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It starts as a way to blow off steam. And to get Neechan off his back. Gou recognizes he's losing himself into the research to bring Chase back, but every little thing brings him that much closer and he can't risk any steps backwards.
So he starts an Instagram account.
It's mostly to keep Neechan appeased, to let her know he's still alive, but it's also to keep himself oriented. And, just maybe, as a journal to give to Chase when he comes back. (There's never any if’s about this for Gou. Chase was coming back, no matter what it took. He had to. Gou had too much to apologize for for him to just stay dead.)
The pictures are surprisingly simple, half empty coffee cups in rundown cafes and brightly painted houses in cities far from Japan. And yet they contain a certain amount of elegance. Elegant enough that Gou amasses a relatively large following relatively quickly. He's both amused and amazed and lets it inspire him to update more regularly which lessens the multitude of calls and texts from both Neechan and Shin-niisan.
(Shinnosuke often reminds him, when he sees just how overworked Gou is, that Chase wouldn't have wanted him to do this and Gou barks out a laugh and wonders when he ever did anything Chase wanted.
It was the root of all their problems after all.)
He includes 'Chase' by accident almost three months after starting the account. He's in Milan, meeting with one of Harley's estranged colleagues from fifteen years ago, when he spots a large, imposing, purple bike. The grin that grows on his face is almost immediate as he quietly says, "You would love this." to the motionless purple bike clutched gently in his pocket.
Gou pauses only momentarily before pulling the signal bike out and placing it neatly on top of the bike's dash and quickly snapping a picture. He posts it right away, a shy smile on his face, captioning the photo: father and son? before stowing his phone away and hurrying off to make his meeting. (Once he makes sure Signal Chaser was safe in his pocket once more, of course.)
Gou doesn't check the account until much later in the day, when he's back in his motel room feeling even more worn than when he left that morning. The colleague had little more to offer than, "Bringing back a roidmude and expecting them to be the same as they once were is ridiculous. Once the core breaks, the roidmude is lost. You'd be better off letting this all go." so of course Gou is aggravated. He's so tired of hearing this. From friend and stranger alike.
With an annoyed huff, Gou runs his hand roughly through his hair, ignoring just how much comes out with his hand as he does so, and throws himself into the closest chair to sulk into his phone.
He will bring Chase back. Even if he has to do it himself.
(He wonders sometimes if it's selfish of him to try and revive Chase. The Roidmude had, essentially, died on his own terms and made no request to be resurrected after all. But then Gou decides it was selfish of Chase to throw his life away without truly thinking about what it would do to others and decides he's right in trying to bring him back.
Gou would have his friend back.)
He ignores the call from Neechan and the text from Shin-niisan to check his Instagram instead. His fan's comments are always amusing and he enjoys the validation.
He still not expecting the sheer number of comments waiting for him when the app finally opens.
Many of the comments are simply “Bike!” and Gou has to wonder if it's simply a new meme, to state the subject of the photo and nothing else, but when he scrolls down he finds someone else asking the same question and another giving an answer even he didn't know.
“People are commenting Bike! bc this is the first photo the photographer has ever properly taken of the bike!! If you look in some of their other photos, you can see the same small purple bike off in the corner!!”
"You can?" Gou mumbles before quickly scrolling back to the notification page and finding where others had commented "bike!" on his other photos, only to find that, indeed, in almost half the photos Gou had posted, Chase's signal bike was present in some way. It's something Gou hadn't even recognized he was doing (and something that makes him wonder if it had anything to do with Neechan's worried calls about "losing himself" to his research).
He's both surprised and not, and when he breaks from his train of thought, he finds his fingers softly tracing over the edges of the signal bike in his pocket. He takes the bike from his pocket to inspect it, a fond smile on his face as he teasingly accuses it.
"Why do you always have to take the spotlight from me?"
(Chase doesn’t reply but Gou can still imagine that puzzled expression he’d be wearing.)
He starts making the signal bike much more prominent in all his photos after this, posting photos of it with him in the research labs, on beaches, and held next to monuments. It starts, though, with a small joke. Gou's eating breakfast, so he puts the bike on his plate as if it's looking at his food and snaps a picture (captioned: breakfast? ) and laughs when the first seven comments are " bike! " "Bike?!!!" "bike!!!!! "
(As well as a couple, "I'm glad Bike is eating well.")
Bike ends up become immensely popular. Acquiring a rather loyal fandom. Gou laughs for a solid five minutes when he’s tagged in the first post of Bike fanart. Partly from the absurdity, partly because of the thirty minutes of sleep he had the night before, but mostly due to how well he can hear Chase’s voice in his head asking, “What is fanart and why are they drawing it of Signal Chaser?”
Gou is both amused and baffled all at the same time at the fandom, as well as very pleased. It’s nice to see people caring as much as he did about the small bike, even if they were unaware of its true importance.
(Gou still makes sure to like every comment of, “Glad to see Bike doing well!” )
Eventually people become more openly curious and Gou gets several comments investigating Bike's backstory. Most people just take it as a joke, like a toy you bring on all your trips to take photos of with tourist attractions, but others insist on knowing if there's more meaning, so Gou takes a plain snapshot of the shift bike, the local cityscape standing as the background, and captions it: my travel buddy.
(No one needs to know it takes him almost two hours to think if a caption that actually works and that Gou almost cries at one point thinking about it. He blames lack of sleep and the twelve early morning phone calls from Rinna-san that day. "We're delayed, Gou-kun, I'm sorry, something's just isn’t right.")
Gou takes Bike (Chase) to the town's amusement park that night, whispering repeated promises that he'd bring Chase one day as well.
"You have to experience an amusement park, Chase. Everyone does at least once."
The signal bike stays silent in Gou's hand and Gou pretend the indents growing in his palm aren't from clutching it tighter than he had before.
He leaves with twenty different shots of Bike on various rides and in places around the park and posts the one with the bike resting atop a large puff of bright pink cotton candy.
Gou continues with it for a while. It's nice to keep track of everything and keeps to loneliness at least partly at bay, until, one day, he stops posting entirely. It worries almost everyone, including his family, but Gou offers up no explanations until when he finally comes back three weeks later with a picture of Chase (looking very confused but alive) holding Bike and the caption: new travel buddy.
His 'fandom' loses it.
Several weeks later, Gou's fandom still hasn't stopped asking questions but Gou answers none of them, just laughing at it instead. Most questions are 'answered', however, when, after giving Chase his own instagram account, Chase posts a picture of Gou with his arm curled around Signal Chaser, looking more peaceful in sleep than he had in years, with the caption: sleeping together.
Gou gets several texts and phone calls from friends and family alike.
Chase doesn't understand what he's done wrong, even when Gou, red faced and stammering goes, "Chase, you only posts pictures like that of people you're dating!"
“But, Gou,” Chase begins, mouth in a frown and head tilting to the side in curiosity, “You told me to post pictures of things I like.”
Gou doesn’t have much he can say to that and if he happens to save the photo and caption to his phone, well, no one had to know.