Chase considered himself a student of the human condition; perhaps, one day, he would understand enough of it to feel human, instead of always watching on the sidelines as the humans around him reacted in perplexing ways. At the moment, he had no idea why either of his two friends had engaged in their current emotional reactions, and consequently did not know what to do about it. Kiriko was standing within arm's reach, wiping her eyes with both hands, and scolding her little brother. Chase reached out to pat her comfortingly on the shoulder, something he was sure he had seen other people do.
Kiriko moved out of reach, leaving Chase with his hand extended for no apparent reason, just as Go reacted with a predictable attempt at levity, and Chase felt a moment of relief that at least one of his friends was finally acting reasonably before everything fell apart again.
"Chase," Go said, and his face crumpled. He buried it in the ridiculous giant stuffed dolphin he had collected from off the floor, shoulders shaking, and Chase didn't know how to fix it.
"No, sweetie, it's okay," Kiriko said, sitting down and putting an arm over her brother. In the back of his mind, Chase felt vindicated in his choice of action to comfort Kiriko earlier. Go just clutched at the dolphin more tightly, making choked little noises that Chase found he absolutely did not want to hear. Reacting to the atmosphere in the room, no doubt, Kiriko's son began to wail. With an apologetic glance, Kiriko abandoned Go and collected her son out of the box she'd placed him in.
The small child – and no one had thought to confirm its name for Chase; he remembered Shinnosuke's son's name from the time traveling Roidmude incident, but he didn't know if it would have been changed or not following that debacle – refused to be quieted, and Kiriko left the room after a relatively short time. Go was still curled around his plush toy, no calmer than before.
Chase crossed the room, hesitantly. "Go, if I am distressing you, I can leave," he said, and Go's head snapped up.
"No," he said, and none of it made sense.
"I don't know what to do," Chase said, hating feeling helpless.
"Don't die again," Go said, and Chase had no idea whether or not that was another attempt at levity. None of the rules he'd carefully collected regarding human behavior were applicable. Go wasn't smiling, though, not even a little; he was staring at Chase with wide eyes.
"I won't," Chase said tentatively, and Go buried his face in the toy again. Chase decided, arbitrarily, to count it as a success, because otherwise there were far too many variables and an excess of uncertainty. Another thought occurred to him, this one based in his admittedly basic knowledge of human physiology. "Go," he said. "Have you slept?"
"What?" Go looked up again, blinking. "You sound like Rinna," he said, which Chase chose to interpret as a negative. In the seconds during which Chase tried to figure out how to suggest that Go might be experiencing an excessive emotional reaction due to fatigue, Go sighed obnoxiously, put down the dolphin, and stood up. "Fine," he said, clearly irritated and Chase still had no idea why.
"Are you leaving already?" Kiriko asked from the doorway. The baby was quieter, and Chase could see something plugging its mouth. He filed it away as an appropriate method to silence small children.
"Yes," Chase answered.
"I'm surrounded by people who think I don't know how to take care of myself," Go said, inexplicably sullen. "I'm being sent home to take a nap."
"You can sleep here, if you want," Kiriko offered.
Go scrubbed his face dry with a sleeve, and when he put his arm down, his expression had eased. "I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to snap at you."
Chase wanted to know what Kiriko had done to merit that particular response, but he kept his mouth shut. In his moment of confusion, he missed whatever Kiriko said to answer Go's apparently unprompted apology.
"No, I'll go home." Go stretched. "Chase, you can stay, if you want. I mean, if that's okay with you." He looked at Kiriko.
"Of course," Kiriko said.
"I wish to drive," Chase said. "I will accompany Go."
"You didn't bring the bikes?" Kiriko glanced toward the window, although the street wasn't visible from where she was standing.
"I was doing basic maintenance on the Ride Chaser," Go said. "I, uh, borrowed one of the cars from the school."
Going by Kiriko's expression, Chase deduced that Go should have left the driving school's property alone, and the Drive Pit being hidden in the basement of the driving school was not blanket permission to borrow one of their vehicles. His conclusion was verified within seconds.
"Go," Kiriko said, the tone in her voice identifiable as exasperation. "Put it back."
"I will, I will." Go waved his hands in a dismissive gesture. "I promise. They won't even notice it went missing."
Chase felt that the driving school was definitely likely to notice that it had lost one of its vehicles. He did not feel it necessary to make the statement out loud. "May I have the keys," he said instead.
Go gave him a suspicious look before digging into his pockets to produce a single key with a numbered tag attached to it. "You remember how to drive a car, right," he said.
"I got my driver's license before you did," Chase reminded him. Go rolled his eyes.
"You're never going to let that go," he said, and then the corners of his mouth pulled down again. He rubbed at his eyes with his palms, as if Chase couldn't see the moisture gathering again. "We, uh, we should go," he said, and hugged his sister.
"Drive safely," Kiriko said.
"I promise," Chase said seriously. Keeping his friends safe was an important responsibility, one he intended to uphold to the fullest extent of his ability. Going by Kiriko's amused smile, he hadn't quite responded correctly.
Chase very carefully checked the exterior of the car before climbing in, Go standing impatiently by the passenger door, and then set the mirrors and seat precisely for optimum control of the vehicle.
"You don't have to do all of that," Go said.
"Perhaps my attention to proper detail is what led to my more rapid acquisition of a driver's license," Chase said.
"You don't have to be smug about it." Go turned to stare out the window. "You know how to get back?"
"I was paying attention to the route," Chase informed him. He had also noted which streets were one way, where public transportation stops were, and observed general traffic patterns. He started the engine, signaled, and pulled onto the street. He obeyed traffic laws precisely on the drive back to Go's sterile apartment, both out of a sense of obligation and not wanting to get stopped driving what amounted to a stolen vehicle.
Go paid less and less attention to what Chase was doing throughout the drive, although when Chase turned off the engine, he sat up abruptly. "That was quick," he said.
The drive back had taken approximately 58% longer than the drive out, which Chase attributed to heavier traffic patterns, making Go's statement utterly inaccurate, and he said so.
"Whatever," Go muttered, and stretched in his seat before opening the door. Chase locked the vehicle before following Go. Go's shoes were haphazardly placed in the center of the entrance again, and Chase sighed before nudging them at least to the side. He placed his own boots in the correct position, pacing down the hall in sock feet.
Go had flopped over onto a low bed in the single bedroom without bothering to either undress or pull back the blanket, feet hanging over the edge. "Go?" Chase said tentatively, but failed to get a coherent answer. Chase frowned and backed out of the room, not sure what to do with himself. The car should be returned to the driving school, he concluded after a moment, to reduce the chance of repercussions.
In order to drive legally, Chase needed to carry his driver's license; he'd given it to Go before he died, and could only hope Go had kept it. Chase weighed searching the apartment – invasion of privacy – against driving without having his license with him – unauthorized operation of a motor vehicle – and concluded that the second infraction was heavier. He closed the door to the bedroom as quietly as he could and put his shoes back on; despite the relative severity of both infractions, he was more reluctant to invade Go's privacy.
Chase wasn't entirely sure where Go had gotten the car from, but maybe he could just leave it in front of the driving school and hope that that was the end of it. He drove carefully, again following all the traffic laws, and finally parked the vehicle next to its intended destination. He was fairly sure it wasn't supposed to be in that particular zone, but it seemed to have relatively little foot traffic, and he was relatively confident he could find his way into the Drive Pit to finish putting the Ride Chaser back together without encountering opposition.
"Officer Kano!" came a voice from behind him as he walked toward the Drive Pit, having left the keys in the vehicle. Chase ignored it, until someone grabbed him by the shoulder. "Officer Kano," said the man who'd spoken. "What are you wearing?"
"No," Chase said. "You are mistaken."
The volume of the officer's voice had attracted attention, and there was no way Chase was getting into the Drive Pit unnoticed now. He looked around, trying to back out of the immediate area, but the officer was persistent in his assumption that Chase was the man whose face he had copied.
"You are mistaken as to my identity," Chase said again. His driver's license would have solved this problem, he reflected, but he hadn't predicted this particular consequence to not having it. He had to walk away from the officer in the end, ignoring the man entirely in a clear breach of etiquette, but he made it into the Drive Pit without being further molested.
The Ride Chaser was off to one side of the Drive Pit, behind the frame that had apparently been used to rebuild his body. Its engine was entirely laid open; apparently Go had been replacing fuel lines and gaskets, which Chase felt did not constitute basic maintenance. Given the state of the older lines, though, he saw why Go had felt the need to replace them. He fingered one of the stiff tubes, bending it and feeling it crack under the strain. The Ride Chaser hadn't been driven regularly, he thought, and the idea was surprisingly unpleasant. He didn't like to think of his vehicle as having been neglected.
The Ride Macher was in another corner, and Chase examined it out of a sense of curiosity. It was dusty, slightly battered, and gave an impression of having been used but not properly maintained. Chase sighed.
Putting the Ride Chaser back together was well within Chase's skill set; he knew very well how to service and maintain his vehicle, and although Go had stopped halfway through the process, he'd at least collected all the appropriate supplies. It wasn't long before Chase had finished both thoroughly inspecting the bike to see what exactly needed to be done and putting it back together. The Ride Chaser was clean, he noticed, no dust in any of the places he would have expected to see it in a vehicle that clearly hadn't actually been driven in all the time he'd been gone.
"Why didn't you clean your own vehicle?" he muttered, turning toward the Ride Macher. It needed attention, too, and Go had clearly been giving that attention to all the wrong things. Chase's second self-assigned task took a little longer than his first; fluids needed changing, on top of everything else Go had neglected, and there was at least one small dent that Chase pounded back out into a smooth surface.
Chase was in the process of cleaning the oil off his hands when the door to the Drive Pit slid open. Chase straightened and turned, still holding the now less-than-clean rag. He didn't know what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn't half the Special Investigation Unit crowding through the door in a knot.
"I told you," he heard a voice he identified as Saijo Kyu, despite not being able to see him. "There he is."
Shinnosuke was at the front of the knot, tall enough to obscure half the group behind him, and he stumbled into the room as if pushed. Given how the rest of the knot of people spilled through the door after him, he might well have been. "Chase!"
"Tomari Shinnosuke," Chase said, and then corrected himself. "Shinnosuke," he said, somewhat hesitantly, because while Shinnosuke had said to use his given name, Chase wasn't sure the rule still applied if he'd been dead for more than two years.
"You're alive!" Shinnosuke was smiling so hard Chase thought his face might crack in half, and this led to a round of questions asked on top of each other and people touching him as though he might be an illusion instead of something solid and generally a great deal of noise. Chase had never been the recipient of quite so much simultaneous attention, and eventually found himself backed against a desk. His hand came down on something both irregularly and familiarly shaped, and his fingers closed on it convulsively.
The Mach Driver, or at least his version of it, helped clear his mind a little, but before he could start ordering the questions he'd been asked into some semblance of rationality, Shinnosuke was pushing the small crowd back.
"Okay, give him a little space," he said, shooing the rest of the people out of Chase's immediate vicinity, and Chase noticed a face identical to his own for the first time.
"Officer Kano," he said. All he knew about the man whose face he'd copied was the name.
The face in question was more mobile than his own, its owner looking at him now with a succession of emotions flickering across it before settling on something resembling calm. "Chase," Kano Koichi said. "Uh, welcome back." He was wearing a suit and tie, Chase noticed, instead of the uniform he'd been wearing when Chase had borrowed his face; he'd done well since Chase had last seen him.
"Thank you," Chase said gravely.
"Um." Kano's eyes flicked between Shinnosuke and Chase. "I'll – keep me updated, okay?" He left abruptly, and Chase wondered what he'd done wrong this time. It was harder to navigate personal interaction when he didn't have a specific mission, but all the Roidmudes were gone and he no longer had the same clear and specific goals he'd had before.
"Don't worry about it," Shinnosuke said. "It's weird for him, to see you."
"My intent was not to cause distress," Chase said cautiously.
"You're – seriously, don't worry about it," Shinnosuke repeated. "I can't believe Go put you back together."
"Hey," Saijo said. "He didn't do all the work. Rinna and I helped."
"Wait, you're not staying here, are you?" Shinnosuke looked around the Drive Pit. "You don't have to live here. You can't live here. You need somewhere to stay."
"I can –" Chase started, but he had no answer to give. Go had implied, but not said outright, and Chase didn't like to make incorrect assumptions. "I am capable of looking after myself," he said eventually.
"No, of course." Shinnosuke's gaze dropped to the Mach Driver briefly. "My door is always open," he said. "If you need it."
"Kiriko said the same thing," Chase assured him.
"You've seen Kiriko already?" Shinnosuke appeared more surprised than anything else.
"Go and I drove to see her this morning. You were already gone," Chase explained. Shinnosuke smiled at that.
"You met Eiji, too?" he said.
"Your son is an exemplary model of an immature human," Chase said, and Shinnosuke blinked for a moment before laughing out loud. "Was that not an appropriate compliment?"
"Most people," Shinnosuke said, "will tell parents that their child is cute. Most women, at least. Men don't make comments that often."
"Cute," Chase repeated. "Your son is cute, Shinnosuke."
Shinnosuke laughed again, which wasn't the response Chase had been expecting. "Thank you," he said. "I'd say I'm proud of him, but Kiriko had more to do with it than I did. You'll have to tell her."
"I should have told her this morning," Chase said.
"I don't think she minded," Shinnosuke said, though he couldn't possibly have known, unless he was extrapolating Kiriko's likely reaction based on how well he knew her.
"Chase, Tomari." Otta wandered up to them. "I hate to cut this short, but I have to go back to work." He looked Chase directly in the face. "I'm glad to see you're back," he said. "I hope you work with us again."
"I hadn't thought about it," Chase replied honestly. "But thank you."
"Come on, Kyu," Otta said, attempting to herd the other man out of the room.
"But," Saijo said, pointing at one of the work stations. "This is the first successful resurrection of –"
"Later," Otta told him. "Out."
Chase watched them go, leaving him alone in the suddenly silent Drive Pit with only Shinnosuke. He felt a tightness under his skin ease, and Shinnosuke idly leaned against another desk. He'd placed himself so that Chase had a free path in any direction, Chase noticed; he was fairly sure Shinnosuke had done it on purpose.
"I want you to know that I trust you," Shinnosuke said. "You're my friend. You're important to me, and my family."
Chase thought he knew what Shinnosuke was trying to say, and didn't want to consider. "Tomari Shinnosuke," he said, to make sure that Shinnosuke knew he was completely serious. "If I engage in behavior that is threatening to anyone, I want you to stop me."
"That's not what – you wouldn't," Shinnosuke spluttered, standing upright and gesturing toward Chase. "You're – you're you," he said.
"Given my history, you would be correct in being wary," Chase said, but Shinnosuke didn't look as though the statement was reassuring in the slightest. "I do not anticipate any such behavior," he said. "But I would not want anyone hurt because of me."
"Ugh," Shinnosuke said, and buried his face in his hands. He looked up again, eyes clear. "Okay, Chase. If that's what you need to hear, then if you turn out to be a threat, I will stop you."
Chase blinked; he had no uncertainties regarding his own programming or behavior, and he'd been trying to reassure Shinnosuke, not the other way around. It occurred to him that Shinnosuke would be happier if he just agreed, though. "Thank you," he said, and let Shinnosuke think what he wanted.
"So," Shinnosuke said brightly. His tie had come loose at some point, and it slid to the side a little as Shinnosuke started wandering across the Drive Pit. "You've been busy already," he said.
That wasn't a question, and didn't require an answer. Chase watched Shinnosuke look over the Ride Chaser and the Ride Macher, and draw a finger across the pristine surface of both vehicles.
"Did you wash both bikes?" Shinnosuke asked, turning around.
"The Ride Chaser was already clean," Chase answered, and Shinnosuke nodded absently.
"So I should get back to work too," he said, voice trailing off. "Although there really isn't anything pressing going on," he added, poking at the Ride Macher.
That wasn't a question either. Chase kept his mouth shut.
"You and Go should both come over tonight," Shinnosuke said. "Kind of like a family reunion." He looked at Chase. "I mean, you're, well. You should both come over."
"I will inform Go," Chase said, because that did seem like it was waiting for a response, and Shinnosuke broke into a relieved smile.
"I'll try not to end up working too late," he said. "But you two should go anyway, even if something comes up."
"Are you nervous about something?" Chase couldn't help asking. Shinnosuke was talking far more than he usually did.
"I just." Shinnosuke stopped and turned toward him, hands on his hips. "I want things to go well," he said. "You being gone has been rough on Kiriko. And Go. I don't want them to have to suffer again."
"Go told me not to die," Chase said. "I told him I wouldn't."
"That does sound like you," Shinnosuke said, and clapped his hands together. "I'll see you both tonight, then." He left the room, bumping into the now-quiescent framework on the way, and closing the door behind him.
Chase watched the door for a moment, but no one came back through it. He crossed the floor, checking that he'd put everything back in its proper place, and reached for the helmet he was supposed to wear while operating the Ride Chaser in his human guise. Or he would have reached for his helmet, if his hands hadn't been full of the Mach Driver and the Signal Chaser. He didn't remember picking up the Signal Bike at all, but it had indented the skin on his palm.
The Driver fit around his waist, just as he remembered. Chase pushed the Signal Chaser into its slot and depressed it, hearing the familiar tone of the Driver announce his transformation and feeling the familiar weight of the armor settle around his skin. It felt right, as though he had a purpose, even though there was nothing to fight. Chase raised his armored hands, turning them over and back, and classified his behavior as ridiculous. He undid the transformation, feeling the armor fall away. He didn't need to fight to have a purpose, even if that was all he had ever done.
Humans grew and changed, learning new skills all the time. Chase was sure of it. Not that he had seen any of his friends undergo such a transformation – but he had, Chase thought; Kiriko and Shinnosuke starting a family was an example of a change of purpose, wasn't it? Not that he wanted to do the same, but he was trying to become more human. To further that goal, Chase thought he too wanted to learn new skills, to perhaps learn how to protect people in a way other than fighting things that no longer existed.
The Signal Chaser went into his pocket and the Mach Driver went into its storage compartment in the Ride Chaser. A slow circuit around the Drive Pit to make sure he wasn't missing anything later, Chase put on his helmet, following appropriate driving regulations, and started the bike. Despite its lack of use, it roared to life with very little hesitation; of course it did, he reminded himself, he'd made certain every component was in proper working order, and there was no reason to be surprised.
Somewhat to Chase's surprise, it was dark outside when he pulled the Ride Chaser onto the street. He hadn't thought he'd spent quite so much time in the Drive Pit, regardless of the amount of work he'd done on both bikes.
He parked it outside Go's apartment in precisely the same spot where Go had left the car he'd borrowed from the driving school, and ascended the three flights of stairs to the fourth floor. The apartment looked out over a small temple and associated cemetery, Go's door almost directly opposite the large bell hanging over the entrance. Chase was reaching to open the door when it was flung open from the inside, nearly impacting his hand.
"Chase!" Go was standing in the entrance, feet half in his shoes and hair and clothes disheveled, looking around wildly. "Chase," he said again with a semblance of calm, meeting Chase's eyes. "You're, uh, there you are."
"I'm back," Chase said, not sure if it was the appropriate phrase. Technically, Go's apartment wasn't Chase's home.
"Welcome home," Go said, and stood aside to let him in.
The apartment was cold, but Chase remembered that the single piece of furniture in the living room was a low table with a heater attached to the bottom, and the sliding door proved to open onto a largely empty closet dominated by a single large shelf just above waist height. The quilt belonging to the kotatsu was neatly folded in one corner, if somewhat dusty, and Chase pulled it out.
'What," Go said, having followed him down the short hallway. "What are you doing?"
"It's cold," Chase said. The curtains that should have been covering the balcony doors were open as well, leaving the southern wall of the room exposed to potential drafts. Chase placed the quilt appropriately, plugged in the kotatsu, and turned it on.
"I never use that," Go said quietly, which Chase had already deduced. Go clearly hadn't spent much time in his own home, neglecting it in much the same manner as he'd neglected his bike. "I mean, thank you."
Chase didn't answer, closing the curtains instead. The balcony – useful for drying clothes, he thought he remembered Kiriko saying once, a long time ago – was accessible through the kitchen as well, and he closed those curtains. "It will be warmer now," he said, in response to Go's bemused stare.
"Warmer," Go said, and rubbed his eyes. "Warmer. Right."
"Shinnosuke requested our presence in his home," Chase said, and Go blinked and stared at him, gaze sharpening.
"Why didn't you say something earlier?" he asked, completely ignoring the fact that Chase had given him the message within a reasonable amount of time from his arrival.
Chase folded his legs under the warmth of the kotatsu and sat quietly while Go rushed around the apartment with a great deal of noise and very little effect, although Chase observed that he did change his clothes.
"No, no, we're on our way," Go said into his phone. "Chase just came back. Okay. See you soon." He poked his head through the door. "Well?"
Chase turned the kotatsu back off and extricated himself from its warmth. The temperature in the apartment was well within his range of tolerance, but the warmth from under the small table was surprisingly pleasant. He followed Go to the door, slipping smoothly into his boots and waiting for Go to finish struggling with his tangled shoelaces, and let Go take the lead going down the stairs.
"What – you took the car back," Go said, staring at the Ride Chaser occupying what Chase now observed was a numbered parking space.
"Yes," Chase said.
"I can't ride on the back of your bike." Go folded his arms, shivering slightly in the breeze. He was wearing the same white hoodie Chase had never seen him without, and no heavier jacket against the January chill.
Chase had the sneaking suspicion he should offer an apology, although he wasn't entirely sure why, but before he could say anything, Go pulled the phone out of his pocket and started texting rapidly. "You go ahead," he said. "I'm going to go collect my bike."
"If you wish to operate the Ride Chaser, I can ride on the back," Chase said. He had the necessary strength and agility to balance on what technically wasn't a passenger seat, although technically it was a violation of traffic regulations again.
"No, you can't," Go said, looking at the bike, then at Chase, then back at the bike. "Can you?"
Chase smiled.
Somewhat to his surprise, they were not stopped despite clearly unsafe operation of a motor vehicle, and Chase revised his opinion of the city's police force slightly downwards. Not that he wanted to cast aspersions on Shinnosuke or any of his other human friends, even mentally, but there was maintaining a balance of personnel against potential risk, and then there was blatantly ignoring unsafe conduct. Chase hopped gracefully off the back of the bike and turned to look at Go.
"You don't have to be smug about it," Go muttered. "I'll be right back."
Chase settled into the seat while he waited, listening to the sounds of the engine cooling down. It hadn't made any untoward noises on its second trip, either. His hand wandered behind him to the cover of the storage compartment where he'd stowed his Mach Driver, and without consciously thinking about it, he idly flipped it open. The Break Gunner was stored next to the Driver, although he didn't remember placing it there. Chase ran a finger over it, remembering the last time he'd used it. He'd come to hate fighting as Mashin Chaser, once he'd gotten a copy of the Mach Driver, hated the inhuman form that he'd been given, but he'd used it one last time in an attempt to save Go's life. Given that Go was alive, it had apparently worked, but that didn't mean Chase wanted to use the Break Gunner again. And yet, here it was.
"You ready?" Go's voice was slightly muffled by his helmet, and Chase snapped the cover of the storage compartment closed without knowing exactly why he felt as though he had to hide its contents.
"Ready," he said. Go didn't seem to notice what Chase was doing, simply wheeling his bike toward the road. "I'm surprised," Chase added. "That the special investigation unit is still operational."
"Oh, it's not," Go said. "I just, ah, borrowed the Drive Pit. It's not like the school is using it."
"You broke in," Chase said.
"I have a key," Go said defensively. "It's not like I picked the locks."
Chase shook his head slowly. "Shame on you, Shijima Go," he said, and Go finally figured out that Chase was teasing him. He responded with a slow smile that twisted something around inside, and Chase touched his chest surreptitiously before following Go down the street.