"Oh." He thinks but does not say, when he comes back after a few years and finds Gohan engaged to a lovely woman.
He is not sure, but he thinks young Gohan might have caught the flicker in his composure. Trunks pulls himself back to the moment.
He smiles as the excited group asks more, and then young Gohan – all grown-up, unrecognisable as the sneering child who'd toyed with Cell, he looks like someone else – is all smiles, as he talks about his chosen life partner.
Her name is Videl. She is newly chief of the police force, after a long and gritty career littered with ugly battles against people dismissing her as a pale imitation of her father, as a wannabe, as just 'a woman' - eventually battling her way to the very top, weeding out corruption and greed along the way.
She is brilliant, immensely capable, with nerves of steel and a heart of gold. Trunks can admit that he could even have fallen in love with her himself, in another life.
Of course she is amazing. Anyone that Gohan loves, would be.
Of course, anyone that Gohan cares about is worthy of respect and protection. Even if they are utterly ordinary, because even the most mundane existence is still a life and has value. Nobody is not worth helping, and he has already learned this in the burning ruins years ago.
Trunks shakes himself, and the world resolves back to airy sunlight and singing birds.
The excited group is now passing around Gohan's phone. Looking down at the photo of the happy couple, Trunks realises anew that the young Gohan of this time is a stranger. Because the Gohan he had known had never smiled so brightly or freely.
Because it has been...three years since he has even seen this young Gohan in person.
And yet -
His ugly first thought is -
"Why? Am I not good enough?"
(Where did that come from?)
Even though love has nothing to do with comparison and competition. Even though he knows that if Gohan has chosen him, no other person in the world would be able to tear his eyes away from Trunks. It was the same for anyone else committed to love. He knows this.
'I have always been here,' a part of him snarls, still.
'Right from the start – ' before he shuts himself up. This is not about him, this is about two young people excited to start their new lives together.
Trunks smiles and asks about her, as all their friends crowd round to offer enthusiastic congratulations and eager questions. Shoulders and elbows press near, warm and excited, and he lets his shoulders fall.
'I am happy for him,' Trunks reminds himself, before quickly amending it to 'I am happy for them'. But why couldn't he have given happiness to the people he cares about?
("Am I just not that fun to be around?")
He has no idea what is wrong with him. Really? Did he want to embrace this Gohan and live with him? He doesn't even know this man.
(He knows what Gohan likes to eat, his favourite childhood memories and what he does when he is afraid. But it is not this Gohan who has shared any of that with him.)
No, he does not know this man at all.
And yet he wants to, and for longer and deeper than anyone else.
Really? Another part of him asks. He doesn't even know him. Or is this about wanting to hold on to a shining memory long gone and not his to keep?
He has only been a child at the time of Gohan's death. It is near-impossible to know if this is love, or regretful nostalgia for a self and for a time long gone. It might even be both.
But more importantly - if he wants to maintain any sort of relationship with this young Gohan at all: can he be happy for them?
Of course, and his eyes prick hot - love is always priceless, and hasn't he staked his entire life on trying to make a world where people in love can happily get married?
Yes, yes? Gohan's face is relaxed with joy, utterly radiant, as he speaks of looking forward to married life. As with every time, time slows slightly for Trunks upon seeing it. He has only ever wanted to see that smile one more time.
And yet, somehow, it feels like yet another part of him has been taken away from him.
But he knows it is not true.
This Gohan is a stranger. This Gohan is not his. He has conveniently pretended otherwise while they live their separate lives and timelines, taking comfort in a living illusion long vanished. It is only now that he realises he has somehow never expected this loss, or for it to hurt.
No. This Gohan - his Gohan has never looked at him that way, either of them. But his Gohan had loved him, where this Gohan has only invited him upon a reminder from the elder Sons.
His Gohan had wanted him safe and happy. He has always been happy with that. It has been enough, all through dystopia and apocalypse twice, thrice over - a hundred times over, and it would still have been enough.
When the party eventually disperses into a mess of rowdy goodbyes, Mr Satan heartily tells him to take care. The rote words were surprisingly sincere, from a careless man Trunks barely even knows. Inexplicably, it reminds Trunks of nearly ten years ago when this young Gohan wished him well for his future.
His eyes prick and then it all blurs over again: the vanished warmth from ten and twenty years ago, with the one freely given to him in the present.
But Gohan has loved him once; both of them have, even if just enough to have wanted him to have a full, happy life.
Trunks himself still wishes the same for both versions of Gohan he has managed to meet.
No, he has never needed to be part of their happiness, for him to wish it.
This is no longer his. Perhaps it never has been, but now even he has to grow up and move on.
("Gohan. I will love you always.")
Can he be happy for Gohan?
Maybe not today. But tomorrow? Yes.
Tomorrow, not only will he be happy for them both and survive this heartbreak, but he is going to fucking thrive.
Over the countless corpses he's stepped over in dystopia, he gladly considers himself blessed to have had the chance to fall in love at all, and he would still declare Gohan a man worthy of heartbreak.
(take this as evidence of my love – if I am alive because you have loved me enough once, then fucking take this heartbreak as proof of my proud unrepentant love - )
'He has loved you once,' Trunks reminds himself, and it doesn't matter that that love is in the grave and has been for years.
Out of a million years of human history and billions of people, they have met, and Gohan has once held him in his arms.
He can still feel the ghost of that warm weight in his chest. And so he knows that it remains real.
He has loved you once, and that is enough.
(Of fucking course he is glad that the person he loves has found happiness, that the people he loves are thriving. This is the entire point of his existence.)
(And he is proud of that.)
"Gohan…I am so happy for you both. I've never seen you this happy, and I'd love to meet her soon. Congratulations."
"Thank you, Trunks! Please do come for the wedding!"
"I wouldn't miss it for the world."