Dragonball Alternate Dimension
Chapter Eleven - An Interlude : "The Star of the Ball"
It was the end of the day at Orange Star High School and the students were chatting in the hallway; getting their books together; getting ready to go home. Pan filled her backpack and closed her locker. As the door shut, she saw him at the end of the hall. That boy from physics who she thought was cute. She looked up to the banner in the middle of the hallway. It read 'Orange Star Prom!'
Her stomach turned a little as she approached the boys' lockers. "Um, Mas?" she asked timidly.
The tall, dark-skinned boy stopped talking to his friends and looked at her. "Yeah Pan?"
"Um... I was wondering... would you like to... go to the prom with me?"
Mas made a face. He looked to his friends who all gave him signs that said 'say no!'. "I'm sorry Pan, I have.. other plans."
"Other plans?!" she barked. "But it's prom night! What else do you have to do?"
"Anything that doesn't involve dating you?" he answered with a smirk. His friends laughed, seeming to forget the girl's strength and temper. She was having a bad day, though, and merely hung her head and walked away.
"Excuse me gentlemen, might I inquire what's so funny?" a boy came up from behind them and asked.
"That crazy Pan chick.." Mas began while turning around. "Oh hey, you're that kid who lives with her, aren't you?"
Rojan bowed. "I am her servant and I'd like to ask you to take back whatever you said to upset her."
Mas puffed out his chest. He was a half a foot taller than the blue-haired boy. "Make me."
"Very well." Rojan bowed and gave him a sound thrashing.
Rojan ran a hand through his short hair and walked up the hall to the entry way. Girls stopped their conversations as he passed and swooned as if he were a young Frank Sinatra. He was oblivious.
Several girls pushed one of their friends towards him. "Rojan, do you have a date to the prom?"
"No, I don't," he admitted and kept walking.
The girl's hopeful smile fell as he ignored her. "Ok, maybe he IS gay."
Pan tromped slowly down the front steps.
"Hey Pan, found a date for the prom yet?" a blond girl holding her books to her chest flanked by three other well-groomed teenage girls asked. "Oh wait." She put her index finger to her lip. "Nope. I don't think Hell's frozen over yet." The girls giggled.
Pan's lip wriggled and her fist finally forced its way through her emotions. The blond sprawled on the ground.
"Sheesh," she grumbled as she walked away. "That didn't even make me feel better."
*
Dinner that night at the Son household was unusually quiet. "So, I saw that the Orange Star prom is coming up," Gohan made an attempt at conversation. He expected Rojan's silence, but not his daughter's. "Pan, do you have a.."
"No!"
"... date.. yet..?" He looked to his wife for a suggestion.
"Uh.. Rojan, how about you? Do you have a date yet?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "No Ma'am."
Videl looked to Gohan and raised her eyebrows.
Pan zoned out on her food and poked at it with her chopsticks. 'He sounds like he doesn't even care! What a stuck-up snob! I guess that's how His Star-Headed Highness sees the prom; just a stupid little plebeian how-down compared to what he's probably used to. I bet he went to gala balls where everyone wore diamonds and pearls and beautiful dresses and danced all night.' She looked over at the would-be Rasha Emperor. He sat bolt-upright and consumed his dinner delicately and perfectly. Her thoughts wandered further and she pictured him in a tuxedo... with her at his side.
Pan shook her head and pushed away from the table. "Well, you may think it's lame, but I don't!" she shouted at him suddenly and ran up the stairs.
The three remaining house members exchanged glances.
Rojan blushed slightly. "She's had a rough day."
*
"So, you're going with Mas?" A girl asked the blond in front of the mirror.
"Ah-ha," she answered while she put on more eye-liner.
"Did you know that Pan asked him out yesterday?"
"Yeah, can you believe it! What a freak. It's a shame, really. Pan could be popular. She's Mr. Satan's granddaughter, but she's a scary tom-boy!"
The girls' laughter echoed through the locker room. As they exited it petered out and the sound of sobbing could be heard. Pan sat on the other side of an island of lockers, hugging her knees, crying softly. She was strong against physical attackers, but against female cruelty, she had no defense.
*
During D period lunch, Rojan followed the murmurs and jibes to the gym where he found Pan throwing medicine balls as if they were tennis balls through a hole she had broken in the western wall. She grunted not out of exertion but to let off steam as she lobbed each one as hard as she could.
In the year that he had known her, Rojan had learned to calm Pan down without making her feel that she was being condescended to. He attempted to do so now.
"Hello Ms. Son." He walked over to her and watched her pitch. "How are you?"
"What the hell is wrong with people!?" she screamed as she threw another one. "Why does everyone have to treat me like garbage!"
"Do I treat you poorly?" he asked, concerned.
"You don't count," she grumbled and remembered what he had said last night at dinner. "Goddamn it! I bet you'll have no problem finding a date! Everyone wants to take you!"
"I don't have a date."
"You... you still don't? But... the prom's tomorrow!"
He shook his head. Rojan bit the inside of his lip. He knew he had to keep her from feeling he was pitying her, but he HAD to ask her out now. He was quiet while he struggled to think.
"Do you even care about this thing?" she turned to him and asked, having run out of medicine balls.
"I don't know." He froze up and shrugged apathetically.
Pan turned away from him and frowned, fighting with herself. "Yeah, me either."
Rojan rolled his eyes. "Well..?"
She shrugged. "If you don't care.."
"Sure.."
"Ok then, I'll go with you." She walked back to the locker room. "BUT JUST AS FRIENDS!" she yelled as she left the gym, her face grew a brighter shade of red with every step. The word "friends" reverberated considerably.
Rojan sighed deeply. "Friends!" he beamed and clapped his hands together.
*
Videl and Chi-chi fussed over Pan as she got ready the next night. They mooned over how big she had gotten and how special this night would be. The women's attention just made her more nervous and angry. Finally, she screamed at them to back off and adjusted her rather large chest in her dress.
"She doesn't get those from me," Chi-chi blushed. Videl folded her arms over hers.
Pan pushed past them and began descending the stairs. At the top, she paused for a moment and sucked in her breath, not to improve her appearance; she looked amazing. She held her chin up and imagined the stairs to be covered with a red carpet and that she was a Princess coming down to meet her Prince...
...Or her Emperor. Images of what she thought he would look like when she rounded the corner came to her. He was wearing his usual plain, white tee-shirt and jeans. She almost ran back up to her room, till she realized she had reached the bottom of the stairs. She rounded the corner and let her breath out at last.
Rojan had his back turned, talking to Gohan. As her father's face lit up, Rojan turned and smiled at her. He was wearing his regal uniform. It was a slightly purplish charcoal grey (which matched the dark purple star in the middle of his forehead), sharp and elegant and had enough stripes on it to tell you he was a pretty important individual. His hair was perfect. She felt dull next to him, but then she noticed the way he looked at her and she began to shine.
"Ohmygod... is that.. PAN!?!"
"With... ROJAN!?!" the girls' moths fell open as they made their entrance. Pan wore makeup and a glittering, antique necklace and rhinestone earrings that had been her grandmother's. Her dress was a pale, dusty-pink, taffeta, strapless affair and seemed to match Rojan's uniform perfectly.
The DJ noticed all the kids stop dancing and look in the same direction. He grinned and quickly segued from the hip-hop he'd been playing to a slow trip-hop song.
"Oooh," Pan cooed. "Massive Attack! I love this group!"
Rojan smiled and lead her onto the dance floor. She blushed and protested a little, but he kept pulling her hand. She saw the other teens looking on in wonder and found her courage.
"Love is a dueling word...
Black flowers blossom..
Teardrop on the fire
Feel the sunlight break..."
The kids who had been dancing cleared away and left them alone. Rojan knew all the classic moves of elegant slow-dance. Pan thanked Kami that she had put up with her grandmother's demand that she take dancing lessons.
The slow song segued into another faster one and the dance floor crowded back up again. They peeled away to get a drink. Everyone's eyes were still on them. A chaperone came up to the couple.
"Pan, Rojan. How come your names aren't in the running for prom king and queen?" the principal asked.
Pan choked on her punch. Rojan simply shrugged, the blush beginning to form on his cheeks.
"Well, that's easily amended." The woman smiled and wrote their names on a list she had on a clipboard.
Pan panicked and tried to stop her. Rojan held her back. "Would that be such a terrible thing?" he asked.
"Oh God, I am SO embarrassed!"
He pouted. "Why, Ms. Son? Because you're with me? I can leave if you want me to..."
"NO! I mean... Oh I don't know. Only popular people get to be prom king and queen!"
The music was potted down as the Principal took the stage. She took the mic from the DJ and tapped it a few times till the feedback sang through the room. "Ah... Ladies and gentlemen, can I have your attention? The votes for prom king and queen are being re-tabulated to accommodate a last-minute entry."
There was a considerable amount of murmuring through the crowd. Pan looked like she was going to faint.
Another teacher handed the results to the principal. "And the 'Stars' of the Orange Star Prom: our King and Queen this year are..."
'Please let us win. Oh Kami, please!' Pan thought frantically as she wrung her hands. She couldn't face her classmates if she turned up a loser again.
"Rojan Hoshi and Pan Son!"
She cried out in shock and threw her arms around Rojan. He went to hug her back, but was too slow. She was already dragging him to the stage. The principal crowned them both with glittery, plastic crowns, littered with tiny, orange stars. Suddenly, Pan remembered the movie, Carrie and had a strong desire to get the hell off the stage immediately, but everyone was applauding them. Everyone but Mas and his blonde date. Pan smiled regardless and blew kisses to the crowd.
Pan and Rojan danced all night. When the DJ stopped, they knew it was time to go home. The night was warm, but the breeze made them chilly. Rojan took off his coat and draped it over Pan's shoulders. They stepped out of the gym and up into the air.
Soon, they touched down on the front stoop of their house.
"Did you have a good time, Rojan?"
"With you? Of course I did. Thank you Ms. Son."
"For what?"
"For condescending to treat your humble servant as your friend." He bowed deeply.
"Stop that." She softened. "You are my friend, Rojan. And please, never call me Ms. Son again. My friends (what few of them I have) call me Pan."
Gohan, Videl and Chi-chi watched them secretly through the window.
"Oh, it looks good! They're smiling!" Videl beamed.
"Who knows?" Gohan hugged her. "Maybe our little girl HAS really grown up!"
Chi-chi jockeyed for a better view. "Well, she'd better not get too mature!"
"I had a good time, too," Pan smiled and held his hands. Slowly, painfully slowly, they started to come together. Their eyes closed and their lips met.
Chi-chi made a dash for the door, but Gohan and Videl restrained her. There was no harm in a good-night kiss, even when both parties lived under the same roof.
The kiss started off fairly innocently, but as they began to realize how much they felt for each other, and HAD felt for a long time now, their passion grew. Pan moaned sweetly as he put his arms around her.
The parents nodded to each other and released the disapproving grandmother. She flew out the door, scaring them half to death. Chi-chi barked at them to behave themselves. They nodded shyly, but their eyes were locked on each other and their smiles could not be erased.
End Chapter Eleven
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