Chapter Two: Gohan – Sing?!
Chapter Notes:
"Kami" in Japanese means "God", however, in the Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z dubs, Kami is referred to as "Guardian of the Earth".
For those of you who don't know, Kami is the previous Guardian of the Earth before Dende. He is also Piccolo's other half before they fused.
I highly doubt that the humans are informed that God (Kami) was replaced by Dende. Also, I don't think that the humans know that this entity is known as the Guardian of the Earth apart from the Z-fighters and their circle.
As such, in this fanfiction, assume that people know this being as 'God' instead of Guardian of the Earth, Kami or Dende. Hence, only the Z-fighters and their friends will say, "Dende help me". The rest of the humans will just say, "Oh my God," etc.
Lunch break was over and the next period was music. Fortunately for Gohan, he was free from Videl's intense glares and questioning in this period because she thought it was irrelevant to learn music when all she was interested in is becoming a crime fighter or a hero like her father.
He was, however, stuck in the class with Erasa and he didn't know which was more mentally exhausting; Videl trying to interrogate him if he was the Golden Warrior AND the Great Saiyaman or Erasa trying to find out whether he had a thing for Videl.
"Poor Sharpie," commented Erasa.
Gohan just observed silence. He didn't know whether Erasa was being flirty or whether she genuinely cared about her childhood friend Sharpner.
"I heard he was being hospitalized," she said.
Gohan could only laugh goofily. "Aha, aha, ahahaha…"
The thought about being kicked in the nuts must be painful, he thought, but thankfully he never had such an experience since he could almost literally have Balls of Steel, knowing how much he got kicked or punched in his nether regions during his little spars with his younger brother Goten and still could not feel pain. Gohan supposed the pain could be similar to when someone grabbed a Saiyan's tail, so he could empathize with Sharpner, however.
Erasa pouted.
"That's not funny, Gohan. I'll have you know that I swear I heard a crunch when he got kicked and if I'm not wrong, he might have busted his… you know."
Erasa blushed. Even though she was a flirt, she still felt uncomfortable talking about sexual matters with the opposite sex. In fact, she could confirm with pride that she was still a virgin despite having gone through so many boyfriends already. Her reason was she wanted to keep her chastity for the man that she was going to marry. She was a romantic in that sense. She had, however, kissed before and done activities such as petting and blow-… but this is a teen rated fanfic and any more would classify it as mature so we're going to stop describing it at that.
Just in time, the music teacher Mr. Hovenbeet entered the room and, without a word, sat down by the piano and pounded four chords.
"TAN TAN TAN TAN~!"
This always meant that he was signaling the class for silence and the students were more than happy to comply. Unlike other tedious subjects like mathematics or any of the sciences, the students actually enjoyed music classes and so, without any complaints, they observed silence and let Mr. Hovenbeet start his lecture.
"Good afternoon, my young students," Mr. Hovenbeet greeted the class. "Today, will be a continuation of our study about harmony."
He ranted on about music theory and the class waited in boredom for him to finally let them get some practice when he realized something.
"Ah, yes! Mr. Son, you don't have a group yet, do you?"
Before Gohan could answer, the bubbly Erasa locked her arm with his and raised her hand while saying, "No worries, Sir. You can group him with me."
Now, Mr. Hovenbeet is rather deaf so he turned his head right and shouted, "What? Speak up, I'm a little bit deaf on one ear!"
Erasa sighed and shouted the same sentence twice before Mr. Hovenbeet finally understood what she was saying. "Hmm, my dear Erasa, but don't you already have a group member?"
"Yes sir, but before Gohan joined, there were an even number of people in the class but now there is an odd number, so one group has to have three people and I volunteer in taking Gohan into our group."
"Hmm, very well. Gohan, you may join Erasa and Angela's group," he told Gohan before continuing. "Right. Now, it is important that you find out for yourselves what musical harmony is about. Therefore, for your project, you are required to research about musical harmony and perform as a group to show to me that you can practice what you learn. The written research is to be handed in next Friday and will be worth 40% of the project while the remaining 60% will be for the performance. Do note that the performance won't be until before the Golden Week so you'll have plenty of time to practice. I expect you all to put a good amount of effort into this project as it WILL be worth 10% of your total grades by the end of the year," he added sternly.
With that, Gohan was forced to join Erasa and Angela in their group. As Angela was a rather quiet girl (or so he thought – she was just aloof), he didn't pay her much attention. What a big mistake this would be later on, but that's another matter that will be told later. For now, they huddled around a table and started discussing about their project.
"So Gohan, do you know how to play any musical instrument?" Erasa asked him.
"Gee, no. From young, my mother told me to study all the time, so that's all I ever did. Haha," Gohan laughed it off as a joke while doing Goku's signature scratch-the-back-of-my-head thing. This made him wonder why he took music as one of his subjects in the first place, but he guessed it was too late now to worry about that.
"Well shoot, how are we supposed to do the practical part of the project then?"
"Hm, we could make Gohan sing," suggested Angela. "I know you play the violin well, Erasa and I can play the piano."
"Aha!" Erasa exclaimed. "Angela, you're a genius!"
While Erasa hugged Angela ecstatically, at Kami's Lookout, two Namekian's in particular sweated profusely.
"Dende, are you sure you don't want to do anything about this?" the taller of the two green aliens enquired in a deep, gruff voice.
Dende, the shorter of the two nodded his head, though from his looks, he seemed uncertain.
"It is necessary for life to run its course. If I intervene too much, it may distort the natural order of things," he said determinedly.
Behind them, a dark, rather plump man asked, "What seems to be the problem?"
"Well, Popo," the tall Namekian started. "Let's just say that Gohan is a little terrible at singing."
Dende frowned at that statement. "That would be an understatement," he muttered under his breath remembering the nightmarish time when Bulma held a karaoke session out of boredom while they were in Namek and were being hunted down by Vegeta as well as Freeza's men. His sensitive ears still felt like they were bleeding whenever he recounted the experience.
Still, while the conversation progressed at Kami's Lookout; Gohan, Erasa and Angela decided to meet up at Erasa's house during the weekend to do the research part of the project.
Music ended and there was only one class that remained.
Most students looked forward to the next class for two reasons: one, it was one of their favourite classes where they won't have to put in much effort and; two, immediately after that class, they were free to enjoy the rest of their day.
Our young half-Saiyan however was not looking forward to it. For him, P.E. was tough - not that he was physically unfit to enjoy P.E., but because he was, perhaps, too fit. In fact, two days ago during his first day in school, he had already made a serious blunder with controlling his strength. Jumping twenty-feet into the air and floating for a while, he managed to gain everyone's suspicion, but fortunately, most of them seemed to accept his excuse of using a new pair of shoes that promoted air cushions.
Everyone except one.
Videl came out of her Aeronautics class and headed for the changing rooms. P.E. was only held every Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays and so, she was looking forward to spending her second P.E. lesson with Gohan.
"Now, let's see you do more unbelievable things, Gohan," she mused. She knew that Gohan wouldn't be able to make another lame excuse like the last time if he showed another impossible feat.
When she arrived at the school gym, she was greeted by the sight of multiple blue floor mats spread throughout the room. The teacher, Mr. Neggerschwarze, welcomed the students with zeal.
"Today," he began in a voice that sounded like there was something stuck in his throat. "We will be celebrating Satan City – our city's – win against West City in soccer with a score of 1-0 in the World Cup Finals. To commemorate this event, all students are required to play soccer while I look in the mirror and admire my beautiful muscles," he coughed. "Forget I said the last part. So, eh, students, pick your teams. Videl you're captain of Team A and Sharpner-"
"Sharpner's decommissioned, Sir," one of the students pointed out.
Mr. Neggerschwarze's face fell. "Oh," he grumbled. "Well then, I guess Ruler can be Team B's captain then. Right, now off you go. And don't call for me until the end of the period."
As Mr. Neggerschwarze left for the school building to do God-Knows-What, Videl and Ruler picked out their teammates. Of course, Videl chose Erasa and let Gohan be chosen into the opposing team so that she could go up against him and discover what else he was capable of doing.
"Hey, Gohan, do you know how to play soccer? Wait, have you even played soccer before?" asked Ruler. He didn't want the nerd to bring down his team, but he knew that Gohan was capable after seeing him catch that impossible ball in baseball the other day. "He said that was a fluke, well… we'll just have to get him to do more flukes then."
"Uh, no… not really," Gohan admitted while mentally giving himself a prep-talk about controlling his strength better. "I've read about it in books, though!"
Ruler barely acknowledged with a, "Cool, awesome," before assigning him to be the goalie thinking that he would be useless in any other position.
This worked out great for Gohan because it was a safe position where he could just observe the game and not show too much of his strength.
The game progressed and, unfortunately for Videl, Gohan played it safe throughout the period without showing off anything spectacular. "Still," she thought, "I better not let my guard down. I know he's hiding something."
As school ended, Gohan snuck around to the rooftop before pressing the red button on his watch effectively transforming himself into the Great Saiyaman before he shot off to the skies. He made a mental note to thank Dende that there were no major criminal activities going on that afternoon or he would have gone home with a major headache.
After flying past the lush scenery, Gohan finally managed to reach his humble, dome-shaped home in a record time of ten minutes. Not bothering to knock on the door, he went inside the house announcing his arrival.
"Hey, mum!" he called out to his mother happily while noticing the delicious fragrance of her cooking wafting into the entrance of the house.
"Oh. Hi, son! How was school today?" Chichi asked as Gohan entered the kitchen.
"It was alright. Mmm, that smells good!" Gohan remarked.
"Stop pinching the food, Gohan!" scolded his mother as soon as she noticed that Gohan was nicking the food with his bare hands. "And what did I teach you about table manners!"
Chichi would have been more than happy to hit Gohan with the pan, but unfortunately, she was using it for cooking so all she could do was raise her voice at the growing teen.
"Geez, just three days in school and look at you! Mixing with those city kids sure have given you bad some bad influence, young man."
"Sorry, mum. Hey, where's Goten?"
"He's outside playing," Chichi said, finally calming down. "Could you do me a favour? Before you begin doing your homework – and I expect you to do it! – will you go and check on the radishes for me?"
Despite the fact that the Chichi was the daughter of the Ox King, she and Goku decided to decline any financial help from her father and decided to live off of Goku's previous World Martial Arts earnings. Normally, this would have had them well off, but seeing how much Goku, Gohan and Goten ate every day, there was always a nagging feeling at the back of Chichi's mind about running out of money, so she decided to wisely invest some of that money into starting a radish farm which Goku maintained while he was alive. Not only did this help them with their income, it also helped them sustain their lifestyle. This however, was just enough for them to get by. The Son family was neither poor nor were they rich and Chichi knew that she had to be careful to make sure that her sons helped her maintain the radish farm now that her beloved husband was gone.
Gohan acknowledged and dashed outside to check on the radishes.
Meanwhile, at the Satan household, Videl was practicing her punches in their in-house gym. While her punches were all connecting magnificently with the punching bag, her thoughts remained elsewhere as she remembered fighting crime alongside the Great Saiyaman the other day.
"He can fly and lift very heavy objects that normal humans can't. I dare say it's like watching one of those fighters at the Cell Games - but how can that be possible? My father claims to have beaten Cell and he tells everyone that all of those were all tricks involving wires, light and explosives," she contemplated the thought. "Maybe I can ask Gohan? That's like killing two birds with one stone!"
Videl was delighted with herself. "That's a stroke of genius!"
"Being 'The Man Who Defeated Cell' has really gotten over Daddy's head over the past few years and him bringing along all those women home really gets to my nerves."
In a way, Videl felt both sorry and yet relieved that her mother had died. She was sorry that she had gone and she missed her dearly, yet she was relieved that she didn't have to live with the current Hercule Satan whom, to her, is nothing more than a big headed womanizer.
"Right," she said aloud. "Tomorrow, I'm going to corner Gohan and ask him about this."
With that, she took a shower and went to bed, drifting off into a peaceful sleep.
End of Chapter Two
To be continued...