessly, until she paused above the text from the unknown number.

The text that had been sent right before she found Hizashi injured.

Logically, the text must have been from Jin. If Jin had to go off the grid, something bad must have gone down for him to find Hizashi.

But how did he know exactly what street Hizashi would end up on? That he would be on Athena's way home?

Something didn't sit right in Athena's stomach.

There was a knock at the door and Athena jolted, eyes shooting up from her screen to the entrance of her office.

Aizawa stood in the doorframe, hair disheveled like he had sprinted up the 60 flights of stairs.

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