‘Hey Satoru. Eyes on me.’
They shoot out of the expressway tunnel as if launched onto the playfield of a pinball machine, the side rails a guide to an endless expanse of road that seems to stretch as far as the eye can see.
Satoru doesn’t need to see Suguru’s face to know he’s enjoying every second of this exhilarating experience.
The engine revs rise and fall, and each light that flies past is blinding, dazzling Satoru’s eyes through the dark-tinted visor he wears. One by one, billboards and towering skyscrapers zip in and out of view, even more impressive in the night.
Everything pauses to a startling halt and begins to pass in a blur of slow motion when a singular white billboard that perfectly illuminates their silhouettes on the expressway tears Satoru’s eyes from the road ahead. His head whips around over his shoulder, his fingers tighten their hold around Suguru’s waist, and his chest tightens. Frozen in place, Satoru feels every hair on his body begin to stand on end in an unexpected moment of panic that is, thankfully, fleeting.
“Hey, Satoru. Eyes on me.”
Firm and loud to be heard over the revs of the engine, the vibrations of Suguru’s voice ripple against Satoru’s chest from where he’s pressed tightly to his back, and just like that, Satoru snaps back. “Okay…” He doesn’t need to be told twice. With a reassuring squeeze around Suguru’s waist, Satoru allows himself to look away and back to the road- back to Suguru’s shoulders, to the curve of his biceps, down to his forearms where the sleeves of his sweater are rolled up, and to those wide hands that grip the handlebars with painted black fingernails. And it’s a far better distraction.
“Where’re we even going?” Satoru eventually asks, raising his voice to shout and finally asking the question that he should’ve probably inquired from the start.
Manoeuvring between the queues of cars, Suguru meets Satoru’s gaze through the left mirror, eyes staring at him from beneath his visor. “Ghosts.” He nods before turning back to the road, strands of his dark hair whipping around in the warm wind from where they stick out loose beneath his helmet. “That’s what I promised you if you came, right?”
You also promised me a bunch of other things.
“The cursed apartment of Kita— you heard of it?”
Satoru shakes his head, and with a smile, bumps the front of his helmet into the back of Suguru’s. “No, I don’t think I have.”
The road opens up, and a vast expanse of a light-polluted night sky widens above the two of them, thick with dark wispy clouds that promise more rain to come.
“Then, the story goes something like this…”
Excerpt from an upcoming chapter of my GeGo GhostHunters! fic ♡