Chapter 3, Cinderella.


The first thought that comes to her mind as soon she gains full consciousness from the land of sleep, is where she's heard something like, 'It's a new dawn, it's a new day and I'm feeling good.'? Because yes, it's a new dawn and it's a new day, but she's definitely not feeling good.

With her eyes tightly pressed shut, she lets out a long sigh characteristic of herself. Today, it begins.

She should probably open her eyes first, and then lift her head from the pillow, and after that, she should finally get up from her bed. This is what she should do, and she wants to do it, she really does, but she doesn't have the strength to yet. The only strength that she has for now, is to sternly question herself.

What have you done, Chi-Chi?

Did she really leave her home, her entire adult life, and most importantly, her Goku just when he returned? Did she really do that? Did she really leave behind everything that's been constant in her life for... for this? For a bland unfamiliar room, two cities away from her home? For an overly large bed, in an overly fancy hotel that doesn't appeal to her in the slightest?

This place that she's in, this hotel room, doesn't have any trace of a homey environment. Yes, it's well put together and well organised, but the aura that represents a home, is absent from it. And on top of that, how many people, how many couples and how many thugs and delinquents have spent days in here before she did? That alone should be proof that it isn't a home, and she definitely doesn't belong here.

She belongs somewhere else. She belongs home, she thinks, not here.

She should go back home. That's really what she should do. She should go back home, where she knows where the pots are, even with her eyes closed. Home where her teen son, Goten, would usually be clanging around in the house at this time.

She should go back home, she decides, snapping her eyes open and jerking herself up into a seated position on the bed.

Even as her eyes take in her current room, her heart takes a rapid plunge downwards into her stomach, in turn making her stomach twist in an unpleasant way. She nearly gasps out a rough sob to verbally express her pain, but she catches herself just in time, because it isn't right. She's the one who made the decision to leave, she's responsible for her own hurt, so she should have to take it as it is, and not play the victim. That is after all the way that warriors are taught to know from the time they first start engaging in training. She knows firsthand that once a warrior makes a decision, he or she is automatically exempt from trying to play the victim.

But she cannot help it, she feels that she needs to go back home. She just has to go back home! This isn't who she is, this person that she wants to train herself to be, isn't who she is. The person that she is, doesn't run away from heartache, she doesn't hide herself from pain. No, she stays and yells at it! That's who she is... and so, she should go back home and continue to be who she is.

'Chi-Chi,' she weakly cuts through her own thoughts, making her eyelids droop lazily, 'what are you doing?'

Really, what in the world does she think she's doing? Why can't she make up her mind? The fact that she's here, in this hotel room that Mr. Satan arranged for her, should be a clear indication that her mind is made up. Not forgetting that she asked Gohan to let Goten live with him and Videl, and then telling her very own husband to let her go and allow her to no longer be his wife. All that should be a clear indication of her firm decision, except, she doesn't know, it tears right in the middle of her soul, you know.

Actually, in truth, she feels a combination of things. It's not just that her soul is tearing in the middle, it's a lot of other things too. If only she could close her eyes and go back to sleep again for at least ten years to block it all out. Just like that girl from the fairytale... what was her name again? The Sleeping Beauty as they called her.

She wishes that she could experience that, and maybe someday when Goku finds her, he'd wake her up with a beautiful kiss that would erase all that she feels right now, and all the heartache from the past.

'Hmm,' she lets out a dreamy breath of a sigh, momentarily treating herself to a brief fraction of a second of a luxurious imagination. If only...

'Stop it, Chi-Chi,' she reprimands herself weakly. Even the energy to put her heart into scolding herself, she doesn't want to find.

It's only typical to go through this, she thinks to herself, letting out another long sigh. She knew that she would feel this way, especially within the first week of leaving her life behind. So, it's only natural that her thoughts are trying to contradict her decisions, while her soul tries to defy her body. It's all so natural. Or at least, that's what she believes.

The only solution to it, she decides, is to shake it all off, ignore her feelings and body parts that are aching to return home, and only focus on this opportunity that Mr. Satan arranged for her. She has to put all else aside and just get a move on for the day.

Thinking this, she wildly swings back the covers and throws both of her legs over the side of the bed. From this moment onwards, she will not make her mind linger in the past. From this moment, she will begin her new life.

'If only that was as easy as it is spoken,' she mumbles as she stretches her arms high above to awaken them.

Following the stretching of her arms, her first foot lowers onto the floor and just as she thinks to lower her other foot, her first foot steps on something a little uncomfortable. Out of surpise more than pain, she emits a small exclamation.

'Aaaah!'

What did she just step on, she wonders, gently easing her other foot down so that it doesn't suffer the same fate as her first foot. She takes a small peek on the floor to know exactly what caused her delicate foot discomfort, but seeing her car keys, automatically brings an attack from an ancient memory to her mind.


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'Aaaaaaaaaah!'

That shriek of pain! She would know it anywhere. She's heard it around ten times in total since she got married, and the intervals between that specific shrieking sound have been widespread, but she still knows it very well.

She drops her laundry basket at once, spilling the freshly dry clothes onto the floor, as she makes a dash towards the only person in the house who would make such a sound.

'Goku?' she calls for her husband while she runs towards the place where his shriek came from. 'Honey?'

In her mind, she knows that she shouldn't worry, because when her husband shrieks like that, it usually isn't serious at all. However, her heart is a giant sucker for him and it would melt for even the slightest of pain for him. She's almost certain that he's not really in trouble, but she cannot stop concern from bursting out of her anyway. He is her husband, and her duty is to worry about him, and she does it effortlessly either way.

When she reaches the door to Gohan's room, she finds him hopping around on one foot, with his other foot clutched in his hand.

'Ow, ow, ow,' he shrieks in a high pitched voice, so unlike his usually even tone.

First looking around before she can ask him why he's acting the way that he is, her eyes land on one of Gohan's toys on the floor. She then easily gathers that he must've stepped on it. A sigh of relief leaves through her mouth, while a faint endearing smile forms on her face.

'Goku, honey,' she tries for his attention, 'can I ask you something?'

'Aw, Chi-Chi,' Goku continues to hop around on one foot, 'can it wait until my foot is okay? Stepping on that toy really hurt!'

He's adorable, Chi-Chi finds herself thinking. Although the scene before her is a little funny, it's mostly too cute to bear. Watching him dance around like that, because he stepped on a toy, and then hearing him confess that stepping on said toy really hurt him, makes a warm liquid-like sensation spread all over her. She married the most perfect man in the world!

'That's exactly my point,' she tells him, leaning against the doorframe for a better view to admire her adorable husband from.

Her words, make Goku stop at once and shoot her a look of confusion. If she thought that it couldn't get any cuter, she thought wrong.

'Huh? Don't tell me that you're angry because I stepped on a toy.' He sounds like he doesn't want to believe what she just said. 'That's not fair Hon, I didn't do it on purpose.'

Her big lug of a husband, she stares at him softly, he's too adorable for words. However in the world did she end up with someone like him?

Lettig out a soft chuckle, she says, 'I know you didn't. What I mean is, why do small things hurt you and have you screaming, when you enter a fight with a smile on your face? I just don't get it honey.'

It's always been an intriguing thing for her. The fact that he gets excited to the maximum to fight an opponent that's stronger than he is, but screams like a baby when a little clumsy accident happens to him, has always been a wonder to her.

Goku laughs sheepishly, apparently getting what she means.

'Oh, that,' he shrugs. 'I don't know. There's a lot of excitement when I'm fighting, so I guess my body just doesn't register the pain.'

That can't be right, she counters in her head, but to him, she brings up another case to try and prove her point.

'Hmph,' comes from her, 'There's also a lot of excitement when we're doing a certain thing together, but you feel everything just fine then.'

He feels it more than just fine when they are... together like that... so she won't fall for his body not feeling anything when he's excited. She refuses to accept the whole excited body thing, because it's just too darn unbelievable.

As if undecided between feeling amused and feeling caught out, Goku lets out a laugh of the kind, adding a small effect of scratching his cheek with his index finger, before suddenly turning serious. This Goku of hers.

'I don't know why exactly,' he tells her thoughtfully, 'but I know that just thinking of a needle sticking into me, is pretty scary Chi-Chi.'

That doesn't really explain anything. What makes a small needle prick scary, compared to the brutal beatings that he takes during the Martial Arts Tournament? She really tries to understand him by reading his face, only, the serious look that he has on, doesn't help her along.

'Don't think too hard about it, Chi-Chi,' he patiently tells her, apparently seeing what she's trying to do. 'I know I don't.'

That's just like him, she smiles, huffing out a sigh of acceptance at the same time. He probably doesn't even know why he gets scared of tiny things, more than the big things. But then again, in a way, she understands him. It's always the small things that really define something and someone. You would think that the enormous things would say a lot about someone, but in actual fact, it's the small things that matter at the end of the day.

'Okay. Do you want me to look at your foot?' she offers.

'No, thanks,' he flashes her a grateful smile, and then reaches out his hand towards her at the door. 'But I think we better clean up Gohan's toys before another accident happens.'

He'll most likely be a nuisance more than help in clearing Gohan's toys away, but who is she to refuse him her company?

'Sure,' she agrees with all the fondness in the world for him, in her heart.


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Well, there's goes her plan of not letting her thoughts linger in the past, Chi-Chi thinks.

By just that one memory, she feels defeated, she feels like a failure, unable to do even one simple thing. Why does it have to be like this for her? Why can't she just put the past aside and move on?

She feels weak to move; it's as though her energy was consumed by that wonderful memory, and now, she can't even get her feet to move away from the bed to the bathroom to start her day.

'Ouf,' she verbally complains, making herself plump back into the firm mattress on the bed. She hangs her head in the defeat that she feels.

This conflict that she feels, this push and pull going on inside her, it can't be normal, can it? She would think that it's perfectly normal, seeing as she had everything and then in the blink of an eye, she chose to leave it all, but still...

'Chi-Chi?' a soft voice sounds, making her snap her head up.

She can't believe her eyes! More than that, however, she can't believe herself. Did she really think that Goku wouldn't find her?

'Go… ku?' she stutters out.

She's surprised to see him present in her room, much more at this specific hour, because from what she can remember, he's not an early riser. However, what surprises her more than seeing him, is the fact that he did find her; that is the last thing that she expected him to do.

Showing her a welcoming smile and lifting his hand in small wave at the same time, Goku greets her, 'Hi, Hon.'

And as if that isn't enough, he swiftly manoeuvers to plant himself beside her on the bed, consequently stealing her breath. When she turns her head to him, and their eyes come in contact, she feels her entire system constrict as if bound by an invisible force.

Her husband will surely be the death of her. What in the universe is he doing here?


Chapter 4, Don't Make Me Wait.