Disclaimer: Gravitation belongs to Maki Murakami, the characters story etc. do not belong to me.

Author's note: I originally rated this story as an M, largely because this chapter contained a graphic description of an overdose. Then I thought about it and did a rewrite. This is the rewritten chapter and it's a little scrappy in places, not unreadably so (I hope), but you can see the bones. I'll probably come back to it at some point.

Six years ago...
A different time, a different place. Nittle Grasper had split up. Tohma ran a record label. Noriko was struggling with the twin pulls of being a mother while still trying to have a successful career.
Testuya was at a conference, Noriko had been laying down keyboard for some band that were only ever going to be a one hit wonder. Saki was being pampered by her grandmother. Tohma had no idea where Mika was. She'd already started playing away. Tohma was spending more and more time at work. It had already gone midnight when Noriko met him outside his office. They went to Henshi's. Tohma remembered the shabbiness of the place. The arcade machines with the almost broken buttons. The under dressed, under aged girls sitting at the bar and looking hopeful.
Why did they go there? He couldn't remember, but there had been a reason.He couldn't even remember what they talked about. They had drank too much, he knew that. Noriko was giggling like a schoolgirl. They were talking, but they didn't have anything to say to each other anymore. Tohma knew it was only minutes before they ran out of things to talk about.
Noriko's mobile rang.

Six years ago, before mobiles started to flood the market. You couldn't get coverage for love nor money in some parts of Tokyo. And somehow Noriko managed to get a signal in a basement bar in the slums. The Gods were with them that night.
Noriko had a "mobile phone voice" in those days. She didn't really believe the things worked. She shouted and bellowed into the handset. Her whole personality changed. There was a bit of grandstanding about that too, of course.

"You did what! Sheesh... I'm gonna bloody kill yah. How many did you take?"

Noriko's language had improved since Saki was born. She'd already started to tone things down before she got married. "Well how many packets is that, stupid? Did you buy them all together at the same time? I don't think you're gonna die then. They don't let you buy enough to die all at the same time, you moron. You want that I should call the ambulance anyway? Well where are you? Don't do anything stupid?"
When she put the phone down she was visibly shaken.
Tohma didn't ask. One doesn't.
Noriko told him anyway.

"That was Ryu-chan. He's at the Plaza, room 414."

He had taken less than a quarter of the lethal dose of paracetamol; it was the mixture of alcohol and a handful of Prozac and Valium which nearly killed him. They hadn't even known he was depressed.

Noriko blamed herself. "I shouldn't have told him that thing about the paracetamol. Do you think that's why he took the other stuff?"

"No," Tohma said firmly. "We don't know what order he took the stuff in. We should have called the ambulance straight off. "

Tohma had learnt how to grease palms by then, he'd learnt who to call, and when to call. How to get into a locked hotel room. Even when the room wasn't under any name he knew. How to cover things up.
He'd learnt all of that in America the year before. He still hadn't learnt how to not care. He had learnt to be responsible and grown up, how to take care of people. He'd never learnt how to be himself.

It was three weeks before Ryuichi was out of intensive care. Too long to be able to cover things up completely. They'd checked him in under his real name, rather than his stage name, but Tohma and Noriko had brought him in. Ryuichi was barely recognisable at that point. His face seemed to have fallen in on itself. Tohma and Noriko were instantly recognisable. Money shut mouths, but it couldn't stop people talking forever. At the end of the second week Tohma held a press conference.

"Yes, he could confirm that Sakuma Ryuichi was currently in the intensive care unit at the general hospital. He had had an allergic reaction to a common medication. No, it was not believed to be deliberate. No, they could not name the medication for legal reasons. No, he didn't know if Mr. Sakuma had been drinking at the time. Mr. Sakuma was currently in a stable condition. No there was no question that Nittle Grasper had been working on a new project. No Mr. Sakuma had not yet started work on his solo project. No he was not going to answer any questions about NG records. He was not going to answer that question either, he was shocked that it had been asked. He and Noriko-chan wished to send their love and best wishes to Ryuichi-chan and his family at this time. Both of them appreciated the kind messages they had been sent from fans. Obviously this was a difficult time for Mr. Sakuma's family and close friends, they would all appreciate it if the press could give them some space. They would update them if there was any change."

Ryuichi had hardly any family. There was a sister he sometimes mentioned, but they had a different father. Tohma had no idea what her family name could be. He never met her, wasn't sure he could remember what her first name was. He wasn't even sure she lived in Japan.

There are ways and means of tracing someone's background, but it is harder when they know that. Ryuichi's background had always been a liability. Over the years their manager and Ryuichi himself had done a very good job of covering the tracks. Ryuichi had spent his early years in America, and when he came back to Japan his mother had moved constantly. Tohma remembered Ryuichi saying that Tokyo was the first place in Japan that he'd ever lived in long enough to love.

He was seventeen at the time, just after Tohma had first met him. He was sure Ryuichi had still been living at home, but he couldn't remember Ryuichi ever saying much about his home life. He had certainly never met his mother. Ryuichi had definitely moved out by the time he was eighteen. Tohma remembered the place, one room, peeling wallpaper, possible cockroaches. They'd never talked about Ryuichi's life. It was always Tohma who did the talking. Ryu was the first person Tohma had ever felt comfortable talking about his inner most thoughts to. He had talked and talked and talked: about his parents; about school; people he liked; people he didn't like; his dreams; the future.
He had never had a best friend before.
He never told his parents about Ryuichi, he knew they wouldn't approve of him. When he started staying out nights they thought he had a girlfriend. His mother teased him about it constantly, but told him he had to call first. His father put his foot down and demanded to meet the girl. There had been such a row about that one.

Tohma at eighteen years old - the first band, the one before Nittle Grasper, with the terrible bassist that Ryuichi almost certainly fancied and the weird lesbian drummer; Ryuichi working in the Noodle bar, missing rehearsals, coming back covered in grease and in a filthy temper; Tohma in music college, new friends, strange working hours, home work, home work, home work (he hadn't expected that for some reason).
Two years before the weird little girl with pig tails started tagging round with them. Two years before Nittle Grasper.Tohma searched his mind, there wasn't anything helpful.

During the first week it seemed certain that Ryuichi would die.

Tohma knew Ryuichi sent money to his mother. He tried Ryuichi's accountant. The man babbled on about client confidentiality. Tohma pointed out that he was one of the executors of Ryuichi's estate. The accountant pointed out that Ryuichi wasn't dead. Tohma pointed out he wasn't compos mentis.

Ryuichi sent his mother money every month. He had a standing order, unfortunately it was to a numbered international bank account. In his accounts book the transfer was simply listed as Mum.

Tohma drove to Ryuichi's house. He lived just outside Tokyo, he'd moved there a year ago. He had given Tohma a key. This was the first time he had ever used it.

Tohma went through his papers. Ryuichi kept bits of paper – he kept business cards with home phone numbers written on the back, napkins with phone numbers scrawled across them, promotional flyers with phone numbers written on them (Tohma was definitely beginning to spot a recurring theme). He kept notebooks filled with song lyrics and "odd thoughts" scribbled in his unreadable kanji. He kept scrapbooks full of newspaper cuttings about himself and his friends (not all of the cuttings were NG related, there were other bands too). He had an autograph book, half the signatures people Tohma had never heard of. He kept odd things – a backstage pass for a festival that had happened years ago and Ryuichi hadn't gone to; half a deck of cards held together with an elastic band with swear words and rude suggestions written across them; a Go problem clipped from the Tokyo Times (Ryuichi didn't even play Go); a scrap of poetry written in some one else's handwriting with words crossed out.
A room full of CDs and vinyl. A wall of manga and the children's books Ryuichi collected, most of them American and in English...
No bills, no letters. Ryuichi didn't seem to keep those. He didn't keep photographs. He didn't appear to have a phone book either. No phone book, no address book. No diary. No copy of his student record, his leaving certificate; no record of his contracts. None of the paraphernalia one keeps – if only because you're not sure what else to do with them, and to remind yourself you exist.

They only allow family members into intensive care. Ryuichi had no family.

Noriko blagged it. She sat with Ryuichi for hours on end, all work canceled, Saki abandoned to Testuya and her nanny. Sometimes Ryuichi was conscious, most of the time he wasn't. He'd had two seizures. The hospital was worried about brain damage.

Tohma threw himself into work. He arranged meetings and conferences, sat in on recordings, did paperwork that his PA usually managed. He argued with the agency that let the building about the state of the facilities; organised a revamp of the lobby; sacked a sound technician who had been selling bootlegs...

Some nights he didn't get leave the building till after midnight. Some nights he didn't sleep at all.

A few days after the press conference Ryuichi's mother turned up in Tohma's office. She was exactly what Tohma had expected, and once she said who she was the likeness was unmistakable. She was blowsy, in her mid forties. She had Ryuichi's love of bright colours and glitz. She didn't have Ryuichi's money or his stylist. She looked cheap, mutton dressed as lamb. She looked exactly like what she almost certainly was. Tohma hated himself for thinking that. Tohma drove her to the hospital, introduced her to Noriko, invited her to stay at his house. She thanked him, but explained she was staying with friends. Tohma was secretly thankful. He hated himself for thinking that as well.

Mika suddenly started being around. Whatever time he returned home she was there. She cooked meals specially to reheat them in the microwave. Mika never cooked, Tohma actually hadn't thought she knew how to. She turned off her rock music – the place sounded funereal. She didn't mention Ryuichi, didn't ask how he was. They had nothing to talk about. She started hugging him when she saw him – Mika was never tactile.

She started sleeping in his bed again, she hadn't done that regularly for nearly a year. She didn't say anything, didn't ask for anything, just held him tightly as if she thought he would disappear.

Ryuichi didn't die, and some how things got back to normal.