Note: I decided to change this into a series of one shots. Just Go Ahead Now will have a second part.
Summary: Nine years have passed since Chi-Chi and Goku were married and the housewife realizes how few things have changed, so she leaves.
Pairing: GokuChiChi
Story II: Stay
by hmfan24
Looking out the window Chi-Chi could see Goku and her young son Gohan playing with that Piccolo guy. There were only a few months left before they had to fight the androids. For most of the past 3 years, her family spent their time training. In fact, for the entire time she'd known Goku, if he wasn't training, he was fighting.
The housewife didn't watch TV. Whenever she was alone, the house was silent with the exception the crackling of burning wood in the fireplace or the bubbling pots of water that sat on the stove.
She stared at the still water settling in the pot. There wasn't even a ripple that disturbed the surface. For the moment there was complete silence as Chi-Chi anxiously awaited the water to come to a rolling boil. Once the food was done, she could call her husband and son in for some quaility, family time. With this rate, however, it would take forever. She growled, constantly shifting her eyes from the pot to the window.
Somehow she was now gripping a piece of wood that she inadvetently severed from the table with her bear grip which was something she tended to lose as she thought of her husband.
After 9 years of being married, Goku was domesticated. When Chi-Chi wanted him to sit, he'd sit. When she wanted him to get food, he'd go get food. When she wanted him to compliment her appearance, he'd compliment her. Every so often he'd carry out these actions on his own, but the young woman felt like her rigid body language was enough to send the message. Chi-Chi couldn't say she necessarily enjoyed ordering him around. It made her feel evil for drilling such a boyish man. It made them feel more like a mother and son duo than man and wife. Regardless, he was only partially tamed as the one order he would rarely adhere to was "Stay".
Chi-Chi remembered vividly the first night that Goku left her alone in that desolated house. It was their wedding night. A full moon hung high in the sky and was the only thing watching her as she slept. He must have left the moment she went to sleep, for it wasn't even midnight when she woke up to an empty room in an empty house in an empty pasture within a dark forest.
Fortunately, there was more than enough food to last her for days, yet she failed to consume an adequate portion of it after a week had passed. Somewhere along the lines, she had known she messed up. There must have been something she did or didn't do to make Goku leave that quickly. Maybe he couldn't flat out tell her that she just wasn't pretty enough. And Goku being the kind man he was, evaded confessing his unattraction by leaving her as soon as he could.
One morning the young woman woke up in her bed to a distinctive smell that filled the entire house. It was a horribly putrid must that resembled an animal, and by the sound of rustling that came from the kitchen it most likely was an animal that had suddenly invaded her home.
Upon getting to her feet, she swayed from fatigue. Although she felt weakened from not eating or sleeping much, she was confident that she'd be able to execute self-defense. Snapping out of her daze, she assumed a kung fu stance. Any forest animal was nothing she couldn't handle being the strongest woman in the world.
Her vision was still cloudy from waking up and her head was still full with a dull, aching pain, but she was confident that she'd be able to undertake the sudden threat. With a dynamic entry, she jumped and landed a kick on the intruder's face. However, the kick hardly made a scratch as the young woman flew back from recoil and recovered on the dining room table.
The forest animal turned out to be Goku - the only animal she couldn't handle. He glanced over at her with a small smile of recognition then turned back to stuffing his face with delicious cooked goods of the fridge.
That was it?
He had been gone for a full week and that was his only response to seeing his wife. Chi-Chi was afraid to be nit-picky at that point and didn't want to be too demanding. She wanted to just be glad he was home, but she wasn't. She felt anger - wrath surging in her gut with each second that passed by with the man continually stuffing his face with food.
Food isn't that damn good! She thought and covered her mouth despite her silence. That wasn't nice, and if she wanted Goku to stay, she needed to practice being nice. So then she approached him, cautiously, taking one step at a time to get from the table.
He looked at her again, noting how she had moved. Tables were an odd place to sit anyway.
Chi-Chi smiled. Her hopes sky rocketed until he turned away from her again. "Goku," she had said, warmly, yearning for him to look at her again. She turned on the light to see him clearly crouched down and hungrily grabbing whatever he could get his hands on.
He didn't, but only because he was crunching on some fried pork and couldn't hear her soft voice. However, he couldn't help but feel her stare and eventually turned around again. Being the boyish man he was, he said what was on his mind. "You look tired."
Chi-Chi's face turned red and steam puffed from her ears. A fuse had been blown. "What? You've been gone for a week and that's all you can say? Don't you know that husbands are supposed to live with their wife - not just go out wherever they want to! I oughta kick you out right now for leaving me on our wedding night! Am I ugly to you? Is that it? You should've just said you didn't want to marry me!"
Goku didn't understand. He was just doing his normal training. However, apparently this upset his wife. He had thought she would understand having to train since she was a martial artist, too. But here she was, crying. He saw more sadness than anger in her disgruntled face.
"I don't think anybody's ugly, Chi-Chi," he said, matter-of-factly, "I was just training like I always do. "
She crossed her arms. Close, but that wasn't what she wanted to hear. She did her best to swallow her tears and reach up to kiss him. This time she gave a long, passionate kiss so that he knew that he was loved by her.
The young warrior dropped the drum stick that been in his hand and began to shiver from the odd sensation it left him.
"I want you to call me beautiful," she said, low and calm and almost manevolently as if she were casting a spell of seduction. She saw his gaze fix on her lips and stifled a smirk.
Goku gulped and nodded slowly. "You're 'beau-teh-full,'" he said, mispronouncing the word somewhat. This was weird. His eyes dialated as he observed parts of his wife's body. Her body was shaped like a vase, and he liked that. Her hair was black like his yet it was silky and straight unlike his, and he liked that, too. Her eyes always looked happy - rather, they always made him feel happy even when tears fell from them. Although she knew she was kind of strong, her soft skin made her seem weak, and he liked that most of all. "You're beautiful," he said again, correctly, remembering exactly how she said it in her soothing voice.
His wife let go of him, seeing a certain fire in Goku's eyes that she'd never seen before. His eyebrows were furrowed and he gave a determined stare. This was enough to bring her to her knees, but before they could even buckled he swooped her to him.
Rubbing his cheek to hers, he nearly growled with pleasure from the sensation he felt upon their contact.
"Goku," she giggled. He was acting like a total animal and she couldn't say she hated it. They were equally inexperienced, but Chi-Chi knew she had a better idea of intimacy. It was a pleasant surprise to see Goku taking the initiative.
For the following years, Chi-Chi learned that Goku had no problem expressing himself physically on a regular basis. Sex was an activity they both enjoyed mutually - that and long walks in the forest. At that point, it was thought to be his human nature to be so sexually driven, but eventually she learned his drive was much stronger than any human could posess.
In bed, he always seemed more experienced than her as if he had had other women before. But after much interrogation, there was no evidence that there ever was. With that aside, there was no more room for complaint.
Presently, she literally tried to wipe the dirty smirk off her face. The trip down memory lane was enough to abduct her from her surroundings. But now, it was time to get to her feet and get back to work.
There was an uproar of steam that filled the room above the rolling boil. The window she sat by was completely fogged up. Chi-Chi ran to the stove, attending to the rapidly evaporating water. The gasses nearly burned her face and invaded her nose. In her haste of turning down the flames, she splashed the scorching hot bubbles on her wrist and let out a screech, "Ahhh!"
How could she have been so careless?
Pain makes time pass slowly, but then suddenly she opened her teary eyes to her caring son. Like a doctor, he assessed her burn and quickly rushed to the sink to fill a bowl with cold water. As it filled, he reached under the sink to find an exorbitant amount of gauze to eventually apply to her wrist. He sighed, mentally noting how it was a deep yet small burn.
Gohan looked back, feeling his mother's stare. "Are you okay?" he said softly. His voice was still shaken from hearing her screech.
"Where's Goku?" she asked, in her typical annoyed voice.
This caused the hybrid to tense up only slightly. He knew how sensitive his mother was when it came to his father's reactions or lack there of. He knew how insensitive his father could seem at times - despite his kind heart, failing to display concern occasionally. Even Chi-Chi would forget an important holiday or maybe even birthday, but Goku would take it the extra mile and forget to come home at night.
"He's outside," he said, purposely omitting the redundance of telling her what his father was doing. Gohan could see by his mother's pained eyes and gritted teeth that she wanted Goku to be the one to tend to her wounds - not her child. He stared at her face, studying it, and he wondered if his father ever tried to study her face. Maybe it was a "Saiyan thing" to be void of empathy. Like Vegeta, but that'd be an insult to Goku.
Chi-Chi, at that moment, tried to assume the best of her husband. Yet it was pure naivety that caused her to ask, "Did he not hear me scream?"
Gohan didn't want to lie, and definitely not to his mother's face. And so he turned away to face the window above the sink. Lying wasn't always bad, but the long silence was screaming the truth. He quickly flashed back to Goku nodding to him to go handle his mother - but Chi-Chi was his mother not his wife, and wasn't the husband supposed to tend to his wife?
Being profoundly introspective for his age, Gohan knew how thin the line between sadness and rage were. He had exhibited the transition in his battles on Namek and Earth time and time again. And although his mother's rage always proved to be physically ineffective, it did manage to scare the living hell out of anyone in a mile radius.
The boy then remembered that she was waiting for a response. "He did. He looked at me and wanted me to go help you since he figured I could handle it since, you know, I know first-aid better than he does now. Dende taught me a lot," he ranted, hoping to divert his mother's attention, but she was focused on her emotional pain.
And so she got to her feet and stomped out the door.
Gohan was tempted to block her. He just knew he said something that would set her off... Now his parents would fight. He hung his head low, finally giving up on keeping the peace. As he made his way to his bed, he forgot to turn off the water.
An hour must have passed before Goku finally came in. Opening the door, he let light into the room which immediately woke his child up. The absence of food on the table caused concern since by 1800 hours there was always food on the table. For whatever reason, his son was already in bed. The Saiyan always judged time by the sun, but maybe their house's clocks were wrong or else why would everyone have such a weird change in schedule?
Not only was he in bed, but lying in a frigid room, the boy didn't bother covering himself with the neatly made linen. Gohan just lied there on his back, staring up at the ceiling.
"Where's the food?" asked Goku, laughing. Although he noticed details of the room, he didn't notice the mood. Typically, he was only able to judge the difference between peaceful and hostile and his son would never be hostile towards him.
"What do you mean, 'Where's the food?'" demanded Gohan in an aggrivated, monotone voice. His eyes were bloodshot red, "Mom got hurt and all you care about is food! What is wrong with you?"
Now it was hostile. This was not a time to joke, Goku noted. "Oh yeah," he said softly, "how is she?" His son was beginning to sound like his wife - sensitive about little things like tone and subject order in a conversation. He was supposed to ask about ChiChi before he asked about food, but he figured she was okay in Gohan's hands.
"You're no better than Vegeta sometimes," Gohan said under his breath. Although he said the words out of frustration, they held some truth. His father always put his family second to training whether it be staying dead or traveling through space. Last time he was gone for a full year without even letting anyone know he was okay. He could've told King Kai to tell him or something!
This was Gohan's logic, for not even Chi-Chi knew what Goku was capable of at that point.
Luckily Piccolo had been there to train him back when he was a kid, but Goku didn't know that. Piccolo was still known to be the villain who happily killed the Saiyan and his brother.
By his father's absence, he was being neglectful of his family's safety. It was pure luck that kept him and his mother out of harm's way until the moment Goku decided to return.
"Hey, I'm trying, okay?" he kept a smile at all times outside of battle as if nothing was bad when no one's life was in danger, "It's not easy doing the right things and saying the right things to you and your mother. I'm really bad at it."
However, at times like these, Goku could feel the most desperate. He didn't want to see the tears currently streaming from his son's eyes, but at the same time he couldn't pretend like they didn't exist. "You try at training. You don't try at anything else," the boy said.
"I am. Trust me," Goku said, he put his hands up in defense as he tried to think of an anology that would help him articulate what he was feeling. "Um... I'm just not good at it- kind of like Chi-Chi is at fighting! She tries hard but, in the end...um, wait! I didn't mean to..."
"Mom's the strongest woman in the world, Dad," Gohan corrected him.
This fact often slipped Goku's mind. "And I'm the nicest Saiyan in the world. Vegeta was always talking about how the Saiyans have always been cold-blooded killers, but I have friends and family that I would never kill. I actually want to save everyone even the killers that have killed my friends. So if you think about it that way - I'm not so bad, am I?"
Gohan inhaled through his wet nose and wiped the cooled tears from the sides of his face.. Apparently his father's reasoning was skewed to think that nice meant "not killing" someone, but he did spare the life of nearly every villain he encountered and that was something to take note of. Even Gohan wanted to finish Frieza off - if it were in his power.
Just when Gohan's faith was running out, Goku would always make an appearance with the same reassuring smile he had right now. That contagious expression relieved the stress of the room and often even countered his mother's rage.
Goku got up and reached up to the ceiling, yawning as his joints crackled. His arms and legs felt heavy and sore from the day, and the notorious growl of hunger had been errupting in his stomach for the past minute.
Instinctually, he would have commented on being famished again, but something told him that now wasn't the time nor the place. He refrained, clearing his throat. "Where is she?"
Gohan felt his teeth clench, "What do you mean? I thought she went to go look for you!" he exclaimed.
"Oh, no," he said with a sigh. "Well, it won't be hard to find her energy. You know it's weird how I've got it memorized by now." He marched out his son's room, thinking to himself outloud with a grin.
His young son followed him out the front door and watched him charge up his energy. "You're not gonna use instant transmission?"
"Not this time," he responded, with a glowing smile on his face, "Don't worry about your mother, Gohan. I'll take care of her." He then blasted off into the sky.
Chi-Chi planned on hiking through the dark, trecherous forest and coarse desert all the way to Fire Mountain that night. There she knew she could be treated like the true princess she was.
But the farther she got, the less she wanted to make the journey. Already she was an eighth of the way to her destination. And already she was losing her will to get there. Walking alone in the forest didn't seem like a good idea anymore.
Maybe she shouldn't have stormed out like she did. Maybe she should've just got back up and continue cooking like she originally intended. Maybe she should've just let her son tend to her wounds because, in reality, she would've yelled at Goku's rough first-aid treatment. And she definitely shouldn't have let Gohan see her lose it like she did. (Not that he's failed to see such a show before.)
In that split moment, her only objective was to teach her barbaric husband a lesson.
After 9 years of being married, she still wasn't used to Goku's blatant neglect of their relationship. The warrior had so much love for everyone in the universe that she felt like a spec in his world. She loved him, yet all that she dreamed of love to feel like wasn't nearly as painful as the actual thing.
Love wasn't secure. Love wasn't balanced. Love wasn't fun. And it turned her into some savage monster.
Every once in a while it'd bring her much relief if Goku even tried to surprise her with something out of character.
Then, Chi-Chi's feet left the ground and the wind slapped her face. The moonlight brightened her surrounding as she was taken above the canopy of the forest to the open skies. The butterflies in her stomach led her to believe she was freely falling up, but two strong barriers securely to a hard, warm wall.
"Goku," she muttered, realizing just what was going on. It was hard to look up in her awkward position, but the sillhouette on the ground cast by spikey hair confirmed her suspicion. Narrowing her eyes, she growled. "Goku! Let me go!" she demanded.
"Okay," he replied, letting her fall above the body of water they were over. He dropped with her, letting go of his ki control.
Chi-Chi made eye contact with her husband. There was a glint of mischief in his eyes coupled with a playful smile. The strength in his eyes gave her reason to believe that he knew exactly where this all was going. But where was it going? She began to feel foolish for trusting him for this long as they fell towards the ground, but by the way he held her with his eyes, she knew he'd come up with something.
"Nimbus!"
An airy, yellow cushion appeared below them at an instant, and she fell forward into her lover's chest with her legs kneeling on the cloud. On her forehead, she felt the moist sweat of his clothes ease her nerves. Slowly the cloth became drenched with her own tears as she freely sobbed. She felt relieved of all the tension that had burdened her body - all this simply by the whiff of her husband's perspiration. The nostalgia of the moment warmed her cheeks and stirred her gut until it became calm. She gripped Goku's body until she could stop from shaking. To be with someone so attractive - not only in looks but in spirit - was a sweet blessing of the world.
High above the world, they flew, and Goku didn't speak until his wife stopped crying. When she looked up at him, with puffy eyes, an unwaranted smile popped up on his face. He gulped, not wanting to say anything that could disturb the innocence in her eyes. However, as if there were a magnet in his cheek, he rubbed his face to hers, inhaling her sweet scent that he favored to food.
Somewhere admist the contact their lips rubbed against each other, and an electric current traveled through their spines. Chi-Chi then pulled away, redness engulfing her head and neck. Silence but the wisp of the wind ensued as Chi-Chi looked on with wide, illuminated eyes. Slowly the small smile shrank with each second of silence that passed.
What was she expecting?
Goku knew he had to say something. He felt he needed to say something. Whenever she looked at him with those childishly expectant eyes, he had learned to say something sweet. Following his first mind, he did just that. "I love you, Chi-Chi - a lot and I'm sorry for what I said and did, so you really don't have to worry about anything."
The young woman frowned. That's what she wanted to hear. In fact, that was exactly what she wanted to hear, but only if he felt it. It seemed like the confession was more of a means to an end that would get her to stay.
Although, this time, the plea sounded more like it was from a child rather than a pet.
No, not a child or a pet either. The warmth and stern valition of his voice made the statement feel masculine upon her raw ears. Then the way his stern eyes searched through her soul gave notion to his effort.
She leaned in to kiss him again, but instead met his collar bone as he sat up straight. His eye brows were furrowed, adding a vaguely serious mood to the situation.
"That's not what you wanted to hear, is it?" he said in a dry, monotone voice.
"It's good enough," she said, giving a weak smile and slightly shrugging her shoulders. She didn't make direct eye contact, but glancing over his expression gave her a shiver. He was reading too deeply into every little action she made. Wavering from side to side with the motion of the cloud below her, she drifted in and out of her own thoughts. Moments passed before she realized that the only part of her body that remained tense were her ears - unsatisfied by their dialogue despite her open heart and mind.
"No, it's not. Come on. After being married for all these years, I can sometimes hear your thoughts just by looking at your face, but I still don't understand them. I still don't know what you want me to say,
"Need me. Want me. Be with me!" he bursted and pushed him away. She could feel her anger slipping through her fingers. The conclusion was at the tip of her tongue. "Since we got married, I've just been barking out orders and I don't want to do that anymore. I want you to want to be around me instead of just being around me."
"Like miss you?" Goku asked, finally thinking of the word. "I miss you tons, Chi-Chi. But since everyone in the universe wants to kill me all the time, the right thing to do is train hard enough to defend you and Gohan. Does that make sense?"
"Every day things, too! Like wanting to hold me and wanting to see me and wanting to take me out on dates."
"I just learned that dates were more than fruits a few years ago!" he defended himself, even facing his palms to her. His voice was gradually lightening up as he felt the real tension dissolve with the resolution of doubt. He then looked around and scratched the back of his head. "This counts as a date, right?"
Chi-Chi playfully punched him in the cheek. "Don't try to be cheap, Goku!" she giggled. Enthusiasm was building in her cheeks.
They both laughed.
He continued, "Um. I want you to stay. Stay with me. Unless you don't want to do that then leave, but if you do, I'll come out of no where and ask you to come back just like I am now! Because doing peaceful things like this is really fun."
"Oh, Goku," she sighed and listened to the youthful Saiyan's cheerful tone. Her ears drank up every word he said, finally confirming what her heart knew to be true.
Maybe all along Chi-Chi had been complicating things with her childish expectations when the solution was as simple as staying with the man she fell in love with long ago.
hmfan24: Yeah, so what, big deal, I wrote this story with someone in mind, so sorry if I ended up messing up the characterization. I don't know this fandom at all. All I know is that Goku's Donuts is one of the best GokuChiChi writer in the fandom. I really like her GC dramafic Just Married and if you're a true fan of this pairing, I'm sure you've already read it.
Also I'm not sure if I like all these pictures on fanfiction. It makes me kind of disoriented and it adds an unnecessary dynamic to marketing ones story.
Next Chapter: It just so happens that the least suspected person approaches Vegeta. Yamcha is the one that convinces the Saiyan Prince to marry Bulma.