Disclaimer: I do not own DB/Z/GT blah blah. Now that we've got that all done and dealt with, please, read Chapter 7, review, make yourself comfortable and sit down to watch Flubber with me!
Dude Where's My World?
Revised
Chapter 7: The game of Life…or Quelf
As the teenagers entered the house they agreed to meet upstairs to watch some TV in the common area, but first Trunks went to get some drinks and Goten went to go set up the TV. Once they were alone, Josie threw herself back onto a couch with her arms splayed to her sides.
"You say I have no manners…" Valerie reminded Josie with disdain for her poor guest etiquette.
"I said you grew up in a barn, not that you had bad manners." Josie corrected with a smile, assuming she was talking about the comment she had made at her yesterday. Josie blinked at the realization that that conversation in front of her house while an anxious Valerie complained about her bladder had just been yesterday afternoon; Josie shook her head slowly from side to side in disbelief. Valerie noticed her expression and lifted a brow in question. "…Did that really just happen less than twenty-four hours ago in front of my house, Val?" Josie asked, gesturing with her closing — then opening — palm, her brain exploding at the thought.
Valerie nodded with a sigh, sitting next to Josie. "I can't even think about that right now, we have something more important to talk about." Seeing she had Josie's undivided attention, she continued. "I know you noticed the age differences, right? I didn't see as much as you have of this world, but even I know that is wrong."
Josie took a minute to seriously contemplate Valerie's words, before she shrugged. "It is off."
"It's off? That's all you have to give me?" Valerie hissed.
"I also offered a mild shrug." Josie reminded with a smile, lifting a brow when Valerie sat directly across from her on the coffee table to glare at her harder; Josie had to bite her lip to keep back her remark asking who had bad manners now? And what was this supposed to accomplish anyway? The last person who had attempted to intimidate her with this kind of proximity on that coffee table was the Prince of all Saiyans himself and his bulging biceps far outclassed Valerie's four foot nine intimidation factor.
Valerie studied how relaxed Josie seemed and it only made her feel more tense; why wasn't she worried? What if they were ruining their heroes lives? "…You're really not worried about this?" Valerie asked, unsure.
"I just think…so what?" Valerie's flabbergasted look only made Josie grin more. "I mean it! So what if there are some differences? Think about it, Val! Hasn't it been proven over and over again that this world is full of divergences? Missing pieces and plot holes? None of the versions ever seem to match from one show to another —and don't get me started on the movies! There's constant revisions and—Akira friggin forgot about Maron and that's why she was gone for so long, for crying out loud! Our world made this one, Val, of course its bound to be full of mistakes." She could see she was winning her over. "So again, who cares if it's a little different?"
"You two really are from another plane, aren't you?" The girls turned and saw Bulma and Trunks coming from the dining area, standing at the doorway. It was Bulma that had spoken the curious question, a silent Trunks beside her holding a few sealed drinks against his chest. Bulma grimaced with self-realization. "I'm sorry, we were listening in your conversation; that was rude."
Josie and Valerie shared a brief look but shrugged at each other and smiled at Bulma, apparently not too troubled by it. "Its fine really, we have nothing to hide from you all now." Valerie reminded.
Bulma nodded as she entered further into the room and took a seat on a lazy-boy chair with Trunks sitting on the arm of the chair. "Its strange…I'm perfectly aware of the fact that you two are not from this world, but still…" She shook her head. "As hard as I try, it's hard to get used to the concept of what you are."
Josie smiled oddly at her, head tilted to the side, clearly a bit confused. "Human-alien? …a Humalien?" She offered as helpfully as she could.
Bulma shook her head, unable to keep from smiling. "Not here you're more than that. Here, you two are—" Trunks cleared his throat and gave his mother a look of warning; seeing it, Bulma bit her bottom lip and adjusted her words. "Special" She finished, internally rolling her eyes at how lacking the word was.
Both girls thought the word choice a little odd and knew that hadn't been what she'd originally intended to say, but figured if she didn't share it with them it was for a reason. "Can I help you with those?" Valerie offered Trunks, standing up and grabbing a few drinks off his hands. "I'll take some of these up," She excused herself and started to go up the stairs.
"Hey, I thought you were working today, Bulma?" Josie suddenly remembered when she began to stand up to follow after her friend.
"I could only last as long as lunch time before I decided to check in on you guys." Bulma explained, a bit embarrassed to admit it. "I wanted to make sure you guys had lunch and you were settled in comfortably. I have a few trays upstairs in the common area with an assortment of sandwiches, fruit and other snacks for you guys."
Josie's stomach rumbled at the thought, causing her to look at the clock on the wall to verify the time and she was surprised to find that half of the day was already gone. "That sounds so good! You've been so kind to us, thank you so much, Bulma." Instinctually, Josie leaned forward and kissed the woman on the cheek briefly in thank you, catching the older woman off guard.
Trunks smiled at that, but after his mind registered what his mom had said, his smile disappeared. "Wait, mom, did you say in the common area? …Where Goten has been unsupervised for the last ten minutes?" Trunks asked his mom slowly, his expression tight with trepidation. His mom wasn't picking up his reason for being so dismayed but Josie's long face clearly indicated she did. Josie pouted and nodded her head for Trunks to head towards the stairs so that they could inspect the damage. Trunks sighed, mumbling to himself, "This is going to be like the vending machine all over again…"
It took only a couple of minutes for Bulma to hear arguing coming back down the stairs; she turned around to find a sullen Trunks, Valerie and Josie coming down the stairs, with a beet-red Goten following after them, apologizing profusely. "Guys, I already said I'm sorry, I had a light breakfast this morning!"
"You had ten sunny side up eggs, what looked like a gallon of rice, and I lost count of the fish you ate…" Josie reminded over her shoulder, refusing his excuse with reason, and a less than mature act of sticking her tongue out at him.
"Mom…" The whine and annoyance in her son's tone told Bulma everything she needs to know about a) what had happened B) who was to blame and C) what he wanted her to do about it. There was much to be said about the special bond between son and mother that could convey so much in one single word.
"I'll go get more lunch going." Bulma didn't know whether she wanted to grin or sigh at Goku's son antics. "To the kitchen Son Goten, you're helping." She told him in a tone that left no room for arguments.
"Hai, ma'am." A sufficiently reprimanded teenage half-saiyan agreed, head bowed in contrition, as he went around the other teens and followed Bulma towards the kitchen. The other three followed after them and they all hung out in the kitchen while Goten and Bulma worked on more sandwiches; Trunks would occasionally reach over his friends shoulder and grab at whatever he was making before the work could be completed. "—Ok, that time it was just a piece of bread, Trunks! I doubt you want to eat just bread."
To be combative, Trunks bit into that piece of bread and chewed it while he blankly stared at Goten, whose only response was to snort and turn back to what he was doing.
"I have a friend who likes to eat ketchup by itself," Josie tried to make Trunks feel better about his weird bread fetish, patting his shoulder from her spot atop a counter. Trunks leaned back on that counter, looking over at her with amusement for a moment as he finished eating the last bits of his bite. "…Ok, yeah, I'm the friend who likes to eat ketchup by itself…" She admitted, grinning at how Trunks nearly choked on his bread. "But I hate tomatoes—makes no sense, right?"
Trunks shook his head, smile still lingering on his lips. "Definitely strange," And a strange afternoon, Trunks thought to himself; and a strange last twenty-four hours. He hadn't laughed and smiled this much in a long time, and he definitely had not had this much fun just hanging out with his mom and Goten in years; and certainly never in their kitchen.
…
Once everyone had had enough to eat, they went back upstairs to watch some television and continue hanging out, while Bulma went to work in her home office.
"This is such a cool friggin room." Josie sighed happily, hands bent and supported on her lower back as she looked at all the stuff that was on their bookshelf wall. Goten looked over from his spot on the wall, amused by the different things that caught the girls attention. Valerie had definitely been more intrigued by the video games and sound system in the room but Josie was caught up in that wall anytime she was near it. "I think I gotta get it out of my system and try this super cool rolly ladder now." Seeing Trunks nod in permission, Josie carefully climbed the ladder and studied the different levels of books and picture frames, toys, board games and trinkets. Josie reached forward and grabbed a board game off the shelf and turned it around to read the back, before turning back to the others. "Who names their game quelf?"
"Bring that down, would you?" Josie did so and brought it to Trunks who took it, looking at the cover. "I went to the United States on my tenth grade and got this in a…target store, I believe." Josie looked at Trunks a little strangely, sitting back down on the chair and a half to his right.
"You think? What, you'd never seen a Target before?" Trunks smiled and shook his head, amused that she seemed so surprised by that.
"Baka," Valerie muttered at her from Trunks left, rolling her eyes. "They don't have everything we have and the other way around too, loser."
"That makes sense but…In-N-Out?" Josie asked suddenly, looking now to Goten; hoping that in this teenager's food wisdom, he'd hopefully encountered their delectable burgers. Goten shook his head at her, apologetically. "Travesty," Josie murmured sincerely with a sigh, leaning her elbow on the arm rest of the huge and comfortable seat, nodding her nose at the game in Trunks hands. "So the game any good?" Josie asked.
Trunks looked down at the game, remembering having only played it once on the trip itself and having brought it back home but never having the opportunity again. He smiled. "It's…a bit out there. I remember it made me curious as to the sanity of game-makers in the United States." Josie and Valerie looked intrigued by the description. "You want to play?"
They took off everything on the coffee table and set up and Trunks explained the rules as simply as he could:
You roll the dye, move your piece on the board and draw a card related to the color of the space you landed on. You read your card and you obey it; the first person to reach the finish and complete that final card wins.
Trunks set up stacks of purple cards, yellow cards, green cards, blue cards and red ones and a small sand timer. "Ready?" He asked; receiving nods, he rolled the dye and with his three, he landed on a yellow spot.
Trunks picked his card up, read its contents with a small frown and sighed. He reached for the timer and glancing at the others, he dryly flipped the timer and quietly stared at his fish tank. Goten, Josie and Valerie looked between each other questioningly, before focusing their attention on the unmoving half-saiyan who just….sat there.
"Uh…Trunks?" Goten asked, head tilted as Trunks eyes came to him but he still said nothing. "Everything okay there, buddy?" Trunks simply stared at him for a moment, before his eyes flickered down at the timer, and then back past Goten's shoulder to his fish tank again. Josie followed his line of sight, but seeing nothing but fish she shrugged at the confused Goten.
"Maybe it says something about this in here?" Valerie offered helpfully, grabbing the huge sheet of instructions and information on the game, from off the table. She tilted the paper half-way towards Goten and herself so he could take a look as well.
Josie meanwhile got up and sat directly in front of Trunks, atop the coffee table. "Is this because I hit you in the chest this morning with that hockey puck?" Trunks eyes lost their glazed look and focused on hers; amusement dancing in their blue depths; She also saw him swallow, and his mouth twitch briefly, as if he remembered her deadliness with air hockey strikers and it made him want to smile. "Or maybe you're hungry…?" Josie thought aloud, looking over her shoulder at the fish tank for a moment before her expression became appalled. "Trunks Brief!" She scolded, turning back to him. "You can't eat your fish just because you're hungry, I swear, you Saiyans are animals!—"
"—Looks like some yellow cards are classified." Goten explained to Josie who blinked over at him for a moment. "So its possible that he's not allowed to tell us what's happening right now."
"…Oh…" She looked back at Trunks, somewhat sheepishly now. Trunks didn't say anything, but he did not look pleased at being accused of being a wild animal incapable of rational thought when hungry; she was thankful to note that at least there was some amusement in his expression, his eyebrows twitching oh so slightly. "Interesting…" Josie murmured to herself, grabbing Trunks wrists up in the air and letting them drop back down to his thigh, and doing the same with the other.
"Dude, he's not a toy you can mess around with till the timer runs out." Valerie scolded, slapping Josie's right hand that came up to his chin level, her index finger poised and ready to poke. Undeterred, Josie lifted her other hand that was out of Valerie's reach and successfully poked the teenager's cheek, which immediately receded back into a begrudging grin at the contact. Trunks leaned back, away from Josie, snorting with a laugh of disbelief at her tenacious curiosity. The teenager immediately looked around Josie's form to the timer, whose last bit of sand was just now draining away to the bottom. He groaned with displeasure and shot Josie a forceless glare, as she moved to take her original seat back.
"I was supposed to remain motionless and silent for a minute, which sounded easy enough if it weren't for you." Trunks explained, showing Valerie his card when she leaned over to see. He read the penalty aloud and narrowed his eyes at Josie, as he moved his game piece three steps back, ending right where he started.
"Whoops." Josie snickered, unrepentant.
Valerie rolled the dye next and she landed a five on a blue spot. She picked up her blue card and read aloud, "Action Rule: Every time an opponent calls you by your first name, you must use your fingers to make the shape of a 'W', hold them against your forehead and say, 'Whatever!'—Oh friggin hell." Valerie immediately twisted her mouth in disapproval.
"Valerie," Josie immediately tested out, unperturbed by instant glare that burned the side of her smiling face. After hesitating a moment on how to exactly create the 'W' on her fingers, Josie helped her along: closing her fingers, except for her thumb and index fingers; she connected both fingers at the tips of her thumbs and grinning held it up helpfully to her own forehead. Valerie's glare deepened while she brought the 'W' to her forehead and turned into a single bird salute before gritting out, "What-ever."
Josie's grin brightened. "I like this game."
A lot of things came from this game:
Goten had been punished so frequently from messing up on his rules, questions and challenges that his game piece was off the board game entirely, in what the others deemed to be "Negative six" space; meaning, that Goten would have to have to land some high numbers before he could get anywhere near the board again.
All portable objects had to be removed from near Valerie while she played with Josie, due to Josie's inability to stop messing with Valerie at every given opportunity. Valerie would simply be reaching for her game-piece to move however many steps the dye indicated, but Josie would call her name before she could reach it; and this would force Valerie to have to stop what she was doing, bring her hands to her forehead to signal a W and flatly mutter "What-ever,". She'd immediately reach for her piece but Josie would call her name again, stopping her sometimes up to four times before a simple turn could be completed.
And the worst of all was Trunks. The table would revolt into snarls and angry shouts of rage whenever Trunks would land on a green space, because those were always compiled of trivia questions. And it still, somehow, came to shock everyone when he easily was able to answer ridiculous questions, such as: What is the name of a two-headed serpent? And which of the following is not a true name of an American City?
"—So which isn't real, Trunks? A) Tarzana, California B) Hell, Michigan C) Brownstain, Nevada D) Intercourse, Pennsylvania—" Josie snickered at that last one. "—Or Ding Dong, Texas."
"Browstain, Nevada." Trunks answered nearly immediately. Josie's grin of amusement dropped, and she looked up at him past the card she was reading the question from, with suspicion. She looked at the other side of the card for signs that there was anything marked on there, and even lifted the card up to the light to see if you could make out the words from the other side.
"Huh…I'm googling these later, there's no way most of these exist. I'd know if there was something called Ding Dong, Texas or Hell, Michigan." Josie muttered to herself, discarding the card and crossing her arms.
"I thought Intercourse would be the fake one." Valerie laughed lightly, reaching across for the card to verify that Josie was reading it accurately. "Look at that, he's right." Valerie reached to the board and moved Trunks a space back anyway. "You know you get a handicap on greens, Trunks."
Trunks shrugged, having accepted this rule a while back. "I thought you were from the United States of America?" Trunks asked Josie, curiously.
"I am," Josie said, feeling defensive from the apparent surprise he felt at her not knowing the answer to the question. "Nobody knows all the cities in their country, Trunks-"
"Abashiri, Abiko, Agano, Ageo, Aioi—"
'You've got to be kidding me!" Josie gaped. "I-its only because it's so much smaller in this country, you've probably only got a couple hundred cities."
"Six hundred and eighty-four that are cited as cities." Trunks shrugged, reaching over to take a drink from a can. "How many can you name?" He asked with a smile.
"…Tokyo City"
Trunks shook his head and corrected, "Tokyo City doesn't exist anymore, it was abolished some time ago." Josie's eyes widened, snapping towards Valerie.
"Is that a thing?!" Valerie seemed to mull that over for a moment before nodding.
"Yeah, I think there's like twenty something special wards," Valerie continued on, despite Josie's dumbstruck look. "That make up the prefect—"
"—Valerie—" Josie interrupted with a grin.
"—What-ever—damn it, Josie!"
Josie shrugged "I feel better."
…
Bulma would come downstairs from her home office upstairs from time to time and could hear the ruckus from down the hall, before she got anywhere near the common area; and every time that she heard it, it made her heart warm and her lips smile. She'd caught them watching a scary movie at some point; Josie and Valerie sharing the couch and a half because Josie seemed to be the most tense and frightened, while Trunks, Goten and Valerie laughed at the bad guy with buckets of popcorn spread throughout the coffee table. Another time she'd caught them playing some board game again, and after the third visit she witnessed Goten with his hand wrapped in tin foil; Valerie with her arms and legs stiffly held out to her sides; her son with his belt tightened around his forehead and a throw pillow shoved underneath his shirt; and Josie dropping off to the side, onto the ground, arm extended towards Goten and proclaiming, "You have thwarted me again, you vile beast!".
It made her turn around and quickly go away to avoid them hearing her laugh.
…
Bulma noted that dinner that night had been almost an entirely different experience from the night before. It almost seemed like it had been a different set of people around the table; from the tense and awkward atmosphere of the day before, to this active overlapping conversation; the kids shared their days activities with her and her husband, laughing and interrupting one another when a detail was omitted or exaggerated. Vegeta ate silently, seeming minutely annoyed by the loud banter at the table, but not seeming to intend to do anything about it, for which Bulma was grateful.
"It sounds like you guys had a busy day." Bulma remarked happily, chin resting on her elbow that sat on the table, beside her plate.
"I'm sorry we stopped you from working today." Josie apologized, having remembered that Bulma had come home from work to see to them and make sure that they were okay and eating.
Bulma noted that similarly to before, Josie's plate remained mostly untouched except for some of the white rice and the miso soup, which she carefully seemed to be sipping, avoiding the cloudy part that formed at the top. Bulma had to clear her throat to avoid laughing, as she watched Josie attempt to drink from her soup and avoid something that was unavoidable; she noted Trunks was watching this himself too and grinned at his mother. "Its really no problem," Bulma answered Josie with a smile. "I'm actually taking tomorrow off to take you both out. There are a couple things I want to make sure we get you set up with." Neither girl seemed too enthusiastic for that, but Bulma couldn't fault them for it. "If it helps you guys out, you can help out from time to time at Capsule Corp, as interns two days out of the week? That is essentially the same deal I have with Trunks for his upcoming last summer off for a very long time." Trunks sighed at the reminder of his fleeting youth, making Bulma rolled her eyes.
Valerie looked over at Josie to see if she'd try to argue her way out of it, but Josie smiled instead and nodded. "I can't believe you two will be staying here for the next few months." Goten commented with a pleased grin. "I really look forward to getting to know you both this spring and maybe even more over the summer."
"Us too," Josie replied happily, catching a glimpse across the table at Vegeta from the corner of her eye, where the saiyan Prince was tearing a piece of chicken with his teeth angrily, his shoulders tense. Josie couldn't help but add with a shy smile. "With all of you." Bulma laughed at the girls grit and lack of self-preservation, and got up to grab dessert from the kitchen.
"Are you really going tomorrow?" Valerie asked Goten with some disappointment, already used to the presence of the youngest Son to help buffer the overwhelming Brief family in the last forty-eight hours.
"Yeah, I'm afraid so." Goten said, his expression mirroring her disappointment. "I haven't stayed over for two nights for some years now; I've got to get started on my mountain pile of homework and help out around Mount Paozu." Valerie felt butterflies at the name of the infamous lands that Goku grew up in and imagined briefly, what it would be like to visit there.
"—All right, who is ready for some dessert?" Bulma brought out a few platters with dango, dorayaki, mochi and daifuku. Josie's eyes had brightened at the question but dulled when she saw the foreign looking sweets.
"That pancake looks like it has fried beans inside…" Josie whispered to Valerie, while Goten and Trunks loudly cooed over the beautiful array.
Valerie hissed back, "Shut up and try the mochi—" She gave polite smile back to Bulma and an enthusiastic thank you when a plate was set before her.
…
After dinner, Valerie and Josie helped clear up, while the guys went upstairs to pop in a video game. When the girls went upstairs, Valerie told Josie she wanted to crash early and went into her bedroom; Josie considered going with the boys to stay up a while, but she'd hardly had a moment to breathe on her own since arriving here, so she figured Valerie had the right idea and went into her room for the night.
Josie turned on the light, taking in the details of her bedroom; from the texture on her walls, to the small indent on the edge of her desk, to the smell of wet grass entering through the still open window as she breathed in. This place truly was her heaven, she thought; smiling at the strange combination of peace and butterflies she seemed to always feel here. She wanted to talk about it with someone, but who could she talk to? She didn't want to further weird out her new tentative dbz friends and Valerie sure as hell didn't want her to express any joy in their predicament. She went to her backpack she'd half haphazardly threw in the closet once the room had been declared hers; Josie grabbed her notebook from within the bag and sat down at her desk with it, easily finding a pen in the drawer.
And she wrote for an hour — on and off — and she drew hearts and clouds, and pictures of these incredible people she'd met; the images resembling stick-figures more than any successful drawing she'd ever seen of the dbz gang.
I'm going to make these people my friends, Diary. They are going to have a hell of a time ever forgetting they ever met this ole flat chest…
She snorted in amusement at the name Shannon had called her before she'd kicked him in his questionably 'mister' jewels. Feeling better after writing down everything she'd experienced, she went and closed her window, curling up on the bed with a pillow held softly to her chest; unable to shake off the —nearly painful—contented smile on her face.
In the other room, Valerie sat beside her bed, squeezing a pillow to her chin with one hand, and resting her casted hand atop her bent knees. Her vision blurred from tears pooling at her eyes, unable to help herself. She worried about her father, who was her best friend; did he know? Had time stopped when they came here? Were they here at all? What if they were in some awful coma and her family surrounded them at their bedsides; What if they had died and were just shoved violently into another existence, and had no chance of ever going back home? She choked on a cry, missing the soft fur of her two little dogs; the safety of her green room she had painted herself; her canvases and paints, skateboard, and her loud music blaring out of her huge headphones she'd constantly take to school.
Would she get to see them again? That's really all she wanted to be assured of — that she wasn't dead, and that she'd see them again so that she could stop feeling so guilty about enjoying this incredible world.
…
In the common area, Goten and Trunks had talked, part of them waiting to be interrupted by one of the girls at any given moment for the next hour. Realizing that they weren't coming, the two continued to chat and watch TV, instead of popping in the video game like they had originally intended.
"I'm going to put this thing away before the girl's get a chance to look at it and try to talk us into playing again." Trunks picked up the board game from earlier in the day and went to the rolling library ladder to put the game high up where the girls would have a hard time finding it.
"Hmm yeah…I don't think my hand has recovered quite yet from the clammy tin foil but it was still pretty fun, minus your trivia questions."
"It's not my fault I'm the smartest guy on the planet, Goten." Goten only smiled in response at that, used to his friend's confidence. "Now this is something worth looking at." Trunks pulled out a photo album from high up where he'd decided to store the game and brought it down, taking it to the couch.
"What is it?" Goten asked, tilting his head in the album's direction. "I haven't seen that thing in ages. Your mom used to update that religiously." Goten grinned, looking past Trunks, back up to the book shelf. "She's still got dozens of photo albums of just you?"
"Give her a break, she thought I'd be her only kid." Trunks laughed, gesturing towards that top row of albums at the very top of their book-shelf wall. "This one though is from those summers when you practically lived here." He reminded, opening it up and pointing to a few different pictures of them.
There were some of the kitchen in a complete disarray before a birthday party of Trunks when the two young boys had gotten into the fridge and eating all the stored sweets. There were others of the two sleeping together messily on Trunks bed in a tangle of limbs, and a few of them buck naked when they were seven and eight in front of Goku's house for bath time. Many of their adventures out in the world, searching for dragon balls, and then much simpler shots of them in the toy rooms grinning cheerily up to Bulma's camera.
"I remember how much I wanted to live here with you." Goten commented with a smile, as he studied his round and happy face. "I loved my mom and Gohan, but he got so busy with Videl and school, and my mom did her best but she didn't want to play like you and I did."
Trunks smiled at his friend, patting his back once. "We had an amazing childhood together, didn't we buddy?" Goten nodded as he turned to the next page; wondering to himself, when had things started to change? Was it when his father returned to permanently live with his family in Mount Paozu? Was it when they started going to school? Trunks had gone to mostly private schools and Goten to public when he wasn't home-schooled, and before they knew it, even their longed for summers became rarer, as their interests changed and their time became consumed by different things.
Trunks thought process was functioning much the same way that Goten's was at the moment, but he found that he cared less to find out the reason, and more, resolve to do better. He looked over to his friend and smiled, "What are you doing next weekend?"
Goten looked at him and grinned, shrugging. "I didn't have anything planned."
"What's say you come back over again? I'd suggest we go to your place but I don't think the girls are quite ready for that yet."
Goten laughed at that, surprised by the offer. "Yeah, lets do it. What are they going to be doing through the week while you and I are starting the new school year anyway?"
Trunks closed the photo album as they reached the end of it and put it on the coffee table, leaning back on the couch, lazily. "Going to school with me, of course." Goten nearly choked on his saliva at the way Trunks casually put that huge phrase out there. "What?" Trunks asked, trying —and failing— to suppress a smile of amusement at his reaction.
"Do THEY know that?"
"They don't have a clue." Trunks grinned.
Note: This chapter is simple but I like it, I hope you guys did too. In this chapter I started to see the subtle things the girls could change for the better. From here on out I stopped paying as much attention to proofreading (And I promise I'll get back around to doing it) but for now, please accept my sincerest apologies!
