Gohan's Day
Today wasn't a typical day at work for Gohan. It was past noon and by now, he should have completed at least a third of his work load. It didn't help that his superior was coming in today to review his work.
It all started in the morning. Videl was feeling under the weather, so Gohan had to take on her duties for the day. That includes, loading the laundry, preparing breakfast and bento for Pan and taking her to school. Gohan managed all that and arrived just in time for work. He barely sat on his chair when Orange Star Elementary called in.
Unfortunately, Pan had fallen and hurt her knee while playing with her classmates. The school insisted on relieving her for the day to seek medical attention. So Gohan had to take her back and instead of taking her home, he went straight to his office, thinking that Pan wouldn't be a handful. Boy was he wrong. Gohan soon found out first hand how a first grader's curiosity could kill a cat. In this case, he was the cat.
Lucky for Gohan, Marron, their go-to babysitter, happened to be attending Orange Star High school, which was close to the university. She could drop by after school and watch over Pan while he finishes his report. He had texted her and was relieved that she could make it.
"Dad, can we go home now?" asked Pan. She was sitting at the opposite side of the table, watching her father work on the laptop.
"Soon, Pan. Marron is on her way," Gohan said as he shuffled through the books on his table. "Argh… where is that report?"
"You mean this one?" Pan said as she gave her father a stack of papers, scribbled with all the pens in his office.
Gohan sighed and took the papers from Pan, his frustration reaching his limit. "Thanks sweetie, that's a nice dinosaur," he said smiling.
"You're welcome. I tried to colour it but there weren't any colour pencils in your office. So I used the markers instead!" Pan happily boasted.
"Yes… I can see that..I can hardly read my notes." The ink from the markers had bore a hole and seeped to the rest of the pages.
"Gohan my man!"
Gohan silently cursed, it was his superior, Professor Shino. He was a child prodigy and had risen to the top of the university at an early age. He had been shadowing Gohan's research and approving all of Gohan's work before publishing or experimenting on it. Though a brilliant man, he was still immature and his antics did irritate Gohan most of the time.
"Hi Professor! Good to see you" Gohan greeted him with a handshake but was coerced into an awkward high five instead.
"Again Gohan, how many times do I have to tell you, just call me Shino. No need to be so formal here. Anyway, do you have the reports ready?" Shino asked as he slumped himself into Gohan's couch, kicking Pan's school bag aside. "You have ten minutes."
"Yes, I do. I just need to reprint it next door…" Gohan hurried towards the door as Shino started counting down the clock.
Gohan had barely reached for the door when Marron arrived.
"Hi Gohan. Is Pan ready?"
"Oh, Marron. Thank goodness you're here. Again, thank you for babysitting Pan. Sorry you had to skip cheerleading practice today" he hurriedly pulled her into the room and started packing Pan's school bag, "Videl is out cold today so there's no lunch at home. Here's some money, help yourselves and do you mind getting dinner for us?"
"Sure, no problem. Am I getting paid extra?"
Gohan glared at her, trying to outsmart the teen. "I won't tell your father about that boy you've been seeing." Immediately Marron's cheeks flushed red with embarrassment.
"Okay fine. Come on Pan, let's go," she held Pan's hand and proceeded to leave only to find Shino leaning against the door, blocking the girls' way.
"Wow, I've never seen eyes like yours. Hi, I'm Shino." He took Marron's free hand and proceeded to kiss it. Pan cringed at the sight and Gohan was left stunned behind them.
Marron, furious and mortified, immediately pulled her hand away " Sorry, not interested. Will you excuse us?"
"Is that your school's cheerleading uniform? It looks good on you." Shino grabbed Marron's hand again.
Marron pulled her hand away and tried to walk past Shino when he propositioned her again. "Would you like to join me for lunch? I would really love to get to know you even more and dive into your beautiful doe eyes…"
"ALL RIGHT THAT'S ENOUGH! NO! NO! NO!" Gohan exploded. He immediately stood in between the girls and Shino, trying to distance the girls away from this creep.
"THAT'S MY FRIEND'S DAUGHTER! WAIT! SHE'S LIKE MY SISTER AND FOR GOODNESS SAKE SHE'S ONLY SIXTEEN!SHE'S A MINOR! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? YOU MIGHT BE BRILLIANT BUT YOU REALLY ARE AN ASS!"
Gohan had finally reached his limit. Shino stared at him, shocked.
"And he kicked my school bag!" Pan added.
The whole room was silent.
"I'm sorry you lost your job dad."
"It's alright sweetie." Gohan sat next to her and handed her an ice cream cone. "To be honest, I'm excited to be working from home again. How's your knee?"
Pan pulled her pants up and pointed at her dinosaur bandage. " I don't know why my teacher asked me to go home. It's just a scratch. Adults panic too much sometimes," she exclaimed as she licked her ice cream. "Yay Marron! Look at her go dad!"
They were sitting at the bleachers, watching the Orange Star High school cheerleading team practice. It felt good to finally stand up to his superior. Although what he did was noble, he couldn't ignore the fact that all his research was still there and now belonged to the university. He had to start from square one.
Pan got excited again, "Dad, when I'm older, I want to be a cheerleader too."
Gohan let out a nervous laugh, "Yeah, sure Pan." He took out his phone and tried to distract himself from the thought of Pan growing up.
"Here she comes, Marron over here! " Pan waved as Marron was running towards them.
"Hi, sorry to keep you waiting. Ready to go?"
"Hold on a second," Gohan paused for a moment and then put his phone away. "I still have my job. In fact, I'm promoted to Head of research and I'm getting my own research team.
"That's wonderful Gohan!" Marron cheered along with Pan.
"Apparently someone filed a complaint to the Dean's office?"
"Well, I did meet up with the Dean and told him about a certain professor who was harassing me, a minor, and how they fired the wrong man who was standing up for me. And if no action was taken, I was going to report to my father, a policeman and take it to the media. Imagine if everyone found out that the university had fired an innocent man who happens to be Mr Satan's son in law. Plus, I'm sure the Dean would hate to lose their main benefactor, Capsule Corp." Marron smiled.
"I don't know what just happened but it sounds cool!" Pan screamed with excitement as she hugged Marron tightly.
Gohan stared at her, speechless.
"Thanks Marron."
"No problem, 'big brother'," she smiled.
END