Disclaimer: Apparently I have forgotten to put this up... as if anyone thought I owned it anyway. Well, I don't own any DragonBall characters.
AN: Heh, I got a few complaints about Goten/Marron being a couple, not to mention a nasty email about it. I was told I should say in my summary to indicate that there was G/M here. Well, I don't consider them my primary couple, so I really have to intention of doing that. So, to keep everyone happy, I will tell you now. Ahem. Goten and Marron are married in this story, and they will remain that way through out it.
Chapter Three: Of Yearbook Photos and Misspelled Characters
"Oh thank you so much." Her face twisted into a delighted smile, and she took the book and hugged it close to her chest. "I just love this book, and you are such a fantastic author."
"Thank you." Pan smiled modestly at the woman who was practically turning cartwheels at the book Pan had just signed. Zach gently ushered the fan away so that the next person in line could have their book signed. Pan didn't like book signings. First of all, she didn't really consider herself to be a superb author, so it made her feel somewhat guilty to have so many people lined up to get her book. Second of all, she really hated the publicity it gave when she would rather just stay at home and watch tv.
The next girl in line had stunning red hair that fell into ringlets around her face and appeared natural. She had freckles dotting the bridge of her nose and perfect white teeth. She was wearing some jeans and a tight t-shirt with the 'orange star highschool' insignia on it. She handed Pan her novel, and said "Make it out to Jenny, please."
"Jenny? Alright." Pan murmured, signing the cover. She looked up again and asked, "You go to Orange Star?" The girl quickly nodded.
"Have you heard about it?" She asked excited. Pan smiled, and gave a nod.
"Sure have. I graduated there." She informed her. Jenny's mouth opened and she raised her eyebrows.
"No way. That is so cool!" She chirped. "I love your novels. They are just so romantic and sweet. Me and my friends think that you write them from personal experiences but there's not that much personal information about you available, so we could never look into it."
"I wouldn't say everything is personal experiences, but I guess I have had some influences in my life before." Pan replied, handing the teen the signed book.
"Thank you so much. I can't believe you went to my highschool! You don't use a pen name do you?"
"No, why?"
"Oh good, now I can look you up in the yearbook." The girl said, before Zach shooed her away. Pan paled and a look of mortification crossed her face. Zach turned to her, concern evident in his eyes.
"Pan, is something wrong?"
"She's going to show all of her friends my highschool picture."
"Oh, was it bad?"
"Well, I have a problem - I don't remember." Pan said with a frown, before looking towards the ceiling and made a prayer to Dende it was acceptable.
***
"I'm sorry sir, but unless you have an appointment, you'll have to take a seat."
"But I-"
"There are no exceptions." The woman pointed towards a chair with a smug look crossing her wrinkled features and with a scowl, Trunks walked over to it and plunked himself down. He turned and scowled at the woman for a few minutes to make sure she knew of his disgust for her, before getting bored, and contenting himself to just closing his eyes and meditating.
He was deep into thought when he heard the scrapping of a chair and the noise of someone's heels walking, getting softer and softer. He opened one eye and looked to where the woman had once been, and smirked to himself. Pushing himself from the chair, he went straight ahead past the desk. He shouldn't need an appointment to visit, he had walked all the way from Capsule Corp just to see her after all.
He strode into the room and glanced around to make sure he wasn't interrupting anything. "I told you to stay out there!" The same woman shrieked from her position. Trunks turned to her and glared.
"Cathy, what is wrong? Trunks, don't mind her. Come on over." She said, waving her hand towards herself. Trunks lips quirked and he slowly walked over to her, first smirking at 'Cathy' and then greeting the person he had come to visit.
"Hey sis." Trunks said towards Bra. She nodded in acknowledgment, still working on her task. A young woman with shoulder length sea-green hair stood on a stole, while Bra stiffly walked around her examining the dress.
Trunks couldn't help but admire his younger sister's work, for the dress she made really was beautiful. Bra had always had a keen fashion sense, she just took it a step further to making it her profession. Mixing it in with her love to play matchmaker, she became a designer of wedding gowns and hers were first class. Bra was good at what she did, not only in her dress making, but also in the romantic category. She had been the one to get Goten and Marron as well as him and Pan together, although she couldn't keep a date herself.
Bra pinned up a small amount of white material, gave the bridge of her small-framed glasses a shove upwards and turned to Trunks. "So, what up?"
"I sort of want your help with something, if you're up for giving advice." Trunks confessed.
"Umm hmm. Let me guess - Pan?"
"Yeah."
"Predictable." She commented, taking a pin from in between her teeth and re-adjusting a fold on the waist line. "So you guys off or on?"
"She broke it off."
"Okay, and you want help forgetting her, getting the friendship back or getting the love back?"
"Love." Trunks replied simply as Bra shoved him a pile of fabric for him to hold which he did without complaint.
"I see." She whispered, pinning up a few more things before taking a step back to admire her work. "Well, what do you think?" She asked. Trunks nodded and the bride on the stool spun around in a 360 to get a full look of herself.
"Oh it's perfect." The girl said with a big smile, and Bra helped her down from the stool where Cathy led her away to change back. Bra lightly kicked the stool away, and began to put her working materials aside.
"Well, I think I have a plan Trunks, but you got be willing to go through with it."
"...alright." Smiling, she took him by the arm and led him to the back of the store to begin the planning. Trunks' worries slowly slipped away at the realization that while Pan was defenseless, he had a professional on his side - Matchmaker Bra.
***
"So much for staying inside all day." Pan muttered walking down the vacant streets of the small town. Former plans of staying at home and writing her heart out had collapsed the second she had taken a seat at her typewriter. Everything was too distracting. Birds were chirping continuously outside her window, the light was too strong, the heat too much, the clock's ticking too loud. Not to mention that beyond the physical distractions she had a mental one because she couldn't stay focused; her mind always wondering off to her social problems. Giving up and deciding to take a walk to clear her tired mind, she left her apartment to walk downtown which was unusually quiet for a Tuesday afternoon.
She had worn a sleeveless black dress that came down to her knees. She wasn't really a 'dress' girl, but she liked to wear heels to get her mind off things because the 'click clack' they made seemed to strangely sooth her mind. And since she wasn't a fan of wearing heels with pants, she figured she had to wear a dress. She wore a red scarf with it just to add some colour to her outfit and let her hair down with no clips, it brushing teasingly at the nip of her neck when she walked. Pan loved the colours black and red, it was practically the only colour combination she could pull off and she pulled it off well.
Pan walked past a mother with her child, the child begging the mother to buy her some icecream, and Pan couldn't help but smile. She loved children; couldn't wait to have her own. However children meant getting married and she seemed to have a nack for driving guys away. When she was a young teen it had been her power; the guys couldn't understand how she was so strong and it frightened them. No way she was going to tell them she was one forth alien. In fact, her sayian heritage was what drove most guys away (those she had been brave enough to tell anyway) and the one guy that not only understood but could relate to was well (a.k.a. Trunks) she had pushed away at the first sign of trouble. Maybe trouble wasn't the best word it was more like... actually she didn't know what it was. It was in the past, and theres nothing she can do now. What had been done was done. Besides, it's not like she'd ever have to worry about him again, they both were doing a pretty good job of avoiding each other...
"Ow." She cried, falling to the ground. She had been so occupied with her thoughts, she really hadn't looked where she was going and had walked right into someone.
"My fault." The other victim of the collision muttered. "I wasn't looking where I... Pan?" Pan took her eyes off her knee which she was inspecting for injury, and let her eyes wonder up to the person across from her sprawled on the sidewalk. Figures. She turned her mouth into a scowl and gave him the meanest look she could muster with her legs awkwardly bent under her body on the cold sidewalk.
"Trunks. Thank you for pushing me to the ground. It made my day complete. I was thinking, 'gee, this day has been too good; I really should have someone smash me to the ground' - and there you are." She said, sarcasm dripping in her tone as she pushed her self to her feet. Trunks soon followed and stood in front of her, almost a head higher than she was, despite the heels.
"Pan, what is your problem?"
"My problem is you Trunks."
"Me? What did I ever do?"
"You pushed me to the ground."
"Hey, I wasn't the only one not watching where I was going. Your mind's to absorbed with other things, no doubt. Probably swooning over that fabulous editor of yours."
"Excuse me?" Pan asked, anger seeping into her voice.
"You heard me. Everyone knows you have some thing with your dear associate. He is after all the reason you called us off."
"No it's not!" Pan cried, closing her eyes and placing her hands over her ears.
"Oh?"
"I broke up with you because I was-" Pan slowly opened her eyes and turned them directly into Trunks'. His eyes were looking intently into her, trying to read her mind. His eyebrows titled outward, giving him a generally sad look. Pan swallowed the lump that was in her throat and straightened out her black dress. "Good-bye Trunks." She whispered softly, turned on her heels and walked the other way. Away from Trunks; away from all that he was; ... away from herself.
***
"Why can't I escape him?" She whispered to no one but herself. She sat at her kitchen table, once again with a cup of coffee in her hand, pondering over life's obstacles. On her walk home after her encounter with Trunks, Pan realized something. This realization hit her like a ton of bricks - she was not happy. She was miserable. She couldn't figure out why either. She hadn't always been miserable; that she was sure of. She had a wonderful childhood of adventure and mysteries.
She glanced down to the notepad placed in front of her. On it, she had made a table with two columns. One side had 'things I have' while the other 'things I want', for surely one of these things was making her unhappy. She set her mug down and read down the list of 'things I have', crossing off those that would make her happy.
My job
My hair
My apartment
Mum and Dad
Zachary
After crossing them all off, it made sense that what she was upset over wasn't something she had, but something she didn't. She turned to the next column of 'things I want' and began at the top when...
Knock
Knock
A sharp rap came from the door, with a tired sigh, Pan put the pen down, pushed out her chair and went to answer the door. Unlatching the deadbolt, Pan creaked the door open and peered outside. No one was there. Pan stuck her head out and looked down the hallway to the left and then to the right, but no one was in sight. Shrugging, she was about to step back inside when she saw the package on her door mat. She couldn't hold back the smile at the all to familiar game of drop-the-gift-and-run. Picking it up, she walked back inside, fingering the silver wrapping paper.
Ever since becoming an author, Pan was used to surprise gifts so it wasn't strange to find a present outside her door with the sender no where in sight. Pulling the ribbon off, she picked up the note and read it.
The uncertainty you had of me
Brought clouded shady company
The tenderness habitual
A seldom-fading ritual
You killed the pair
Now only one is breathing
There's no looking back
This time I mean it**
The words had been typed out so there was no way of recognizing the writing. The words were somewhat disturbing though; quite different from the usual fan letters she received. She flipped the card over incase there was a name, but there wasn't. However the words-
Yet, I forgive you
were inscribed there. Pan stared at the card for a few minutes before placing it aside and taking the wrapped box in hand. It glistened under the light; a deep silver colour that looked strangely familiar to Pan. She carefully undid all of the folds, and unraveled the paper. Inside was a small cardboard box. Opening it, Pan pulled out a little glass figurine. It too looked familiar. It pictured a little angel-like creature kneeling by a stone, her head held to the air looking to the sky. On the base of the rock was inscribed 'Dare to Forgive'. The figurine was beautiful and Pan slid it away to later be put by her typewriter.
Pan lifted her coffee up, but found it to be cold, and since she wasn't a fan of cold coffee she pushed it aside among the pre-opened package and turned back to her list or 'things I want'.
A sports car
Puppy
Quieter clock
Trunks
"Well none of those are worth crying ov- oh no. When did I write that?!" Pan exclaimed, looking at the last item on her list. "I am so losing it." She muttered to herself before ripping the list to shreds; destroying any evidence of what was once written on the page.
***
"So, did you give it to her?" Bra asked, sipping her coffee. Marron placed her glass of milk down and looked towards Trunks; waiting for his reply. They had all retired to a table in Goten's café, and were sipping drinks, all trying to get Trunks back together with Pan. Goten was absent for the time; locking up the store since it was after eight o'clock, but Bra and Marron were listening intently both fully into the game of playing matchmaker.
"Yeah." Trunks admitted. "But, I'm not sure if there's a point..."
"Trunks, it'll work." Bra said in complete confidence.
"It's not that. I think she might actually hate me. I ran in to her today and..."
"Trunks, I know she still likes you. Have you seen her new book?" Marron cut in.
"Glanced at it."
"Did you see the characters' names?"
"No." Trunks replied causing Marron smirked and dashed upstairs. Bra pulled Trunks to his feet and began to lead him to the door. He pulled his coat on and waited for Marron to return. When she came barreling down the stairs, she shoved the book into his hand.
"She started this before you guys became an item and finished it after she called it off. If she hated you so much, she would'a changed the names." Marron said. Trunks glanced down at the back cover of the book and read the names.
"Knur and Anny?" Marron opened the door and gave him a shove out.
"Add T, S and a P, then flip 'em." She called out to him. The door closed, the chimes singing the soft tune while Bra and Marron returned to the table giggling.
"T, S and a P... T, S and a P..." Trunks looked intently at the names. "Oh, P... Panny." He smiled then looked at the other name. "Tsknur? ... oh Kami - Sknurt and flip it - Trunks." He grinned with confidence and placed the book in his coat pocket, making a mental note to read it.
*Trunks and Panny... I still love the sound of it.*
To be continued...
** (c) of No Doubt, 'Happy Now?'**
