DISCLAIMER: I own nothing.
Starless
Mother died giving me life.
Father was only around for nine years, raising me and teaching me martial arts. When I turned nine, Father disappeared and I was left in the care of my godmother, Bulma. After that, my only parent was Bulma.
I never saw my Father again and, in every sense, he was dead to me.
But that didn't stop me from wondering about many things. Why? Why did he leave? Was it because he wanted to find more to teach me? Or was I becoming a burden he couldn't handle? Did he not want me? When he found I could defend myself relatively well when we sparred, did he think his duty as a father ended?
And it wasn't just why he left me that I questioned. What would I have become had he stayed in my life; if he had become one of the presences that was a source of stability in my life? Would I have become a fighter on an equal or better level then he? Would I have become the scholar father had always told me mother dreamed me to be?
So many questions ran through my mind. And none of them had answers. In all the years I've pondered over the why and what ifs. But not once have I ever looked upon my life and regretted what I have become and who I am.
What have I become? I've become a computer genius going through college courses online at the age of eighteen. I am a bartender at night and the father and older brother to many an orphan at Orange Star Orphanage by day. I am the adopted son of Bulma and Vegeta Briefs and the older brother of Trunks Briefs.
Who am I? I am Gohan Briefs.
"Why does mother always do this to me?" a young girl shouted to no one in particular. She wore jeans and a loose pink t-shirt. On her shoulder sat a purple backpack. "Trying to make into the perfect little girl. I'll teach her, I'm a tomboy through and through!"
She hmphed to herself. "I won't be a petty little housewife...not ever."
The sky slowly darkened as she wandered around town, the weather seemingly matching the young girl's mood. She would've gone to a friend's house but her mother would've found her easily. She was stubborn, like her father, and refused to make her mother's job easy. If she was going to run away, she would do so properly.
About ten minutes later rain began falling from the clouds. She quietly gasped, "Oh no!" She began running, slightly panicked, looking for shelter from the rain. Instead of shelter she found the park and a young boy about her eleven years of age.
She stopped and stood in front of the young boy, watching as he gently swung back and forth on the swing. He had short black hair that covered his eyes and stuck to his face, while black jeans and a dark hoodie adorned his wet form.
"What are you doing here?" She asked the boy.
"I could ask the same." He raised his head a bit, showing the young girl his onyx eyes and melancholy face, "But I doubt you have the time, your mother is probably worried sick about you..." the young boy never moved his gaze from her azure eyes.
"I...I don't care!" She shouted at him over the rain as it poured down upon them harder then before. "She can worry all she wants! I think it'd do her some good!"
"Now why would you say such a thing?"
"She wants me to become something I'm not!"
"And what's that?"
"A proper young woman...!" He voice lost some of its fervor as she silently wondered why she was giving this stranger something akin to her life's story. Years later, she would look back on this day and ask herself the same question, finding no answer except that it simply felt right.
"You're not a young woman?" She shook her head vehemently in answer.
"Then what are you then?"
"A fighter!" She spoke with pride in her voice. "I'm being trained by my daddy, Hercule Satan!"
At this the young boy's eyes glimmered with amusement. "Do you make your father proud by training?" She nodded her head in reply.
The boy spoke again, "Then why not compromise, make both of your parents happy? Train to be the fighter you wish to be, but learn how to be elegant and graceful; the envy of other women."
The young Satan paused before she answered. Could she make both her parents happy? It could happen...and that way, she could be happy too!
Hey demeanor brightened and she moved over to the young boy, giving him a brief hug. "Thank you!"
He chuckled and remained on the swing, "You're welcome. But I suggest you hurry home, your parents are probably worried sick about you."
She nodded and began to run off towards whence she came, but stopped suddenly, turning back to where the boy had been. "Wait, who are-?" She paused mid-question and looked at the empty swings as they moved slightly in the wind. The boy was gone.
She was about to go back and search, but a loud crashing sound introduced thunder and lightening into the already harsh rain storm, prompting the young girl to make haste towards her safe haven called home.
Seven Years Later...
Gohan Briefs smiled as he leaned back in his chair. His laptop sat open on the table in front of him. He had just finished an essay for one of his business classes. He shut the computer off and closed it, tapping the small button on the side and reducing it to its capsule form.
He stretched the kinks from his body as he stood and placed the capsule into his pocket. He walked into the small library in the Orange Star Orphanage and checked on the kids reading and, in one case, napping on the cushion of the bay window.
Gohan smiled and walked over to the little girl, Sakura, picking her up and moving to put her into her bed in the large room reserved for the girls' beds.
He had just finished tucking Sakura into her bed when another girl, a few years older than Sakura, jogged into the room a bit out of breath.
"Nii-san!" The girl cried.
"Shh!" He shushed her and quickly escorted her outside the room. Once in the hall the girl began leading him outside. "What's the rush, Aye-chan?"
"It's Lee-kun, he fell off the monkey bars again and hurt his knee. He won't let anyone see it and I couldn't find Mrs. Q, and there was blood seeping through his fingers, so..." She trailed off, still trying to regain her breath.
Gohan nodded. "Alright, I'll take care of it then."
He walked outside and had to stop as his eyes adjusted to the bright light. After a moment he walked over to the monkey bars and knelt down next to Lee. "So, what's this I hear about a hurt knee?"
Lee sniffed. "I had finally reached the top of the monkey bars and," He paused to sniff and wipe his nose on his sleeve, "I lost my balance. I hurt my knee and it hurts real bad when I move it. And it's bleeding...and...and...I don't feel so good..."
Gohan nodded and picked Lee up quickly, carrying him into what they'd labeled the "nurse's room". It was essentially a small bedroom that had turned into a place for the children for when they got hurt.
Gohan placed Lee on one the bed closest to the cabinets, where he could reach the supplies easiest. He got some peroxide, gauze, medical tape, and a bandage since he wasn't sure how bad it was yet. But he knew Lee didn't like the sight of blood, so he grabbed a metal bowl and a small rag as well.
He knelt down in front of Lee. "Alright Lee, lemme get a look at your knee."
Lee sniffled again and shook his head. "Uh-uh, it hurts..."
"Lee, if you don't let me look at your knee I can't make it all better. You want it to get better right?" At Lee's nod Gohan gently pried Lee's hands from his knee and inwardly winced. Lee had somehow managed to carve a nice quarter sized chunk of flesh in his knee. He quickly, but gently, tied the small rag around Lee's eyes.
There must've been a rock buried in the wood shavings or something... Gohan mused to himself as he dabbed at the wound with peroxide and another clean rag he'd retrieved from a drawer. He gently applied some of his mother's special healing cream on the gash before placing the gauze on Lee's knee and then taping it down with medical tape.
As Gohan bandaged Lee's knee, Mrs. Q was in front of the Orphanage talking with one of the new volunteers.
To Be Continued...
Reviews welcome. Flames are welcome as well since they'll be used to fuel the flamethrowers that I use to keep the lawyers away.
-Lov3the3vil-