Depresaversary
Celebrations were in full swing with the partied planned for the upcoming public holiday that Wednesday. The chatter amongst the students was apparent as they planned their day off.
"I'm going to have the biggest party ever," Sharpener bragged.
"Oh, can I come?" Erasa asked jumping like a hyperactive child.
"Of course babe, it wouldn't be a party without you?" Sharpener answered putting his arm around the girl pulling her close to him. Said girl leaning onto her friend. She loved the attention.
"Gohan, you can be my date?" Erasa asked. Pulling away from Sharpener and clinging to Gohan. "Are you alright?" Erasa asked when she did not get the normal reaction that she got when she flirted with her friend.
"It's time to party." Sharpener cheered. Watching with concern as Erasa picked Gohan's hand up and moving his arm around like a puppet.
Sharpener moved so that he was standing the other side of Gohan and then joined Erasa in trying to get their friends reaction, seeing nothing but hollow eyes staring into nothingness.
"What are you doing?" Videl asked startling both the blonds.
"Wow, you look as depressed as Gohan," Erasa pointed out. Noticing the difference in her friend's emotions.
"Videl's depressed?" Gohan asked, still in a trance like state.
"Why are you both depressed? This is a time to celebrate." Sharpener said in party mode.
"Why does it have to be a celebration for my dad?" Videl yelled out, drawing the attention of the other students in the class. "There were other people at the Cell games as well. Why couldn't one of them have beaten Cell instead? That way I wouldn't have to put up with the stupid celebration and my dad's big ego every single year for the last seven years."
"But that is the day that you're family came into wealth. You were two weeks away from being evicted if your dad didn't beat Cell you would properly be living on the streets now." Erasa pointed out.
"But I don't get to spend much time with my dad anymore," Videl said sounding like a spoiled child that didn't want to share a toy with anyone.
"Babe, come to my party that will keep your mind off everything," Sharpener suggested.
"Nice try Sharpener, but no thanks," Videl said with a slight grin sneaking its way through. She turned her attention to the zombie-like state that the new kid was in. "Why are you so depressed?" Videl enquired.
"My dad died ..." Gohan started to explain but was interrupted before he could continue.
"What are you even doing at school if your dad died?" the shocked blond girl asked.
"It's wasn't recent, babe. Was it?" Sharpener asked unsure, he wouldn't put it past Gohan to put his education before personal matters.
"It will be seven years ago on Wednesday," Gohan answered sadly trying to get the images of his last moment with his father out of his head.
"Wow, that is the same year as the Cell games happened." Erasa pointed out.
"My dad died the day of the Cell games," Gohan answered trying to remain calm. "He was one of the only people that was killed by Cell that didn't come back. It was my fault that he died."
"It was rumoured that some of the people that died the time of King Piccolo and somehow came back to life didn't come back when all those people that were killed by Cell came back," Sharpener said remembering something from the news stories that were on after the Cell games. "Did your dad die then?"
"No," Gohan answered tears now streaming down his face.
"How could it be your fault if Cell killed your father?" Videl asked.
"I made a stupid mistake, I was too cocky and because of that it cost my dad his life." The teenager answered in hysteria.
"Cocky! You!" Sharpener started laughing trying to imagine Gohan being cocky.
The teacher of the class chose this moment to come into the class and stopped in shock when she noticed it was the class genius and his three friends were the ones disrupting the class.
"Don't worry Gohan, school will be back on Thursday," The teacher said jumping to the wrong conclusion about why her prize student was upset.
"It's not about that miss," Videl said. The crime fighters tone shocking the teacher also. She'd never seen or heard Videl looking so depressed.
"Something happened between you two didn't?" The teacher suggested knowing the mischief that some of her students could get up to.
Sharpener went into another fit of laughter trying to imagine Gohan making a move to get to the stage that the teacher was assuming had happened.
"Believe me, it's nothing like that. I would know." Erasa answered confusing the teacher about the sudden behaviour changes of Gohan and Videl. If nothing had happened between them, then why were they both depressed.
"Can we go?" Sharpener asked holding back giggles.
"If it means that the students that actually want to learn, get a chance to learn then you may leave," the teacher answered. She didn't normally like to dismiss students without good reason. They wouldn't get anything done while Gohan and Videl were both in that state. She watched as Sharpener and Erasa helped the hysterical genius out of the classroom followed by the grumpy crime fighter.
"Miss can I go as well?" One of the boys in the front row asked.
"If you even think of disrupting my class you will get detention for a week." The teacher scolded as she made her way to the front of the class "That goes for all of you."
There were some grumbles from the students about Videl and her friends getting special treatment from all of the teachers and wishing that they were close friends with the crime fighter. One question that came to the minds of all the students was why was she friends with the people that she hung out with? And why did she go to their school in the first place? Weren't famous kids meant to go to exclusive schools that cost a zillion zeni to go to?
DBZ
Sharpener and Erasa had spent the whole day attempting to cheer Gohan and Videl up while setting up for Sharpeners totally awesome party.
"So what are you going to do for your day off if you aren't going to come to my party?" Sharpener asked.
"I'm going to spend the day with my mum pretending that I'm not upset and that I still don't blame myself for what happened while trying to keep her from crying the whole day. Oh, I just remembered that I have to hide the television. We normally have to buy a new one ever year after the anniversary of my dad's death."
"What does your dad's death have to do with getting a new TV?" Erasa asking the question that everyone else was wondering.
"Any mention to the Cell games reminds my mum that my dad was killed by Cell and she gets angry with the TV for upsetting her and destroys it every time," Gohan said remembering the one year anniversary of his father's death mother throwing the television and it almost hitting six-month-old Goten. The only reason it didn't hit Goten was because Gohan caught it. His mother hadn't thrown the TV again after that incident but she did slam it constantly with her frying pan various years till it was rubble. One year she had somehow got hold of a machine gun and blasted the TV to smithereens.
"Earth to Gohan."He heard a voice saying bringing him out of thoughts of every anniversary so far. Erasa was sitting in front of him, waving her hand in front of his face. She smiled when he jumped back.
"Destroying a TV sounds like something Videl would do," Erasa piped up. "I was at Videl's the day of the Cell games. My parents died near the start of the Cell games. I was missed because I was at a sleepover at Pira's. I walked home from Pira's house finding only my parents clothes on the floor. It was close, so they allowed me to walk between my house and hers. It was strange only finding the clothes, but I didn't think anything of it at first. I just assumed my parents had gone out in a hurry. I started watching TV, looking for cartoons. But ever channel was the same thing. That was how I found out about Cell." Sharpener went over to comfort Erasa who had broken down in tears remembering the days of Cell. "I ran back to Pira's because they were the only people that I knew close to my house. By the time that I got there," Erasa choked up "They were the same as my parents, just clothes when I got there."
"I don't think I actually know anyone that was absorbed by Cell," Gohan said imagining that it was his mother and friends in the place of Erasa's family. "I don't know what I would have done if I came home to find my mum and grandpa's clothes lying on the floor like that."
"Can we all just stop this crying feast?" Videl said grumpily.
"Babe, the times of Cell where pretty bad, I died, I was absorbed. It was the scariest thing that had ever happened," Sharpener said realising how lucky he was to be alive. "We evacuated the city and were in a camp with hundreds of other people. They all got together and with the remainder of the money we had hired this guy, I think his name was Taio or something like that. Anyway, he built a shelter that was meant to keep Cell out. It was just about completed when this blond kid came and blew up the shelter. Telling us we were stupid if we thought something like that would be able to keep Cell out."
"Oh," Gohan said wondering if it was his fault that Sharpener and his parents died. He was the one that had blown up the shelter that Sharpener was talking about.
"How did you end up at Videl's?" Gohan asked the crying blond girl after seeing that Sharpener wasn't going to continue.
"I ran from Pira's house trying to find anyone that was alive, but finding no one," Erasa said barely above a whisper. "I think it was about two days that I went from place to place, breaking into houses to get food and sleeping in a cupboard and even in a washing machine under clothes hoping that Cell wouldn't find me. I heard someone enter the house that I happened to be hiding in and ran to find a better hiding spot, but he heard me. I almost died of fright and collapsed with relief when it wasn't Cell standing before me. The person that saved me was Hercule. I had broken into his mother's house. He'd come to check on her, but she had been taken like everyone else."
"Poor grandma, she brings it up every time we visit her, reckons that we let her die on purpose." Videl said wishing at times that her grandmother had stayed dead, Videl punched the disco ball angry with herself that she would wish that anyone was dead, especially a blood relative.
"Anyway Hercule took me to where he was hiding Videl," Erasa said, "and that is how we became friends and why I was with her when we watched the Cell games. Anyway, when all the camera's were wiped out Videl got really angry and threw the remote control at the TV screaming for it to work and then got up and started kicking and punching it. She kicked the screen in."
"My grandpa said that my mum picked the TV up and started shaking it and then threw it or something along the lines of that when the reception was lost for the Cell games," Gohan answered shivering at another similarity that the girl he went to school with had with his mother.
"How did you die?" Erasa asked the ghost white jock.
"We fled from the site of the Cell structure with some of my parent's new friends. We thought that being in the middle of nowhere was remotely safe, but we were wrong." Sharpener said remembering the last moments of his life. Cell had us trapped in a cave with nowhere to run. I watched as Cell picked people off one by one starting with adults followed by teenagers and then the elderly leaving the children till last. He absorbed us youngest from oldest. It was horrible; Cell absorbed my baby sister while she was in my arms. There were only four of us left. I remember Lime; she was the closest to my age out of the people that had escaped trying to fight Cell till the very end. A few moments later I was absorbed."
"Lime died," Gohan said. He knew that she had to be the same Lime that he had known. "I should've let her drown; it would've been a nicer death than being absorbed by Cell. It was a miracle that she survived when Cell absorbed her family, and then almost drowned a few days later and then a few days after that to actually die."
"Wait, you're the guy that saved her from drowning?" Sharpener said seeing his friend in a new light. "She said that he had blond hair."
"I had blond hair for a couple of months when I was younger," Gohan said hoping that they wouldn't link him to the paper delivery boy with that information. "Mum started crying about me turning into a delinquent the first time she ever saw me with blond hair." Gohan managed to chuckle.
"What were you doing in that area anyway?" Sharpener asked, "that is a couple of hours away from the 439 mountain district."
"We ran out of food, so I was looking for somewhere to that I could get food," Gohan answered with a grin for the first time that day. "It was for my birthday party and a picnic that we had."
"Birthday?" Videl asked. "When is your birthday?"
"11th of May," Gohan answered.
All three of his friends looked shocked that it had been his birthday recently and they didn't even realise.
"Why didn't you tell us it was your birthday?" Erasa asked she liked everyone knowing when her birthday was.
"I didn't think that it was important," Gohan said with a shrug. "Besides my mother makes a big enough deal about my birthday every year I didn't want anyone else to know."
"18 is the only important one to worry about," Sharpener said already planning Gohan's birthday bash.
"I turned 18 the other day" Gohan corrected.
"Dude, you're the same age as me," Sharpener said shocked that the class nerd was the same age as him. "I thought that you were the same age as Erasa and Videl."
"How come you only started school now, shouldn't you go straight to college?" Videl asked, "You're smart enough to be in college already."
"My mum kept going on about high school diploma" Gohan answered. "She also said about meeting people my own age and that college wasn't the place to make friends."
"That's stupid, college parties are the best," Erasa said who had been to her fair share of college parties.
"My mum wants me to be concentrate on studying when I start college," Gohan said remembering how much study his mother would force him to do when he started college.
"Do you do everything that your mother asks you to do?" Videl shouted sick of the goody-goody act that Gohan always portrayed.
"I don't do everything my mum says. Maybe if I did everything that she asked my dad would still be alive." Gohan said remembering that his mother had told him not to fight the day of the Cell games.
"Stop blaming yourself," Erasa said as the light mood disappeared as quickly as it came. "The times of Cell were dangerous, they were terrifying."
"Which is why we celebrate the fact that Cell is dead," Sharpener said not feeling as festive anymore.
"Why did it have to be my dad to beat Cell?" Videl shouted. "I hate being famous, I hate being rich. I want to be normal. Like you three are."
"Videl I'm not normal" Gohan answered without thinking.
"You're more normal than I am" Videl answered.
"I live in the middle of nowhere," Gohan said trying to prove that he wasn't normal.
"I live in a mansion," Videl said back trying to prove how different she was.
"My grandfather lives in a castle" Gohan answered then realised he probably shouldn't have said that. But then again, these people were his friends. He didn't need to keep everything from them.
"Is it an old one or a new one?" Erasa asked like a little girl "Oh, does a handsome prince live there, oh and a king and a queen and a princess."
"It's probably not that type of castle," Sharpener said in fits of laughter trying to imagine Gohan as a prince.
"What's so funny about that?" Gohan asked as clueless as ever.
"So it does have a royal family. What are they like?" Videl asked having met quite a few royals.
"Let's not talk about them," Gohan said trying to move the conversation to another topic.
"They might be someone that I've met, like Princess Mioku from Gurumes?" Videl asked. She had clashed with that princess on a few occasions.
"Mioku is a princess?" Gohan said, "She hates me because I accidently pushed her down a set of stairs and broke her arm when I was three."
"You met Princess Mioku when you were three." Erasa said with excitement, "is she the one that lives in that Castle where your grandfather lives?"
"No," Gohan answered with the first thing that came to his mind. "Let talk about something else, like Cell."
"There's something that you're not telling me and I want to know." Videl yelled holding her gun in front of her friends face, hoping to scare an answer out of him. Cursing herself that she'd been stupid enough to do something like that. She almost dropped her gun when Gohan didn't even flinch when he had a gun in his face.
"Videl, have you gone insane?" Sharpener shouted.
"What are you doing, Vivi?" Erasa shrieked.
Gohan just simply looked at his watch. "I have to go now, school just ended and I have to leave now if I want to get home."
Erasa and Sharpener watched as Gohan left, not even caring that one of their friends had a gun held to his face moments before. Videl dropped the gun after Gohan had left collapsing to the floor, not believing what she'd just done.
DBZ
Slide after slide was displayed on the projector of Goku as a baby with Grandpa Gohan, a lot of pictures of Bulma and Goku, Goku and Chi Chi.
They were up to slides of Gohan as a baby when Goten interrupted "I wish that there were pictures of me as a baby with daddy."
"Poor kid, never getting to know your father," Bulma said to the Goku look alike.
Bulma sighed Gohan and Chi Chi were both non-responsive. It was better than previous years when Gohan seemed almost suicidal with his depression and blaming himself over his father's death. Chi Chi was angry at Goku for not coming back, she feared that if Goku stayed dead to much longer that he would lose Chi Chi forever. Chi Chi loved Goku to death but Bulma occasionally got the feeling that Chi Chi was ready to move on. There was also no destroyed TV's this year which was another plus though she had noticed that there were no TV's around.
"Gohan, how's school?" Bulma asked trying to bring up some light chitchat.
"It's good," Gohan answered trying to put on a happy face in front of his mother. "I almost let it slip yesterday that Grandpa is the Ox King."
Gohan looked up as Goten started laughing. "Big brother your hair looks funny in that picture."
"Our trip to Namek," Bulma said wondering how Chi Chi ever managed to get Gohan's hair like that.
"I wonder how all the Namekian's are?" Gohan asked forgetting why they were watching slides in the first place.
"My poor baby getting sent to space like that." Chi Chi said in a lighter mood than she'd been in for previous anniversaries.
"I enjoyed space, I learnt so much that you can't learn from a textbook." Gohan answered seeing his mum's eyes sparkle at the mention of education.
"I want to go to space," Goten whined.
"I want to go as wel,l" Trunks said enthusiastically. "Can we go to space, please?"
"You're too young to go to space," Chi Chi answered sternly.
"I agree," Bulma said, "and space is a dangerous place."
Gohan just ignored the two adults hoping that they wouldn't remember that he was younger then the boys were now when he went to space. Though he was a lot more mature than his brother and young friend when he was a child.
DBZ
Gohan was in a happy mood when he returned to school the next day. Most of the day had been spent talking about old times and remembering the good times that they all had together. Gohan watched as Videl skipped into the classroom, something that he had never seen before.
"You seem happy today," Gohan said as the teen hero sat down.
"My dad spent most of the day with me," Videl said happily "He was away in the morning for some ceremony but was back by 10 am. I got to spend the whole time with dad and grandma. Sorry about holding a gun to your face. I don't know what came over me."
"It's fine Videl. That's great about your dad spending time with you." Gohan answered with a smile. "I spent the whole day with mum and my brother Goten and my mum and dad's best friend and her son all day yesterday. We talked about happier times from when dad was alive."
Gohan and Videl both watched as the two blonds entered the classroom.
"Are you two ok?" Gohan asked wondering if they should even be at school.
"There fine, both have hangover's" Videl answered glad that she didn't go to the party.
"But isn't Erasa underage?" Gohan whispered.
"Why can't the public holiday be on a Friday?" Sharpener complained. "I want to sleep."
Gohan watched the reactions of several students as the teacher came in and as she made slightly more noise than usual. He turned to see Videl smile at each bad reaction from another student. He wondered where they would all be a year from now and how the next anniversary of the Cell games and his father's death would go.