Work Text:
Chuuya gets on his bike too early. The second week of March. The slush is still melting, the sun still goes down around 4 pm, but he’s antsy. There’s not much to do inside. He heard other bikers on the road this week, revving their engines and shotgunning down the K1. He’s seen the stats on the local news, the warning that there’s always a spike of bike accidents in early spring, from now to March. He does as he always does, bursting forth and then receding, he breaks his bike out of its cover the first day the temperature reaches double digits.
The leather handles are cold. Chuuya flexes his fingers through his gloves. He ignites the engine and listens to it purr to life. He kicks out the kickstand and begins to balance from his center. He spurs the bike forward.
The roads are still wet with melting slush. Chuuya heads south through his neighbourhood. The fading sunlight is sharp. It peeks out around trees and reflects metal cranes, making Chuuya squint even with his visor. He cuts onto the first major roads, giving the few cars a wide berth. That was one of the first things he noticed when he came to Yokohama. The streets are almost wide enough for three cars even if there are only two lanes. He figures it’s a product of being a shipping city. The roads were built in the middle of industrialization—the city knew it needed to move massive amounts of cargo. He turns onto another giant on ramp and heads to the bridge that arches over the bay. It connects the neighbourhood shipping park to the Naka peninsula and then branches out towards other small islands, man-made or rocky. .
Wind whips his face as Chuuya turns left, then right, then changes lanes. The movements are practiced, easy. He knows where he can turn right and where he can’t, where there are lots of pedestrians after the work day, where lanes end and where transport-only lanes begin. While he is not able to say he knows the city, he knows the roads. Chuuya flexes his ankles, pushing forward, pushing faster. He flicks up his visor at the base of the bridge and the blue of the water comes into view. The ice has finally broken, blue cracks sprouting through white fjords, waves finally starting up again. Seagulls circle over the fishing pier. Chuuya can see specks of people already out and holding their rods, other pedestrians passing by on bicycles and foot. Yokohama is melting too, starting to gain colour again.
Chuuya turns forward again. Wind paints everywhere it can reach: the gap in between his boots and jeans, his neck, his wrists above the gloves, his cracked lips. The cold air feels like needles in his lungs. He exhales warmth, until it feels as if his body temperature has cooled down to reach the rest of Yokohama. He blends into the air and bridge and city and his bike and the lake.
He slows down on his bike and parks at a fishing port. The wheel skids on the concrete and Chuuya’s heart jumps. He feels himself activate Upon the Tainted Sorrow but holds back, the bike stops itself a meter later. There is no danger. He’s able to handle it. Chuuya exhales and lets go of his ability. He unclaspes his helmet and swings his leg over.
The view of Tokyo Bay is familiar. This was one of the first places he came after accepting the Port Mafia’s offer. He slept through the first working day and woke up when the sky was red with sunset. He bought a cream bun from the convenience store and just kept walking. He was too tired to think about Shirase and the Sheep, or his new work, or Dazai, who he thought might be a danger to his job—he had just walked. He’d ended up on this bridge after a few hours, looking back inland. In the past six months, two skyscrapers have gone up, and the ferris wheel has started lighting up red rather than green. He likes it decidedly less. But he likes the ferris wheel the best. It’s most authentic, even if it's aged and awkward.
Chuuya watches a gaggle of ducks swim by, a few of them diving for food. The water must be incredibly cold. He thinks about using Tainted Sorrow to bring up the fish, somehow, but brushes the idea off for the same reason that he tries not to use his ability on his bike. He prefers to separate his abilities from everyday life. He never spoke about why, when the Sheep asked, and he’s not even perfectly sure himself, but Shirase told him it was because always not so grounded. Chuuya does think that if he used Tainted Sorrow for everything, he’d very quickly lose sight of what was right in front of him. He already does.
Chuuya walks by a couple celebrating, the girl is being gifted a bracelet. She’s excited. Another pedestrian smells heavily of tobacco. Most people are looking back at the skyline of Yokohama, but a few are looking north, to Kawasaki, or to Chiba, on the other side of the bay. It’s too cloudy to make anything out but boats cresting through the fog. Chuuya keeps walking.
When he joined the Port Mafia, one of the luxuries that came with the job was time. He had walked in on Ane-san painting watercolours the first week and hadn’t been able to rationalize it. When he lived and breathed with the Sheep, survival was all they did. Any down time went towards checking their usual spots for produce shipments, for scrounging for thrown our sim-cards, for scouting their territory. Saya did draw and Shirase played checkers with them, but always on the run, on trains, for half-an-hour before sleeping. When he joined the Port Mafia, every day was porous and free. His wage was more than generous. He didn’t know what to do with all that money. Even if he bought century-old wine and violet-diamond encrusted watches and custom clothes, there was money left-over. And time. He had sparring with Ane-san and occasional assignments with Dazai, but it was hardly constant. He was antsy, all the time, for something to do, and even more antsy when Mori told him to relax. There had been an intervention when Chuuya kept picking fights with Akutagawa. Well, that had been Dazai’s phrasing. Akutagawa had been the instigator, but Chuuya was just new meat. Resting will help with controlling your ability, Mori said, then you’re not so frenetic, you know?
Chuuya had started spending his extra time outside of work premises. He went for walks. He already knew the major intersections and shipyards from assignments, and just filled in the blanks. He walked every road and rode to every subway system and saw the skyline from every angle. He had been intimately familiar with Sheep terrain, Yokohama was foreign, strange. Chuuya never wanted to be surprised by where he lived.
He bought a bike. He expanded his search, he wanted to encapsulate all the major wards. He knew every highway exit, learned every park, every back alley. He became confident in downtown and the adjacent neighbourhoods. He went out to Yokosuka, in the south, and Kawasaki in the north. Two other port cities. And then he came back and felt immense comfort in his new strange city. He started leaving just to come back.
Chuuya walks the skyline and thinks about how it’s still so odd . This is how he feels always, on the outside, looking in, looking towards the residents and the city and the buildings. It’s somewhere he’s lived for six months now. He’s intimately familiar with all the roads. He knows the stoplights, the highways, the one-ways. He’s traced the entire city map once and then over again. He knows Yokohama.
But during spring, as the city comes out of winter slowly, it feels new. He’s only been here for six months, he doesn’t know the construction season, he hasn't experienced the local festivals, he doesn’t know how the parks open. He still feels like he’s looking inland. Sometimes, he thinks that he will never get over this feeling. Part of him mildly hopes, and part of him knows that by being from another place, he will never organically feel like he’s centered here. Displacement isn’t something you can grow out of.
Chuuya pauses at the end of the boardwalk. He looks out into the Tokyo Bay and watches a tour boat circle around and come back to the docks. There’s only a handful of people on it, all of them in yellow ponchos. Dots on the horizon. Seagulls caw and dive. The wind runs through his hair. Chuuya breathes it all in.
Chuuya’s first spring in Yokohama is mild. The city comes out of winter slowly, hedging towards warmth. Seasonal boutiques in Motomachi crack their doors open, the bay fractures and melts back into waves, the roar of motorcycles comes back to the streets. Chuuya is aggravated by the latent humidity and flash storms. It feels like such an effort to come out of winter. He dreads that this will be every year. But he will only know in time.
He looks out at the city, and tries to think of it as his. Next year it will be.