"I am telling you," Goku said, agitation in his voice, "this is the right!"

"And I am telling you," Krillen shot back, "that you are way off base here!"

The taller of the pair huffed as they continued to stroll down the sidewalk. "Would it kill you to have a little faith in my opinions?" he snipped, adjusting his backpack. "Come on, trust me a little on this!"

Krillen groaned. "Listen, Goku, I have faith in you. I have a lot of faith in you. I have more faith in you than most people would consider to be healthy. But I promise you, I promise you, Goku, you are wrong on this one!"

"Am not!"

"Are too!"

"Am not!"

"Are too!"

"Am not!" Goku said a third time, a smirk on his face. "And before you try to 'are too' me, you may want to ask Raditz about exactly how long I can keep this up. I will win, and there is just no way around it."

A huff came out of the smaller of the pair. "You being more stubborn does not make you more right."

"Sure it does!" Goku crowed. "That's how people have known who was right for centuries. Whoever wins makes the rules. I won, so I make the rules, so I rule that I am right!"

"You pick the weirdest parts of our history class to really pay attention to, you know?" Krillen sighed.

"Yup." Goku shifted the backpack again. "I know you like to write everything down, and I really do try to keep up, but I seem to learn it a lot better when I stop writing and start listening. Is it my fault that our history teacher decided to bring up that particular idea when I got a hand cramp and stopped writing?"

Krillen groaned. "I have got to start winning so I can make the rules." He shifted his own school supplies on his back. Even though they took no more than two classes in any given day, they were both carrying full loads. All of those materials added up in weight, and Krillen found himself remembering that he had never actually found a comfortable way to wear a backpack. "Tell you what, how about you and I come up with our own set of jointly agreed upon rules for us to use in future…"

"Shh."

"Hey, I'm not strong arming you here," Krillen responded, a pout on his face. "All I was saying was…"

"Krillen, shut up." Goku's face was serious as he looked out into the sea of people in front of them. He studied the area carefully before his eyes narrowed and he grabbed his hand by the arm. "Come on."

Still confused, Krillen tripped his way through the first few steps. "What?"

"Come on!" The taller teen began running down the street, having let go of the other's wrist. It was not easy for him to maneuver. He had never exactly been a small person, and the added bulk of his backpack only made things more difficult. Goku was no quitter, though, and he skillfully made his way through the crowd without running into a single person.

Krillen had no idea what was going on, but Goku did not just take off for no reason. The weight on his back was proportionally greater, and he really did feel like an enormous turtle as he tried to track his companion. Thankfully Goku was taller than almost everyone else on the street, and it made him fairly easy to spot. It took him a little longer to cover the distance, but his speed was still fairly impressive. "Goku," he panted, "what the hell is going on?" Goku said nothing, staring in silence at the doorway to a building with an unreadable expression on his face. "Seriously, man" the smaller one said, trying to slow his breath, "what is it?"

"I found him."

"Huh?"

Goku marched again, aggressively pushing the doorway open. The building was old and clearly needed a lot of work done to it. As he walked further in, Goku noticed more than one indicator that the building they stood in was condemned. He frowned as he found a dilapidated staircase, and as he planted a foot on the bottom step he found himself doubting that it would hold his weight. Cautiously he lowered his backpack to the floor. "Stay down here," he softly told his friend.

Krillen was not happy about the situation. "Yeah, sure," he agreed, "but what, exactly, are we doing in this death trap?"

"Just stay here," Goku repeated, slowly making his way up the stairs. If he had been hoping to move stealthily, he was failing miserably. Every movement he made was accompanied with quite a bit of noise. With a grimace he cleared the final four steps in a single movement and rounded the corner into a mostly empty room. It was covered in dust and broken bits of cement and glass, except for one area in the corner which had been cleaned up. There was a single blanket there, neatly folded and tucked in the shadows. Goku took a few more steps in, cautious as the floor screeched every time his weight landed on it. There was one window in the room and it was open, causing some of the dust to gently dance in the air. Not particularly surprised, the teenager noticed that the window led to the base level of a fire escape.

"Goku!"

His head snapped back toward the stairwell at the call. Krillen's voice was an odd mixture of panic and excitement, and Goku quickly made his way back to the steps. "What?"

"I think I saw him!"

Both of them ran outside and tried to catch their ghost, but by the time they were out, there was no trace of him. Krillen kept trying, though, running down the street in a desperate attempt to keep the search alive. Though he hesitated, Goku was not still for long before trying the same. They ran up opposing sides of the street, looking in every window and alley they went by. They were on the verge of giving up when Krillen noticed something and yelled out, "Hey!"

Goku sprinted across the street, not giving a damn about the traffic. "You got him?"

Silently Krillen pointed up, and they both watched the figure squirm into a crack in the third floor of another broken down building. "Come on," Goku huffed, moving again, "we can catch him."

With their teamwork they made quick time up to where the hole was, but it was very clear when they got to it that Goku was not going to fit. "Go on," he told his friend. "I'll keep eyes on the outside."

Krillen grunted the word yes as he fought his way in. After what he had seen, he was surprised at how snug the gap felt to him. Even with his short, slim build, he could barely fit. Scrambling once he reached the other side, Krillen quieted down and listened to where the other footsteps were coming from. One flight up, almost directly overhead. Without wasting time, the teenager found his way up and called out to the one he was chasing. "Wait up!" The footsteps stalled, but only for a moment. "Come on, you know I'm not going to quit!"

Again the steps slowed, and Krillen pressed the advantage. "I already know you're here, so you might as well just let me say hi. I'll die chasing you if I have to!"

The sound of feet stopped altogether, and Krillen headed into their last known location. He rounded the corner, and there he was.

"Vegeta…" Krillen was almost completely out of breath, but he fought to keep himself from looking weak. It had been months since he had last even heard from his best friend.

The long lost teenager kept his back toward his friend and said nothing.

"Come on," Krillen softly asked. "Please talk to me. You don't have to come back, you don't need to tell me why you left, you don't have to do any of that. Just stay here for a minute. Please. I miss you."

Vegeta turned his head slightly, but still kept his face well hidden.

Krillen hesitantly moved forward. One hand was gently outreached as he said, "Why don't we just take a seat?" When nothing happened, Krillen's hand went down as he slowly moved forward. "Say anything. Please."

"I'm not going back."

His voice had become rougher in the past few months, sounding almost like he had forgotten how to use it. "You don't have to."

"I can't."

Krillen frowned. "I won't make you," he assured, "but coming back will always be an option. Always."

"No."

The frown deepened, and Krillen took another step forward, but froze as Vegeta turned around. It did not matter how badly he wanted to hide it, the shock was evident on the smaller boy's face.

The last time he had seen Vegeta, his face had been half broken. He had been exhausted and stressed and really had looked as though he had just been hit by a bus. But after several months, Krillen had assumed that the other teenager would have been fully healed.

Those injuries were gone, but clearly he had not been avoiding him. The left side of his face was black and blue. His eyes were bloodshot, his cheeks stood out even further, he looked absolutely awful. Finally really taking in his friend's appearance, Krillen realized that Vegeta, who had always been on the skinnier side since the day they had met, had lost substantial weight. "Holy crap," he softly said. "Vegeta…"

"I have to go."

Krillen opened his mouth, but Vegeta was already on the move and clearly knew where he was going. The younger boy simply stood and watched his friend vanish again. As he slowly began to make his way down, he found an odd numb sensation spreading its way through his small body. When he made his way outside of that same gap he had entered through, he actually did not hear as Goku asked how it had gone. "Huh?"

"That was him, wasn't it?"

Shaking his head, Krillen fought to pull words together. "Yeah, uh, that was him."

"Well, how is he?" Goku quickly asked. "Where has he been? Why did he leave? When is he coming back? How as he…"

"Goku," the other boy softly interrupted, "stop."

Goku frowned. "Krillen, what happened?"

Krillen swallowed hard. "He, um, he didn't look to good," he honestly said, his voice shaking. "He didn't say much. He, uh, said he wouldn't...he couldn't…"

Lowering his head, Goku looked at his feet. "He's not coming back, is he?"

"No," Krillen hoarsely answered. Slowly he looked over at his remaining friend. "Goku, I'm really worried about him."

Attempting to be reassuring, Goku brought his eyes up and gave Krillen a pat on the back. "Look, I know things have been rough lately, but…"

"Did you see him?" Krillen interrupted. "I mean, did you really see him? It's bad, Goku. He needs help." His eyes got distant, his face distraught. "I don't know what we should do."

Solemnly Goku reached out and took Krillen by the arm. "Come on," he gently said. "You and I are going to go back the first building, we're going to pick up our school stuff, and we're going to go back to the house. Then we can talk about what we can do from there. Okay?"

They were quiet with one another as they did just that.

/

"Listen to me," Chi-Chi laughed, "I know what I am talking about."

"I can't hear you, I can't hear you!" Bulma kept repeating, her fingers in her ears. "La la la la la la la la…"

"You know I know you can still hear every word I say, right?" the brunette pointed out. "Now stop being such a child and take your fingers out of your ears. We're going to talk about this like the adults we are."

Bulma pouted, but did as she was told. "I just don't feel comfortable with this topic."

"Well you better get used to it," Chi-Chi clearly stated. "Bulma, you need to know what losing your virginity is going to be like in advance, or you are going to be in for one bad evening. Now ask yourself this: would you rather talk to me about it, or to any of the guys about it?"

"Hey, I am not totally ignorant!" Bulma shot back. "I know it'll probably hurt."

The more experienced woman smirked. "Do you know for how long?"

"Huh?"

"Do you know what you can do to ease it?" she went on. "Do you know how you're going to react when the pain? Do you have a strategy for if you react negatively to it? Are you ready to talk to Raditz about it?"

Bulma felt her face flash brilliantly. "Seriously, when did you get interested in sex?"

"When I stopped being able to have it," the brunette quickly answered. "I only recently got cleared to start again, and Goku's been so scared about knocking me up again that I can barely get him to second base. So, since I'm clearly going through an epic dry spell and you are about to start having sex for the first time, I need to live vicariously through you."

"Well could you at least be a little more demure?" Bulma asked. "This brash Chi-Chi is freaking me out."

Chi-Chi took a long drink from her water glass. "Don't worry," she assured, "I will stop being brash when the guys get back, and I will stay un-brash once I start getting some action again."

Bulma opened her mouth to retaliate, but the sound of keys in the front door stalled her tongue. "To be continued," she hissed. She turned and smiled as the door opened, revealing her fiance. "Hey, sweetie," she cheerfully greeted. "How was your day?"

"Insane," Raditz sighed, shrugging out of his jacket. "Apparently a bunch of the guys went out last night, and called in with 'food poisoning' this morning."

"All hungover?"

"And possibly fired."

Bulma laughed and kissed his cheek. "Well, we have had a surprisingly quiet day around here, so I hereby give you clearance to kick your feet up and relax. Enjoy it while it lasts, honey, because when I start having bad days, I fully expect reciprocation."

Raditz began to say something, but the door was opening again. Goku and Krillen entered, and Chi-Chi walked over to her boyfriend. "Hey," she greeted, giving him a kiss on the cheek. "How was class? I thought you were going to get home earlier." She looked at his expression and placed a hand gently on the same spot she had just kissed. "Goku, what's wrong?"

Krillen walked right through the group and grabbed a glass from the cupboard, filling it up with water and taking a sip from it. Whatever had happened had clearly left him shaken, and he never really brought his eyes up as he walked into the living room and sat on a cushion on the floor.

The three who had beaten the students home exchanged a wary glance. "Guys, what's going on?" Bulma asked.

"We found him," Goku said, more to Chi-Chi than anyone else. "We found Vegeta."

The others went rigid. "You found him?" Bulma asked. "Where is he? Why didn't he come back with you?"

"He's…" Goku paused, choosing his words carefully. "He seems like he moves around a lot. He doesn't really have one spot he's been staying in. I guess he moves as it suits him."

"But why did he leave in the first place?" the bluenette pushed on. "And why the hell didn't he come back?"

"He didn't say," Krillen softly said, finally joining the conversation. "We didn't talk much. He, um, he said he's not planning to come back."

There was a heaviness in the air as they all tried to work through that. Even though he had been missing for months, all of them had at least partially assumed that at some point he would return. After all, it was Vegeta.

"I don't get it," Chi-Chi quietly said. "Why would he just abandon us like that? How could he turn his backs on us?"

Krillen glared at the young mother. "It's not like that."

"Yes, it is!" Chi-Chi argued. "He just got up and left without even saying goodbye to us. That's abandoning us. And you guys find him, and he says that he's not going to come back? How is that not abandoning us?"

"It's just not, okay?" Krillen yelled. "The guys earned a little faith."

Raditz sneered. "I say he's used up that faith."

"Let it go," Goku cautioned.

"Why?" his older brother challenged. "Admit it, as soon as things got too tough, he ditched you."

Beside him, Bulma wrapped her arms around her waist. "No, he didn't."

"Yes," her fiance shot back, "he did!"

"No," Bulma slowly said, realization dawning on her. "He didn't leave when things were bad. He stayed for the bad parts and damn near killed himself trying to get us through them." Slowly she looked at all of the others in the room. "Vegeta didn't leave when things got bad. He left when things got good."

Goku frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"Think about it," the genius said. "What were the last things that happened before he left? Gohan was finally stable, our hospital bill got mysteriously settled, the social worker was entirely on our side, and we'd just found out we were going to be able to afford a house." Her gaze circled the group again. "He left when things started working out."

Krillen put his water glass down. "Why would he leave then?" he asked, desperately trying to figure the situation out. "He's worked harder than any of us to get us out of the gutter. We finally got out. Why did he leave then? Wasn't this his big dream?"

"If you don't know, I don't think any of us are going to be able to help you," Raditz said. "You knew him the best. If there was something he wanted more than this, I don't know what it is."

As the long haired man wrapped his intended in a large embrace, the other three found themselves standing a little straighter.