This is our time, we
can't rewind
Our place to shine out, we can live it anyway
This is our time, to feel sublime
Our place to shine now, and we can do it anyway
We can't rewind
~ Feeder, "We can't rewind"
This is our time
He was sitting on the balcony, smoking one of Bulma's cigarettes. Twilight was falling over Capsule Corporation, and with it came the silence. It was not an oppressive silence. Trunks loved this time of the day; lately he had even been making sure he'd be on the balcony around this time. He indulged in the serenity of this warm evening in early summer; his feet were dangling in the air, and he was contemplating the color of the glowing ember of his cigarette and the color of sunset. It's the same, he thought with quiet wonder. He smiled vaguely and looked at the horizon, his mind far, far away.
He was distantly aware from Bra's peals of laughter from around the corner, in the garden, where she was sitting with Pan, and the buzzing of the gravity chamber where his father was training. Capsule Corporation was rarely completely quiet, but tonight it was calm.
"There you are!" a female voice squealed.
Trunks turned around to smile at Marron. She had her hair loose and her cheeks were flushed with mirth. She looked lovely and young tonight. "Hey, Marron. What's up?"
"I was wondering if you wanted to sit with us. Goten and Trunks dug up the barbecue and they wanted to roast some meat." She rolled her eyes. "We only ate three hours ago!"
"Well, weren't they sparring? I don't blame them for being hungry," he told her.
She flashed a grin at him. "Anyway, you wanna come? There's enough for you, too. Otherwise they will eat it all, and I don't want a fat boyfriend."
Trunks could not help grinning back at her. Her smile had always been infectious. "I don't think he'll get fat that quickly. You are forgetting the superior Saiya-jin digestion system."
"Of course!" she slapped her forehead in mock distress. "How could I forget?"
"My superior digestion system would like some steaks too, I think," he mused. "Or maybe some spare ribs. Do you have spare ribs?"
"Certainly. So, are you coming?"
"Of course." Trunks put his arm around his friend and left the balcony with her, joking all the way through the complex, enjoying the moment. In another time, the girl he was walking with would have been dead for two months. In this new reality, she was his best friend, and dating the boy she was destined to love. He looked at her twinkling eyes and decided that this new reality wasn't so bad after all. He could not erase the things that had happened in the past, and he did not know what would happen in the future, but that did not matter. Even if time would twist itself around and tried to re-create its old pattern, until then, they still had the present.
This was their time.
~ fin ~
~ Lanfir Leah
September 2003.
