Everybody has a hero; someone they look up to and respect.
At least, that's what my brother told me. My brother is very smart; he has the highest marks in his class and he gets perfect on every single test. So when he says something, it's usually true.
Piccolo-san and father are my brother's heroes; he looks up to them and respect them a great deal Whenever he spoke about them and he great things they had done, there's always a look of admiration in his eyes – especially when he talked about father, who died before I was born.
I envied my brother. I wished that I had a hero too. For a long while, I made father my hero. But it was really hard to look up to someone you had never or ever seen in your entire life. I mean; I know how he looked like and what kind of man he was from photographs and stories that my mother and brother would tell me but still, I didn't really know him -- not in the way my brother did
Then I befriended with Trunks and all the hero stuff was tossed into the back of my head. I would always ride the flying Nimbus to his house and we would spar or play video games. From then, I mainly concentrated on trying to beat Trunks at the video games.
One day, while I was over at Trunks and we were sparring
outside as usual when I noticed that there's a big round chamber connected to
his house.
"What is that?" I had asked Trunks.
"Oh that," he said with a shrug. "That is the gravity room. My dad trains in there."
Trunks' dad! I suddenly realized that from the times I had come over to Trunks' house, I had never met his father. My curiosity was killing me from inside and I wanted to go into that round chamber and find out how he looks like.
"Can we go inside there?" I asked Trunks. There is a small, grey door.
"What?" He stared at me in shock "Why would you want to go in there? My dad will kill us if we interrupted his training."
This just made me wanted to go inside that room even more. Luck was on my side that day…Trunks stood up after a few minutes and said that he was going inside to get us some food. I nodded and waited until he disappears from sight. Then I quietly sneaked up to the grey door that led to the chamber. After taking a few deep breathes, I gently pushed opened the door and stepped inside.
Immediately, I fell to the ground because the gravity inside the room was very different from that outside. I struggled to get up and that when I saw a man in the corner of the room, doing push-ups.
The man had black spiky hair that resembled the flames of a campfire. He was very short – shorter than my brother and very muscular. He was wearing nothing but some black shorts and a pair of white boots. He was breathing heavily and I could hear him count to himself.
"1789, 1790, 1791…"
This is Trunks' dad? I was surprised…somehow I imagined the man would have purple hair like Trunks. The man didn't notice me so I kept quiet and watched him. Now I was beginning to get a little used to this unusual gravity and was able to sit up.
He continued doing push-ups. By the time he got to two thousand, he was beginning to get tired. His movements are starting to slow down. The man mumbled to himself about training hard and beating "Kakarrot" then he picked up his pace once more.
I had no idea how long I had been watching this strange man
but I didn't care. I had never seen anyone train with so much…intensity before.
I had watched my brother train sometimes but after a few push-ups and sit ups,
my mother would start yelling at him about his school work and he would always
dashed back to his desk and started working on his assignments obediently.
"4000, 4001…"
He was exhausted. For a couple of times, he even collapsed to the floor; but he just picked himself up and went right back to doing push-ups again. Wow, I thought to myself in amazement. How long is he going to keep this up?
He didn't stop until he reached 5000. Then he changed his position and started doing sit ups. After 5000 of those, he finally stopped and stood up. He grabbed a towel that was lying on the floor and used it to wipe the sweat from his face.
After that, he turned around and saw me for the first time.
The expression on his face turned to pure shock. "Kakarrot?" he stammered,
taking a few steps back.
"What?" I asked in confusion.
"Who are you?" he demanded, regaining his posture.
"I'm Son Goten." I answered.
"Son Goten?" he seemed to be in deep thought for a minute. "Are you Kakarrot's other brat?"
I frowned. "What? Who's Kakkarot?"
"Ah," his lips curved to form a smirk. "Who is your brother then, brat?"
"Gohan." I replied. I have no idea what this man was trying to do. "Son Gohan."
"What are you doing here?" he asked.
""Uh…" I wasn't sure if I should tell him the truth. "I wanted to meet you." I said finally.
"You want to meet me?" the smirk on his face grew.
"Yes."
Before any of us could say anything else, Trunks burst into the room. "Goten, you moron!" he yelled. "Where the heck did you go?" then he realized that his father was present too and froze died on his track. "Oh…hi dad." He said awkwardly.
There's a moment of silence when nobody said anything. Then finally Trunks' father spoke up.
"I'm going to the kitchen to get something to eat. You two brats can come if you want." He said then exited through the door.
Trunks and I stared at each other for a minute then followed after him. That afternoon went by in a blur. I had no idea what we did that afternoon or what time I went home. All I remembered clearly was that he made me a ham sandwich that he slapped down in front of me. This must be what having a father is like, I thought at that moment as I stared at the sandwich. Trunks is so lucky...
From that day on, I started training myself seriously. Mother showed me some basic stuff like punching and kicking then I began training everyday. I always liked to start off my training with push-ups. But unlike Trunks' father, I can't do 5000 push-ups at one time. I can only do about 1000. But pretty soon, my arms grew stronger and I can do more push ups.
Whenever I feel like giving up because I was too tired, I think about how Trunks' father had pushed himself to achieve his goals and I would push myself to do the same.
I found my hero – Vegeta. We never really talked again after that but I still admired his determination and strong-will. Yes, I learned later on that he tried to kill my father once but then again, Piccolo-san tried to kill my father too. So this doesn't really matter.
Author's note: Um…that was just something that I suddenly
thought up. Like it or hate it…please review (flames are welcome too).
Thanks.