Disclaimer: All the lawyers are probably on holidays so I'll just say that previous disclaimers still apply.
Warnings: waffy elements and another censored swear word…tell me, should I just leave off with the censoring s***? I only use swearing as a device for character development…and it's not as though you don't mentally fill in the blanks anyway. I don't think it'd even affect the rating that much…enough of me, let's get on with the chapter!
Chapter 9
()-()-()-()-()-()-()
Kat strolled through the mist, hands stuffed into the pockets of her new leather jacket. Just ahead a dim glow urged her on, but she was in no hurry. Instead she smiled to herself and listened with satisfaction to the strange sounds the smooth black material made as she walked. Almost as if the leather was talking to her.
Kat rarely allowed herself to think random or inane thoughts as that one had been, but she was in such an exceptionally good mood that she didn't bother to quell it. After all, it was her birthday, and if one can't be happy on one's birthday then when can one be?
Leather, real leather, was hard to come by in the days in which she lived. Far cheaper to get synthetic leather substitutes mass-produced on some atmosphere-less moon. But she had specified real leather, and for once her parents had come through.
The soft sound of her stepping up onto the Nightlife porch drew Bert's attention.
"'Evening Miss Kat." He greeted her in his rough voice. "And how old are you tonight?"
"Sixteen!" She replied happily and Bert gave a hoarse laugh for her enthusiasm. Ah, to be young.
"Did you have an enjoyable day?" He asked, gesturing for her to sit down.
Kat complied. "Yeah, the booty was quite good this year. Lookit." She held out her leather-clad arms for him to inspect. "Real leather too. Not cheap. I wore it to bed especially so I could show it off tonight."
"Smells good." Bert commented. Kat sniffed her sleeve and wrinkled her nose slightly.
"Smells funny to me. But I'm told the smell will fade."
Bert just smiled. "So what else did you do besides unwrap presents?"
Kat started to answer but then paused, and turned a sly look on him. "Are you trying to stall me? You never talk this much."
Bert pretended to be insulted and pulled his hat back down over his eyes. "Darklings," he muttered, "always suspicious. Go on then," he directed in a louder voice, "get inside with ya."
Seeing she wasn't going to get anything more out of him Kat jumped to her feet and went to the door. She glanced at the old doorman once, before heading on inside.
There was a loud bang. Streamers and balloons were everywhere. Kat could only gape as everyone in the main room stood up and hollered,
"HAPPY BIRTHDAY KAT!"
"F***." She laughed, moving forward incredulously. Soon she was surrounded by familiar faces. "How in blazes did you organise that?!" She asked the grinning demi-saiyan in front of her.
"A little something I learnt from you Kitty-Kat," Gohan replied, giving her a birthday hug. And Kat was still too surprised to even frown at the hated nickname. "Bribery and corruption."
She laughed, and Gohan surrendered her to the rest of the people waiting to give her birthday best wishes.
A few minutes later only Clark, Gohan, and the newly un-suspended Sharon, Joey, and Van were the only ones present in the group. Whether his suspension was longer for planning the fight, or for some other reason, Ranma was absent. Kat was left clutching a bowl of beer nuts in one hand that had a crane folded from a paper coaster on the top, and a cocktail in the other.
"Better drink that before Gohan gives you his present." Sharon said with a knowing smirk. Kat raised an eyebrow, sniffed her drink, and grinned as she detected an alcoholic element. Gohan just shook his head.
They directed her over to a table that had been decorated with makeshift party regalia. There weren't that many materials at Nightlife on hand to work with, so most of the decorations were made from coloured serviettes. But you'd be surprised how many different ways there are of folding serviettes.
"I don't know."
"C'mon, guess! What is it?" Clark was holding up one of the more absurd napkin creations. Kat turned her head to one side, trying to get an idea from a different angle.
"A harpooned whale?"
Everyone looked at it. "Oh yeah, I can see that too. Kinda." Joey said. Clark sighed.
"No, guess again."
"Uh, something with bits sticking up? Gohan's head!"
Gohan looked insulted and patted his short spiky hair. "Does the cut really look that bad?"
"You look like a trimmed pineapple." Kat replied bluntly.
"He doesn't!" Sharon immediately protested. "It looks fine." She assured him with a pat on the arm. Gohan didn't look at all convinced.
"Well it's your fault for introducing Goten to bubblegum." Kat said rationally.
"I didn't know it would make him hyper!"
"And then leaving the packet out on the bench as well." Kat continued. Gohan moaned at the memories and buried his face in his arms.
"Better lay off Kat. He still hasn't given you his present yet." Clark reminded her.
"You have to work out Clark's creation first." Came Gohan's heavily muffled reply.
"Cruel and unjust!" Kat complained.
"Should we give her the clue?" Clark asked Gohan's hunched form. Gohan raised his face and rested his chin on his arms instead.
"I 'spose so." He said.
"You know the answer?" Kat asked him hopefully. Gohan gave her a look that said 'like I'd tell you after what you said to me!' Immediately Kat cried,
"Please! Your hair looks great! Fabulous! You're the handsomest guy I've ever seen! Please?"
Gohan smirked and turned his head away from her. "No. Now watch the clue."
Clark had his eyes closed and seemed to be concentrating hard. He opened them and stared fixedly at the serviette shape. He frowned slightly, and to one with a trained eye two thin beams of red could be seen shooting from his eyes.
All Kat saw were the tips of the sticking up spiky bits of serviette suddenly catching fire. Gohan gave Clark the thumbs up. "Nice control." He approved.
"Ooh pretty fire. Wait! I know! It's a cake!" Kat yelled, jumping up. "Is it?" Gohan and Clark nodded. "Yeah! I get my present!" She started jumping on the spot childishly.
"I thought you were sixteen not six." Gohan commented, standing up also.
"Gimme!" She replied, holding her hands out. Gohan grinned and shook his head in amusement.
"First you have to stand right…here." He positioned her about a meter out from the table. Then he made a box with his fingers and looked at her like a photographer. She tapped her foot impatiently. Gohan grinned. "Hope it works." And he clapped his hands.
Kat squinted at the sudden bright light. Putting a hand up to shield her eyes she looked at Gohan, who was grinning like a triumphant idiot. She looked down at the ground and saw that she was standing in a perfect circle of light.
Her jaw dropped. "A spotlight?"
Gohan nodded, still grinning that grin. "It'll follow you all night."
Kat laughed in disbelief, before lunging herself at him for a bear hug. He spun them around, both laughing crazily together. The spotlight followed her so that the intense light surrounded them as one.
"How did you do it?" She asked out of breath, when he finally set her down.
"I know how you love being the centre of attention. I was going to make it green so you'd be in the limelight but-"
"Gohan." Kat cut him off. Looking up into his eyes she said sincerely, "I love it."
Something flickered across his eyes, but it was gone before she could properly identify it. Was it, amazement?
Kat realised they were still standing rather close, so she drew back and held him by the wrists. "But how did you organise this?!" She exclaimed, clearly impressed.
"Ah, well actually." Before she knew it he'd disengaged one of his wrists and was rubbing the back of his head in reaction, laughing sheepishly. "Bert did everything. But it was my idea!"
Kat snickered. "Give credit where credit's due." She mock admonished him. "Now I'm going to go give Herc a taste of his own medicine."
Gohan glanced across the room where Hercule was sitting, drinking and laughing with a few buddies. In that short distraction Kat took her opportunity and kissed him on the cheek. "Thanks." She whispered, before quickly running off.
Gohan stood there in shock. In the background he could hear Kat yelling, "Who's the champ now eh!?" But it sounded very far away. His own beating heart sounded infinitely louder in his ears.
"How long do you reckon he'll stay like that?" Joey asked the rest of the group.
"A serviette dog says eight minutes." Sharon bet, pushing a pink four-legged creature into the middle of the table.
"My handful of confetti says three." Joey pushed a pile of confetti next to the dog. "You timing Van?"
"Sure am." Van replied. "And I'll bet a broken balloon and a paper plate on two minutes."
"What about you Clark?" Sharon asked the remaining one. Clark considered before replying.
"I'll bet Kat's bowl of peanuts on fifteen minutes."
Everyone looked at him in minor disbelief. Joey was the first to speak. "Alriiiiight. One half-empty bowl of-"
"Half-full." Clark corrected.
"...Half-full, pardon, bowl of beer nuts on fifteen minutes. You must be pretty confidant to bet something of Kat's." He looked at Clark in concern. Clark just smiled, and put the bowl in the centre of the table.
"Yeah, she'll be unpleasant if she finds out you lost her present." Van commented.
"I'm not going to loose." Came the confident reply.
"Fifteen?" Sharon asked doubtfully.
"You've all been away for a while remember." Clark pointed out. Sharon, Joey, and Van exchanged glances.
"Spill." Sharon commanded, while the other two fixed their eyes on him. Clark glanced at Gohan to check he was still spaced out, before leaning surreptitiously closer.
"Well, it all happened at the beginning of last week. Gohan had been bugging her about what she wanted for her birthday, continually asking out of the blue and at random intervals."
"What do you want?"
"I dunno!"
"Oh come on. There must be something you want."
"I said I don't know!"
"Finally Kat gets sick of it and tells him in a kinda joking but exasperated voice that she wants to go get changed because her pants were itching. So she heads off to the change room leaving Gohan and I at the table. We then decided to go find a room and continue the training exercises he's been teaching me. I went to find a suitably empty room while he went to inform Kat of the plans. It was ages before they both turned up again."
"Kat? Are you crying?"
"Wha? No! I uh…yeah. Bloody hell."
"Why? What's wrong?"
A sigh. "You and your dumb questions. 'What d'you want? What d' you want?'"
"I don't get it." Entreating eyes.
"Wanna know what I really want?"
"Of course."
"I want…I want this place to be real. I want you to be real."
"I am real."
"Prove it."
Silence
"The only way I'll ever know if this is all real is if what it implies is real. That I have some kind of power to change the world around me. But I don't! So none of this can be real can it?"
"But Bert said-"
"If he isn't real either then how can I believe what he says?"
"You believe what I say don't you?"
"That's different."
"How?"
Silence
"Remember that time I helped you study for maths? When you went to bed you didn't know how to solve those problems but you woke up the next day able to do them expertly."
"And I passed the test. I had forgotten."
"If anyone's a dream here it's more likely to be you. Maybe you're created by my sub-conscious desire to break away from my mother's constraints." A grin.
"You have a sub-conscious desire to break away from your mother's constraints?"
"I might. I dunno. It's sub-conscious."
A half-smile. "I don't think I could stand it if you weren't real."
"And why's that? Kat? No, it's okay! Oh, come here."
"Well? What happened?" Sharon asked eagerly. Clark shrugged.
"When I asked them each separately Gohan said that Kat was a bit upset and needed some comfort, and Kat said angrily, 'We just hugged okay?! Now go back to your stupid exercises.'"
"It scares me Gohan." Slightly muffled.
"What does?"
"How I feel about you. I've never felt so strongly about anyone in my entire life. Not even my own family. Hell, half the time I can't even stand to be in the same room as them!" Silence "So if you're not real…I feel like I'd rather die."
Murmured "Don't."
"I can't live a lie. I can't live like this; so confused. I don't know what to believe anymore."
"I don't know either." Silence "But I know that my life would be black if you left me too. I never really thought about it, but you talking about dying…I felt my heart wrench, like a threat."
She looks into his eyes.
"And if it turns out that one of us isn't real, if you or I aren't actual people with souls and lives, I'll personally destroy the entire plane I swear!"
A smile. "But you don't swear."
"Well you can do the swearing then. Deal?"
Pause "Deal."
"But what did they talk about? What could make the imperturbable Kat upset?" Van questioned.
Clark shrugged. "Don't know. But ever since then they've acted, different, around each other. Completely absorbed in what the other is saying, or doing. Hardly ever apart. Sometimes I got ignored entirely. And she's started training with us too."
"Training? Kat?" Joey asked, incredulous.
Clark nodded. "Gohan's been trying to teach her how to find her 'ki', as he calls it. Some sort of inner energy. But it hasn't worked yet. She's been finding it hard to sit still and concentrate for any long period of time." He laughed.
Sharon smirked. "Seems a lot's been happening while we've been away."
()-()-() A couple of nights later…()-()-()
Gohan walked through the door and was immediately accosted by Kat.
"There you are! I've been waiting for ages!"
Gohan laughed and wrapped his arms loosely around her waist. "But I went to bed early." He protested.
"So did I." She smirked, gazing up into his eyes before reluctantly pulling away again. They were, after all, blocking the doorway. "C'mon, I found this beaut room. And I promise it's not a janitor's closet."
She started pulling a laughing Gohan by the wrists across the room towards the hallway entrance, but before she could get far he exerted a fraction of his strength and pulled her up short. When she turned a quizzical look on him he detached her hand enough to slide it down to meet his palm. Hand in hand they continued on their course from the room.
"I see what you mean." Joey commented from their usual table.
"That's so sweet!" Sharon giggled. "Look at him blush. What a cutie." Belatedly realising Joey wasn't pleased with that comment, she quickly turned to placate him. Boyfriends! Always so jealous.
"Where are they going?" Ranma asked. "Didn't they notice us?"
"I doubt it." Clark replied. Seeing Ranma looking confused Van quickly filled him in on the latest gossip. Because if he didn't then Sharon would, and that could take hours.
()-()-()
"So, what do you think?" Kat asked expectantly as Gohan entered into her latest room discovery. Rooms changed every night, but over the years they'd been able to identify a pattern.
Most rooms changed only in layout and decoration, while keeping to a general style. For example there was the balcony room, which always had some sort of deck and an open view. And there were others like the sitting room, gaming room, and more classy types like the parlour and summer room.
This particular room was accessed by a door quite a long way along the corridor. In actual fact she'd discovered it and lost it again numerous times during her years at Nightlife. And in all that time she'd never reached the end of the hallway either. Gohan said there was probably some sort of magic involved in the never-ending corridor, but she wasn't about to believe that until someone proved it. It was easy for him. He was used to things like exotic rooms where you could spend a year while only an hour passed outside. Creepy.
Recently however she'd decided to count the doors, and now knew that this particular room was number 88 on the right-hand side.
"Neat. Hey, is this the room we found that led to an actual beach that time?"
"I think so. I think it's always some outdoors scene. And it's usually empty too." She shot him a suggestive grin, but he pretended not to see.
"It's very peaceful." He murmured, not wanting to disturb the still atmosphere of the room. They stood in a dark garden, lit only by starlight and the occasional garden lamp. He ran his hand over the wrought iron table and chair set, feeling the smooth texture of the paint and the cool metal hidden beneath.
'Well, you're alone. Like you wanted. What are you going to do now?' A sarcastic voice questioned in Kat's head. As if thinking along similar lines Gohan lifted his head to look at the patches of stars that could be seen through the tree leaves.
Kat moved to stand next to him, and likewise lifted her gaze to the stars. Finding nothing to hold her interest there however, her eyes soon moved of their own accord to admire Gohan's profile.
At sixteen he was more of a man than most, no any, older guy at her education compound. His face had lost the boyish quality it'd held when she first met him, not that she'd taken much notice way back then. And the loose shirt he wore did nothing to hide his broad shouldered physique and muscular build. Or perhaps that was just her imagination filling in the details.
He hadn't even been training recently, feeling the need to treasure his times of peace rather than tempt fate by constant training. And it pleased his mother.
Kat felt her eyes start to un-focus from not blinking for so long, but she stubbornly refused to break her gaze. She unconsciously set her mouth and a frown of determination lined her forehead. Perhaps sensing her change in disposition Gohan looked down at her. With a puzzled half-smile he asked,
"What're you doing?"
Kat was inevitably loosing the battle against her own body, and her vision was decidedly blurred when he turned his head to face her. But though his features were now unclear, something else became suddenly apparent. His entire body was surrounded by a beautiful soft glow.
She gasped.
"What? What's wrong?" Gohan asked, now concerned. Kat blinked, and lost the vision.
"Dammit! Don't say anything. Just stand there." She commanded, and moved back so that she could see more of him in her immediate sight.
They stood like that for perhaps a minute, while Kat concentrated on un-focusing her eyes again. Gohan grew steadily more and more bewildered, but he obeyed her directive and didn't speak or move.
It was hard convincing her eyes to stay un-focused while she focused on examining the phenomena. And she had to keep her vision at just the right level of obscurity, otherwise all she could see was a bright smudge.
After a while however she was able to study Gohan like she'd never seen him before. The glow wasn't so much surrounding him, as shining through from somewhere under the surface of his skin. And his eyes! The light was most intense there, as if the power that lay within was just waiting for the opportunity to break out and consume her. She shivered under its intensity, and lost her concentration.
Seeing her blinking again and rubbing her eyes Gohan ventured, "Can I speak now?"
Kat didn't feel the need to laugh at the irony in his sentence. Instead she looked at him almost fearfully, and said the first thing that came to mind.
"Are you an angel?"
"What?!" Gohan spluttered. Blushing at the extreme corniness of what she had just said Kat quickly explained the experience that had led to the question. Gohan looked down at himself. "But, I'm not manifesting an aura."
"I can't see it anymore, though it's as if now that I know it's there I keep trying to see it. Keep glimpsing it out of the corner of my eye. Whatever it is."
"Strange. Let me try. I just un-focus my eyes you say?"
Kat nodded and watched as he held up his hands and tried to see what she had. She had to cover a smile as he went cross-eyed.
"Nope, can't see a thing." He declared after a minute, rubbing his sore eyes.
"I'm not making this up." Kat defended resolutely.
"I never said you were." Gohan replied calmly. "But maybe it's not something you can see on yourself."
"So try looking at me." Kat suggested, and had to suppress the little wave of giddiness she experienced whenever he turned his attention exclusively on her. It was a feeling she'd come to like, but this wasn't the time.
After a short while Gohan announced, "No, it's too dark. I can't see anything at all."
With a frustrated sigh Kat sat against the edge of the table. "What do you think it means?"
"I'm not sure." Gohan answered reflectively. "But in the light of things, if you pardon the pun, it may just be a good sign."
"How so?" Kat asked with a frown.
"Well," Gohan replied with a teasing smile, "aren't you hoping to be coming into some sort of power before you die of old age?"
Kat's eyes widened and she gripped the edge of the table to steady herself. Why hadn't she thought of that?
"Maybe you're just starting off small; working your way up to world saving kinds of power." Gohan continued.
"Or world destroying." Kat mused, still considering the implications of this revelation.
A pained look strayed across Gohan's face. "Why do you say that?"
She barely glanced at him, caught as she was in her own contemplations. "I hate my world. My universe. It's so boring. So organised. 'Everyone has their place where they work for the ultimate purpose of furthering society.' I makes me sick."
"So you'd just destroy it if you could?" Gohan asked, struggling to keep his growing apprehension from showing in his voice. Kat shrugged.
"Maybe." Then she actually began to take notice of their conversation, and immediately perceived her friend's discomfort. "Or maybe not. I guess you wouldn't like it if I did huh?"
Gohan ignored her attempts to lighten the conversation. "Kat please. Please promise me that whatever happens, whatever power you may find, you won't turn into the sort of person that I've been fighting against my entire life. I couldn't stand it."
"That's if I'm real you mean." She joked, automatically dodging the critical question.
"How much proof do you need?" Gohan cried. "I trust Bert. I trust what he says is true. Which means you're real; we're both real. No more hiding Kat." Even as he looked at her fiercely he didn't know why he made that last comment.
She'd stood up instinctively at the start of his outburst so that they stood face to face. Half of her wanted to strike him for yelling at her, but his last words seemed to penetrate straight through the anger and strike at the heart of her well-buried insecurities.
"And that means that you're real too." She said softly, fighting against the treacherous waves of emotion that if freed, would surely embarrass her later on.
Gohan let out a breath, sub-consciously feeling the danger pass. "You promise then?" He asked in a lighter tone, adding in an encouraging grin for good measure.
"Sure, whatever." She returned the grin. In relief he pulled her into a tight hug.
"Thankyou." He murmured against her hair.
"You owe me now. I could've just lost out on a great entertainment opportunity." She joked.
"What are you an android?" He growled, and when she looked up to raise an eyebrow at him he gladly took the proffered chance to kiss her passionately on the lips. She was shocked, and not a little afraid of her sudden lack of control of the situation. But rather than back away she allowed her passion to break free; passion for this perfect man, no longer a figment of her imagination.
And with the kiss returned in equal measure the forces around them were balanced. For now.
It was the first kiss of many, in a relationship most would see as doomed from the start. For the question remains, who can win against their own fundamental nature?
We can only wait and see.
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Thanks to the reviewers!!
Hurricane Chris - moustachioed plumber? I think you lost me (which is very easy to do btw)…would it be possible to further explain this cryptic comment? Please?
Min Farshaw – Voyager is the only series I ever really followed, but nevertheless it is the BEST of them all! *nervous look* wow that lil prediction is a bit close for my liking…am I becoming *gasp* predictable?! I'm storing the Greek heroes away for future use ~_^ …and finally Nightlife is too tightly controlled for ppl to run into future versions of themselves unless there's a specific reason, same with future kids, and Goku is gifted with a personality that acts as a buffering system to all that goes on in his life, so he's never needed Nightlife and I don't think he ever will…that's also what makes it hard for him to understand the trauma that Gohan went through, despite their training and his power. Hn, actually, why am I writing this here and not in the story? -_-'
SS2 Megami-sama – I'd be happy to look into the possibility 'cept you left me no way to contact you to discuss it further. Have you written a story about your character that I could read to learn more about his personality? Just to let you know however, I am going on holidays for two weeks starting tomorrow so work stations will be grinding to a halt (except of course the ones in my head)…
And thanks to: crazed fanatic anime fan, Undefinable-Child, and Pheonix Rising.
Happy New Year everyone! (Somehow I think I missed Christmas _ More coal for me).
~_^