Note: The song used in this chapter is "For My Culture" by One Giant Leap featuring Robby Williams. Credit for the lyrics goes to him/them. I just love that song too and it made me think immediately of Trunks. I knew as soon as I heard it I'd have to fit it into this story somewhere. t sum it up...Disclaimer: I don't own "For My Culture" (But THAT I would like to own!)
Trunks layed on his stomach on his bed staring blankly at his new radio as he quietly repeated the words to his favorite song which he had on repeat. He was depressed. The song didn't really make him feel better, he just liked most of the lyrics and there was nothing else to do anyway. His face hurt from all the tears he'd cried through the night. First when his father had driven him past his limits of frustration in the training room, and later when he received his spanking. At least the worst was over now. He couldn't eat and he couldn't leave his room. But Trusei was there, so he wasn't completely alone.
Vegeta had pushed him in training on purpose. He didn't hurt him, but he wanted to make it abundantly clear that his strength far surpassed Trunks, so he blocked absolutely everything Trunks threw at him, taunted him about it, and when he hit back, never too hard, of course, he made sure Trunks would be flat on his butt or back with one sweep of the foot or arm. He'd twisted his arm around his back several times and lectured him about his carelessness in paying attention. He told him every time that he should have seen it coming. it wasn't completely true however. Vegeta didn't really expect any of it out of the child for the mere reason that he WAS a child. It was all to put him in his place as such. To be SURE the point was clear that HE was the father, and Trunks was the child. He'd pushed it until Trunks frustration grew to the point that he exploded energy blasts toward the ceiling and gave way to tears. Vegeta had expected it, but he had to admit he was proud his son had withstood so much before reaching that point. He'd was improving dramatically, at so young too, but he, of course, would never tell Trunks that. Not now at least.
Trunks sighed and glanced at Trusei as the song started again. The kitten was curled up in the corner, sleeping peacefully. Trunks wished he could feel that peaceful. What he felt instead was failure. Failure, as usual, to live up to his father. He would NEVER be good enough in Vegeta's eyes!
He tried to dismiss his thoughts as he looked back at the radio, his head resting in his hands. "Fall back again, crawl from the waaater, water to air, you're on your feet again, your feet again...," Trunks voice was quiet. His mind wandered again as he wondered if he would be able to regain his father's pride. his father had told him once he was proud of him again. Trunks sole purpose after that was to hear those words again. He'd felt them several times since the day his father had said that, but he still hadn't heard the words again. And now he far from it. Trunks sighed. His favorite part was coming up. "This is what my daddy told me, I wished he'd a hold me a little more than he did, but he told me my culture and how to live possitive. I never wanna shame the blood in my veins, bring pain to my sweet grandfather's face in his resting place. I make haste to learn and not waste everything my forefathers earned in tears...for my culture..."
Trusei crawled up next to Trunks, purring and letting out a soft meow. Trunks looked at him and smiled, taking the kitten in him arms and kissing him. "It's ok, Trusei. I'll hold you. I love you, ya know? And I'm proud to be your father," he continued holding the purring kitten. He felt a little warmer inside.
Vegeta stood at the door, watching for a few moments. Then he left, not wanting Trunks to know he was there. Something in his chest ached as he sat in the control room again, frowning. He knew what it was, but he didn't want to dwell on it. He wasn't ready to admit anything to his son. 'Why does it have to be this way?' he asked himself. 'Why do I have to love him so much, and yet be unable to show it? He probably thinks I hate him. Especially after tonight. I wasn't TOO hard on him was I?' "Urgh!" Vegeta growled, trying to shove his thoughts away. But they wouldn't go. 'I wonder if he has any idea what he's singing when he says those words? Tomorrow he'll start his new schooling routine and then he'll really learn about Vegeta-sei. That's half his required studies right there!' Vegeta smiled, feeling proud at the concept. He would teach his son the ways of his people. Of THEIR people!
* * * * *
Vegeta awoke in the middle of the night. This time was worse than the others. It was gone now, but Vegeta was sure he'd heard it. That's what had waken him. Trunks had screamed. His heart was pounding. For a few seconds he listened, then he got up and went to his son's door, waiting outside to see if he could hear anything.
Trunks had jolted awake with a scream. He looked around the room, eyes wide trying to orient himself. Images and words from the nightmare he'd had danced around in his head. "You're just a no good half-breed! You should never have been born!" Vegeta spat at him. "How can you even BE so weak!" Trunks could still see the look of contempt on his face. And then he had hit him. He grabbed his pillow and held it to his chest as war his habit in such circumstances. A few tears rolled down his face as he looked out the window at the stars still racing by.
Vegeta didn't hear anything, so he opened the door slowly and peered inside. Trunks looked up, a little bit startled. Vegeta faultered for a moment to spit something out. He wasn't sure how to react in such a situation. Finally some words escaped his mouth. "What's wrong son?"
"Nothing," Trunks lied, refusing to make eye contact. "I'm fine."
"You screamed," Vegeta stated simply. "What for?"
"I must have gotten startled by something. I don't know," Trunks muttered. He didn't want to talk about it.
Vegeta lingered for a moment. There was a funny feeling coming over him and he didn't like it. "Perhaps you should eat something."
Trunks looked up questioningly.
"Come on," Vegeta left the room and headed for the kitchen. Trunks trailed a little ways behind, climbing onto one of the seats and waiting while his father made a small snack for him. "Here," he set the food in front of him.
"Thanks, Dad," Trunks made sure to show the manners he'd been taught. Vegeta nodded abruptly and sat a few seats over, watching. His vigil was making Trunks feel uncomfortable.
Sighing Vegeta stood. There really was nothing else he could do. "Go back to
sleep as soon as you finish that."
"Yes sir," Trunks watched as Vegeta vanished into his room.
* * * * *
Bulma was growing more and more weary of catching her husband and son. Somehow she just knew they weren't there, but she kept traveling toward Heiron anyway. She was almost there now. Setting the final coordinates for landing, Bulma went to the small lab in the back of the space capsule and dug out some of her needed equiptment. They could be anywhere on the planet, but with her materials detector she would be able to find them, even without the tracking device still on the ship. Her inventions had a signiture signal and the ship Vegeta had stolen was no exception.
"Ok, Bulma, pull it together. Everything is going to be fine," she tried to give herself a short pep talk. "I'm almost there."
* * * * *
Trunks had been three days at his new school schedule and it was taking a definite toll on him. Vegeta had him studying every waking moment! Except for an hour and a half in the morning when he trained, and two hours in the evening when he trained some more. The only time he wasn't to be studying was when he was eating and right before bed when he had to bathe. And worse yet, Vegeta had set up a small table and a chair in the back of the control room where Trunks was to stay at all times. He wondered why his father had even bought him the radio when he wasn't allowing him any spare time to USE it!
Vegeta glanced over his shoulder. Trunks had just had his lunch and was now staring wearily at his math workbook. He had his smallest finger in the side of his mouth and he was chewing on it.
"Trunks."
Trunks looked up blankly.
"Get your finger out of your mouth," Vegeta stated simply.
Trunks' eyes widened for a moment and he quickly pulled his finger away, not even realizing he'd been chewing on it. Again he looked at his work. It was advanced addition and subtraction. He yawned. Already he'd finished all the addition problems, but now he was stuck on the subtraction ones, not understanding how you could subtract 9 from 2. It came out to 0 didn't it? The problem was 32 minus 19. Scribbling in 20 Trunks yawned again. His eyes were SO heavy! Maybe if he just closed them for a second... Slowly his eyes shut, then he jerked them open again and forced himself to try one more problem. It wasn't but ten seconds later he'd laid his head on the book and closed his eyes again. Morning training had been particularly tough today and he was worn out already from the past couple days. He hadn't been sleeping well.
Vegeta glanced back again only to find that Trunks had falled asleep on his homework. In fact, he was snorring and drooling as well. Vegeta rolled his eyes and thought momentarily about waking him. He decided against it. He had seen this coming. The night before Trunks had almost fallen asleep in the bath tub and this morning he'd been hard to wake. Then in training he'd been dragging. The boy was completely exhausted. Sighing, Vegeta pulled out the small notebook he'd written Trunks' schedule on and began writing a new one.
First off he was going to have to have a nap. He decided to shorten his afternoon training to an hour and half and give him a nap right after that at 3:00. With all the studies Vegeta wanted him doing, he'd have to break it into two days. He'd have him look at the Vegeta-sei studies one of the days and his other studies on the other day. That would work out and then he could have free time from 5:00 on. Except dinner was at 6:00 and he would have to take his bath at 8:00 and get to bed by 9:00. That was still enough free time though. Any more than that and he'd get himself into trouble.
"All right Trunks, that's enough. Wake up," Vegeta called. He left him alone for half an hour. "Trunks...get up!" he called a little louder.
Trunks groggily looked up. It took him a moment to realise where he was and
what was going on.
"Give me that worksheet," vegeta instructed. "Let me check it."
"I'm not done."
"Then hurry up and finish. You're supposed to be reading in your science of the universe book now."
Quickly Trunks looked over the last three subtraction problems. They all posed the same problem he'd run into earlier. 74-28, 65-49, and 43-17. He'd done fine with all the other problems, but for the life of him he couldn't see how it was that you could subtract a bigger number from a smaller number. It just wasn't possible. All he could think of was that there was nothing left and so his answer came to; 50, 20, and 30.
Vegeta eyed the worksheet and circled the four problems he'd answered wrong, handing it back to him. "Do them again."
"But...how?" Trunks scratched his head, retreating back to his desk with a sigh.
He squirmed around in his seat, staring at the paper as if the answer would suddenly be revealed to him by it. Then he got an idea. He could just count from the lower number up to the higher one. THAT would give him the right answer! First he counted from 28 up to 74, making a dot on his paper for each number. then he went back and counted how many dots he'd made. Boy, this was sure long and tedious. Why did it have to be so much work to find the right answer?
Vegeta watched from the corner of his eye as his child slaved over the problems. His new idea would bring him the correct answers, but it wasn't the correct way of doing the problem.
"Ok, Dad," Trunks handed him the paper again.
"Do this one," Vegeta wrote 91-13 and handed the paper back to him. Perhaps if he had such a long way to count he'd figure out the correct way of doing the problem.
Trunks took the paper back and stared at it for a moment, his face paling as he groaned. "Aw man!" he whined, trudging back to his seat.
Vegeta rolled his eyes as Trunks proceeded as he'd done before. Ten minutes later he gave the paper back.
"Now, would you be interested in learning a FASTER way to do this?" Vegeta raised one eye brow.
Trunks stared at him, a little surprised. A faster way? There was a faster way?
Erasing the answer on one of his questions Vegeta proceeded to instruct his son. Trunks watched as he crossed out the seven in 74 and made the 4 into 14. "Now, what is 14-8?"
Trunks thought for a few seconds, counting on his fingers. "Six."
Vegeta was mildly amused by the scene, but continued. "And 7-2?"
"Five."
"Your answer is 56 then," Vegeta wrote it in then gave him another problem to try on his own.
Trunks took the paper back and stared curiously at his father's example for a few seconds. "...Oh. That's much easier!" He was done with his new problem in no time and moving onto science.
* * * * *
Bulma sighed as her ship landed and powered down. She felt incredibily nervous as she stepped out onto the planet of Heiron, her homing device in hand.
"Ok, here goes nothing...," Bulma closed her eyes as she turned the thing on.
She looked around at the scenery for a few seconds while waiting for the materials device to warm up. It needed a little bit of time to power up before she would be able to use it. It felt nice to see sky again, but happiness was something she didn't have with her child gone. If trunks had been there with her, she would have loved the warm breeze that was softly blowing her blue strands around her face. Now all it did was remind her that she was alone.
Looking back to the device she entered the coordinates of the planet she was on and punched in the materials she was in search of. Bulma stared intently at the screen, waiting for the results to come up. "Well...? Hurry up, you stupid machine!" she growled.
A few beeps escaped and a note appeared. "These materials are not within the specified coordinates."
"Damn it!" Bulma didn't even realise she'd sworn. She stared for a few more seconds as if the screen might decide differently all of a sudden, but of course it didn't. 'Think, bulma, think! Hope's not lost.... "Crap, but they could have gone anywhere from here!" Bulma retreated back inside the ship, a few tears falling from her eyes as she sat down on her bed to try and calm herself.
"Wait, I know! Oh my gosh, I can't believe I didn't think of it before! That's a SURE way of getting Trunks back and it's fool proof!" Bulma's eyes lit up. Quickly she steered the ship back toward home, renewed energy flowing through her body. This was one plan that couldn't fail!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
@--}-- (A rose for my great reviewers! Thanks everybody that's reviewed!)
Trunks layed on his stomach on his bed staring blankly at his new radio as he quietly repeated the words to his favorite song which he had on repeat. He was depressed. The song didn't really make him feel better, he just liked most of the lyrics and there was nothing else to do anyway. His face hurt from all the tears he'd cried through the night. First when his father had driven him past his limits of frustration in the training room, and later when he received his spanking. At least the worst was over now. He couldn't eat and he couldn't leave his room. But Trusei was there, so he wasn't completely alone.
Vegeta had pushed him in training on purpose. He didn't hurt him, but he wanted to make it abundantly clear that his strength far surpassed Trunks, so he blocked absolutely everything Trunks threw at him, taunted him about it, and when he hit back, never too hard, of course, he made sure Trunks would be flat on his butt or back with one sweep of the foot or arm. He'd twisted his arm around his back several times and lectured him about his carelessness in paying attention. He told him every time that he should have seen it coming. it wasn't completely true however. Vegeta didn't really expect any of it out of the child for the mere reason that he WAS a child. It was all to put him in his place as such. To be SURE the point was clear that HE was the father, and Trunks was the child. He'd pushed it until Trunks frustration grew to the point that he exploded energy blasts toward the ceiling and gave way to tears. Vegeta had expected it, but he had to admit he was proud his son had withstood so much before reaching that point. He'd was improving dramatically, at so young too, but he, of course, would never tell Trunks that. Not now at least.
Trunks sighed and glanced at Trusei as the song started again. The kitten was curled up in the corner, sleeping peacefully. Trunks wished he could feel that peaceful. What he felt instead was failure. Failure, as usual, to live up to his father. He would NEVER be good enough in Vegeta's eyes!
He tried to dismiss his thoughts as he looked back at the radio, his head resting in his hands. "Fall back again, crawl from the waaater, water to air, you're on your feet again, your feet again...," Trunks voice was quiet. His mind wandered again as he wondered if he would be able to regain his father's pride. his father had told him once he was proud of him again. Trunks sole purpose after that was to hear those words again. He'd felt them several times since the day his father had said that, but he still hadn't heard the words again. And now he far from it. Trunks sighed. His favorite part was coming up. "This is what my daddy told me, I wished he'd a hold me a little more than he did, but he told me my culture and how to live possitive. I never wanna shame the blood in my veins, bring pain to my sweet grandfather's face in his resting place. I make haste to learn and not waste everything my forefathers earned in tears...for my culture..."
Trusei crawled up next to Trunks, purring and letting out a soft meow. Trunks looked at him and smiled, taking the kitten in him arms and kissing him. "It's ok, Trusei. I'll hold you. I love you, ya know? And I'm proud to be your father," he continued holding the purring kitten. He felt a little warmer inside.
Vegeta stood at the door, watching for a few moments. Then he left, not wanting Trunks to know he was there. Something in his chest ached as he sat in the control room again, frowning. He knew what it was, but he didn't want to dwell on it. He wasn't ready to admit anything to his son. 'Why does it have to be this way?' he asked himself. 'Why do I have to love him so much, and yet be unable to show it? He probably thinks I hate him. Especially after tonight. I wasn't TOO hard on him was I?' "Urgh!" Vegeta growled, trying to shove his thoughts away. But they wouldn't go. 'I wonder if he has any idea what he's singing when he says those words? Tomorrow he'll start his new schooling routine and then he'll really learn about Vegeta-sei. That's half his required studies right there!' Vegeta smiled, feeling proud at the concept. He would teach his son the ways of his people. Of THEIR people!
* * * * *
Vegeta awoke in the middle of the night. This time was worse than the others. It was gone now, but Vegeta was sure he'd heard it. That's what had waken him. Trunks had screamed. His heart was pounding. For a few seconds he listened, then he got up and went to his son's door, waiting outside to see if he could hear anything.
Trunks had jolted awake with a scream. He looked around the room, eyes wide trying to orient himself. Images and words from the nightmare he'd had danced around in his head. "You're just a no good half-breed! You should never have been born!" Vegeta spat at him. "How can you even BE so weak!" Trunks could still see the look of contempt on his face. And then he had hit him. He grabbed his pillow and held it to his chest as war his habit in such circumstances. A few tears rolled down his face as he looked out the window at the stars still racing by.
Vegeta didn't hear anything, so he opened the door slowly and peered inside. Trunks looked up, a little bit startled. Vegeta faultered for a moment to spit something out. He wasn't sure how to react in such a situation. Finally some words escaped his mouth. "What's wrong son?"
"Nothing," Trunks lied, refusing to make eye contact. "I'm fine."
"You screamed," Vegeta stated simply. "What for?"
"I must have gotten startled by something. I don't know," Trunks muttered. He didn't want to talk about it.
Vegeta lingered for a moment. There was a funny feeling coming over him and he didn't like it. "Perhaps you should eat something."
Trunks looked up questioningly.
"Come on," Vegeta left the room and headed for the kitchen. Trunks trailed a little ways behind, climbing onto one of the seats and waiting while his father made a small snack for him. "Here," he set the food in front of him.
"Thanks, Dad," Trunks made sure to show the manners he'd been taught. Vegeta nodded abruptly and sat a few seats over, watching. His vigil was making Trunks feel uncomfortable.
Sighing Vegeta stood. There really was nothing else he could do. "Go back to
sleep as soon as you finish that."
"Yes sir," Trunks watched as Vegeta vanished into his room.
* * * * *
Bulma was growing more and more weary of catching her husband and son. Somehow she just knew they weren't there, but she kept traveling toward Heiron anyway. She was almost there now. Setting the final coordinates for landing, Bulma went to the small lab in the back of the space capsule and dug out some of her needed equiptment. They could be anywhere on the planet, but with her materials detector she would be able to find them, even without the tracking device still on the ship. Her inventions had a signiture signal and the ship Vegeta had stolen was no exception.
"Ok, Bulma, pull it together. Everything is going to be fine," she tried to give herself a short pep talk. "I'm almost there."
* * * * *
Trunks had been three days at his new school schedule and it was taking a definite toll on him. Vegeta had him studying every waking moment! Except for an hour and a half in the morning when he trained, and two hours in the evening when he trained some more. The only time he wasn't to be studying was when he was eating and right before bed when he had to bathe. And worse yet, Vegeta had set up a small table and a chair in the back of the control room where Trunks was to stay at all times. He wondered why his father had even bought him the radio when he wasn't allowing him any spare time to USE it!
Vegeta glanced over his shoulder. Trunks had just had his lunch and was now staring wearily at his math workbook. He had his smallest finger in the side of his mouth and he was chewing on it.
"Trunks."
Trunks looked up blankly.
"Get your finger out of your mouth," Vegeta stated simply.
Trunks' eyes widened for a moment and he quickly pulled his finger away, not even realizing he'd been chewing on it. Again he looked at his work. It was advanced addition and subtraction. He yawned. Already he'd finished all the addition problems, but now he was stuck on the subtraction ones, not understanding how you could subtract 9 from 2. It came out to 0 didn't it? The problem was 32 minus 19. Scribbling in 20 Trunks yawned again. His eyes were SO heavy! Maybe if he just closed them for a second... Slowly his eyes shut, then he jerked them open again and forced himself to try one more problem. It wasn't but ten seconds later he'd laid his head on the book and closed his eyes again. Morning training had been particularly tough today and he was worn out already from the past couple days. He hadn't been sleeping well.
Vegeta glanced back again only to find that Trunks had falled asleep on his homework. In fact, he was snorring and drooling as well. Vegeta rolled his eyes and thought momentarily about waking him. He decided against it. He had seen this coming. The night before Trunks had almost fallen asleep in the bath tub and this morning he'd been hard to wake. Then in training he'd been dragging. The boy was completely exhausted. Sighing, Vegeta pulled out the small notebook he'd written Trunks' schedule on and began writing a new one.
First off he was going to have to have a nap. He decided to shorten his afternoon training to an hour and half and give him a nap right after that at 3:00. With all the studies Vegeta wanted him doing, he'd have to break it into two days. He'd have him look at the Vegeta-sei studies one of the days and his other studies on the other day. That would work out and then he could have free time from 5:00 on. Except dinner was at 6:00 and he would have to take his bath at 8:00 and get to bed by 9:00. That was still enough free time though. Any more than that and he'd get himself into trouble.
"All right Trunks, that's enough. Wake up," Vegeta called. He left him alone for half an hour. "Trunks...get up!" he called a little louder.
Trunks groggily looked up. It took him a moment to realise where he was and
what was going on.
"Give me that worksheet," vegeta instructed. "Let me check it."
"I'm not done."
"Then hurry up and finish. You're supposed to be reading in your science of the universe book now."
Quickly Trunks looked over the last three subtraction problems. They all posed the same problem he'd run into earlier. 74-28, 65-49, and 43-17. He'd done fine with all the other problems, but for the life of him he couldn't see how it was that you could subtract a bigger number from a smaller number. It just wasn't possible. All he could think of was that there was nothing left and so his answer came to; 50, 20, and 30.
Vegeta eyed the worksheet and circled the four problems he'd answered wrong, handing it back to him. "Do them again."
"But...how?" Trunks scratched his head, retreating back to his desk with a sigh.
He squirmed around in his seat, staring at the paper as if the answer would suddenly be revealed to him by it. Then he got an idea. He could just count from the lower number up to the higher one. THAT would give him the right answer! First he counted from 28 up to 74, making a dot on his paper for each number. then he went back and counted how many dots he'd made. Boy, this was sure long and tedious. Why did it have to be so much work to find the right answer?
Vegeta watched from the corner of his eye as his child slaved over the problems. His new idea would bring him the correct answers, but it wasn't the correct way of doing the problem.
"Ok, Dad," Trunks handed him the paper again.
"Do this one," Vegeta wrote 91-13 and handed the paper back to him. Perhaps if he had such a long way to count he'd figure out the correct way of doing the problem.
Trunks took the paper back and stared at it for a moment, his face paling as he groaned. "Aw man!" he whined, trudging back to his seat.
Vegeta rolled his eyes as Trunks proceeded as he'd done before. Ten minutes later he gave the paper back.
"Now, would you be interested in learning a FASTER way to do this?" Vegeta raised one eye brow.
Trunks stared at him, a little surprised. A faster way? There was a faster way?
Erasing the answer on one of his questions Vegeta proceeded to instruct his son. Trunks watched as he crossed out the seven in 74 and made the 4 into 14. "Now, what is 14-8?"
Trunks thought for a few seconds, counting on his fingers. "Six."
Vegeta was mildly amused by the scene, but continued. "And 7-2?"
"Five."
"Your answer is 56 then," Vegeta wrote it in then gave him another problem to try on his own.
Trunks took the paper back and stared curiously at his father's example for a few seconds. "...Oh. That's much easier!" He was done with his new problem in no time and moving onto science.
* * * * *
Bulma sighed as her ship landed and powered down. She felt incredibily nervous as she stepped out onto the planet of Heiron, her homing device in hand.
"Ok, here goes nothing...," Bulma closed her eyes as she turned the thing on.
She looked around at the scenery for a few seconds while waiting for the materials device to warm up. It needed a little bit of time to power up before she would be able to use it. It felt nice to see sky again, but happiness was something she didn't have with her child gone. If trunks had been there with her, she would have loved the warm breeze that was softly blowing her blue strands around her face. Now all it did was remind her that she was alone.
Looking back to the device she entered the coordinates of the planet she was on and punched in the materials she was in search of. Bulma stared intently at the screen, waiting for the results to come up. "Well...? Hurry up, you stupid machine!" she growled.
A few beeps escaped and a note appeared. "These materials are not within the specified coordinates."
"Damn it!" Bulma didn't even realise she'd sworn. She stared for a few more seconds as if the screen might decide differently all of a sudden, but of course it didn't. 'Think, bulma, think! Hope's not lost.... "Crap, but they could have gone anywhere from here!" Bulma retreated back inside the ship, a few tears falling from her eyes as she sat down on her bed to try and calm herself.
"Wait, I know! Oh my gosh, I can't believe I didn't think of it before! That's a SURE way of getting Trunks back and it's fool proof!" Bulma's eyes lit up. Quickly she steered the ship back toward home, renewed energy flowing through her body. This was one plan that couldn't fail!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
@--}-- (A rose for my great reviewers! Thanks everybody that's reviewed!)