Hey, thank you very much for all your feedbacks.
Kalebxdd is still beta reading this story and I have to thank him. (As usual don't forget to take a glance at his work, if not already done I mean.)
Chapter 13.
It took him two hours of running before his mind could get rid of his anger against Trunks and his fear about Bulla. Concern was exhausting. It clouded any rational thought and tainted his every feeling. As long as it had been concern about himself, it had never bothered him. As long as it had been about him surviving, getting stronger or defeating any foe, he'd always dealt pretty good with concern. Now, he had to worry for his kids and it was something different. He questioned every single decision he took, he was suspicious about any single idea popping up in his head. All this left him clueless and blind. Doubt was a new kind of torture he'd never faced before.
As he was back and drinking water at the kitchen's tap, the doorbell rang. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and waited for a second, hoping that someone in the house would feel like opening the door. Yet, Bulma and Bulla weren't home and he could hear the humming of some terrible music coming from Trunks's room. For sure, the boy hadn't heard anything. Vegeta resigned himself to walking to the door and opening it with a sigh.
Krillin's daughter. Again. She was standing stiff with an annoyed face on the porch. Vegeta rubbed his eyelids with a weary gesture. "So, what is it today?" he asked.
"I need to see Trunks."
He was almost relieved by this reply and stepped aside to clear her way inside. "Upstairs. Remember where his room is? You just have to follow that horrible sound he calls music anyway."
She glanced at him and frowned. She seemed nervous or angry as if expecting something from him. However, whatever her problem was, Vegeta had no desire to know anything about it. He was fed up with all those kids' problems.
He ignored her gaze with great care and left her behind as he headed to his room in order to have his shower while she was walking to Trunks's room. As he was about to get undressed, he felt Trunks's ki flaring all of a sudden. He pinpointed anger straight away. It was an evil, unusual anger.
After a second thought, he decided to walk out and check if everything was fine. Deep down inside his mind he knew nothing was fine, though. Trunks's ki was getting much too high for a mere argument with another kid.
When he stepped into the corridor, he heard a muffled thud and an angry shout, causing a faint vibration in the wall. Krillin's daughter yelled something.
Vegeta didn't understand the words but he recognized panic. He bursted into his son's room and cringed as he found the boy had grasped his friend's throat and slammed her against the wall. She was struggling with fury, yet without any results. "Let go of me, Trunks! You hurt me!"
She could hardly utter the words due to the strong grip on her throat. Vegeta didn't wait, nor tried to say anything he pushed his son aside with strength in order to release the girl. Trunks let go of her and fell on the floor, bumping violently the bed in the process. Marron gasped and collapsed with a loud thug.
"Are you getting mad?" the Saiyan asked his boy with bewilderment.
Trunks didn't try to get up, nor looked up at his father. "Tell her to get the fuck out of this house," he merely spat.
"Freaky psychopathic," she hissed as she was trying to stand up while rubbing her aching throat.
"Shut up!" Trunks screamed with a threatening tone, standing up in one go.
Vegeta was puzzled. He looked at the girl panting and leaning against the wall. "Get out of this room," he ordered her.
She glanced at Trunks with grudge and obliged silently. The Saiyan closed the door behind her and glared at his son. "What the hell do you think you were doing? Trying to kill her?"
Trunks was massaging the shoulder his father had punched. His features were uncommunicative and Vegeta understood he wouldn't answer. The Saiyan couldn't accept such unconcerned behavior. If it hadn't been for him stepping in, Trunks could have really wounded the girl or even worse. He couldn't leave him act so thoughtlessly, his son was supposed to be old enough to master his strength and power. "Look at me," Vegeta ordered with a cold voice.
The boy did as he was told. His eyes were still burning with some rage Vegeta had never seen in him. "I don't care why you both were arguing, what you did was just crazy," the Saiyan resumed.
"She needed a lesson, I just wanted to scare her," Trunks mumbled with unease.
In a blink, Vegeta was on his son and punched him in the jaw. Trunks was caught off guard and fell on his knees with a hiss. His mouth was bleeding again. Vegeta had grasped his neck and was clenching his finger on it in order to keep the boy still. "Don't you take me for a fool, Son. You didn't intend to scare her, you wanted to hurt her. Do you think I wouldn't see the difference? What the hell is wrong with you? You just refused to give me a single blow while sparring and now, you're attacking a weak little girl? Did you lose your head?"
Trunks was struggling in an attempt to get rid of his father grip and gasped as he felt it tighten on his neck instead.
"Now, it seems that you need some more training to learn how to keep a cool head with people around you. I'll take care of that," Vegeta stated.
All of sudden Trunks cried out and pushed his father backward. Vegeta almost lost his balance while his son bolted up.
"Fuck! Leave me alone!" the boy yelled with anger. "Stop pretending you care because you don't. You never gave a damn. You don't care for Marron, nor for the other Earthlings, nor for how I feel. As long as nothing disturbs your obsession with your training, you care like shit. Why don't you just act as usual and just get locked in your beloved Gravity Room?"
Vegeta was taken aback by this outburst and stayed still at his son's word. Trunks didn't wait for his reply and just rushed out the room. The Saiyan heard his steps running down the stairs and the house's backdoor slamming, then everything went silent. Vegeta remained numb for a while and followed mentally his son's ki flying off from the garden and speeding away.
When he exited the room, he found Krillin's daughter sitting on the floor in the corridor, her head leaning against the wall behind her. Their eyes met.
"He went that way," she stated while pointing at the stairs.
"You really think it's the best time to joke?" Vegeta groaned.
"I didn't know there was a best time to joke with you," she replied bitterly.
He stared at her. She was still rubbing her throat. Her voice was lower than usual and she was short of breath but he estimated that everything should be back to normal soon. She would survive.
"You wanna call someone?" he asked.
She had a little laugh, that actually rather sounded like a wheeze, and stood up with an obvious pain. "It's okay, I'll make it. Anyway, it would be better if my mum never heard of that because Trunks would be in deep shit. Just give me a glass of water before I go."
When they walked to the kitchen, he noticed the red stains of Trunks's grip on her pale throat. It put him in a cold sweat thinking how much his son had screwed up.
"I'll wear a scarf," Marron said all of a sudden, snatching him from his meditations.
He met her stern eyes and felt awkward to realize she could guess his every thoughts. He nodded and poured her a glass of water. She took a seat at the counter and swallowed a shy gulp from the glass. She winced in pain as the liquid slid down her throat. "Bastard," she mumbled with a frown.
Vegeta had crossed his arms and was leaning against the wall, waiting patiently for her to be done.
"You're not going to ask?" she resumed after a while.
He raised a surprised eyebrow. "Ask what?"
She sighed and gave him a weak smile. "Trunks's right. You don't give a damn, do you?"
Vegeta frowned and pouted. He didn't like that girl very much from the beginning, she was cheeky and always getting on his nerves. "Mind your own business, girl."
She chuckled. "I'll try that. I was just wondering, what about your own business? Do you mind them yourself?"
"What the fuck are you talking about?"
"I can't believe you don't even try to know what we were arguing about, or what happened at the party."
He huffed. "Huh. That party, so you were there?"
"Yes I was. The boy that ended up in the hospital is one of my best friends."
"So, let me guess. You were all pissed and your pathetic friend stumbled and fell through a windowpane. What a glorious story indeed."
She bit her lips and her features became stern. "This is the politically correct side of the story. Of course, I guess you bought it. How convenient after all."
He repressed an annoyed sigh and came closer to her. He rested his elbows on the counter and looked her right in her eyes with an intimidating, cold face. "I bought it because it seemed very likely coming from brainless Earthling kids. Now little girl, if you want to tell me something, stop playing and spill the beans. Just try to make it more believable than my son being a psychopathic killer."
She cringed but didn't gaze away. "We drank, that's right. Some of us drank a lot," she stated.
Vegeta rolled his eyes and rested his chin on his palm as if preparing to listen to something very boring.
"There was an argument, that's right too. My friend was… well, he was really drunk and he started to blame Trunks for having a party in such a short time after Becky's death. But, after he'd uttered Becky's name, everything went out of control. Trunks went mad," she resumed.
"He was drunk, no big deal," Vegeta grunted with a shrug.
"No big deal? For God's sake, open your eyes, Vegeta!" she exclaimed in shock, "If it hadn't been for Goten, he could have killed my friend. We're lucky your non-psychopathic son contented himself with punching our friend through a windowpane! He was mad. So mad and so scary, nobody dared to explain what happened exactly, some of the guests even ran away."
She put her hand on her forehead in an attempt to contain her emotion as she was remembering the events. "Fuck, there was blood everywhere, you didn't hear my friend screaming from pain," she whispered with a weary voice.
Vegeta remained unruffled. "You're so emotional, Trunks wouldn't…"
"And what about the way he attacked me in his room? He wasn't drunk then," she yelled frantically.
She kept quiet all of a sudden and rubbed her eyes as she was trying to regain her composure. The Saiyan's emotionless face impressed her and made her desperate at the same time. Yet, for a reason she couldn't explain, he was the only one she trusted enough to confess all those things. It was stupid because she didn't know him very well and he was really someone weird. Maybe it was because he was so weird, she'd thought he would handle all this shit with cold blood.
"I came… I wanted to see Trunks to tell him not to go to the hospital because my friend is really scared now and I know Bulma said Trunks would have to visit him every single day to see how he was doing. Then, I tried to speak about Becky. Everyone thinks he got something to do with her death and no one really bought that suicide-thing," she stammered.
"Stop it. I can't believe Trunks killed that girl. You can tell me whatever you want but not that," Vegeta cut off with a stern face.
"I know he didn't but, Vegeta… He's so… I mean, most of the time, he's cold and unaffected by anything, and then he gets mad and violent. There's something wrong with him, I don't know what to do. I have the feeling it's gonna end in a very dirty way."
Vegeta closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose as he was pondering about what the girl was explaining. He was wondering if her feelings were trustworthy. Her eyes were shining with contained tears and she looked so childish at that moment.
He could remember how Bulla had been afraid about the grinning skull on Trunks's door and she had even convinced herself that the paper skull would lock its empty eyes on her when she would walk by it in the corridor. Krillin's daughter was maybe somehow reacting the same way, the emotion made her picture terrible things where there was nothing to worry about.
When he opened his eyes, she was still sitting opposite of him, staring blankly at her glass of water. "You don't believe me," she stated with a meek voice.
"I'll watch Trunks," he announced.
She looked up at him with hope and had a faint nod. "He needs it," she insisted.
Vegeta had no will to comfort her but it came to his mind that he had no desire to have her babble around about his son, either. Had she talked that way to Bulma, his wife would have turned frantic in a blink.
Things were simpler in the Saiyan's mind. Trunks was a cold nature, just like himself. Although he grieved for his friend, he never expressed his pain and those stupid Earthlings found it suspicious to the point of blaming him for her death. His son was hurt and that was too much for him. Vegeta knew that feeling when pain turned to a mad anger and need for destruction.
Time would likely be enough for Trunks to regain some peace and self control. Hopefully.
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