Title: Scars

By: Aizawa Sakura

Disclaimer: Gravitation, and all its characters, belongs to Maki Murakami-san. That's not me.

Summary: Shuichi loses his will to live. Tatsuha falls in love with him and is prepared to do anything to save his life. Even send him to Japans no.1 Casanova.

Authors note: The adorable Aizawa Sakura has now managed to post the first chapter of Scares. I'm so happy. Thanks for all the reviews! This time I give everyone who reviewed Strawberry ice-cream. What do you want to have next time? And just so you know, Shuichi didn't know Yuki or Tatsuha or anyone at NG at the time for the accident.

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Chapter 1

Actually, Shuichi was lucky that day. When the motorcycle fell down on him it should have broke his every bone. It should have cracked his ribs, driven them into his lungs. It could even have crossed his skull. But it didn't. It did hurt his femur, but not badly and it healed pretty much by itself. The worse thing was that the handle of the motorcycle came down on his throat, harming his trachea and foremost his larynx so badly that he could not breathe. But again he was lucky. One of the witnesses to the accident was educated as a doctor within the army, he performed an intubation, which saved the boys life. Later, a high risk operation was able to correct the larynx, and Shuichi could breathe by himself again. At first it seamed like everything would go without complications, but then the wound from the intubation became infected. The infection spread quickly and the vocal cord were badly harmed. Once again the doctors had to open up Shuichi's throat. And once again the operation was successful. His life was saved, but his vocal cord would be forever harmed. And along with his voice, Shuichi lost his will to live.

Everyone knew Shuichi was depressed and wanted it all to end. Hiro knew, so if he did not come to visit, he phoned to make sure everything was alright. Shuichi's parents knew, and they did everything they could to make him find the will to live again. His sister knew, and she began to spend all her free time by her brother's side.

But it wasn't enough.

It was a Wednesday, and Maiko was in the middle of her maths lesson when the vice principal came and told her that she had a phone call. It was her father. He told her to come home immediately, but didn't want to say why. She got scared and begged him to tell her what it was that had happened. When he still kept quiet, she said she refused to go home if he didn't tell her, so he did. Shuichi had tried to commit suicide. He had been unconscious by the time the ambulance arrived and it was not sure if he was going to make it or not. Maiko almost dropped the phone but asked her father if he could come and pick her up so that they could go to the hospital together. Then he said that they weren't going to the hospital, there was nothing they could do for Shuichi, so the rest of the family should be at the house and wait for the hospital to call. But he could come and pick her up, of course he could. He said he could be there in about fifteen minutes. Then they hung up and Maiko went to collect her things. She was halfway to the parking lot when she realized what she was doing. It was sick. She couldn't go home; she had to get to the hospital. God damn it. Shuichi was hurt and no one was there with him. Of course someone had to be there. What if he didn't make it? Her watch told her that it was about ten minutes until her father would come. Then it would probably be too late, she had to get away quickly. So she turned and began to run. Lucky enough, she knew exactly where Shuichi should be if he had been in school that day. Unfortunately, the place was at the third floor, so it was quite a long way to run. When she got there, she slammed the classroom door open and stormed inside.

"Hiro!" she screamed, causing the whole class to look at her as if she was mad.

"Hiro, come here, now!"

Poor Hiroshi didn't seam to understand anything at all.

"What is it?" he asked, looking kind of confused, but also worried. Maiko was already by his desk. She grabbed his arm and dragged him up.

"We have to go somewhere" she said, tears starting to fill her eyes.

"Okay, just tell me what it is and I'll come with you."

Now, the teacher decided it was time to do something. Grabbing Maiko by her shoulders, he started to pull her away.

"I can see that you are upset, Shindou-san" he said, "but this kind of behaviour can't be tolerated. You have to leave this classroom. And you, Nakano, please take your seat!"

"No!" Maiko screamed, "he has to come with me!" she tried to shake him of, but didn't make it.

"No, Shindou. He's not, and we are going to the principal" the teacher said.

"No!" she screamed again, completely losing it. She pulled herself free and when he tried to grab her again, she did something she had never done before. She punched him. Right in the face. The teacher was so surprised that he fell to the floor.

"Shuichi may be dying, we have to go to the hospital" she said, facing Hiro, perfectly calm now. Then she left. Hiro immediately rose to his feet.

"I am very sorry, Konou-sensei" he said to the teacher, before following Maiko out of the classroom.

There were a lot of people who questioned the fact that Hiro had got a new motorcycle, and used it as if the accident had never happed. Maiko promised to never question it again. Thanks to the motorcycle they reached the hospital only twenty minutes after they left the school. The first person they saw happened to be a nurse anaesthetist. They asked her if she knew where Shindou Shuichi was. She asked if they were his family. Maiko told her that they were his siblings. At least it was half true. The nurse said that they could follow her.

Shuichi had got back to conscious. He was out of danger. He was lying in a bed, paler then usual, and without any expression on his face. His eyes spoke of nothing.

"Hello, Shu. How are you?" Hiro said, not really expecting any answer. He and Maiko were sitting next to the bed. Since Shuichi didn't show any interest in "talking" with them, Hiro settled for telling him a mass of different things he thought would be of interest. He spoke about school, homework, the test he had had earlier in the week. He told him about his family; his brother still didn't have a job and his mom was more pissed off then ever. He spoke about different TV programs, told Shuichi what he had read in the newspaper that day and what he thought of the news. The one thing he didn't mention was music.

All the time Hiro talked, Maiko sat quiet, holding Shuichi's hand and trying to hold back the tears she felt were coming. How had this happed? Why was her beloved brother like this? At one point, she couldn't hold back anymore. She made a quick excuse, told them she was going to the toilet, and left the room. Tears were now running down her cheeks. She wiped them off with her hand and sat down in the waiting room. In the past, seeing Shuichi and Hiro together had always made her happy. They used to be so full of energy, always doing something crazy. It wasn't like that anymore. Shuichi was like a living dead, and even though Hiro tried to seam happy, he wasn't. He was miserable, she knew he blamed himself for what had happed to Shuichi.

"Hey, are you okay?" she looked up and found that a guy she had never seen before was looking at her. He was pretty tall, had black hair and was rather attractive. He also had this look in his eyes, something that made her think that he really cared.

"Yes" she answered.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah."

"No, you're not, you have been crying."

She shook her head.

"It's alright" he said, lending forward to put a hand on her shoulder. "I'm a monk. You can talk to me. What's your name?"

"Maiko" she answered.

"Beautiful name. I'm Tatsuha. Do you want something? Just wait here, I'll get you some tea, then you can tell me why you are crying."

"It's my brother" Maiko said and took the cup of tea that Tatsuha was offering her.

"What about him?" he asked, sitting down next to her.

"He used to be a singer" Maiko said, looking down at her tea. She hadn't intended to tell him at all, but it had turned out that he was really easy to speak with. So she continued:

"Then, about half a year ago, he was in a traffic accident and lost his voice and now…" she paused and took a deep breath, trying to keep her tears back. "…Now he tried to kill himself!"

"So he is here, at the hospital?"

"He was always so happy" Maiko continued as if she had not heard Tatsuha. She took up a picture of Shuichi and Hiro from her school bag and gave it to him.

"It's the one to the right."

"The one with pink hair?"

"Yeah. He used to have so much energy. And he always did and said these stupid things. Sometimes I thought he did it just to embarrass me, since I was in all these different committees in school. I could be so angry with him!" She could not help it anymore. All the feelings were too overwhelming. She began to cry.

"It's okay" Tatsuha said, moving her hair from her face. Without thinking, she buried her face in his chest. He put his arms around her. Normally, she wouldn't have liked to be so close to a complete stranger. But right now, she did not care. It was nice. He smelled good and she felt secure.

"When they called me, and told me he was at the hospital…and before I got here…" her voice was merely a whisper. "…I thought he would die. I thought I was losing him. I never want to fell that way again." She dug her fingers into Tatsuha's back, not noticing that she was hurting him.

"Why does he do this!" she screamed, causing people to look at her as if she was a maniac.

"Why? WHY!"

"When he gets out of here, how about you take him to me?" Tatsuha asked, patting her head while looking at the picture she had given him.

"Maybe I can help…" That boy looked so much like someone he used to love. "After all, I'm a monk."

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AN: That's it for this time. What did you think? Was it good? Was it bad? Did it suck? Was it the best thing you have ever read? This chapter was kinda hard to do. At first, I wrote it by hand. Then, when I wrote it on my laptop, it came out totally different! What do you think about Maiko? From the beginning I wasn't going to have her in it at all, but then she came along anyway. And I liked it, so I kept it. Now I'm gonna eat dinner. Rice. I think. However, take care. You are our sunflower.