A/N: Can you believe it? I'm not dead! I'm very much alive and finally on track. Thanks to anyone who is still reading this after God knows how long I've done nothing to it. Anyone on Spring Break? I am. Heehee!

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Trunks walked out through the backdoor to find everyone congregated on the Capsule Corp. lawn. Goten tackled him out of nowhere suddenly. He shoved him away.

"Kami, Goten! What was that for? I have a headache ya know, that didn't help it at all!" He hissed. His friend had a hurt puppy dog look in his eyes.

"Geesh, sorry. Don't have a cow," He grunted. Trunks sighed.

"I'm sorry, too," There was an awkward silence that followed. Trunks looked around.

"So Gohan and Videl are an item now, right?" He asked.

"What's an item mean?" He asked innocently.

"You know like they're dating and all that stuff," he explained.

"Um, I 's'pose. You hungry?"

"Yeah," he lied. They meandered to the mountains of delicious food Chi-Chi and Trunks' grandma had made. Normally, he would be tearing into it like Goten was at the moment. Normal just wasn't on his menu (A/N: no pun intended) lately. Half-heartedly he piled food onto his plate and followed Goten to where Videl and his brother sat.

"Hi!" Gohan said, "How's it going?" He asked.

"Fine," Trunks replied. The key to his conversations: just tell people what they want to hear and things will usually work out.

"Have a good summer?" Videl inquired.

"Yeah," he shrugged, spearing a vegetable with his fork.

"You seem so enthusiastic," Gohan chuckled sarcastically.

"He 'ot a 'eadache," Goten piped up through a mouthful of food. He swallowed and said more to himself, "That's weird, Saiya-jins hardly ever get sick," He bit his lip in concentration. How dense could you get?

"Yeah, that is weird," Gohan echoed.

Trunks just shrugged again and shoved a forkful of food into his mouth. It all tasty like putty as he chewed slowly.

Broken out of his realm of concentration by a low growl emitting from his stomach, Goten got up. "I'm gonna get some seconds," he announced.

"And I think I'm done," he too got up and walked away.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Sunlight fleeted through the small cracks in his white cheap-o blinds. He exhaled into his pillow. Another night lost.

"Hey Trunks, it's time to get out of bed!" His mother said as she flipped on the light. "Your room's still a mess! I just told you to clean it up a few weeks ago! Men, I swear. . ."

Rolling onto his side he peered first at his clock, then to her with one partially open eye.

"But I don't have school for another two hours," He moaned and pulled the covers back over his head, returning to the warm cocoon of cotton sheets. He felt her hand slightly hit his head as she ripped the cover back, bearing the evil-mom-eye.

"I can be ready in a half-hour, I am a super-saiya-jin," he grumbled.

"Super or not, you're getting up right now," She stated firmly.

"Since when do you care what time I get up?!" He spat a little more harshly than he would've liked. She looked somewhat taken aback.

"I've always cared, its one of those maternal instinct things."

"Whatever, just go away," he buried his head under the pillow. Just to add icing to the cake, familiar footsteps trudged upstairs. He stood in the doorway holding charred remains of smoking metal.

"The droids broke, fix them," Vegeta's gravelly voice demanded.

"Get your son out of bed and we'll see about it," she put her hands on her hips.

He stepped around the mounds of junk and hoisted him out of the bed.

"There," he handed what little was left of her creations to her, "Fix these." He walked back out without another word.

Trunks landed at Bulma's feet. "Why can't I have a tutor or something?" He pleaded, "This is so not fair, when I'm sixteen I'm gonna drop out. . ." He ranted as he got up.

"Quit complaining, you're going anyhow."

"Easy for you to say, you're not half alien."

"But I'm married to the prince of all of them, that's just about as bad," She reminded him.

"Humph."

"I need to go fix these, so I'll see you after school, ok hon?"

"Mom, just one favor."

"Yes?"

"Never call me hon again."

She rolled her eyes, kissed him on the check, and walked out.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Quietly as possible, he slipped into his first period class and sat in the back row. He had science first, for two periods. Impatiently, he twirled his pen in his fingers. As the bell rang, one slick punk with greasy hair and a black Ramones shirt ran to his desk, and their teacher followed him a few seconds later. Wordlessly, she wrote her name on the blackboard. It was a jumble of letters that Trunks assumed a monkey on caffeine pulled out of a top hat.

"Just call me Ms. L," she grabbed a piece of paper off of her desk. She had straight, shoulder length brown hair. Her blouse was plain red and she wore checkered black pants. She started the roll call.

"Briefs, Trunks? She looked up expectantly. He muttered "here" so silently that he thought she didn't hear him. He waited for the inevitable question. . . one, two, three- "Any relation to Bulma Briefs?" Yep. Right on cue.

"Yeah. She's my mom," He waited for the reaction. Each year it was somewhat different, depending on what new batch of kids had transferred. All the heads turned, not believing the son of one of the richest women on the continent was in their midst. Yeah, I'm the future president of the world's leading business. Oh happy day.

"She's hot," the stoned-looking punk with greasy hair commented nonchalantly. A few kids snorted. Trunks let his head fall onto the top of his desk with a dull thud. Only 180 more days to go.

"OK class, let's continue with roll call," The teacher (whatever the hfil her name was) commanded. Some kids were still snorting and sniggering.

He just hoped this wasn't a premonition to what the rest of the year would hold in store.

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A/N: Bad, Good, Ok? Too short? Too OOC? Till next time I guess. Peace out!