The dark sky over Mount Paozu did nothing to stifle the heat of the season. Trunks pulled his hair up into a ponytail the moment he opened the hatch of the cockpit and left his denim jacket behind in the pilot's seat soon after.
"Hello?" He called into the dark woods.
An owl asked for his name from the trees, but otherwise, only the frogs singing in the trees answered him.
"Ah," he said, floating into the air, "I guess I can't always expect for him to be waiting right where I show up," Trunks said to himself. He lifted up above the trees and peered down at the sea of leaves below, their green hue dulled by the dark night. Yellow-eyed creatures looked up at Trunks in bewilderment as he passed overhead before disappearing into the brush.
Finally, Trunks reached the clearing where the Son household lay, the pale plaster of its domed heart absorbing the hue of the cool moonlight above. He settled down near the open upstairs bedroom window and blocked the moon's view inside when he leaned in to peer past the glass.
Goten's chest rose and fell gently as he twitched in his sleep atop the blankets of his twin bed. The other mattress lay empty, the sheets pristine and undisturbed, to his right. Goten scratched his bare stomach and then rolled over.
Trunks chuckled, and then tapped on the window.
Goten did not so much as twitch.
Trunks tapped louder.
Goten only snored on, unencumbered.
"Goten!" Trunks called inside in a strained whisper. "Goten!"
Goten rolled his pillow over his ears.
"Aw," Trunks shook his head. "Geez." He quietly slipped into the room through the window and peered over the sleeping boy. "Hey," he said, reaching down to remove the pillow and threading his fingers through Goten's hair. "Hey, please wake up."
Goten did no such thing, and instead complained in his sleep.
"Please? I wanted to talk to you. I've, um, been given a lot of food for thought to chew on these last several days, and-"
Goten stirred, and then pushed his torso up off the bed with his forearms. He blinked lazily. "Hmm, whaddabout food?" Goten turned his head, discovered Trunks, and froze.
The lights in the night sky snickered as Goten gaped, his black hair sticking out of his head in every direction, clad in nothing but his underwear.
"Trunks!" he finally exclaimed, and threw himself at the other boy. Both of them collapsed into the ground, Goten grinning from ear to ear as he straddled his hostage and peered down at him with laughing, shining eyes. "I missed you, man! I was scared you weren't ever coming back, for a while!"
"W-well, I didn't mean to keep you waiting. I just, um," Trunks chuckled. "I have a great knack for, uh, timing?"
Goten's delayed laugh forced itself through his deadpan frown, and he leaned down to rest his head on Trunks's shoulder. "Sure, whatever you say!" He sat back on his haunches, right above Trunks's thighs. "So when was the last time you saw me from your point of view, anyway?"
Trunks pulled himself up so that he was sitting and his face was level with Goten's. "Well, I last saw you and Trunks- as kids- in the woods here, but I think from your point of view, it was, um," Trunks's eyes scanned the ceiling, and then his cheeks turned pink. "Y-your girlfriend is very lovely," he said, his gaze now searching the wood grain in the floor. "A-and I have just realized that I may have made a huge mistake based on the testimony of a child half our age. Um."
"Oh?" Goten grinned. "The last time I saw you, Trunks was telling me that he locked the timeline settings on your machine, actually." He laughed. "But yeah, Valese was pretty lovely." His eyes narrowed. "Keyword being, if you couldn't tell, was."
"A-ah!" Trunks said. "I'm, um, well." He cleared his throat. "It's unfortunate that it didn't work out. I'm sorry."
"Eh," Goten said. "I'm not."
"You're, um, not?"
"Nah. She was just pretty, and there. And we had fun and stuff, but it was whatever. I didn't ever think I was gonna stay with her for long. He grinned. "And then you showed up, again, after she was gone, and then again right now, and that was that."
"R-really? But then," Trunks's face morphed into a picture of confusion, "why make her your girlfriend in the first place?"
"What can I say? You've given me a taste for beautiful things," Goten said. His dark eyes held dancing constellations inside of them.
"Why would you get that close to someone if you weren't going to stay with them forever?" Trunks said. "Doesn't saying that you love someone mean anything to you?"
Goten kneeled down and straddled Trunks's legs. His face drew closer to the other boy's, until their noses were almost touching. "Relationships are hard, and all of them are different, and important in their own way. But I never said I loved her. And I told you, didn't I? When I was little. I was gonna go with you, no matter what. If you'll let me. And that's what you're here to ask, right?"
"Well," Trunks said, "y-yes."
Goten cocked his head. "Good, 'cause I meant that."
"I still don't understand," Trunks said. "Why would you just leave that girl like that, over an old promise?"
Goten opened his mouth, and then closed it. "You've never dated, have you?"
"No. But what's that got to do with it? You shouldn't play with people's emotions."
"I wasn't."
"But she really seemed to like you," Trunks said.
Goten shook his head. "Alright, look. Your mom and your dad. The one from your time. Your actual, biological dad. He loved your mother?"
"Y-yes! Of course. She knew he did, in her heart, from the very beginning."
Goten nodded. "That's nice." Then, he jolted forward. The sudden movement pushed Trunks back down to the floor, and Goten peered down into his eyes. Trunks's light hair had escaped from its tie, and it cascaded over the floor behind his head like a puddle of shining water. "Uncle Vegeta didn't love anyone, in the beginning. That's the truth, isn't it? I see it in Trunks's baby pictures, in how Vegeta isn't there, or how they used to freeze up when I asked how they met, how they decided on my best friend's name, how Gohan would leave things out of his stories. But you. You saw it for yourself, right?"
The moonlight caught each loose strand of Trunks's hair and dyed it silver along with the ridge of his forehead and the peaks of his nose and lips. "I," he swallowed.
"But my best friend was still born, even so," Goten said, releasing Trunks. "Lots of things can happen with or without love, you know. sometimes, it's innocent, and at the end of the day, it's fine. Sometimes, it's not. And sometimes, it's just something that happens." He stood up and sat on the edge of his bed.
"But it's," Trunks swallowed and sat up, "wrong. To go so far, to get so deep into someone's life, and then go away, just like that, when you get bored."
"Oh? So you should stay with someone forever just because?"
"Not just because!" Trunks said. "You should stay with someone because you love them, and you mean it. And," he shook his head, "and even though it's hard, it's worth it. You're sharing a life with somebody, and that's a promise. It's like giving a part of yourself to somebody else, and they should give just as much back." He stood up. "You're two people, but at the same time, you're not. It's something different. You're," he gestured at the air in front of him, "you're-!"
Goten stood, too.
"It's different, you know? It's special." Trunks's deep blue eyes darted to Goten's, and the pinpricks of light sitting within them. "You shouldn't turn your back on something like that. You have to trust each other, and try, and," he clenched his fists at his sides. "I don't know how to explain it. But it's not cheap, sharing your life with somebody. It's precious, and-"
Goten grabbed Trunks's wrists, and then kissed him.
The moon looked on over the two of them and the breeze swept through the room through the open window. The smell of rich earth and of the fresh mountain air followed on its heels.
"Why?" Trunks asked as Goten pulled away.
"Because. Where there's a you, there's a me, and that's just the way it is."
"There's a Trunks here, though. Are you just leaving him, like you turned away the girl? Will you do the same to me?"
"That's not the same," Goten said. "Not at all. You're not the same. None of you are. And I'll never really leave Trunks, not the way you're thinking. I'm loyal, when I make up my mind to be. And I mean that."
"So that's it? You're still taking your time, deciding, until the day that you decide you want something else and you can just leave?" Trunks asked.
Goten's eyelids lowered over his dark eyes, but his gaze never left Trunks's face. "Says the person who was gonna stay here for eight days but then decided to leave after seven."
Trunks stood up straighter. "I didn't want to mess up this timeline! I thought it would be better for everyone!"
"Oh, yeah? And what are you doing here now, then?"
Trunks ground his back teeth.
"Sometimes, we all mess things up for someone else while tryin' to make up our minds for ourselves, you know."
Trunks sighed.
And then, Goten smiled. "C'mon," he said. "Try something with me." He tugged on Trunks's arm and slowly rose off the ground and towards the window. "It's past midnight. This is technically your eighth day of even knowing I exist, isn't it?"
At first, Trunks hesitated, but then followed. "I suppose, yes."
"It's been longer than that, for me," Goten added.
The moon coated them both in white light like a spotlight, and the stars above them and the pinpricks of eyes under the tree cover of the mountain below them followed both Trunks and Goten across the night sky and to a waterfall slowly carving out time from the thick rock face of Mount Paozu.
"You remember my part of the dance, right?" Goten asked as he touched down on the cool, wet rocks of the mountain.
"Yes," Trunks said.
"Good," Goten said.
"But why? It's just a technique, isn't it? Why do that now?"
"Because," Goten said. "I wanna see if we understand each other." He stood even with Trunks and held his arms out to the side. "Don't you?"
The roar of the waterfall echoed off the mountain as soft, white mist disappeared into the sky.
"Only if you want to," Goten said. "It's up to you."
Trunks mirrored his partner's stance. "...Alright. I think I'm ready to try."
