Story by: Poppy
Song by: Billy Joel (album: Stormfront)
Couple: Gohan/Videl
Disclaimer: I do not own DBZ or any of its characters, logos, or original ideas, nor do I own Billy Joel's song "And So It Goes".
It's raining. I can state the obvious to myself, yet I would rather not allow my senses to reach out and give myself unquestionable proof of this little quandary since the unavoidable feeling of liquid coursing down my arms is proof enough for me. I don't need to see it or taste it, and I'd rather not smell that sweet, salty scent that accompanies a summer shower. It's enough that I can feel the cold, little droplets pelt against my skin and hear them tapping against the barren sidewalk and splash into gathered puddles on the curb. Quite the opposite of life I suppose.
I can see my surroundings, taste the crisp air, smell the effervescence of it all, yet I cannot tell whether everything I know is real or not; the same real as the drizzling rain I feel and hear now. Life no longer touches me as it once did when she was here with me, and I haven't heard the soft laughter that accompanies it and confirms its existence since the last time I spoke to her and listened to her quietly talk to me as she always had. I miss that. I miss life. I miss her.
On lonely nights such as this I used to walk with her down these abandoned streets and we would talk about life and what it was to us. We agreed that life was love, love was friendship, and we were friends meant to love each other through out our lives. Without that we didn't exist; therefore I can only wonder if I am still alive.
In every heart there is a room
A sanctuary safe and strong
To heal the wounds of lovers' past
Until a new one comes along
Walking down this street, I can easily recall so many lost memories that I had thought died along with me that fateful day. I note the bench we had sat on when I first asked her out on a date, and the lamp that illuminated our first kiss. My eyes travel over each object and a small smile begins to tug at the edges of my mouth until I catch sight of a small, neon sign that directs an arrow to an old, classic diner. Instantly, my feet change their course turning the corner and crossing the street to my intended destination.
Peering through the window I can see that the eatery's atmosphere has changed very little since the last time I've been here. The lights are still dim and tainted in a red hue as old ragtime music plays softly in the background. Each booth is perfectly set and spotless just as they always were when I used to casually come here. In the corner sits one particular booth, currently occupied, that sends a sudden pang through my heart. It was at that exact booth so long ago it seems that I confessed my heart to her in the shape of an elegant ring that to me expressed eternity but to her symbolized nevermore. Nevermore had I seen her since then when she looked me in the eye and told me in a single word all I needed to hear. Then she was gone.
A raven-haired beauty sits there now the same as she had that same day. She swirls her finger diligently against the rim of her glass and watches it with cerulean eyes that evade the steam her beverage provides to glance at the many speckles on the booth's marble countertop. I have no doubt that she is drinking a hot cocoa with extra whipped cream and admiring the simplicity of the dappled pattern on the table. She always told me how she loved to try and memorize the outline of grayish blue dots and swirls there, but never seemed to be able to replicate it in her art when she drew.
Videl.
Her name and her presence attracts me with no less force than it had when I last saw her sitting there in silent reminiscence. I don't know if I should dare to disturb her or not, but I can't help myself as my step finds its way beside her and my mouth opens to whisper softly to her while forcing down the need to say what I really want to. I can't tell her I love her still, no matter how bad she hurt me, so instead I tell her:
"Hello."
Slowly she lifts her gaze to me and watches me nonchalantly with those chilling, blue orbs that always shake my countenance and leave me breathless. A moment passes before a warmer gaze passes her face as she recognizes me and gently smiles gesturing for me to take a seat across from her. I obey unable to resist her request and fold my hands together against the table careful to stare at anything but her and remain silent.
"It's been a long time, hasn't it, Gohan?" she inquires towards me, and I hardly hear her as the background music drones out her thoughtful tone.
I nod and look at my lap, my senses sensitive to her movements as she leans back against her seat and sighs. From the corner of my eye, I can see her run a hand quickly through her long locks and fiddle with the tips a moment before returning her hands to her lap.
"How have you been?" I hear her ask a bit louder.
Should I tell her the truth? Should I tell her that every night I think of her and yearn for her still with such an abiding passion that I've made my own life miserable with a desire I know I may never relinquish? Maybe I should just tell her that I'm successful; that my job as the advisor to many major corporations has already made me a small fortune, but she's never really been one to care much for money, so I know it will get me nothing from her but a quaint smile and congratulations. I don't want that, it's too detached for me to bear.
I shrug my shoulders slightly and reply, "I'm surviving I guess." I smile nostalgically and look up at her lazily wondering what her response is.
A genuine smile meets my gaze and I find a sudden urge to cup her blushing cheek and kiss her gently as she chuckles softly at my wordage.
"Just surviving, huh?" she remarks leaning forward to place her elbows on the edge of the counter and settle her chin upon her hands with her rosy cheeks outlined in her fingers and that lingering smile still playing across her lips. "Always the dramatic one, eh Gohan?"
I spoke to you in cautious tones
You answered me with no pretense
And still I feel I've said too much
My silence is my self-defense
I nod unwilling to tell her the complete truth and wipe a hand carelessly over my brow to catch the little patches of sweat that I can feel building there in my mounting anxiety. "How about you?"
"Well," she begins glancing at the table quickly before returning her gaze to my own; "I closed that deal I've been working so hard on four months ago."
I had almost forgotten her petition against passing a law to cut the length of school and forcing children to take up a part time job as training to their later careers. She had been working so adamantly to fight it believing that children would be better off holding longer educational days than being forced to give up both part of their schooling and freedom while taking up a responsibility they may not be ready for. I never forgot what spirit she fought that with though, or the vivacious flicker her eyes gave off when she spoke of how she would end the ordeal. How could I forget that? It's part of why I love her.
"Wow, Videl!" I say as enthusiastically as I can. "That's great, I'm proud of you."
Her blush deepens a bit as she mouths her thanks. The flicker is still there in her eye, but its flame seems to have drawn more stagnant from the last time I had seen her as the once wild fire that had shown there dances less violently so that I begin to wonder what is bothering her or what happened to surrender her perpetual spirit. As of now I'd give anything to see that once more from her, but I have no right to demand such a request.
And every time I held a rose
It seems I only felt the thorns
And so it goes, and so it goes
But somehow you don't seem to know
Videl brushes a strand of hair away from her face and behind her ear and I can only marvel at how perfect her complexion has stayed in the year and a half I haven't seen her. As I study her, I find a growing need to ask her why. Why she left me there that night. Why she ran away from me. Why she never returned my calls. Why she suddenly felt that she couldn't love me any longer, or why it was that she didn't tell me that my affections were in vain to begin with. I just want to know why.
Then in a fleeting thought I have to ask myself: why do you still love her? All I can do is sit on the dilemma until she answers it for me and flashes me an innocent smile while gazing at me with those crystalline eyes as she lowers her forearms to the table and crosses them atop themselves. She's my Videl. Since the day I met her, that's what she has been to me and I know without thinking that her emotions could lead me to do anything for her sake merely because I love her. And I love her because she is my Videl, the most insatiable person I know with a spirit to rival any and the kind wisdom to match even my own.
"Do you want something to drink?" I hear her sweetly ask me from the corner of my mind.
I look up at her with what I guess is my usual clueless expression and she hides her mouth behind her hand for a moment trying to conceal her laughter. She's so beautiful when she laughs.
"I'm sorry, what did you say?"
"I asked if you would like something to drink," she smiles lowering her hand.
"Oh," I try my best to cover. "No, no thank you I'm fine."
"Um, Gohan?" she continues, her humorous smile still growing.
"Yes?"
"I believe you can tell the nice waitress yourself."
Turning my head to the right, sure enough I see a plump, little waitress waiting exasperatedly for me to order with her writing pad and pencil in hand ready to take my order. A deep, crimson blush creeps onto my cheeks and heats my face as I realize just how deep in thought I've let myself wander. Straightening in my seat, I inform the waitress that I don't have an order before slumping back down into the booth hopefully out of Videl's view. It must have worked because not more than a minute later I feel her nudge me roughly in my shin signaling for me to join her in the world of proper posture.
"Did you have fun in dreamland?" she inquires fixing her chin back up upon her hands.
I shake my head unable to think of anything else to do and wait for her to say something else.
"Why not?"
"Because in my dreamland you keep leaving me."
The words rush from my mouth before I can even evaluate what I have said and I watch in horror as her hands fall with a lost grace to the table with a thud and she stares at me so impassively that I'm afraid she has become angry with me.
"I'm sorry," I quickly usher to her understanding my ignorant mistake as I stand from my seat across from her and ready myself to leave. "I'll leave you alone, I didn't mean to ruin your evening."
Just as I'm about to turn and leave, I feel her little hand grasp mine warmly and securely and direct me back to her. She's still sitting as she had been when I had stood, her eyes still staring aimlessly at the spot I had occupied a moment before, but her hand has found mine and stays there as she watches nothing.
Time passes slowly as we stay in our poses, neither daring to move or much less breathe until I spy a watery development build in the corner of her eye before it creeps down her smooth cheek. She immediately releases my hand and wipes the liquid apparition away as it is succeeded by others, all of which she tries desperately to wipe away and hide from me, but it's too late, for I've already seen them begin to fall. Before I even know what I'm doing, I'm sitting once more across from her in the booth aiding her in her fight against the tears.
As I wipe another stray streak from her soft skin, I see her look up agonizingly towards me, a pleading expression meeting my own as she remains silently watching me. My hand moves to cup her cheek as I've ached to do for months and in a strangled voice I ask her what I've wanted to know since that day, "Why?"
A thoughtful yet timid, little grin crosses her features as she leans into the warmth of my hand and the gentle caress my thumb offers her as I continue to stroke her cheek and clean away what tears still occasionally drip from her eyes. She sighs deeply and closes her eyes as she ponders her answer before I see those daunted, sapphire orbs slightly open again in a dreamy manner as she answers me tenderly.
"I thought you were only proposing to me because you thought you owed it to me because of how long we were together, not because you loved me. I never did know if you loved me or not, and I still don't know for sure. You never told me," she whispers before drawing slightly away from my touch. "I never knew what I really meant to you."
Yet if my silence made you leave
Than that would be my worst mistake
So I would share this wound with you
And you can have this heart to break
Stunned beyond belief, I retrieve my hand completely from her and place it along with my other in my lap. She never knew what she meant to me. In truth she meant everything to me and more. She was the reason I woke up every morning and readied myself to face the brutality of the world. She was my lifeline and the beating of my heart all in the feminine shape of a kind woman whom I loved beyond comprehension and whom I would still destroy my own happiness for just so that she wouldn't shed one more tear on the behalf of myself or anyone else in existence.
"Videl?" I say softly leaning forward against the table and searching for her hand to place in mine, but the instant I feel her delicate skin brush against my own she withdraws from my touch and folds her hands together against her chest. "Videl?" I pursue hoping that she will look up at me, but she doesn't and I can only watch as her mouth slowly hardens into a painful scowl and her eyes find mine with such a writhing contempt that it honestly impairs me deeply to know that it's meant for me and me only.
"Why did you propose to me, Gohan?" she asks coldly. "Why?"
I never knew it could be this hard to admit to someone that you love them especially when it's the truth. I could have sworn that in all the time we intimately dated I had confessed my undying affection for her millions of times over, but as I watch her shake now, whether it be from pure disdain or tainted agony, I understand that those confessions must have been so inaptly spoken that she never heard what I meant. I love her. So as she glares so maliciously towards me, curling her slender fingers about themselves unconsciously as she waits, all I can do is bow my head unable to stare upon her grace anymore and clench my eyes tightly shut as I bury my face in my hands and slouch slightly into my seat.
"I proposed to you because I loved you," I say in a hushed tone almost inaudible to her ears.
And that is why my eyes are closed
It's just as well for all I've seen
And so it goes, and so it goes
And so will you soon I suppose
"Oh," I hear her reply softly as her hands fall from their perch. "So you did love me."
I nod my head still unwilling to look at her as my own pained tears well at the corners of my eyes and threaten to spill. Although I cannot see her, I know that she's watching me cower from her and evaluating her next move diligently. A slight rustling sounds from my left and I can hear her placing money on the countertop as she readies herself to leave as quickly as possible. I let her go as I remain hidden behind my fleshy shield as I hear her let out a quick heart-wrenching sob and jog out of the restaurant as fast as she can. After a moment I allow my hands to fall as a wet sensation strides down my cheek and falls from my jaw to my jacket below.
Déjà vu sets in and at the corner of my mind the sound of her fleeing footsteps echoes ceaselessly in a driving pattern at the back of my consciousness. I had already let her run away from me once, so why was I letting it happen again? With the superhuman speed only myself and my ancestors possess, I leave my seat and rush into the night's heavy downpour allowing my jacket to become instantly soaked. Just down the street I can see her walking with her head bent against her chest and her arms holding herself tightly as she quickly walks farther and farther away from me. With my keen hearing I am able to perceive her quiet sobs as she softly cries into herself and I know what I have to do.
Taking in a deep lungful of air, I shout at the top of my strong, Saiyan lungs with all the force and persistence my mother has endowed in me, "I love you!"
At the sound of my cry, her pace stops and she stands tranquilly with her back towards me waiting for me to say anything else before she continues her journey away from me.
With the same yet now slightly faltered voice I had used before, I continue, "I always did, Videl, and no matter how much I'd like to say otherwise because of how obsessed and maniacal it sounds, I still do! I still love you, Videl, and I probably always will!"
So I would choose to be with you
That's if the choice were mine to make
But you can make decisions too
And you can have this heart to break
Slowly, she turns to my pathetic figure hunched over in defeat and emotional exhaustion behind her and stares at me for a silent moment examining me. I close the gap between us marginally and take a few steps nearer to her as she watches my every move with an impeccably apprehensive scrutiny I've come to expect from her. Once I'm fifteen feet away from her I stop, frightened that if I come any closer she'll turn and quickly flee like a startled deer. The angry tearstains that streak her cheeks are still apparent despite the panging rain that continues to drench her flustered cheeks, but her makeupless face remains as faultless as ever as she slightly pants into the wind and shakes the sodden strands of her hair in a small tousle of her head.
"What?" she asks me in a strained voice while her eyes peer expectantly and hopefully towards me.
I feel myself shake at her request and for the second time in my life I'm more afraid of her than I have ever been of anyone else in my lifetime. She's rejected me once, yet I don't know if I could bear it if she did it again. The fact that I've begun to tremble doesn't help my situation much either as I wring my hands in themselves and take deep, settling breaths.
So in a soft, gentle voice just barely loud enough for her to hear me, I plead myself again to her hoping beyond hope that my words mean something to her and she accepts them with the same honesty she's shown me since the day I met her. "I still love you, Videl. I just want you to know and understand that."
At first I think she'd about to huff at me and yell into my face that she doesn't care, but then the sides of her lips twitch slightly in an upward curve and I can tell that I may have finally said something right.
"Do you really mean that, Son Gohan?" she asks me seriously watching for any shimmer of uncertainty in me.
"With all my heart," I hear myself groan as emotion begins to step in and affect my ability to speak properly.
She remains quiet as I duck my head into my chest, self-conscious of my puerile behavior towards love. I wait for her to respond as time inches by on the shorthand's mischievous, little game of angst until my senses perceive an extra warmth by my side close enough to my body that if I were to extend my hand a foot away from myself it would be able to grasp this new form. A pair of slender arms takes me by surprise as they wrap about my neck and pull my head down closer to a feminine body whose lingering, natural scent provides me with a new aphrodisiac.
Unable to do anything else, I encircle her waist tightly in my own protective grasp and hold her as I've wanted to for a year and a half while she gently strokes the short, soft hairs at the nape of my neck affectionately with her fingertips and sobs quietly into my chest. My own hand finds her long, damp tresses as well and allows my fingertips the pleasure of indulging themselves into her locks as I whisper delicate words into her ear.
"I love you," I whisper tenderly to her as my hand continues to caress her matting hair. "Oh, Kami I love you so much."
"I love you too," I barely hear her whimper against my coat as she grips me more firmly than before.
"Please don't leave me again, Videl, please," I beg her fighting my desire to sob with her as we hold each other in the middle of the barren street.
I feel her shake her head vigorously as she sniffles back a few more cries. "I won't," she murmurs groggily in her throat as she begins to contain her emotions. "I won't leave as long as you don't."
"I never could," I almost instantly reply as I anxiously grace her forehead with a soft kiss before quickly pulling away.
She nestles closer to me at the sound of my words and lets her hands fall to my broad chest as she lays her cheek against my support. I hear her sigh quietly as she fiddles with one of the buttons on my long, practitioner's jacket before she pushes away from me ever so slightly so that she may look at me as a small, benevolent smile dances on the edges of her lips and gives optimism to my daunted eyes.
"So," I say with a short chuckle as my hand moves from her damp hair to touch her blushing cheek once more; "Am I ever going to get to see you again, or do I have to keep praying to see you at old diners?"
To this her smile spreads, and heightening herself quickly on tiptoes she brushes her soft lips against mine for a single instant before lowering herself back to the ground.
"We'll see," she tells me with a devious, little smirk that makes my hair stand on end in anticipation as I feel myself grow ten degrees warmer.
"I guess we will," I answer her with an intuitive smile as I brush away rain streaks from her face and lower my head down to hers. Our lips meet in a quiet exchange as we hold each other against the frigid winds and incessant downpour of the rain, and suddenly I somehow just seem to know that my desire for her will be quenched and soon everything will be alright just as it had been a year and a half ago.
And so it goes, and so it goes
And you're the only one who knows.