Title: Scars

By: Aizawa Sakura

Disclaimer: Gravitation, and all its characters, belongs to Maki Murakami. 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: Think I was a little faster with the update this time, ey? Or maybe not.

Italic equals memories or thoughts.

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Chapter 4

It had been years since anyone had actually lived in the room opposite Tatsuha's. It used to get cleaned once in a while, Mika usually cleaned it when she came to visit, and Tatsuha sometimes went there to think. His father didn't know about that, though. The old man couldn't do anything about Mika cleaning the room, she was too stubborn and maybe he realised that it had to be done anyway, but he had forbid Tatsuha to go in there and the room was always looked. However, Tatsuha had a spare key. A secret spare key, only he knew about it. Or not, correction, Eiri knew about it as well, but Eiri didn't know Tatsuha still had it. But today, his father had handed him the master key, and for the first time in ages, he was allowed to enter. It didn't take him very long to clean it. He vacuumed it, made the bed, put up curtains and opened the window to let some fresh air in. He remained by the window, looking down on the garden beneath, suddenly remembering events he thought he had forgotten.

It was summer. Two boys and a young girl were sitting in the grass next to the pond on the backside of the house.

"I like summer the best" the girl said.

"Why?" one of the boys wondered.

"Because" was the girls answer.

"I don't agree, I think winter is the best."

"Why?"

"Because snow is so beautiful. There is no other thing like snow."

"But it's so cold" the girl seemed puzzled.

"I like the cold too" the boy said.

The girl turned to the other boy.

"Which season do you like the best?"

The boy remained silent, then:

"Spring" he said slowly.

"Why?"

The boy seemed to be thinking hard about what to answer.

"That's a secret" he finally said, smiling.

Nakano Hiroshi couldn't remember ever getting less than the highest grade on a math test. He was sitting alone at a table in the school cafeteria, next to the window and, looking once again at the paper in his hand, he didn't know what to think. How the hell did this happen? This can't be real. But it was, no matter how many times he looked, the numbers in the upper corner of the paper remained. He closed his eyes, folded the paper and put it in his pocket. He buried his face in his hands, and remained sitting like that until his confused and not very coherent thoughts was interrupted by a broken voice:

"Hiroshi-san?"

He looked up and saw Maiko standing next to the table, her hair hanging loose around her face and she was holding some books tight to her chest.

"Yes?"

She really looked out of place.

"I…" she began but lost trail and had to start over.

"I… I thought I would, you know, have a cup of tea, and I was wondering if I could, kinda,

sit with you?

Hiro didn't seem to be able to totally grasp what she was saying.

"It's…" she continued, "I mean, no one else, I don't know anyone else here and I didn't want to sit alone…"

Hiro suddenly snapped out of his confusion.

"Of course" he said, "of course you can sit with me".

Maiko lit up.

"Can I? Okay, I'm just gonna go get my tea, ehm, do you want something too?"

"No, thanks, I don't have any money with me right now". Good, his brain seemed to be working all right again.

"That's okay, I could pay for now."

"You sure? Then I could have a cup of tea, I suppose, just the same sort you'll have yourself."

"Okay, I'll be right back."

She left her books at the table and went away, but she soon returned. She placed two big cups on the table and sat down opposite him. They sat quiet for a while, Hiro sipping at his hot tea and Maiko looking out of the window.

"Why did you come here alone, anyway, I usually see you with a lot of friends around…" Hiro suddenly asked.

"They are in class, were having Japanese…" Maiko answered, looking at her books.

"You're cutting class?"

"Yeah."

He was surprised, as far as he knew, Maiko was very serious about school.

"How about you? Half of all the people in here are from your grade, why don't you sit with any of them?"

"I wanted to be alone"

"Why?"

"I almost failed my math test so I pretty much felt like shit."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

She had removed her hair from her face and was looking straight at him, really seemed to feel sorry for him.

"Don't be. It's just that… I have always been good at math and I don't think I have ever failed a test so it's new to me and I'm disappointed with myself, and I don't know how it happened and… and I miss Shuichi and I hate this crap and this sorry excuse for a life and I don't want to be here or go back home and… Maiko, did something happen? Have you been crying?"

Her eyes were red around the edges and a little swollen. He hadn't seen that before.

"Shuichi has moved."

"What!"

"He lives at a temple with this man, he's a monk, that I really thought would be able to help him, but now I'm not sure anymore."

"Oh…"

"And it's quite far away from home, and dad doesn't want to take me there to visit."

"Why not?"

"I don't know for sure, but he seems to think that it is best that way. It's almost like he want us to forget about him."

"About Shu?"

"Yeah."

They sat quiet again. Both lost in thoughts. Maiko wasn't thinking about anything in particular but rather about a variety of different things. Her thoughts were a mess and most of them subconscious. Hiro, on the other hand, carried out a more deliberated reflection with himself. That Shuichi had been sent away was something he could deal with, maybe even understand, but it wasn't right to prevent Maiko from seeing him. Maybe he could take her to see her brother? Yes. He had a motorcycle, he could take her there. And he would. He wanted to see Shuichi as well. He had to. They had been best friends for so long, he didn't think he could go on without Shuichi, at least not without losing his sanity. Shu was a part of him and, he realised, probably an even bigger part of Maiko. They were most definitely going to visit him. But not right now. Too much had happened in too little time, he had to think some more about all this crap first. And he had to do something about his math result as well, only he didn't want to think about that.

"Let's get out of here" he said to Maiko. "Let's go play some games or something."

"Kareoke?"

"Why not."

What he really wanted to do was to go to a bar, get drunk, and forget about life for a moment.

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For some reason, Shuichi hadn't been surprised when his father had told him that he was going to move to the temple. He hadn't seen it coming, not at all, but he wasn't surprised. It felt natural, like the best thing to do. Completely normal. His father drove him there the same day. And after just changing a few words with Tatsuha and the old monk, he drove away, returned home or to work or whatever, leaving Shuichi with not much more than a sports bag which contained his clothes and some other things which he could need.

"We're very pleased to have you here, Shindou-san. Tatsuha will show you your room."

Tatsuha's father said before leaving and walking back into the house.

The two boys didn't move. Remained still while looking at each other, although one of them wasn't really looking. Tatsuha's mind was racing, finding the situation kind of awkward, he wasn't sure of what to do.

"I'll show you your room" he heard himself say, and smiled.

Shuichi couldn't think about anything else then the weirdness of it all. He knew he wasn't possibly supposed to feel the way he did. His family had just dumped him at the house of some complete strangers. His father hadn't even given him a proper goodbye. He was supposed to feel lonely, sad, maybe even forsaken. But he couldn't. He just couldn't, not when he heard Tatsuha's voice and saw his smile.

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AN: Yay! Chapter 4 all done! What did you think? Good? Bad? Suck? Best thingy you've ever read?

I'm finally starting to feel like I'm actually getting somewhere with this. I will also try to finish it as soon as possible, although that may take, like, forever. I mean, I'm having a great time writing this, but I have a lot of other things I like to do too. I'm planning to get a homepage and start a comic online, for example. I also want to eat ice-cream, and then I have this Yami no Matsuei fic that I really would like to finish so I can put it up here.

Anyway, Thanks to everyone who reads this and an even bigger thank you to those that does review. I love you all, you are our sunflower.

(I have also noticed that this fic contains an awful lot of tea, so to all coffee lovers out there: Do Not Despair! Compulsive coffee drinkers will appear in a chapter or two. (And yeah, there will be some compulsive smokers as well…))