Disclaimer: Almost two years doing this and still nothing! .
Chaotic Bystander: Hello peoples. Thanks for even attempting to read this fic. I was quite motivated to write this for some time now and I finally got the first chappie out after much trial and error. Trunks is seventeen and Bra is thirteen here and any dialogue is sorta in a flash back type mode. I hope you all enjoy it.
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The breeze arose, coming up to the casement I was sitting by, bringing the coolness only night could give. I shivered despite myself as the wisps of air run over my skin, blowing a few strands in front of my eyes in its wake.
I blinked, temporarily blinded by looking from the white page of my journal. The last entry was quite some time ago, I hadn't been able write as of late. Tapping the fountain pen nonchalantly between my fingers, the sky was where my eyes rested. I dated the page, beginning to write the past events.
Strange how things can change faster than you'd expect. It was a night exactly like this when she died. We were at a company banquet. 'We' as in me, mom and Bra, father wasn't there. From the years I could tell, he didn't like going to those kinds of get togethers but he could have least gone to this one. I remember mom being so excited about it for months. She even argued, nearly begged, if possible but father still held firm. I didn't really think much on it; I just carried on as always when a fight got started. It was normal.
That's the thing, everything was normal. I was talking to a company executive when I heard someone scream. People around me began to gape and awe, crowding around in a huddle, up front. I heard the words "Mrs. Briefs" and immediately panicked. In an instant, I was in the front of the crowd, looking down on the still heap that was my mother.
"Mom? Mom?! MOM! Get up please! Please get up!"
I was literally screaming at her to come back. I was more afraid than I ever remember being, the thing that scared me the most was that she was right there but I couldn't sense her at all. I kept telling myself over and over this really wasn't happening. I zoned out from everything as my sister finally made her way over to our mother, reacting nearly in the same way I did, only with more shrieking. I reached and pulled Bra away, almost zombie like, so that the medics could work.
"Stop...stop..."
I found myself whispering as if too in shock to say it aloud. Bra began to struggle, hitting me at my sides. She was screaming at me too. I really don't remember what she was saying, nor did I care, my attention averted. The crowd was in an uproar of wails and commotion as well. It all seemed to happen way too fast yet in slow motion. It was unbearable.
"STOP IT! SHE'S ALREADY DEAD!" I blared as loud as I could. My ki took a sharp increase causing the swirled marble floor to crack beneath my feet. The room fell silent, all stirring stopped including the medics. Everyone turned to me with mix emotion, I, myself, was in shock. Reality reestablished. The truth finally spoken, I crumbled inside.
They had whisked her away from the building out to the ambulance; I and my sister drove in the car we'd taken. I stayed silent as Bra wept to our father over the cell phone what happened. For all I could tell, we were all meeting down at the cornier. There I was told she'd died of a massive heart attack. The head examiner had asked me if she'd smoked. I gave a weak "yeah", my voice quivering. The man took the hint to leave me alone and gratefully he did.
I sat on the chair in the hall, feeling sick as I spilled the information to Bra. She cried again, burying her hands over her face. I was mute with exhaustion and sorrow. I held my forehead, letting my eyes focus on the floor, swimming in all the thoughts that plagued my mind. Bra had jumped up beside me, crying onto father as he finally showed up. I could sense his eyes on me. I turned away after I realized that my face was wet with tears. I sickened at my shame; I had a right to cry.
The morbid scene drove out the deepest sorrows at her funeral. It was raining on that day, a few weeks ago. Friends and family, even business partners had arrived to morn and give solace. Silent fury boiled within my heart when I looked over to my father.
'The bastard...not even...a damn tear...' I thought, his face the same old look, not etched with a single strand of sorrow or grief.
"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust."
Before I knew it, the ceremony was over. Sheer emptiness filled the crater of anger as I watch the mahogany coffin get lowered into the ground. The group started to part, I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Goten. "If you need anything, I'm here for you, man."
I nodded as he walked away. I took a few more moments, before I composed myself enough to leave. The car sat in the distance, my father was in the driver's seat and my sister was talking to Chichi a few feet away. I approached them, Chichi giving her condolences to me then leaving to her own family. I turned to Bra and said, "Get up front."
"Why?" She'd asked. I'd always sat in the front seat if I was the passenger.
"God Bra don't...argue with me, just do it please?" I was annoyed and tired. I can sit in the back if I want.
No one said anything on the drive home, it was understandable. Father was never really big on talking and I was silently glad that Bra had stopped running her mouth for once. I stared blankly out the back window, totally absorbed on the street. Then I began to think of all that was left on me now. I was the head of the company, I wasn't supposed to get that position until after my college graduation, and I'm only a senior in high school. But it was no time to think on that, too draining to dwell in anything else.
I returned to school a few days later, in the middle of the week. All the kids, teachers, counselors especially, was concerned for my well being. They even put me in counseling for the kids who had problems. I knew that's what they thought of me, that I was a troubled youth, another depressed teen. I had managed to keep my previously high grades the same and I even managed to make it to school on time, even a bit early some days, not on purpose though. They insisted anyway, pointing out how I started to wear mostly dark colors, my skin started to get a slightly grayish tone as if I was malnourished or intentionally starving myself and I seeming a bit withdrawn.
True, for half saiyan, my appetite had diminished, I would say three times the normal adult now, and I did lose around ten pounds since I think about it but, I wasn't trying not to eat on purpose. The dark clothes where only because my most comfortable outfits were in those colors. And I was, maybe I still am, withdrawn. I couldn't really talk to anyone about what I was going through. To be honest, no one actually understands. So at the 'session', I gave them everything they wanted to hear, complete with an innocent smile every now and then and presenting that "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade!" attitude without over doing it.
They ate it up. Some of their concerns where a load of B.S. anyway. They didn't know about the sneaky kids you could see coming from a mile away to be friends all of a sudden. The best way to the avoid them was to avoid everyone. That left room for rumors that I was snob; that I was glad my mother passed so I could inherit what she left behind. It wasn't like that. Of course, when I was in my brat stages I did brag about how rich my family was compared to others but as I grew older, money didn't seem all that important. Making my father proud was it; my new strive to live for.
I found myself reestablishing that fact the other day. I had stopped training all together. I could somehow feel the scorn rolling off father. I tried to pull myself to the gravity room when I had a moment but had found myself drained with sadness in each step. I knew, despite the loss, his training regiment would remain untouched. The put downs and the near torture of training, that was something I couldn't handle right away.
I had started crying so much I couldn't see. I had fled into the house just as he would be come out of the GR, biting my lip so that I wouldn't wail out loud, ashamed of my weakness once again. I hate that feeling, masking my emotions made me feel unnaturally numb and feeble. Each time, I began forming a wall that held all the things I've wanted to say behind it.
As of late, it's been harder and harder to keep it in. The anger is maddening; I found my father and Bra triggering it the most but mainly my father. He had this way of shutting his emotions off like a faucet, which was one of the major things that bugged me. I mean, my parents were together since a little while before I was even born and it seemed that it meant nothing but a pile of trash.
Damn you dad, why can't you just grieve like the rest of us? And then I remembered my father wasn't like us, human. Even though I'm not fully one, Earth was my home and being human was a part of my heritage that I couldn't close out. How could he tell me that emotion was a weakness but this part of me is fighting for the exact opposite?
That shouldn't have mattered anyway. Saiyan, human, whatever. I'm his son, dammit...blood. It made me look at Goten's family. They aren't that wealthy, never broke their necks to prove their strength to the world but they were happy as in the perfect family happy. Something I longed for and still do. Goku was there for them in more ways than one and he is a full saiyan, he even was dead for several years. I'm sure he did things with his sons just for fun, something I was briefly apart of when I hung out with them. But I never really belonged. I can't stand that my father would never be the kind to give you complements and praises a shoulder to cry on if needed, almost a best friend. Never once did father do those things for me, I'm his first born for crying out loud.
That brings me to another point, Bra, the princess. She always annoys me one way or another. Asking for money and getting our father to go on hour long shopping trips. Favoritism came subliminally into play. And here I couldn't even pry him away from the training he seemed to be so deep into. I kept my outer exterior as calm as possible but on the inside I used all my strength to resist, as my father would so eloquently put it, sending her to the next dimension.
This was beyond sibling rivalry, she had me beat and down for the count. I was sickened by her 'power'. Just once I wish someone could set her straight, to see her go down hard, for all to see as I see. Beautiful. But no, that would never happen, everyone is too afraid of my father including myself. So I can do nothing as I watch her cry onto our father with hugs and not being pushed away. It hurts to sit back and watch. Rejection, like a pain I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy...
I remove my pen from the page, which rolled up from the pressure of writing too hard. I hadn't realized I was so worked up over my writing. I had been crying angrily, my cheeks are wet; my jaw slightly ached from being so tight, and knuckles chalk white and trembling. Wiping my eyes with the back of my sleeve, I closed the journal and put it back into its hiding spot. That was enough for tonight. It was only nine but I wanted to get some sleep, I was surprisingly tired as I recognized myself of being lately. I crawled lazily to bed, not bothering with my pajamas, letting the low electrical hum of the gravity room running outside lull me to sleep.
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Chaotic Bystander: The later chappies will be longer and I will get to everyone else's perspective. Please leave your constructive criticism and comments by clicking the little lilac button to your left. Thank you. ^_^