Disclaimer: As Usual™.
Note: Entire chapter rewritten, characters portrayed differently and Mary-Sue-ism –hopefully- a distant memory.
A Change of Heart.
Chapter Two: Ten Years Later.
Ten years.
Ten long years had passed since the day Goten and Trunks had washed Gohan's hair with toilet cleaner. Ten years since Gohan had his first almost date with Videl at the cinema. Ten years ago, Trunks had been taken from his home; from his family; from his friends.
Today, ten years later, is the day that marks the anniversary of his disappearance and of what the Z warriors had come to believe as the day of his death. Almost all of them had given up hope of ever finding him … that is … with the exception of Bulma and Goten.
Bulma never gave up hope that one day he would be found, and they will finally be a family again. Everyone tried to convince her that it was futile and that she would just only get her hopes up just to have them crushed, but their pleads went unnoticed. Even after ten years, there was still a little corner in her broken heart that believed she would get to see the man her son had grown up to become.
Vegeta … needless to say, Vegeta changed in the ten years. He had grown closer to Bulma and has become less obsessed with competing for the title of strongest against Kakkarot. He has finally understood that one person really doesn't know what he has until it comes the time for him to lose it.
Goten was never told the truth of what happened to Trunks. They only told him that Trunks was gone and he probably was never coming back. Dragon Lord, Shenron, was unable to trace his Ki anywhere in the galaxy, nor Enma-sama in the Underworld. After that incident, Goten changed as well, but not for the better. He distanced himself from the rest, blocking out their words of comfort and pity and just stayed in his room most of the time, reminiscing about his past and all the fond memories he shared with Trunks. He now goes to Gohan's old high school, Orange Star.
On a lighter mode, Gohan and Videl finally decided to get married after dating for almost nine years. They now have a daughter, Pan, whose best friends with Vegeta and Bulma's second child, Bra.
In commemoration of the memory of Trunks, they built him a memorial on one of the mountains near Goku's home. Today was the day they went to pay their respects, like they do every year since that fateful day.
Trunks Briefs.
Beloved Son, Friend and Comrade.
You will be missed.
x-x- Orange Star High -x-x
Gohan sat hunched over his desk, not caring about the noise being made by the rest of his classmates. The only thing he cared about that he was bored, and he was hungry, and both combination did not make one happy Goten. On his right sat two of the three people he associated with, but thought to be extremely annoying. Possibly the only reason he actually stayed around them was because the girl, Saera, is the daughter of Erasa and Sharpner and it was purely out of obligation. On his right, sat another girl with long, odd coloured silver hair. Goten studied her up and down, taking in the sight of her unusual hair colour and the fact that she had eyes to match. Her attention, however, was not focused on him so he could not dwell on the fact further. His eyes instead, moved lower from her hair to her chest.
'Like little butter buns,' he raised an eyebrow, amused, but quickly reverted his eyes when she turned to look at him.
"What?" she looked quizzically at him.
Goten just looked away innocently, "Nothing …"
"Pervert," She said quietly before going back to her magazine, while Goten returned his attention towards her.
Goten thought she was a pretty strange girl, honestly. Sure she is nice and all, but she had just popped up out of nowhere one day and had just stayed. Not that Goten cared, mind you, he'd rather stay around her than with Saera and Marker any day. At least she could hold a decent and interesting conversation that did not involve shopping, baseball or Mr. Terada's buns of steel. Goten sweat-dropped at that last thought.
With the girl, Rin, at least he managed to improve his intellect and his people skills, at a side of discussing one of his most favourite subjects, lunch.
"Good morning, Mr. Terada."
One of the student's said, signaling the presence of the teacher, causing the rest to move back to their seats.
"Good morning, class. Take your seats and please open your text books to page eighty five." Mr. Terada opened his own. All of a sudden, there was a knock at the door and another teacher walked in and handed him a piece of paper before walking out.
"Hmm …" he read what was written on the paper, "Class, I'd like to announce that we have two new students who will be joining our class today."
Murmurs were going around the class about the new students.
"You two may come in now."
"Here comes the dorks," Marker said woefully, earning a glare from Mr. Terada and laughter from the rest of the class.
Suddenly, the door was thrown open, startling the laughter out of the people present. A person walked, followed soon by a second. The first person in, a boy, it seemed, just waltzed over to Mr. Terada with a purpose and stopped right in front of his face.
"Y-yes …" the teacher looked taken aback by his action, "Class, I'd like to introduce Mr. TK-"
"It's just TK," the guy interrupted him in a bored and annoyed tone.
"Ah-ha … very good," he stuttered, "anyway, this is Miss Rei … err … last-name-less," he laughed nervously, trying to lighten up the tension that hung in the air. The class managed a slight snicker, but the two people standing in front of him just glowered. He sweat-dropped.
The boy, TK, who stood slightly taller than the teacher, looked at him from the top of his glasses, baby blue eyes taking in the sight of the middle aged teacher. His midnight black hair swayed as he 'humphed' and turned his head away abruptly, registering the man as not being even slightly threatening. His eyes caught the ones of his comrade, the girl, Rei. She nudged her head in the direction of the seats; he followed her gaze and his eyes landed on the form of Goten. He studied the oblivious boy for a moment, before he exchanged glances with the girl again and smirked.
"Why don't you tell us a little about yourselves?"
Their concentration was broken by the voice of the teacher who looked at them happily.
"Tell?" TK raised an eyebrow before the corner of his mouth curled into a smirk, "Nothing to tell. Even if there was, it would be none of your business."
"… Yes …" The teacher just nodded his head, not daring to dwell any longer, "You may take your seat now."
"I would, if I knew where it was."
The entire class broke into laughter at the mistake of Mr. Terada.
He nodded his head, face beat red, "You can sit behind young Mr. Son. Goten, please raise your hand."
"Thank you, sir," TK winked at him as he made his way towards his seat, 'Thank you indeed.'
'Strange boy,' Mr. Terada sweat-dropped, before turning his attention to the black haired girl, one who seemed to be sitting nonchalantly on the edge of his table, flipping though his books. "Rei …"
"What he said," she pointed to the receding form of TK and jumped off the table. "There isn't a problem with that, is there, Mis-ster Terada?"
"No … no, of course not," he coughed, "You can take your seat now."
"Thank you then, Mister Terada," she hissed his name slowly, before following TK.
'Even stranger girl …'
As TK passed Goten, he shot him a withering look, "Good to meet you, Goten-san," he winked at him and smirked, before walking away before the other boy could respond.
"Do you know him?" Rin leaned closer and whispered into his ear.
Goten just shrugged his shoulder, "No …" he said, 'I think …' he added as a mental thought. As he walked away, Goten noticed that he reminded him of someone, but at that moment, his stomach started rumbling and the thought became a distant memory.
x-x- Lunch –x-x
The student of Orange Star High sat around their lunch table, chatting happily with each other, until a blood curdling scream reached their ears, making them drop their fork in shock and looking around for the scene of the murder.
"What's wrong, Goten?"
At the mention of the name, they sweat-dropped and went back to their food.
"I-I-I … I f-forgot my lunch …" his lower lip trembled as his eyes started to water. He looked at Rin with big eyes that just screamed of anxiety.
"…" A large sweat-drop appeared on her forehead as she studied the pitiful form of Goten, "I actually packed extra lunch, so you can share with me if you want."
"Really?" Goten sniffled and wiped his nose with the back of his hand.
"Sure … I mean … we wouldn't want you to starve, right?" she patted him on the head, a wide grin on her face.
"You're a life saver, Rin," Goten looked up at her with stars in his eyes, "Well, what are we waiting for? There's only half an hour left of lunch time, so let's get eating!" he grabbed Rin by the waist and ran as fast as he could towards the exit.
He didn't notice a pair of baby blue eyes studying his move as he rushed to fill his empty, Saiyan-Jin stomach.
"Soon, Son Goten … very soon," he muttered, before returning to the Playboy magazine he was currently reading. His companion saw the magazine and whacked him upside the head, "What?" he asked, faking innocence.
x-x- Outside –x-x
"This looks like a good spot," Goten stopped in a secluded spot in the schoolyard. There was a tall tree on the side that provided a much cozy shade. He put Rin back on her feet.
"You're right," she nodded and pulled out a small capsule case. She took one of them, pressed the top button and threw it to the ground. There was a loud poof sound and when the smoke cleared, on the ground was a fully equipped picnic set, equipped with food basket and checked mat.
"Although it's been around for ages, the Capsule still doesn't seem to stop amazing me."
"Isn't it?" she squealed, "I tell you, I've been around, and I mean around, but I have never found anything quite as amazing as the Capsule Corps Capsules!"
"What exactly do you mean by around?" Goten raised an eyebrow at her.
"Hn?" she looked questioningly at him, "What do you mean I mean?"
"Didn't you just say … you've been around?"
"Err …" she gave him an odd glance and turned to look at the mat, "Hey!" she said suddenly, "let's eat!"
"Hmm …" Goten raised an eyebrow, and intended to question her further on her sudden memory loss, but when she pulled out a gigantic turkey sub from the basket, he too suffered from temporary memory loss. His attention focused on the food at hand.
About ten minutes later, and ten round through the food, Goten looked up from his plate of spaghetti bolognaise and drooled when he saw Rin pulling out a two layered chocolate covered and frosted cake.
"Cake?" Goten stared at it, stars in his eyes and his hand was unconsciously pulled forward to touch it.
"Hm?" Rin noticed his moving hand and pulled the cake away, "No, no, Goten-kun. Cake is for after lunch. We still have the Chinese wonton noodles and the Teriyaki."
"You mean … there's more!"
"Why? We are growing people, you know. And we growing people need our vitamins, or else we'd be previously growing, presently stumpy people."
"… Kami! You just gave me the perfect phrase to say to my mom when she insists that I've been eating too much. Thanks!" he twirled the fork in his place of noodles and too a big bite out of it, "Iff foo feffer neef fa fafer, don'f fe affaif fo afk, fe?" he mumbled through a mouth full of wonton and tofu.
"Eh?" She sweat-dropped, "You said something about a Feffermobile?"
Goten gulped down his food and repeated, "If you ever need a favour, don't be afraid to ask, ne?"
Rin raised an eyebrow and seemed to be in thought for a moment; "Now that you mention it …" she leaned over closer to him, until their noses almost touched. Looking straight into his eyes, her right hand made it's way up to his head. She ran her finger through his hair lovingly, "Goten … I want you …" she whispered into his ear.
Goten started to laugh nervously. "Rin … you don't mean? I-I … I-"
"… to tell me what kind of shampoo you use! Your hair is so soft!" She said longingly.
Goten would have fallen over if Rin wasn't keeping a tight hold of his head and hair.
"I just use Pantene Pro Vitamin, but after a couple of use it makes my scalp flaky," she nodded her head dejectedly.
"Err … I don't know. It's normally covered in mud and earth, so I just wash it off in the stream by my house."
"Really? Natural hair cleanser … I like it!" she laughed and patted him on the shoulder, "I always knew you were smart, Goten-kun."
"Thanks," Goten smiled at her, "No one's ever told me I was smart before, well … sure, my mom has, but she's always saying stuff like that, now that she can't bug Gohan to get married anymore."
"Being smart is overrated anyway," she shrugged, "I mean, what would be the point of knowing the square root of pie when your dream is to become a butcher?"
Goten laughed at that comment, "That is so true! You have just given me yet another comeback!"
"Glad I could help you," she joined him in laughter.
Soon the bell rang, signaling the end on lunch and all the students returned back to their classes, which passed without event. The final bell rang; queue for the students to return home, including a certain Demi-Saiyan-Jin.
x-x- 439 Mountain Area -x-x
"I'm home," Goten said aloud as he entered the house. "Welcome home, honey. How was school?" she asked him as she walked out of the kitchen, her hands busy wiping a plate.
"It's was pretty normal," he grinned, "if you don't count the fact that two relatively weird people just transferred to my class today, and I just discovered that among all the other lame and dumb people I'm forced to associate with, one of them if pretty fun and smart. And she cooks good too," he added the last part excitedly.
"She?" Chichi raised an eyebrow, the object of conversation catching her attention immediately, "Does my baby boy already have a girlfriend?"
Goten choked on the apple he was eating. In an action to dislodge the piece of fruit from his throat, he continuously beat his fist against his chest, until the darned piece finally came out. He panted hard and looked up to the happy face of his mothers'.
"Do you? That's so great, it took Gohan a year until he finally worked up the nerve to ask Videl out, and this was after the Cell Games!" Chichi let the plate fall to the ground where it shattered into a hundred pieces, as she threw her hands around Goten and hugged him tightly, "I'm so proud of you!"
"M-Mom … choke … air … breathing," Goten gasped, "dying …"
Chichi immediately let her son go and watched him grab is throat protectively as he gasped for breath the second time, "Honestly, Goten. Being a Saiyan-Jin warrior, I would have thought you'd be stronger than that."
"You don't know your own strength then, mom."
"But getting back to the more important issue here," she brushed him off, "This girl, who is she, what does she look like, is she nice? You tell me that she's a good cook. That's good. Say, why don't you invite her to the gathering this Saturday?" she nodded, "Yes, that sounds like a great idea. You can inform her that she's invited and I expect you to introduce us then, you hear?" she said happily as she walked back into the kitchen.
"…" Goten looked at her strangely, "Don't I get a say in this?" he said to the air, "Apparently not …"
"… Grandchildren!"
Goten sweat-dropped.
End Chapter Two.
Ha-ha nn;; Fixed the mistake. Thanks to Ms. Trunks Briefs for pointing that out.