Okay, here's the first chapter! Woo! Oh, and I hope I didn't make Ryu too much of a raving ego-maniac in the prologue. Oh well, he'll be a little different here!

Once again, this is the sequel to Consent. I'm sorry I didn't include that in the summary, but they give you so little space!!!

Disclaimer: I don't own Gravitation.

Canvas

Chapter 1 - Sketch

Tatsuha shivered and pulled his jacket tighter to him. It was harsh December days like this one that made him dearly miss his old bike. Even though riding a motorcycle in the middle of winter would chill a person to the bone, it was much more exhilirating than walking everywhere. Sadly, after the wreck, Tatsuha's bike was declared unsalvagable, and Mika had plainly told him that if he even so much as asked to have another one, she'd break his other arm to remind him of the dangers of two-wheeled motorized vehicles. Oh, well. Maybe he could save enough money to by himself a new one someday.

Finally spotting his destination through the busy, pre-New Year's crowd, Tatsuha hurried inside to escape the cold. After pausing for a moment to to bask in the warmth of the room, Tatsuha sauntered on over to the secretary's desk. After typing in a few things on her computer, the young lady looked up at Tatsuha with a familiar smile.

"Hello, Tatsuha," she greeted warmly. "Fukai-sensei will be ready for you in a moment. He's still with another client." She pushed her thin, wire-frammed glasses up the bridge of her nose as she observed Tatsuha's red nose and chapped lips. "Would you like some coffee while you wait?" she offered. "It must be freezing out there." Tatsuha grinned and shook his head.

"No thanks, Kasumi," he declined. He knew from experience not to drink anything Fukai-sensei's secretary made. Kasumi was a sweet woman, but her coffee-making skills were nowhere near as good as her secretarial skills. "It isn't that cold outside," he teased, flashing her one of his dazzling Uesugi smirks. Kasumi blushed and pretended to look offended. Although Tatsuha was a good seven years her junior, not to mention a client of her boss, she found it very difficult to not be attracted to the suave, young man. And Tatsuha was all too aware of it, too. He supposed he could have asked her out, had a few drinks, and possibly more, but he just didn't have the urge. His sex drive had come to a screeching halt after a certain incident about eight months back.

The two lingered in the slightly awkward silence for awhile, until the door next to Kasumi's desk opened and two people emerged from the room within. One was a tall man in his early forties with dark hair and eyes who would have looked just like any other typical Japanese male if not for his slightly intimidating height of 190 centimeters. His name was Ishido Fukai, and he'd been Tatsuha's therapist for the past few months. Fukai-sensei shook hands and exchanged farewells with the other man, who looked to Tatsuha like he'd spent the entire previous hour bawling his eyes out. After the weepy man left, Tatsuha strolled into the office and plopped down on one of the large, comfortable chairs. Fukai-sensei followed Tatsuha and sat, a little more gracefully, in the chair across from him.

"So," Fukai-sensei began, folding his hands in his lap. "How are things?" Tatsuha shrugged apathetically.

"Good," he replied. "Shu threw me a party for my seventeenth birthday. I think it was supposed to be a surprise, but the phone call from Aniki I got saying, 'Run', kinda ruined it. Oh, and I'm almost finished with Aniki and Shuichi's wedding present. They set a date, by the way. March 21st, the first day of spring."

"That's almost three months from now. Why'd you start on the painting so soon?'' Tatsuha shrugged again.

"I dunno. I just got this perfect image in my head, and I guess I just wanted to get it down before I lost it."

"What's the image?"

"It's...like, the two of them, only...I don't really know how to explain it," Tatsuha said, looking apologetic.

"That's allright," Fukai-sensei assured him. "After all, the whole point of art is to communicate that which can't be said." Changing subject, he asked Tatsuha how school was going.

"Okay," Tatsuha said, shrugging again. He did that a lot during these sessions. "They're telling me I may have to repeat the year if I miss as much class as I did last year. They said I nearly ended up missing more classes than I attended that term."

"Don't they know why you missed so many days?"

"They know I was in the hospital and had to recover," Tatsuha hedged. He had a feeling he knew what was coming.

"But they don't know about the attack." It wasn't a question.

"It's not exactly something I like to broadcast," Tatsuha snapped defensively. "Besides, officially, there was no attack."

"It bothers you that the men who raped you were never caught." Again, it wasn't a question.

"Of course it fucking bothers me!'' he spat. ''The police dragged me through all that shit and it didn't even make a difference!"

"Rape is a hard thing to prosecute. But, do you regret trying?" Tatsuha sighed heavily as the temporary rage left him.

"I guess not," he answered truthfully. "That's not even what's really bothering me right now." Fukai-sensei gestured for him to continue. "I was just thinkin'," he began, "about how much stuff has changed since then. About how everything's so different."

"Do you think these changes are bad?" Another shrug. Tatsuha leaned forward in his seat and laced his fingers together in a contemplative gesture.

"Do you think I'd still be the same if nothing had ever happened?" he asked.

"Who can say?'' Fukai-sensei replied. "You know, an English philoshopher named John Locke once said that every person is born with a tabula rasa, or blank slate. He introduced the idea that it is our personal experiences that make us into who we are. According to his theory, the attack you experienced was just one of the many experiences that have made you what you are." Seeing Tatsuha's slightly bewildered look, he tried a different approach. "Think of it through an artist's point of view. Your life began as an empty canvas, and as you began to grow, your canvas was filled with all kinds of different colors and designs. Your being raped by those men was just one bold stroke of a brush. The thing you have to figure out for yourself, Tatsuha, is whether or not you've let that one, bold stroke become the only thing to fill your canvas."

"Tohma!" Ryuichi sang as he glided into his friend and bandmates office. He jumped over Tohma's expensive desk to give the man a hug. The blond producer smiled indulgently and gently pushed the hyper singer off his person.

"Hello, Ryuichi," he greeted. "I'm sorry, but I can't chat right now. I'm really behind on a lot of work." And he was. With Eiri and Shindou's engagement going public, he was having to work major overtime to do as much as he could to fend off the press, which was going to be nearly impossible at the upcoming Bad Luck/Nittle Grasper New Year's concert. And with New Year's Eve only five days away, it was extremely hard ot get anything productive done. It certainly didn't help that Shindou had missed two rehearsals in the past week to go to Kyoto and give his soon-to-be-brother-in-law, Tatsuha, a surprise birthday party. Really, was he the only one in the whole building with even an ounce of maturity?

"But, Tohma," Ryuichi whined, dragging out the last syllable of his name to an almost epic length, "all you do is work, work, work! Kuma-chan says you need to learn to have a little fun! If you don't you'll start getting nasty, old wrinkles all over your pretty face, na no da!" Tohma mentally rolled his eyes and tried not to point out the fact that Ryuichi was only a year younger than he was, and if he started getting wrinkles, the singer would, too. Of course, the last time he tried saying that, his bandmate had collapsed into a puddle of tears for an hour.

"Ryu,'' Tohma began, "I have more important things to worry about now than wrinkles. The New Year's concert is in five days, or have you already forgotten?" Ryuichi beamed and jumped into the center of the room.

"Of course Ryu hasn't forgotten, na no da! The RyuShu team is going to give those people a night to remember!'' Tohma smiled knowingly at his friend's enthusiasm. He knew for a fact that while Ryuichi considered Shindou a dear friend, he also considered him his greatest rival, and greatest threat. Tohma theorized that Ryuichi's insistance that Bad Luck and Nittle Grasper play together at every oppurtunity had less to do with comraderie and more to do with the fact that the more experienced singer wanted to be sure that his 'buddy' wasn't going to surpass him without him being aware of it. Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer, as the cliche goes, Tohma thought, watching his bandmate dance around the room with Kumagoro and sing in his own made-up language. But I wonder, how long can you keep up with a generation nearly half your age?

It was no secret that Ryuichi was getting older. While thirty-one was young by most standards, in the music world, you might as well be sixty-one. And thirty-two wasn't that far away from the singer, either. The producer wondered how long it would be before Ryuichi let his age catch up with him. His guess was as good as anyone else's. After all, talking to Ryuichi about age was like talking to a rock about the weather: completely pointless and exhausting. He supposed he'd just have to wait for the inevitable and be there to pick up the pieces when it came.

Like he always did.

"Shuichi, please don't make me do this."

"Please, Hiro! you have to! Everything's riding on this decision, I need your help! Please!"

"But-"

"Please, Hiro!"

"Fine!...the gold ones," Hiro decided, pointing at the picture of the golden napkin rings. Shuichi blinked.

"But, those are so ugly!" he screamed at the guitarist. "How could you pick those?"

"You asked me for my opinion. I think the gold ones look better."

"I wouldn't have asked you if I knew you were gonna pick those!" he whined. Hiro sighed exasperatedly.

"Fine," he said. "Then use the silver ones instead." Shuichi blinked again.

"But, they're silver," the singer spat out the last word as if it were a disease.

"So?" Hiro prompted.

"And the napkins are white! Silver and white don't go together, they're almost the exact same!"

''So, which one do you want?" Hiro asked wearily.

"I don't know! That's why I was trying to ask you, but you keep changing your mind! You're no help at all!" Shuichi screeched, snatching up the two pictures and running out of the room. Hiro groaned and collapsed on the couch. Shuichi was his best friend, but getting engaged was making him an uncontrollable, unconsolable spaz. Or rather, an even more uncontrollable, unconsolable spaz. And the wedding wasn't even for another three months! Hiro shuddered at the thought of three more months of napkin ring hysterics. He hated Eiri Yuki; he really did.

Suguru returned from getting a soda to find one of his bandmates missing and the other buried in the couch. He sighed. Shindou's engagement was good enough news, but why did the band have to suffer so much for it? At first, he'd thought that the engagement would benefit the band, since Shindou wouldn't be such a theatrical mess all the time from his constant fights with the novelist. Instead, Suguru found himself missing those days. At least then, there had been the occasional moments of peace, however temporary those moments were.

Falling into the lounge chair across from Hiro, Suguru closed his eyes and allowed himself to drift off to sleep. The New Year's concert was approaching, and they desperately needed to rehearse, but there was no way the young prodigy was going to willingly seek out the whirlwind of hysteria that was the soon-to-be Shuichi Yuki.

Okay thats it for Chapter 1. Oops, I didn't tell you that Yuki and Shu were gonna tie the knot? smiles innocently Silly me. By the way, raise your hand if someone's ever done to you something like what Shu did to Hiro with the napkin rings. My mom and sisters do that to me all the time! It makes me so mad!

I realized that I made an error in Ryu's age in the Prologue, and I fixed it, but I want to make sure it's right. Assuming the series started sometime between April 1 and December 21 (Ryu and Tats' birthdays), that would mean that Tats would turn 17 before Ryu would turn 32, right? Let me know if I'm wrong.

Anyhoo, lots of conflicts introduced in this chapter, but don't think I'm done yet, there are still more surprises to come! Hehe.

Read and Review!

Much Love!
Tenka-chan