She refused to come out for supper, she ignored everyone who knocked on her door and called to her, she made it seem like she was not even there; but they knew she was and it bothered them that she was closed up like that. Goten kept going back to try and get Azumi to talk to him, all he wanted was one word, but she stayed silent. Chi-Chi went back a few times and came back shaking her head after every attempt. Chi-Chi left a plate of food in the kitchen for her before they all went to bed; it was still there the next morning.
"What happened yesterday," Chi-Chi asked cleaning the plate before she started breakfast.
"We ended up in her old neighborhood and one of her friends saw her. They had a little fight and then, well this," he shrugged and looked back toward Azumi's door. Chi-Chi shook her head and sighed drying off the plate.
"I don't know what I'm going to do with her."
"What are you going to do? She can't sit in there all day can she?" Goten was worried, his friend was locked up and no one knew why.
Chi-Chi shook her head again and started for the door out of the house. "I'll be right back."
She came back a few minutes later with Videl and Pan. The sleeping child was handed off to Goten as the mothers headed for Azumi's room. Goten looked after them and waited, they would be back soon enough.
Videl knocked on the door, "Azumi, can I come in?" Silence followed, she looked back at Chi-Chi and then to the door. "Azumi, I just want to talk, please open the door," again there was no response.
"Do you think we should just go in," Chi-Chi asked, she was worried. Videl nodded and grabbed the door knob.
"Azumi, I'm coming in," she opened the door slowly and looked around. The room was empty. "She's not here."
Azumi walked down the familiar streets feeling like she was about to throw up. In the middle of the night when she decided to do this she had not entirely thought it through, but she was going to do it anyway. She was going to her parent's house.
The encounter with Akemi had snapped something inside Azumi. She had no idea what it was but it bothered her. She could not fall asleep—that might have had something to do with her lack of good judgment about coming here—and she opted not to eat; but she was a long way from tired and only hungered for one thing: what her parents had done after she left nearly two years prior?
She turned up the walk to her parent's house and felt her stomach drop. She took a deep breath and nodded to herself, she could do this. She had fought against Vegeta, the second strongest guy on the planet, she joked around with the strongest people on the planet, she was being trained by the people who saved the world repeatedly; she could handle talking to two people she could barely stand for a single afternoon.
She knocked on the door, her stomach dropped again as she heard someone inside moving closer to the door. The door swung inward suddenly revealing her younger brother Ryouichi. He looked at her suspiciously for a few seconds then turned and entered the house leaving the door sitting wide open. No "hello", no "welcome back". Not even an "I missed you", he just walked away.
"Mom, Azumi's back," he shouted moving to sit in front of the television.
"What do you mean," he mother called from somewhere else inside the house. Azumi could guess she was cleaning, her mother cleaned continuously.
Azumi sighed and followed her brother into the house, quietly closing the door behind her.
"She's here, what more do I need to say," her brother shouted in response, sitting on the floor to watch his program.
Her mother appeared out of the back of the house. She was wearing a dress and an apron with her arms crossed in front of her chest. She made a "tut" sound looking over Azumi. "What are you doing here?"
"I came to see you," she replied trying to sound neutral, looking her mother over. She was still the same as she had been before, vulture like with beady eyes that always displayed an immense hatred for Azumi.
"Why," her mother snapped.
Azumi knew what her mother was expecting. She was expecting Azumi to say she had been wrong before and she had failed to handle being out in the world alone. Her mother was waiting for Azumi to say she wanted to come back home. Then her mother could complain about having to feed her colossal appetite and finding room to put her in, again. And how much trouble Azumi was causing the family, again.
"Don't tell me you can't find some other place to stay," her mother shook her head, "it's no wonder; you're a lazy little good-for-nothing who eats like a cow."
"I have a place to stay," Azumi spoke while her mother was looking for more things wrong with her. "I found someone to teach me martial arts too, and you don't have to pay them anything," she added before her mother could complain about how much that would cost her.
"Then what do you want," her mother snapped, "it can't be that you'd just show up again to say hi. You must want something."
Azumi dropped her gaze to the floor; it had gotten worse since she left. "I just wanted to see you."
"Yea right," Ryouichi snorted from his spot on the floor. "You always need something."
Azumi looked over at her brother, fighting down the urge to hit him, and then back to her mother. "Is it so wrong that I wanted to come see you, my family?" her mother looked at her speechless and trying to find a way to make that question be more painful to Azumi. "I mean the people I'm staying with now care about me more than you do, and you're my mother."
"They must have low standards then," her mother huffed unable to find anything else to say.
"Where's dad," Azumi asked suddenly. He would care, he had to care, he had always cared moe about Azumi than her mother had.
"He's at work. He has to support his family," her mother replied snidely.
Azumi took a deep breath and then turned and walked out of the house. No one tried to stop her and no one shouted after her, so Azumi left the door sitting open; as soon as she was out of the house she shot into the air and flew away from Gingertown.
They were nothing to her, they always had been. She could make do without them, she always had.
"The blue stretching on forever is, kinda, calming," Azumi was hovering above the ocean.
She soaring over the ocean before she realized she was going the wrong way, but when she stopped to turn around something caught her attention. She looked at the water for what felt like hours trying to determine what it was, but all she could see was the blue-green waters stretching out, fading to blue and turning into the sky.
She was floating more upside down than sideways, staring at the water.
'Why don't I leave here and go back to the house?' She did not need to stop and think about that, 'Because Chi-Chi might be mad when I get there…'
'Why don't I just go somewhere else, like the Kame House, or Capsule Corp.? They would tell Chi-Chi and I would still be in trouble…' She kept getting caught on the point that Chi-Chi would get mad, she had not even thought about Chi-Chi being mad because she was worried, all Azumi could think about was the fact that she would be mad.
'Why am I floating above the ocean?' She stopped to think about that, why was she just hovering above the ocean when she could go anywhere she wanted with no hassle? 'What else can I do?'
"No, don't answer with a question, that's stupid," she scolded turning fully upside down staring at the water. She sighed and closed her eyes. She stopped using her energy to hover over the water and started to fall.
'What if I didn't go back to Goku's?' she thought hitting the water. 'What if I just disappear again?' She surfaced on the water, floating as they waves pulled her back and forth. She sighed and opened her eyes, "Would they come and find me, or just move on without me?"
The sky held no answer, and her mind was refusing to function properly, after what happened last time she thought about something she was scared to try it again. Her mother did not care, her brother had not cared, she really did not want to confront her father and find how that he did not care. Her friends only cared because they cheated off her, none of Gingertown cared, not even the school system. Was her life so meaningless that people just did not care when she left?
It seemed like Goku and the others cared, but maybe they were just pretending to care. Maybe they were glad she was not in the house that morning. They could go back to their normal lives now. Just like everyone else in her life.
She felt an energy flying toward her and recognized it as Goku's, without thought she suppressed her energy, basically rendering her invisible. Goku would have to see her to find her now. It was mean to do that, but she really wanted to be alone with her depression and sour thoughts. She could feel him coming closer; flying straight toward her. "Or past me," she thought aloud waiting for him to pass.
Before long Goku came into view, he slowed as he passed nearby, he was checking the water. He was looking for her. Azumi took a deep breath and slipped back under the water; she wanted to stay missing, just so she could avoiding talking about the mess her life had become.
'Why am I hiding from Goku and the others,' she wondered as she waited. Was it because she was afraid they would be like her family and not care when she left? Was she trying to avoid finding out their reactions by simply avoiding them all together? What would she do now? She had avoided Goku, Chi-Chi would be furious, Goten would look at her with the same sympathy look he had the day before with Trunks. Gohan would try to get her talk about it, Videl would offer to listen if she ever wanted to talk; but that was what grownups were suppose to do, and that was just the way Goten was.
She stayed under until her lungs began to burn then she allowed herself to drift back to the surface. Goku was hovering directly over her looking at her with a face laced with disappointment, his arms crossed over his chest. She sighed looking up at the man.
"I guess I'm in trouble now," it was a statement that showed just how completely resigned she was to whatever fate Goku had in store, and how little she cared about it.