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Chapter 18: Opening Doors

"You'd better take that back…" Gohan had clenched his fists and trembled as anger rose inside him. The draft in the halway intensified as he turned to Stapler.

"Why? What's a loser like you gonna do about it?" Stapler dared, but at the same time took a few steps back, feeling uneasy at the sudden change in the nerd's demeanor.

Gohan walked over to his hostile classmate and grabbed his shirt, "He died a selfless death. So I ask you again, take it back." He scowled his eyes even more, "final warning."

"Gohan, he's not worth it," Videl tried to intervene, but Gohan didn't hear her. There was just him, Stapler, and his fathers pride, nothing else mattered right now.

Stapler swallowed and a bead of sweat appeared on his forehead, but he wasn't about to give in. "N-No."

"TAKE IT BACK!"

There was a loud bang and the glass exploded from their frames and the lights burst, sending tiny flashes of lightning across the darkened room. A gust of wind swirled around the arguing teens, knocking Videl off her feet and further down the hall.

The sudden rush in his body awoke him from his inner rage. This feeling, the feeling he hadn't had for weeks, felt electrifying. His Ki was back! At the same time, his eyes grew in shock, knowing full well that he had let his anger take the better of him, and in an instant everything calmed down. He looked around and was confronted by a ruined hallway, where a spherical imprint was visible from where they stood, whether it was the stone walls, the ceiling or the lockers, everything was polished away. Then he looked at the pale expression of a trembling Stapler, who had apparently peed his pants in sheer terror.

"Okay, Okay, I-I'm s-sorry!" the brawny bully stammered, "I-I'll take it b-back! P-Please don't hurt me!"

"You'd better be," Gohan said, but his voice was filled with guilt and let go of Stapler's shirt. "Now, leave, and let's forget this incident."

"Y-Yes s-sir!" The guy got up and ran as fast as his feet could carry him. Gohan followed his movement and noticed Videl scramble herself off the floor.

"Videl! Are you alright?" Gohan exclaimed worriedly and ran to Videl to help her up.

"W-What happened?"

"No time to explain, we have to get out of here, people are coming!" he grabbed her wrist and tried to run away from the hallway's dead end. He cursed himself when he realized they wouldn't make it in time and as a last resort, he opened a random door and rushed in, dragging Videl with him, and closed it in the nick of time. Videl tried to speak, but was shushed by Gohan as he followed the Kis of people passing their door. His senses were working overtime, sensing each and every individual.

After some time, he let his body relax a little. There were still people in the hallway, probably taking note of what had happened, but they didn't have to be so quiet anymore because the hallway was filled with an excited buzz. For the first time they'd entered the room, he looked at Videl, and man, she was standing very close to him.

"You had to pick the janitorial closet, didn't you?" she whispered, giving him a disapproving glare as she tried to stand well in the small space. He giggled nervously as he ran a hand over the base of his neck. She sighed, he was too darn cute when he did that, "Care to explain what just happened?"

"I got angry," Gohan sighed.

"No shit Sherlock, I meant what happened to the hallway."

"Like I said, I got mad," Gohan looked into her uncomprehending eyes. "Sometimes when someone really pushes my buttons, I lose control," he began explaining, "It rarely happens, as I have quite a bit of self-discipline, but well, my father's death is indeed a sensitive subject." Gohan looked away in shame, "That explosion, so to speak, was a sudden release of Ki. I haven't been able to use it since I was poisoned, but apparently Stapler triggered it again."

"Wait… you did that? How? And what is Ki?" She looked confused but intrigued at the same time.

"Hm," Gohan thought for a moment, putting his finger on his chin as he did so, "I think you can best compare it to energy. Every living thing has a certain pool of energy within them, and well, I have a lot of it." Then he studied her, taking her in from top to bottom, making the girl a little insecure of herself, and then stopped when he met her eyes. "And you have a lot of potential as a trained martial artist, so if you're up for it, I can give you some lessons when I'm back in control of it, as a thank you gift for saving my life. Mastering Ki has many benefits, you know."

"I thought you wanted to buy me dinner to thank me," she giggled, remembering what he'd said the first time she'd dropped him off at his house. "What does Ki do?"

"One doesn't exclude the other," Gohan chuckled back. Then he thought for a moment. He didn't want to go into details about Ki now, it would only raise more questions anyway, and he had more important things to worry about. "Ki can be used for things your old man would call cheap tricks," he decided to say, "But I can assure you they aren't tricks." Then he moved his hand up and brushed her bangs from her face and tucked them behind her ear so he could see her eyes better. "Are… are we okay?"

Videl blushed at the sudden closeness, "Yeah, sure, I can't stay mad at you anyways."

Her comment made Gohan smile, one she hadn't seen on his face since he came to school with the black eye. "Good to know," he grinned, then looked deep into her eyes again, "And are you yourself okay too?" referring to her outlet of emotions before they were interrupted.

"Yeah, thanks, I feel much better now," she was still blushing and she, too, lingered in his onyx eyes. A moment of silence fell over the two as an inexplicable tension rose in the small space they found themselves in.

Gohan gulped when he caught himself staring and tried to change the subject. "So… We need to find a way to get out of here." he ran a hand through his hair to calm his nerves. "It's still crowded outside, so people will notice if we leave this closet."

Videl looked away, a little disappointed, though she didn't know why. After a minute of thinking she had an idea, "What if I ask Erasa and Sharpener to back us up? They can shield the door while we go out."

Gohan flared up, "What are we going to say to them?! We can't tell them that what happened in the hallway was my fault, and I know what Erasa will think otherwise."

"Yeah, like what?" Videl teased him.

"Well… you know?"

"No, I don't."

"..."

"Having a dirty mind, don't we?"

Gohan now turned as red as a tomato, "No! Not that! Come on, Videl!" he raised his hands in front of him defensively.

She giggled, he was so innocent, it was too fun not to tease him.

He crossed his arms and looked away annoyed. He meant kissing, not something vulgar like what she was implying, he would never think of doing that with one of his best friends. Except maybe that one t-, no, two times… But he also once dreamed that he was a fluffy teddy bear, singing songs to Frieza in hell, and that certainly wasn't going to happen either. He was just a guy with teenage hormones and she's a girl who fitted his interests, nothing more, nothing less. Right? He took a deep breath to calm down and dropped his gaze on said girl, who was now texting someone on her phone. 'Right?'

"They're coming," Videl said, looking up from her phone.

Gohan smirked as an idea crossed his mind. Maybe it was time to tease her back. Take revenge for once. With his newfound Ki going up through his body, he gained a lot more confidence than he normally did, so why not use that for a change? "You know I'm bad at lying," he started, while looking her in the eye again.

"Yeah, so?" Videl asked confused, not knowing where he was going with it.

He put his hand under her chin and lifted her head gently so that she had to look straight at him. "Let's give ourselves an alibi, then Erasa will have something to freak out about and I won't have to lie." He tried to suppress his grin to widen as he slowly closed the gap between them.

Videl froze. Was he really about to kiss her? She had gone over this scenario many times the past few weeks, but never in her wildest dreams was he the one who would actually do it. And now, crammed together in the janitor's closet, he was so close she could feel his warm breath against her lips.

Gohan had expected Videl to retreat all flustered up from his approach, or even to have slapped him in the face, but she did neither. If he didn't know any better, she was even leaning in a bit. His grin faded as the nerves kicked in: What now? Was she testing him? To see who would chicken out first? Or did she really hope that… He swallowed slightly as the small space they were in got filled with that intoxicating cherry scent again. He too stiffened as Vegeta's voice echoed through his head: 'That's the scent of pheromones. That's how you know your mate is into you.' His brain started to work overtime, flashing all kind of images: them watching that movie together on his bed, them snuggling up that night, the confidence and ease of sharing deep-seated secrets, his jealousy when he learned about Yamcha's accidental kiss, them holding hands before the baseball game… the sudden tension that occasionally existed between them when they were alone. This wasn't just friendship, was it? Was he really so dense that he didn't notice it before?

Their lips were only inches apart when three knocks brought them both back to reality. With a jolt, Gohan pulled back from his approach, his face as red as possible and his eyes wide with shock as he realized what he was about to do. A pang in his chest betrayed his disappointment that he didn't really dare to go for it. Videl's face was also red with embarrassment and she looked away. There were three more knocks. Gohan took a deep breath and carefully opened the door.

"The coast is clear," Erasa whispered, as she and Sharpener blocked the view from the chaos in the hallway.

Gohan looked back at Videl, this time with a sad expression. "L-Let's go," he said reluctantly. Videl nodded and they both slipped through the door. Once out of the janitorial closet, the impact of Gohan's 'Ki-explosion' shocked her. There was a lot of damage, but the cleanliness of the impact betrayed that it was no ordinary explosion. She's never seen anything like it, and if she didn't know better, she might have called it a trick herself. Could Ki really do that? Could she learn that too?

Gohan immediately walked away from the scene, followed by his four friends. At the end of the hall he stopped and looked uncertain. "We have to walk past Stapler again," he told Videl, "And the principal is with him."

She understood the problem and nodded, "Is there another way?" she asked. How did he know that?

"No, so just act normal, I guess," he laughed half-heartedly and continued his route.

When they came into view, Stapler yelled, "There! There he is!" Gohan looked up in surprise that the guy still had the nerve to actually confront him again.

"Master Son, I have to ask you where you have been for the past half hour."

Gohan sweat-dropped. He knew he was joking about it with Videl, but the truth was he was a terrible liar. "I was with my friends," he tried. "We had a free period so I was doing homework at the beginning of that period, but took a break to talk to them."

"And why are you on the second floor?"

Videl jumped in, "Well, we heard an explosion, and I wanted to check it like I normally do if something out of the ordinary happens. It's my job, you know." She gestured to her other friends, "And they tagged along."

The principal nodded in understanding. "I see," he looked back at the muscular jock, "Master Stapler here is convinced you were involved in causing that explosion."

Both blonds laughed at the comment. "As if Gohan is a vandal. The boy does not even dare to cycle through a red light when there is no traffic. He'll have a heart attack just thinking about breaking a rule, let alone breaking a hallway," Sharpener laughed.

Gohan could only scratch his neck. If only they knew what he'd broken so far, be it rules or his surroundings. Then he looked at Stapler and frowned a little, "Are you sure you haven't seen somebody else?" he asked in a firm voice.

The buff guy swallowed, perhaps going to the principal wasn't such a good idea. He began to tremble again, afraid of what Gohan would do to him now. "M-Maybe I was wrong," he said, hoping this would ease the tension, "I don't think it was h-him, n-now I got a closer look."

"Alright, you're free to go, apologies for the inconvenience," the principal said, letting the four friends pass.

When they were all out of earshot, Videl spoke up "Well, that could have been a lot worse," while Gohan could only sigh in relief.

"What were you two doing in that closet?" Erasa asked with a grin.

Gohan tensed up. There was that question he was dreading to get, and he hadn't thought of an answer yet. But before he could say anything, Videl intervened, "You know Gohan was an asshole to me, and you sent him to me to apologize for that. And since I don't want to have snoops around my private conversations, I pulled us into that closet. You know how risky it is to be a celebrity, you never know what people will leak to the tabloids. But then that explosion happened for some reason and we got locked up for the same reason we went into that closed in the first place."

"So you didn't make out?" Erasa tried to tease.

"No." Her voice sounded hurtful, something Gohan could relate to.

They all arrived at the oak tree, for recess had already begun. Sharpener had brought Gohan's stuff, so he didn't have to go back to pick up his satchel. He didn't sit down, though, but looked at Videl, "Can we… Can we have a word, please?"

Erasa looked up and wanted to say something to tease the boy, but she was thrown back from his serious face. Videl nodded, also a little taken aback from his seriousness, and followed the half-Saiyan to a lonely spot on the school grounds. "Thanks for backing me up back there, I owe you one," he began, but he avoided looking at her.

"I'll add that to your pile of debts," she tried to break the tension, but was met with silence.

After a deep sigh, Gohan continued, "As I've already told you, things are going on in my life right now, and I can't distract myself from it." Finally he looked at her with a broken expression, "And now that my Ki is back, I have to start training, get my Ki back under control and become myself again."

"Are you going to train for the Tenkaichi Budōkai?" Her question threw him off guard and, in response to his confused expression, she added, "You know, the tournament to find 'the strongest under the heavens' in two months from now, the tournament where my dad earned his title? You're really strong and talented, so I assumed you were talking about that."

"No, sorry, I wish it were that simple," Gohan said begrudgingly, "There are much bigger things going on, and I need to fix that before I can allow myself a normal life. I'm going to have to go off the radar for a while and please don't try to find me. I promise you I will do everything I can to keep my promises to you, but I am not sure if I will come back. So…"

He sighed again.

"This is where I'll say goodbye."