Chapter 35 – Tuition
6 Years Later
The Son living room was no longer a space dedicated to relaxation and social interaction. Every available flat surface was covered in stacks of papers, envelopes, applications, resumes and practice tests. The practice tests weren't for Gohan. Dear Gohan had already aced every entrance exam he had attempted. Reinyn was a different story. She needed to get him up to minimum entrance standard for a top tier school. Gohan had made it abundantly clear that he wouldn't let Reinyn go to a different school than him, despite the fact that they had different educational skills and goals.
Six years as a family and Gohan was still protecting the world from Reinyn, and maybe protecting Reinyn a little from the world. He was determined to buffer his sort-of-brother however you chose to look at it, and Chichi knew better than to argue over it. She had already tried every weapon in her arsenal. She had bossed, bullied, cried, begged, and leveraged guilt even so far as evoking the memory of his dead father, but Gohan was steadfast. Where Reinyn went, he was bound to follow.
If she couldn't get Reinyn up to minimum standard for Orange Star High or at least East Town Academy, both her boys would be attending the local public school and not achieving anything with their future. The only leverage she had to make Reinyn study the entrance exams was the superior music programs to be explored at the private academies, and he didn't seem convinced that there was much difference.
The latest exam scores had arrived only this morning and Chichi had dithered about opening them. Just last night Reinyn had sworn that if he had failed to make the minimum score again, he was never taking them again. Chichi had been trying to get him to leave off pecking at the piano to take another practice exam in case he had failed.
The boys were outside training like most every morning. Studying had become an afternoon and evening endeavor, despite her attempts to truncate the daily training sessions. If she'd had those hours for his education, she could have brought Reinyn well past the minimum entrance standard for any school. Unfortunately, her boys had inherited too much of her own stubbornness and they wouldn't budge on the subject. It was their duty or some such nonsense. They wouldn't hear that the Earth had plenty of adult defenders that could handle anything interesting that happened from now on.
Chichi supposed she shouldn't complain. Her boys mostly let her guide their lives and their study time. If they picked a handful of issues to be obstinate over, she should count herself lucky. They were both good boys really.
The front door opened and two very dirty, bruised teenagers bustled through. As tall as Goku ever was, their frames hadn't yet bulked out, broadening into the final growth they would have as men. Aside from some scars, they were very nearly identical. Reinyn had shorter hair, but unlike Gohan who let her keep him trimmed, Reinyn thought it was more efficient to borrow a sharp knife and shave his head when he started getting shaggy, another small issue he wouldn't be dissuaded from. "Lunch will be right out." Chichi waved toward the bathroom. "Get cleaned up. Gohan you go first." Thrusting the envelope of test results at Reinyn, Chichi waited for him to take them and open them.
"You might as well burn the stupid test results. I failed. It didn't go any better than the last exam. I'll talk Gohan into going to the fancy school without me. I know he wants to and you're going to lose your mind if he doesn't. I can convince him, so stop with the round peg in a square hole nonsense. I don't need the fancy high school."
"Don't be a pessimist." Chichi ripped open the envelope and scanned to the bottom, the only line she cared about. "Ha! Pass!"
Reinyn snatched the paper away and scanned the document, a frown creasing his brow. "Shit. How did this happen?"
"Well it looks like you scored a solid eighty percent on the verbal section and a disappointing fifty nine percent on the math, but it all averaged to a pass. And watch the language young man." Chichi strolled happily to the kitchen and stared dishing large piles of food onto the table. "I knew you could do it."
"We can't afford this," Reinyn snapped. "You have a hundred zeni in your cookie jar. Gohan is going to school on scholarship. I don't need school. It's time to stop humoring you about this. I can figure the music out without a formal education. I found someone to teach me guitar."
Chichi drew herself up to her full height and brandished a soup ladle at Reinyn. "My boys are brilliant. Gohan is going to be a scholar, a scientist and he's going to become whatever he wants after high school. You're just as smart as he is, and maybe you aren't going to be a brain surgeon, but you are a musician, a composer. You are amazing at it, and you can just stuff any nonsense about it being your passenger. That nugget of alien might have steered your brilliance, but you were born with that brain and those hands. You are absolutely NOT going to learn music from the drunk man who plays guitar for money at the crossroads. You will let me worry about the tuition. I have a plan."
A towel still around his neck Gohan stuck his head in the kitchen. "Your turn to get cleaned up, Reinyn. Smells really good mom."
"Fine." Reinyn thrust the results of his entrance exam at Gohan's chest. "You try and get her plan out of her. I think she intends to take up bank robbing. Orange Star High School charges more for tuition a semester than we've had on hand in the six years I've been part of this family, but Chichi plans to enroll us next semester."
Gohan whistled at Reinyn's retreat. "That is a lot of money."
"You'll be attending on scholarship," Chichi said, "and so will Reinyn."
Chichi fished a letter out of her apron and handed it to Gohan. "I sent their music director a recording of Reinyn's last impromptu recital with a letter about his musical compositions and raw, untrained talents. Mr. Bosco wrote back that if Reinyn could manage to meet the minimum entrance standards, he would do his best to secure him a grant from Orange Star Conservatory. He seemed really excited."
Gohan couldn't help smiling at his mom, excitement bubbling in him. "It's really happening. We're going to high school."
"Mom! I finished! I finished!" Goten barreled into the kitchen, a workbook in hand. "Is it time to eat? Can I play after? Can Gohan and Reinyn play with me? You can play with us too."
Chichi took his workbook and ruffled Goten's hair. "I have work to do but you and your brothers can take a break if you want. I think you've all earned it. Your big brothers are going to high school."
"Can I go to high school too?" Goten asked.
Already flipping through his workbook, Chichi grimaced. "I think we're going to have to spend some more time on maths before high school. We'll correct these together tomorrow."
"How the Hell did this happen?" Reinyn asked.
Standing together, Gohan and Reinyn couldn't look less in sync. Gohan wore his new school clothes proudly, red pants with a white shirt and a black vest for style. Reinyn had threatened to burn the red vest Chichi had tried to put on him, and only consented to the blue pants and white shirt because they weren't much different than the regular clothes that they lived and trained in. Gohan had snapped his student identification to his belt and offered Reinyn his, a stupidly happy grin on his face.
"I'm not doing this. This is insane." Reinyn snapped the badge to his belt and ruffled his short black hair until it stuck up everywhere. "Human children. I'm going to kill someone, and it won't even be on purpose. They're delicate little things."
"Just don't hit any of them. You'll be fine and I'll have your back. You're going to have to trust me." Gohan paused. He had considered summoning Nimbus, but he had avoided the magical cloud since Reinyn's adoption into their clan. He didn't think the cloud would let Reinyn ride it. While he might get annoyed with Reinyn from time to time, he didn't actually want to cause him pain. "You managed to visit Lime with me three times and no one got hurt."
"Lime wasn't an idiot. You put a few hundred children together and some of them are going to be idiots." Reinyn stuffed his hands in his pockets and slouched.
"Look, you can put on your front that you're a wild animal with no control and that the first human that disrespects you is going to be vaporized into a fine mist of bloody goo, but I know you, and you aren't going to mess this up for me or yourself or Mom. If we don't get flying, we're going to be late. Come on. I know the way."
Reinyn didn't argue further or dawdle when Gohan took flight. In the end, Gohan was right. He didn't want to ruin this for any of the people who had fought for it, not himself least of all. When Gohan ducked down into a deserted alley, Reinyn followed without question. Humans didn't typically fly, so it stood to reason that they would need to approach the actual school on foot. He let Gohan lead in this endeavor, surprised at how nervous he felt. He didn't want to ruin things, but he might not be able to help himself.
Out of nowhere Gohan stopped and led him into another side alley. "Hey, we have to help them."
Reinyn finally noticed the humans and their rattling guns. Obviously there was a crime happening, and law enforcement had been pinned down by the weak little projectile weapons. "No we don't. We have to get to school."
"Look, someone is going to get hurt or killed. We can take care of this in a few seconds and be on our way." Gohan seemed to be contemplating how best to handle the criminals, but Reinyn cuffed him upside the head.
"Those are humans. That isn't Cell or a Saiyan or even a particularly strong or dangerous human. They're bad humans being handled by the good humans. If you run around solving all the baby humans' problems, you make them dependent on you, you disrespect their abilities. Let humans fight humans. You handle any spare androids who try to play out of their weight division. Yeah?"
"We can't just let it play out when we could stop it. If someone dies, it will be our fault." Gohan couldn't quite believe they were having an argument about this.
"No it will be the assholes with the guns fault. Let's go, see they've got it." Sure enough, another person had arrived and with their help, the police managed to take the bank robbers into custody. "Reinyn shoved his hands back into his pockets and started walking again. "Do you respect humanity? Your mother, grandfather, Krillin, they're all human. If you respect them, you won't treat the species like our pets and run around protecting them from themselves."
"They're breakable. Protecting them isn't disrespectful. Those bullets wouldn't mean anything to us, but just one of them can kill even extremely strong humans." Gohan matched Reinyn stride for stride. "We should help if the opportunity arises."
"Agree to disagree," Reinyn snapped. "Besides, aren't you worried about ruining your hard fought for anonymity?"
"I'll figure something out."
Author's Note:
It is here! This is it, the story I wanted to write fifteen years ago when really young Bridget started plotting this fic. Rather than write a five hundred word author's note that Reinyn was Gohan raised Saiyan from an alternate reality that had collapsed and start at chapter 35, I thought the character deserved a proper introduction and got bogged down in what I have dubbed my pretzel fic (because of all the twisting and turning). But we're here! We made it! Let's see if I can nudge it on down the road to the conclusion.
QUIBBLE: There should be a bit of an age difference between Gohan and Reinyn due to the training for Cell. As I tend to do, I'm ignoring that bit of trivia. He's from an alternate timeline. I could write in a pseudoscientific time dilation BS reason, or just let the boys be sixteen.