DISCLAIMER: Neither Gohan nor Videl belong to me. I promise to put them back with minimal damage when I'm done.
A/N: No idea why I wrote this, as I'm working on a much bigger project at the moment that demands most of my time. Still, once an idea takes root, it's difficult to get rid of it except onto a screen. For the record, this is set right after the end of the Buu Saga. Reviewers will earn a warm and fuzzy place in my heart.
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'Imperfection' By Scribbler
August 2003
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'Most dreams of glory are safe because we never venture to put them into practise' -- Charles Curothe
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Monday morning.
Videl slunk into school, avoiding everybody she knew and some she didn't. Eyes fixed forward, she blinkered her way down the network of halls until she achieved her locker, slamming the door open noisily in defiance of the gaggle of girls she could see watching her from several feet away.
Idiots. She knew why they were watching. What did they know about it? Probably didn't even go to the grounds. Probably just watched the whole thing on television from the comfort of their living rooms.
She knew the news channels had been replaying the goriest and most impossible bits over and over again in lieu of anything better; specifically the teleportation, the explosion, and the endless bodies and debris, until higher authorities reined them in for the sakes of those who had lost loved ones not returned for one reason or another. They'd grumbled, complaining about ratings, and then they'd latched onto the other big news of the day.
Her.
_Idiots,_ she thought again, savagely. Metal clanged on metal, and she shouldered her bag with something akin to a punch at the empty air.
The girls watched beadily, eyes following her every move. They knew her by reputation alone. They didn't know *her*. Yet they watched with naked interest, and when she turned the corner she heard the 'whispers' break out, loud and stage-like; the murmuring of those wanting to be heard.
Bitterness. "...Looks good for someone pummelled half to death."
Gossip. "Betcha it never really happened. Betcha it was all some publicity stunt, like her dad's always pulling. Betcha anything you like that it was."
"No, she was there. My brother was in the stands - he saw her. It really happened. Poor thing."
And there it was. The detail she hated most about this whole stinking business.
Pity.
So she'd lost her first ever match in her first ever Tenkaichi Budokai? So she'd been beaten to a bloody pulp by someone who, by rights, should have been easily defeatable? So the resilient reputation she'd so carefully cultivated had been shredded in one afternoon? So she'd been publicly ridiculed to a crowd of thousands, and then again by the news stations replaying the footage? So what?
So what?
She could deal with the staring. She was used to it - being different, that was. She'd never been what people termed 'normal'. Normal girls didn't run around in training gear, or act the way she did. Normal girls were sweet and kind and gentle. They weren't wannabe vigilantes; helping a police force so infused with men it was practically a completely male profession. Normal girls wore floaty dresses, talked about fashion, and chased boys. They didn't train morning, noon and night to be the strongest they could be. They didn't bully people into teaching them ki-aided flight. And normal girls most definitely, above all things, didn't know martial arts. Not the way she did.
She'd wanted to change that perception. Normal. What was that, anyway? Some outdated assessment of how people should be made by forefathers so long-dead that even their bones were dust. She didn't want to be 'normal'; she just wanted to be her. Videl. Not Mr. Satan's daughter. Not just another frothy girl, so concerned with frivolity that she couldn't even take care of herself. Just her.
Where had she gone wrong?
She'd done everything. She'd learned, she'd trained - oh, how she had trained - she'd registered and turned up on the day that was supposed to make the world realise that girls could be fighters too, if they so chose. She'd waited, mentally prepping herself; and then she'd stepped into the ring, just like everyone else who'd gone before her.
More staring. More whispers. More sniggering behind hands and sympathetic looks that burned the back of her neck as she sauntered past.
Idiots, the lot of them. Magpies waiting to pick up a piece of juicy hearsay.
After all that had happened, all that they'd been through, this was what they remembered most? Shoehorning her back into her 'correct' place couldn't possibly be as absorbing a subject as Judgment, or the Afterlife, or the damn Genki Dama that had saved them all from a cake-eating bubblegum monster...
She knew this wouldn't last. She knew that when those Dragonballs the Z-Senshi had talked about were operational again, everybody would forget. They'd forget Majin Buu, and Babadi, and dying, and her humiliating defeat at Spopovitch's hands. All of it, gone. Wiped out. Whoosh.
But the Dragonballs would be stone for months yet. That meant months more of this - rumour and gossip and being the centre of attention for completely the wrong reasons.
Some of them thought she'd lost because she was a girl. That one hurt most of all.
A figure darted in front of her, bringing her up short. She scowled, lifting her defiant chin a little higher.
"Hey, Videl." Someone she didn't know, talking at her again like they were best buddies. "I heard about what happened. Man, you must be really crushed."
"You'd think so, wouldn't you?" she replied tersely, elbowing past and continuing on her way. Chemistry first. Get to class and sit through it. Nobody can bother you there.
The follower persisted, hop-skipping to get alongside her and smirking. Football players, she thought dismissively, seeing his jacket. IQ the same as his shoe size, most likely. She thrust her nose in the air and walked on, ignoring him.
"I mean," he continued, regardless, "the way that dude punched you. That was nasty, man. And those kicks - phewee! You know you bounced off the arena real high?" His voice was mocking, belying any concern he purported to feel. Who said only women engaged in verbal warfare?
Theatrically, Videl wiggled a finger in her ear. "Sorry, what did you say? I have a medical problem, you see." She took a breath to finish, but he was already talking over her. "The doctors called it an inability to hear idiots."
"Ah, that must be why you didn't hear when the announcer said 'go home'." He threw her insult right back at her, and despite her best efforts she felt her cheeks start to burn.
Anger, hot and vengeful, rose inside of her - anger at him, at the media for blowing this so out of proportion, and at herself. After all, she'd set herself up for this. She'd taken the risk and entered the Budokai. She'd known what would happen if she didn't excel. Nothing short of excellence was going to get her noticed - not the *right* way. People remembered the good, but they remembered the bad more, and for longer.
Her heroic exploits with the cops, her prowess as a martial artist - all in tatters, because of her gender and one day when some stupid wizard decided to pump his minions full of magical steroids. How unfair was that? She'd been working her whole *life* for that day, and nothing had gone as planned. Nothing.
This aftermath was worse than when the media got hold of her parents' divorce. And she'd thought things couldn't get any worse than that? At least then it had only been a reflected problem, people asking questions and gawping when she was seen out with her father. This... this was all hers.
_All mine... it should have been all mine. But I never had a chance. They were never willing to *give* me a chance, were they?_
She'd never measured herself against the benchmark of fame or popularity. She was who she was, she'd always figured, and nothing anybody else did could ever change that.
Maybe they couldn't. But then, it seemed, neither could she.
She was who she was.
Videl the loser. Videl the defeated.
Videl the girl.
"Hey, Videl." A new voice. She turned, confronted by thick black quills and dark eyes before she could make out anything else.
"Gohan." No greeting, just his name. She still wasn't entirely sure how to deal with him yet, following her little admission in the Afterlife. There, in those amiable surroundings, admitting True Love was such a small thing. Here, in the real world, it was a much, much bigger deal.
She'd never even told him she liked him, before; let alone anything like *that*.
The football player squared his shoulders, but Gohan ignored him utterly, unperturbed by the threatening posture. She supposed that when you could quite literally kick your way through a mountainside without breaking a sweat, irate sportsmen were pretty small potatoes.
Gohan's typically geeky ensemble matched the thick textbooks tucked under one arm, and he inclined his head in Videl's direction. "Walk me to class?" he asked.
The jock looked between them, appraising. Videl's cheeks grew hot again, and she strode huffily past the two of them, making like she didn't care what either of them did. Footsteps followed, and she released the tiniest sigh of relief when she saw who it was had chosen to tag along.
"You okay?" Gohan's voice dripped concern in that vaguely nerdy way of his, and his brow creased. She looked, and then looked away again.
"Never better. Why?" Not too aggressive, not too soft; just enough to let him know she wasn't feeling especially talkative.
"You seem kinda... tense."
And the Understatement of the Year Award went to...
"Bad night."
"Really? I slept like a log. Quite a feat when you consider how loud my dad snores." He laughed, then paused, and she risked a glance to see a small smile playing about his lips. "It's nice to have him back, though. Snoring and all."
Oh yeah, that was right. Gohan's dad had been dead, hadn't he? Seven years of living apart, and then suddenly they were a family again. She couldn't imagine what it was like to have a parent die, let alone resurrect themselves and nearly be killed again whilst saving a planet that was already gone.
"I'm glad you're all back together," she said unexpectedly, lips moving before her brain was engaged. Damn. Too soft.
Gohan blinked curiously at her deepening scowl. "Yeah," he said after a while, "so am I." He glanced around; taking in the furtive and not-so-furtive looks being thrown their way. "Uh, we seem to be drawing quite a crowd. How odd."
"Yeah," she replied, monosyllabic. "Odd."
Another expectant pause, and then he spoke again. "Videl, are you really okay? You seem really off this morning, is all. Is something bothering you?"
"Why would something be bothering me, Gohan? I'm right as rain - really," she bit out, but even she could see that he didn't believe a word of it.
Finally he halted, taking shelter in the lee of a row of lockers and pulling her backwards to do the same. She glowered at him, tugging her wrist free of his hand and rearranging her bag belligerently as people hurried past the little nook.
"Is this about Spopovitch?" Gohan asked plainly, books held in front on him like he expected her to kick him someplace unpleasant for asking.
Her jaw dropped at the blatant question. "Wha-? How did you...?"
He shrugged, cutting her off with the slight movement. "Kinda difficult to get into school completely unscathed from the rumours flying about. People are talking, and suddenly you're not. It wasn't difficult to make the connection." Kind eyes looked at her, ludicrously gentle given what he was capable of, and without an ounce of pity anywhere to be seen. "So, is it?"
He was probably too simple to even realise what she'd been trying to do that day, she thought savagely. Naive little Gohan, too innocent to realise how anomalous she was, and how removed from her peers. Even more so, now. He'd grown up training, learning to fight before he could walk. How could he understand how much that one defeat had ruined?
"If I say yes, will you leave me alone?"
"If I say no, will you walk away?"
She stared at him, lip curling in a way it hadn't in days. Not since they got home from the Lookout, and the euphoria of revivification had faded a little. He met her stare easily, gaze probing and not a little anxious. Damn him. "I'm a laughing stock," she said simply.
"Why?"
"What do you mean, 'why'? Because I was publicly beaten to within an inch of my life on public television, that's why. Because people can keep ramming the video of me getting thrashed into a VCR and watch it again and again and again. Don't ask stupid questions." She folded her arms, looking fiercely at him.
"And I wasn't?" He mimicked her action, but his eyes remained ridiculously gentle. Stupid naïve idiot. Too kindly for his own good. "It doesn't bother me. Why should it bother a tough girl like you?"
She bit her lip at his phrasing, and tasted the salty tang of blood. A lengthy moment passed, drawn out to seem much longer than it actually was. "Because of just that," she admitted at last, deflating like a popped balloon and gripping her bag straps so tight her knuckles blanched.
"What?"
"'Tough girl'. Only I'm not."
"What, because you lost one match? Which, I might add, was against a superhumanly powerful guy who'd been augmented by an evil wizard." He sounded incredulous, and she turned her face away. She'd known he wouldn't understand.
"I lost. That's all people remember. They don't care about that part."
A hand caught hers, and she turned in surprise at his frown.
"*I* care about that part."
Damn. Why the hell did those eyes have to be so damn expressive? She swallowed the bowling ball lodged in her throat and snapped, "You do that, then," pulling her hand away. It felt strangely cold without his touch, and she shoved it deep into her pocket.
For a moment, Gohan just looked confused. Well, what had he expected? For her to fall into his arms, thank him for believing in her, and declare her undying love for him... again?
Newsflash - real life doesn't run like a movie script.
He looked at her - really looked at her, expression thoughtful and not a little discerning. "Do their opinions really matter that much to you?" He was surprised, she could tell. He'd obviously never had her figured for wanting public approval.
She shrugged. "You tell me."
"Quit playing games, Videl."
"I was never playing games, Gohan," she said, suddenly serious. "Maybe you were, but not me. Maybe things were - are - just some great big cosmic joke to you, but not to me." Bitterness crept into her tone, and she could have ingested her own tongue to take it back.
"You really do care what they think." A statement, not a question, but she answered anyway. Might as well air all her dirty laundry at once, if she was going to do it at all.
"They don't see me. They see someone who did what she wasn't supposed to, went where she wasn't meant to be, and fell flat on her face. I wanted to prove to them that I'm... that I'm..." she faltered.
"Special? Unique?"
"Not a freak." Videl shuffled her books self-consciously, like she was revealing some great secret. Which, in effect, she was. Already that stupid blushing was back, and she scowled so hard her eyebrows practically met in the middle.
"Videl, you're not a freak. Whatever would make you think something like that?"
"Look around you, Gohan."
He made a show of doing just that, turning his head this way and that, and then cupping his hand around his eyes. "And your point is...?"
"I'm not like other girls. People look at me different - *see* me different. The Budokai was supposed to be my chance to prove to them that I'm not some weirdo who should be wearing a skirt. It was my chance to show them that just because I don't have a Y-chromosome, doesn't mean I'm not just as capable as anyone else..."
"At martial arts," he finished, clarifying.
"At anything I choose to do," she corrected with an exhausted breath.
A pause. He was mulling over her words, and when he spoke again, he did so quietly. "Look Videl, I can only tell you what I think. And I think that people already knew that about you. No - let me finish." He held up a hand at where she was trying to speak, and carried on calmly. "You may not see it, or you may *choose* not to see it, but the people you're so worried about proving yourself to - you already did it."
"Really? Could've fooled me."
"I'll admit it, people can be fickle. But that's not to say they aren't impressed whenever they see you around, or on the TV catching criminals, preventing disaster, rescuing people and junk. Being a girl... well, maybe there are some people who're stuck in that outdated way of thinking where girls are supposed to sit home, cook and crochet all day. But there are plenty more who think otherwise. Look at Bulma - she's CEO of the biggest corporation in the world, and has being female stopped her? Would *you* want to mess with her? I definitely wouldn't." He smiled wryly.
"But she was born into that," Videl pointed out. "And besides, being a businesswoman is very different to being a martial artist."
"Yeah, one means people are too afraid to mug you on the street."
"Be serious, Gohan."
"I am." He sighed deeply. "Videl, if you're insistent on staying in this rut then there's not much I can do to stop you. But I'll say this - you can't be everything all at once, and you can't please everyone all the time. And not just you - it's the same for anyone who tries it. It's impossible. Going against tradition is a big step for anyone, but you're making it bigger for yourself if you refuse to accept that you've won half the battle already, and that there are some people you'll never turn to your way of thinking."
Videl glared, meeting his gaze and forcing him to look away from the sheer ferocity of her gaze. "You quite done?" she gritted.
A sigh. "Yeah." Gohan pushed off from the lockers and started to walk away without her. "I guess I am."
"Good." She watched him go, eyes narrowed. "Because... because I want to ask you something."
That stopped him in his tracks. "What about?" Caginess this time, like he was expecting her to blow up at him.
The germ of an idea turned over in Videl's mind, worming its way into her brain. The Budokai had meant everything to her - an opportunity to prove herself, an opportunity to be someone other than Mr. Satan's unfeminine daughter. It had been her shining moment, her Big Gamble.
People were still going to look at Videl Satan the same way, but just maybe...
"Can you get a hold of more green fabric, like the stuff you used in your Great Saiyaman costume?"
"Uh?" Gohan frowned, thinking. "I... suppose so. But I didn't make it, Bulma did." Confusion. He didn't understand what she was asking. Neither did she, to a degree, but something he'd said had struck her...
"Could she make another one?"
"Don't see why not," Gohan shrugged, and then his face fell open in shock. "Hang on a minute - "
Videl tossed back her head like she'd done when her hair was longer, short spikes bristling. "If I can't make people accept me as a female martial artist, then we'll see what they think of a female superhero," she said minimally. "I get what you're saying, Gohan... and I suppose, in a way, I've always known it, too. I can't be what everyone wants - hell, some days I can't even be what *I* want. But despite that... I have to do this my way." Then she shrugged, making a small concession. "Wouldn't mind a bit of help, though."
He looked at her, bewildered and not a little taken aback. "Uh... okay? Gee, I can honestly say I never saw that one coming."
"You weren't supposed to. That was the point." _That's always been the point - doing things you're not supposed to, just to prove that you can._ She opened her mouth and sighed, allowing all the air from her lungs to squeeze out of her throat and whisper away into the domed corridor.
"But..."
"But what?"
He slitted his gaze for a second, and then shook his head. "Nothing. You're sure you want that? You wouldn't get any real recognition - not anything that would make them," he jerked a thumb at the bustling mass of teens, but the gesture encapsulated much more, "look at you any different. Working behind a mask isn't all glory and headlines."
"I don't mind. It wasn't all just about me, Gohan. If I'm totally selfish for a minute I'll admit that yes, a part of entering the Budokai was to make them see me as a person, not just a girl. But it wasn't all about that. If any girl had done the same, and done better than me, I would've been happy, because that would've proven to people that we're not the weaker sex. Not all of us." She waved a hand. "I'm just so sick of everything being geared to make women less than they are. I wanted... to make a difference."
"And you think flying around fighting crime in a, quote," Gohan made air-quotes with his hands, and almost dropped his books, "'silly green costume' is going to help your cause?" He was sceptical, and it showed. When he phrased it like that, she could sort of understand why, too. Even so...
"Couldn't hurt."
She started walking, overtaking him and marching along the hallway to class. "You coming?"
He hurried to her side and fell into step. "Don't hit me for saying it, but you're a very confusing person. You know that?"
Videl's shoulders touched her ears, and she threw a spectacular glower over her shoulder at a pair of preppy seniors goggling in their wake. "Meh. I try."
"I like you anyway, though."
She almost stopped, almost blushed seven shades of crimson right there.
But she didn't.
Damn soft jerk.
"Thanks." Short, terse, and to the point. Yet that one word said so much more, and Gohan heard every silent syllable in a heartbeat. He knew what she meant beneath the abruptness. And for once, Videl was glad that he knew.
Monday morning. The first school day after her humiliating public defeat.
And suddenly she didn't feel so bad anymore.
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FINIS.
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A/N: No idea why I wrote this, as I'm working on a much bigger project at the moment that demands most of my time. Still, once an idea takes root, it's difficult to get rid of it except onto a screen. For the record, this is set right after the end of the Buu Saga. Reviewers will earn a warm and fuzzy place in my heart.
**************
'Imperfection' By Scribbler
August 2003
**************
'Most dreams of glory are safe because we never venture to put them into practise' -- Charles Curothe
**************
Monday morning.
Videl slunk into school, avoiding everybody she knew and some she didn't. Eyes fixed forward, she blinkered her way down the network of halls until she achieved her locker, slamming the door open noisily in defiance of the gaggle of girls she could see watching her from several feet away.
Idiots. She knew why they were watching. What did they know about it? Probably didn't even go to the grounds. Probably just watched the whole thing on television from the comfort of their living rooms.
She knew the news channels had been replaying the goriest and most impossible bits over and over again in lieu of anything better; specifically the teleportation, the explosion, and the endless bodies and debris, until higher authorities reined them in for the sakes of those who had lost loved ones not returned for one reason or another. They'd grumbled, complaining about ratings, and then they'd latched onto the other big news of the day.
Her.
_Idiots,_ she thought again, savagely. Metal clanged on metal, and she shouldered her bag with something akin to a punch at the empty air.
The girls watched beadily, eyes following her every move. They knew her by reputation alone. They didn't know *her*. Yet they watched with naked interest, and when she turned the corner she heard the 'whispers' break out, loud and stage-like; the murmuring of those wanting to be heard.
Bitterness. "...Looks good for someone pummelled half to death."
Gossip. "Betcha it never really happened. Betcha it was all some publicity stunt, like her dad's always pulling. Betcha anything you like that it was."
"No, she was there. My brother was in the stands - he saw her. It really happened. Poor thing."
And there it was. The detail she hated most about this whole stinking business.
Pity.
So she'd lost her first ever match in her first ever Tenkaichi Budokai? So she'd been beaten to a bloody pulp by someone who, by rights, should have been easily defeatable? So the resilient reputation she'd so carefully cultivated had been shredded in one afternoon? So she'd been publicly ridiculed to a crowd of thousands, and then again by the news stations replaying the footage? So what?
So what?
She could deal with the staring. She was used to it - being different, that was. She'd never been what people termed 'normal'. Normal girls didn't run around in training gear, or act the way she did. Normal girls were sweet and kind and gentle. They weren't wannabe vigilantes; helping a police force so infused with men it was practically a completely male profession. Normal girls wore floaty dresses, talked about fashion, and chased boys. They didn't train morning, noon and night to be the strongest they could be. They didn't bully people into teaching them ki-aided flight. And normal girls most definitely, above all things, didn't know martial arts. Not the way she did.
She'd wanted to change that perception. Normal. What was that, anyway? Some outdated assessment of how people should be made by forefathers so long-dead that even their bones were dust. She didn't want to be 'normal'; she just wanted to be her. Videl. Not Mr. Satan's daughter. Not just another frothy girl, so concerned with frivolity that she couldn't even take care of herself. Just her.
Where had she gone wrong?
She'd done everything. She'd learned, she'd trained - oh, how she had trained - she'd registered and turned up on the day that was supposed to make the world realise that girls could be fighters too, if they so chose. She'd waited, mentally prepping herself; and then she'd stepped into the ring, just like everyone else who'd gone before her.
More staring. More whispers. More sniggering behind hands and sympathetic looks that burned the back of her neck as she sauntered past.
Idiots, the lot of them. Magpies waiting to pick up a piece of juicy hearsay.
After all that had happened, all that they'd been through, this was what they remembered most? Shoehorning her back into her 'correct' place couldn't possibly be as absorbing a subject as Judgment, or the Afterlife, or the damn Genki Dama that had saved them all from a cake-eating bubblegum monster...
She knew this wouldn't last. She knew that when those Dragonballs the Z-Senshi had talked about were operational again, everybody would forget. They'd forget Majin Buu, and Babadi, and dying, and her humiliating defeat at Spopovitch's hands. All of it, gone. Wiped out. Whoosh.
But the Dragonballs would be stone for months yet. That meant months more of this - rumour and gossip and being the centre of attention for completely the wrong reasons.
Some of them thought she'd lost because she was a girl. That one hurt most of all.
A figure darted in front of her, bringing her up short. She scowled, lifting her defiant chin a little higher.
"Hey, Videl." Someone she didn't know, talking at her again like they were best buddies. "I heard about what happened. Man, you must be really crushed."
"You'd think so, wouldn't you?" she replied tersely, elbowing past and continuing on her way. Chemistry first. Get to class and sit through it. Nobody can bother you there.
The follower persisted, hop-skipping to get alongside her and smirking. Football players, she thought dismissively, seeing his jacket. IQ the same as his shoe size, most likely. She thrust her nose in the air and walked on, ignoring him.
"I mean," he continued, regardless, "the way that dude punched you. That was nasty, man. And those kicks - phewee! You know you bounced off the arena real high?" His voice was mocking, belying any concern he purported to feel. Who said only women engaged in verbal warfare?
Theatrically, Videl wiggled a finger in her ear. "Sorry, what did you say? I have a medical problem, you see." She took a breath to finish, but he was already talking over her. "The doctors called it an inability to hear idiots."
"Ah, that must be why you didn't hear when the announcer said 'go home'." He threw her insult right back at her, and despite her best efforts she felt her cheeks start to burn.
Anger, hot and vengeful, rose inside of her - anger at him, at the media for blowing this so out of proportion, and at herself. After all, she'd set herself up for this. She'd taken the risk and entered the Budokai. She'd known what would happen if she didn't excel. Nothing short of excellence was going to get her noticed - not the *right* way. People remembered the good, but they remembered the bad more, and for longer.
Her heroic exploits with the cops, her prowess as a martial artist - all in tatters, because of her gender and one day when some stupid wizard decided to pump his minions full of magical steroids. How unfair was that? She'd been working her whole *life* for that day, and nothing had gone as planned. Nothing.
This aftermath was worse than when the media got hold of her parents' divorce. And she'd thought things couldn't get any worse than that? At least then it had only been a reflected problem, people asking questions and gawping when she was seen out with her father. This... this was all hers.
_All mine... it should have been all mine. But I never had a chance. They were never willing to *give* me a chance, were they?_
She'd never measured herself against the benchmark of fame or popularity. She was who she was, she'd always figured, and nothing anybody else did could ever change that.
Maybe they couldn't. But then, it seemed, neither could she.
She was who she was.
Videl the loser. Videl the defeated.
Videl the girl.
"Hey, Videl." A new voice. She turned, confronted by thick black quills and dark eyes before she could make out anything else.
"Gohan." No greeting, just his name. She still wasn't entirely sure how to deal with him yet, following her little admission in the Afterlife. There, in those amiable surroundings, admitting True Love was such a small thing. Here, in the real world, it was a much, much bigger deal.
She'd never even told him she liked him, before; let alone anything like *that*.
The football player squared his shoulders, but Gohan ignored him utterly, unperturbed by the threatening posture. She supposed that when you could quite literally kick your way through a mountainside without breaking a sweat, irate sportsmen were pretty small potatoes.
Gohan's typically geeky ensemble matched the thick textbooks tucked under one arm, and he inclined his head in Videl's direction. "Walk me to class?" he asked.
The jock looked between them, appraising. Videl's cheeks grew hot again, and she strode huffily past the two of them, making like she didn't care what either of them did. Footsteps followed, and she released the tiniest sigh of relief when she saw who it was had chosen to tag along.
"You okay?" Gohan's voice dripped concern in that vaguely nerdy way of his, and his brow creased. She looked, and then looked away again.
"Never better. Why?" Not too aggressive, not too soft; just enough to let him know she wasn't feeling especially talkative.
"You seem kinda... tense."
And the Understatement of the Year Award went to...
"Bad night."
"Really? I slept like a log. Quite a feat when you consider how loud my dad snores." He laughed, then paused, and she risked a glance to see a small smile playing about his lips. "It's nice to have him back, though. Snoring and all."
Oh yeah, that was right. Gohan's dad had been dead, hadn't he? Seven years of living apart, and then suddenly they were a family again. She couldn't imagine what it was like to have a parent die, let alone resurrect themselves and nearly be killed again whilst saving a planet that was already gone.
"I'm glad you're all back together," she said unexpectedly, lips moving before her brain was engaged. Damn. Too soft.
Gohan blinked curiously at her deepening scowl. "Yeah," he said after a while, "so am I." He glanced around; taking in the furtive and not-so-furtive looks being thrown their way. "Uh, we seem to be drawing quite a crowd. How odd."
"Yeah," she replied, monosyllabic. "Odd."
Another expectant pause, and then he spoke again. "Videl, are you really okay? You seem really off this morning, is all. Is something bothering you?"
"Why would something be bothering me, Gohan? I'm right as rain - really," she bit out, but even she could see that he didn't believe a word of it.
Finally he halted, taking shelter in the lee of a row of lockers and pulling her backwards to do the same. She glowered at him, tugging her wrist free of his hand and rearranging her bag belligerently as people hurried past the little nook.
"Is this about Spopovitch?" Gohan asked plainly, books held in front on him like he expected her to kick him someplace unpleasant for asking.
Her jaw dropped at the blatant question. "Wha-? How did you...?"
He shrugged, cutting her off with the slight movement. "Kinda difficult to get into school completely unscathed from the rumours flying about. People are talking, and suddenly you're not. It wasn't difficult to make the connection." Kind eyes looked at her, ludicrously gentle given what he was capable of, and without an ounce of pity anywhere to be seen. "So, is it?"
He was probably too simple to even realise what she'd been trying to do that day, she thought savagely. Naive little Gohan, too innocent to realise how anomalous she was, and how removed from her peers. Even more so, now. He'd grown up training, learning to fight before he could walk. How could he understand how much that one defeat had ruined?
"If I say yes, will you leave me alone?"
"If I say no, will you walk away?"
She stared at him, lip curling in a way it hadn't in days. Not since they got home from the Lookout, and the euphoria of revivification had faded a little. He met her stare easily, gaze probing and not a little anxious. Damn him. "I'm a laughing stock," she said simply.
"Why?"
"What do you mean, 'why'? Because I was publicly beaten to within an inch of my life on public television, that's why. Because people can keep ramming the video of me getting thrashed into a VCR and watch it again and again and again. Don't ask stupid questions." She folded her arms, looking fiercely at him.
"And I wasn't?" He mimicked her action, but his eyes remained ridiculously gentle. Stupid naïve idiot. Too kindly for his own good. "It doesn't bother me. Why should it bother a tough girl like you?"
She bit her lip at his phrasing, and tasted the salty tang of blood. A lengthy moment passed, drawn out to seem much longer than it actually was. "Because of just that," she admitted at last, deflating like a popped balloon and gripping her bag straps so tight her knuckles blanched.
"What?"
"'Tough girl'. Only I'm not."
"What, because you lost one match? Which, I might add, was against a superhumanly powerful guy who'd been augmented by an evil wizard." He sounded incredulous, and she turned her face away. She'd known he wouldn't understand.
"I lost. That's all people remember. They don't care about that part."
A hand caught hers, and she turned in surprise at his frown.
"*I* care about that part."
Damn. Why the hell did those eyes have to be so damn expressive? She swallowed the bowling ball lodged in her throat and snapped, "You do that, then," pulling her hand away. It felt strangely cold without his touch, and she shoved it deep into her pocket.
For a moment, Gohan just looked confused. Well, what had he expected? For her to fall into his arms, thank him for believing in her, and declare her undying love for him... again?
Newsflash - real life doesn't run like a movie script.
He looked at her - really looked at her, expression thoughtful and not a little discerning. "Do their opinions really matter that much to you?" He was surprised, she could tell. He'd obviously never had her figured for wanting public approval.
She shrugged. "You tell me."
"Quit playing games, Videl."
"I was never playing games, Gohan," she said, suddenly serious. "Maybe you were, but not me. Maybe things were - are - just some great big cosmic joke to you, but not to me." Bitterness crept into her tone, and she could have ingested her own tongue to take it back.
"You really do care what they think." A statement, not a question, but she answered anyway. Might as well air all her dirty laundry at once, if she was going to do it at all.
"They don't see me. They see someone who did what she wasn't supposed to, went where she wasn't meant to be, and fell flat on her face. I wanted to prove to them that I'm... that I'm..." she faltered.
"Special? Unique?"
"Not a freak." Videl shuffled her books self-consciously, like she was revealing some great secret. Which, in effect, she was. Already that stupid blushing was back, and she scowled so hard her eyebrows practically met in the middle.
"Videl, you're not a freak. Whatever would make you think something like that?"
"Look around you, Gohan."
He made a show of doing just that, turning his head this way and that, and then cupping his hand around his eyes. "And your point is...?"
"I'm not like other girls. People look at me different - *see* me different. The Budokai was supposed to be my chance to prove to them that I'm not some weirdo who should be wearing a skirt. It was my chance to show them that just because I don't have a Y-chromosome, doesn't mean I'm not just as capable as anyone else..."
"At martial arts," he finished, clarifying.
"At anything I choose to do," she corrected with an exhausted breath.
A pause. He was mulling over her words, and when he spoke again, he did so quietly. "Look Videl, I can only tell you what I think. And I think that people already knew that about you. No - let me finish." He held up a hand at where she was trying to speak, and carried on calmly. "You may not see it, or you may *choose* not to see it, but the people you're so worried about proving yourself to - you already did it."
"Really? Could've fooled me."
"I'll admit it, people can be fickle. But that's not to say they aren't impressed whenever they see you around, or on the TV catching criminals, preventing disaster, rescuing people and junk. Being a girl... well, maybe there are some people who're stuck in that outdated way of thinking where girls are supposed to sit home, cook and crochet all day. But there are plenty more who think otherwise. Look at Bulma - she's CEO of the biggest corporation in the world, and has being female stopped her? Would *you* want to mess with her? I definitely wouldn't." He smiled wryly.
"But she was born into that," Videl pointed out. "And besides, being a businesswoman is very different to being a martial artist."
"Yeah, one means people are too afraid to mug you on the street."
"Be serious, Gohan."
"I am." He sighed deeply. "Videl, if you're insistent on staying in this rut then there's not much I can do to stop you. But I'll say this - you can't be everything all at once, and you can't please everyone all the time. And not just you - it's the same for anyone who tries it. It's impossible. Going against tradition is a big step for anyone, but you're making it bigger for yourself if you refuse to accept that you've won half the battle already, and that there are some people you'll never turn to your way of thinking."
Videl glared, meeting his gaze and forcing him to look away from the sheer ferocity of her gaze. "You quite done?" she gritted.
A sigh. "Yeah." Gohan pushed off from the lockers and started to walk away without her. "I guess I am."
"Good." She watched him go, eyes narrowed. "Because... because I want to ask you something."
That stopped him in his tracks. "What about?" Caginess this time, like he was expecting her to blow up at him.
The germ of an idea turned over in Videl's mind, worming its way into her brain. The Budokai had meant everything to her - an opportunity to prove herself, an opportunity to be someone other than Mr. Satan's unfeminine daughter. It had been her shining moment, her Big Gamble.
People were still going to look at Videl Satan the same way, but just maybe...
"Can you get a hold of more green fabric, like the stuff you used in your Great Saiyaman costume?"
"Uh?" Gohan frowned, thinking. "I... suppose so. But I didn't make it, Bulma did." Confusion. He didn't understand what she was asking. Neither did she, to a degree, but something he'd said had struck her...
"Could she make another one?"
"Don't see why not," Gohan shrugged, and then his face fell open in shock. "Hang on a minute - "
Videl tossed back her head like she'd done when her hair was longer, short spikes bristling. "If I can't make people accept me as a female martial artist, then we'll see what they think of a female superhero," she said minimally. "I get what you're saying, Gohan... and I suppose, in a way, I've always known it, too. I can't be what everyone wants - hell, some days I can't even be what *I* want. But despite that... I have to do this my way." Then she shrugged, making a small concession. "Wouldn't mind a bit of help, though."
He looked at her, bewildered and not a little taken aback. "Uh... okay? Gee, I can honestly say I never saw that one coming."
"You weren't supposed to. That was the point." _That's always been the point - doing things you're not supposed to, just to prove that you can._ She opened her mouth and sighed, allowing all the air from her lungs to squeeze out of her throat and whisper away into the domed corridor.
"But..."
"But what?"
He slitted his gaze for a second, and then shook his head. "Nothing. You're sure you want that? You wouldn't get any real recognition - not anything that would make them," he jerked a thumb at the bustling mass of teens, but the gesture encapsulated much more, "look at you any different. Working behind a mask isn't all glory and headlines."
"I don't mind. It wasn't all just about me, Gohan. If I'm totally selfish for a minute I'll admit that yes, a part of entering the Budokai was to make them see me as a person, not just a girl. But it wasn't all about that. If any girl had done the same, and done better than me, I would've been happy, because that would've proven to people that we're not the weaker sex. Not all of us." She waved a hand. "I'm just so sick of everything being geared to make women less than they are. I wanted... to make a difference."
"And you think flying around fighting crime in a, quote," Gohan made air-quotes with his hands, and almost dropped his books, "'silly green costume' is going to help your cause?" He was sceptical, and it showed. When he phrased it like that, she could sort of understand why, too. Even so...
"Couldn't hurt."
She started walking, overtaking him and marching along the hallway to class. "You coming?"
He hurried to her side and fell into step. "Don't hit me for saying it, but you're a very confusing person. You know that?"
Videl's shoulders touched her ears, and she threw a spectacular glower over her shoulder at a pair of preppy seniors goggling in their wake. "Meh. I try."
"I like you anyway, though."
She almost stopped, almost blushed seven shades of crimson right there.
But she didn't.
Damn soft jerk.
"Thanks." Short, terse, and to the point. Yet that one word said so much more, and Gohan heard every silent syllable in a heartbeat. He knew what she meant beneath the abruptness. And for once, Videl was glad that he knew.
Monday morning. The first school day after her humiliating public defeat.
And suddenly she didn't feel so bad anymore.
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FINIS.
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