~17. Leaving Home~

Yesterday, as I was going through some old boxes in the attic to jog my memory, I found something that almost startled me. I'm sure that I hadn't seen it in at least twelve or thirteen years. It was a faded old baseball cap, blue and red and white, with "Kuririn" emblazoned upon the front in bold black letters. It was crushed flat under several more substantial objects, and covered in dust, but after I shook it loose a bit it looked almost the same as ever.

That hat was one of a set of three that were given to me on my seventeenth birthday. I'd never really had a birthday party or gifts before then because I've never really known exactly when I was born; they had just given me a rough idea of how old I was at the Orinji Temple. However, one day when we were lying around the Kame House, Yamucha and Pu'ar managed to get out of me the day of the year when I go ahead and count myself a year older - May 1st. The question was kind of casual, so I didn't think that they meant anything by it. When that day rolled around, though, I was startled when coming home from getting groceries for Muten Roshi. I was ambushed by Lunch, Yamucha, Pu'ar, Umigame, and Muten Roshi-sama. They strapped a party hat to my head, sat me down, and damned if they didn't throw a birthday party for me. I was just speechless. That was one of the happiest moments of my young life. I don't know if they even appreciated how much it meant to me - I'd come across the Kame House as kind of a wanderer, and sometimes I felt like just a tenant there. That gesture, though, let me know that everyone there really cared about me, and that's a wonderful, beautiful feeling.

I got a few little things at that party, but the main gift from everyone was the three caps. They were really cool hats, and I looked good in them. For years, I was practically always wearing one of those hats. I liked the way they looked and felt, and they covered up the insence burns on my forehead, which I have to admit I sometimes wish I didn't have. They're a symbol of something that, while I still have a deep respect for, I'm really not anymore, and haven't been for a very long time. Back to the hats, though, I loved them. They sustained me through bouts of homesickness as I was training for the 23rd tournament, serving as a reminder that somewhere, someone was waiting to see me again. Of the three hats, one of them was destroyed when Frieza blew up Namek, and another one I lost in a river while hiking with Gohan, but one of them managed to make it through all these years into a box in the attic of the Kame House. I'm wearing it now, a tribute to the amazing ribbon of memories that connect in my mind to those hats, not the least of which is my trip to the planet Namek, which is incidentally the topic of this chapter, hence why it isn't named "my favorite hats". (I was tempted, let me tell you.)

Everyone except Oolong and Pu'ar were visiting us at the hospital, and we all brightened up when Bulma burst into the room. Bulma's always quite a presence in any room, no one's ever accused her of being mousy, but on that particular occasion she was really the center of attention because she had news about the alien ship. She turned on the television, and we saw Nappa's ship being examined while a reporter talked about the "strange globular object found in the ruins of East Capital City". Bulma, smirking, produced the remote left by Vegeta and pressed a few buttons. Everyone gathered hotly around the TV. We all wanted to see what would happen. (Actually, Goku still couldn't move, so desperate cries of "I can't see, I can't see!" could be heard from the back of the room.) We were all shocked when the television showed the spacecraft suddenly shudder violently and explode. Actually, that's an understatement. It felt as if our lives had ended.

"Oh, crap, I told myself not to touch the self destruct button!" yelled Bulma. Argh. I think I've mentioned already that she's a mechanical genius, but there's a fine line between genius and stupidity sometimes.

I sank to the floor in despair. I'd gotten everyone's hopes up for nothing - now Yamucha, Tenshinhan, Chaozu and Piccolo were all dead for good and there was absolutely nothing to do about it. A terrible feeling went through the room. Gohan cried a little. Bulma got upset and tried to blame it on me. Mostly, everyone stood around uncomfortably wondering what we'd do next. I think that things would have just kept getting worse, but we were rescued when Mister Popo materialized outside the window. I ran to the window to meet him. I'd actually gotten to know Mister Popo about as well as you can hope to know someone like him during my training on Kami's lookout, so it was exciting for me to see him. He smiled at me.

"Someone come," he said in his odd, plain kind of voice, "There is a spaceship."

Boom. As quickly as hope had come and gone again, it came again. Popo-san was pretty vague about it, he would only say that it was "probably a spaceship" and that someone had to come and look at it. The natural choice to go was Bulma, and although she was pretty reluctant, she eventually climbed out of the window and onto Popo's magic carpet. They disappeared, and we were left to wait. We had to wait for about half an hour. We tried to pass the time by having Goku and I exchange stories about Mister Popo, but we were really glad when they finally got back. Bulma was practically bouncing with excitement. She told us about the ship, apparently the ship that Kami-sama had originally come to Earth in. She said that the ship was perfect, it'd get us to Namek in a month, and we could take off in five days. We were elated to hear that. Suddenly, the long shot seemed like a sure thing. We started to plan the trip immediately. At first, Bulma wanted Mister Popo to go, but he said that he couldn't leave Kami's lookout for that long. Again, Bulma was the obvious choice. She was kind of upset about leaving Earth, but she had to admit that she'd have to be one to go. She wouldn't go alone, though, so she asked me to come with her. That was a little shock to me. I'd been thinking about someone going to Namek, but I'd never thought that it would actually be me. Of course, if I'd known what was waiting for me there, I probably would have ran screaming from the room, but I agreed to go with Bulma. So, things were set. Bulma and I would go to Namek, wish everyone back, and be back in two months. Everyone seemed okay with that arrangement. However, that's when Gohan spoke up.

"Take me with you!" he almost shouted it. He'd been thinking about it ever since someone had said there was a spaceship.

All of the air seemed to drain out of the room, and there was that terrible, ghastly silence that only fills a room when something very shocking has just happened, or was just about to happen. In this case, it was both. Everyone stared at Gohan. It was quiet.

Slowly, Chichi crept to her son's side and started speaking in a soft, maternal voice, asking him what nonsense he was saying. Gohan was dead serious. He said that he wanted to bring Piccolo back to life with his own two hands. I can hardly think of how that must have sounded to Chichi, whose mental image of Piccolo was still that terrible monster from the 23rd Tenka'ichi Budokai. She tried talking to him again, and I could see her start to shiver with rage. You know, my heart honestly goes out to Chichi. She'd already waited for so long to see Gohan again, it must have been a terrible blow to her to find out that he was just going to leave again. Still, she didn't have to react the way she did. After Goku praised his son's decision, Chichi snapped. She yelled at Gohan. She told him that he was doing no such thing, that she forbade it. The tension just built and built until Gohan screamed, "Be quiet!" at his own mother. There was another ghastly silence.

Through clenched teeth, Gohan explained that he had to help bring back the warriors who'd died protecting the Earth. Gohan was so young then. He didn't fully understand his feelings yet, but he knew what they were, and he was as determined as any adult I'd ever heard. His little speech was short and to the point, but it was filled with such raw truth and emotion that I couldn't possibly do it justice here. That Gohan was one amazing kid. Chichi withered. She'd lost. Gohan's grandpa, the Ox King, approved.

So, that's how it came to be that Gohan, Bulma and I traveled to Namek together. Gohan and I spent the next three days in the hospital with Goku and usually Chichi, who was suddenly aflutter with preparations for Gohan's space trip. She seemed almost excited about it. We were attended by a doctor who scolded us for our grave injuries but refused to believe our "nonsense" about fighting space aliens. I floated around the room a bit just to mess with his mind. He almost flipped. Heh heh heh. Poor guy, he was just doing his job. Gohan and I were released after those three days, and I returned to the Kame House. It was almost weird to see it again after so long. I spent a while packing my stuff, but I mostly visited Goku in the time before I left for Namek. Goku is such an active, get up and go kind of person that it drove the poor guy insane to be paralyzed in a hospital bed like that. I tried to cheer him up by talking about the coming trip.

I think it was on November 14th that we left for Namek, a total of eleven days after the battle against the Saiyans. I was excited and really nervous. Sure, I'd agreed to go, but leaving my home planet just felt wrong somehow, and Namek was so far away. Also, even though I'd gained a respect for Piccolo by this time, and we'd been assured by Kaio-sama that Piccolo was an exception to the rule and that Namekians were peace-loving creatures, I have to admit that I was more than a little bit set on edge at the thought of going to a planet full of things like Piccolo. (No offense to Dende, who I know will read this.) I wasn't really sure how to prepare for outer space, so I just wore some rough weather clothing and, of course, my cap. I figured that if those things had helped me get through leaving home before, maybe they'd be of some comfort when I left home in a greater sense. Bulma, on the other hand, was all decked out in space gear and was extremely upset to see that I hadn't similarly prepared. Actually, Bulma was acting weird in general that day. I guess it was just that she was nervous too. I can't blame her, rocketing off Kami-knows-where with just me as her bodyguard. Gohan's preperations were the funniest, though. Chichi had him dressed up like a schoolboy. It was hilarious to see him like that, just like when Yamucha and I dressed up Goku. (If you're going "huh?" at that, shame on you for not paying attention. It's in chapter 4. Er, or 5. I forget. Never mind about shame on you, this is a pretty confusing narrative.)

The ship was pretty imposing. It looked very alien, and getting into it made me nervous. I said a little prayer silently as I stepped onto the platform. Once we got into the ship, though, I cooled off. It looked really high-tech and it was actually pretty cool. I was kind of giddy, actually. I felt like a pioneer, or something. Going where no man has gone, and all that. It was kind of silly of me, though, since Bulma was the one doing all of the work. Within seconds, we'd taken off. I wanted to see the Earth, but by the time I got to the window, you couldn't see it anymore. We were just going that fast.

The three of us had to exist for about a month in an enclosed space. The spaceship wasn't tiny or anything, we had room to move around. Still, it was a tad cramped. I think it was kind of fun, actually, like camping. Gohan and I quickly found a way to pass the time when he showed me something amazing that he'd learned from Piccolo - image training. Image training involves telepathy. You can do it alone or with someone else. Amazingly, it's just like real training and almost as effective. In some ways, it's actually better. Since you can't get seriously hurt while image training, you can do things you'd never dream of doing in normal training out of fear of hurting yourself or your partner. You can really go all out. For the duration of the trip, Gohan and I were about even. Again, just amazing. I'd spent most of my life training, and this five year old kid, who'd been a good deal weaker than me some eleven days ago, was suddenly my equal. Of course, I would soon bid farewell to being able to claim that I was in Gohan's league - the kid passed me like a rocket.

We didn't train all of the time, of course. Gohan and I also had the chance to talk a lot. I told him about a lot of the adventures that you read of in the first eleven chapters, and he was really captivated. I also got to hear from Gohan about a part of Goku's life I'd never heard about before. He spoke very fondly of his father. Apparently, Goku was quite a family man. Gohan told me about all of the things that he and his father used to do together. I feel a little melancholy now, talking about this. I've tried so hard to keep myself in the frame of mind as I was then, as I said before, but on this particular point I can't help but be sad. Goku is gone now. Gohan loved his dad so much. I hope that he's doing okay. I hope that it doesn't cause him undue pain when he reads this. I'd feel terrible about that.

Gohan also talked about Piccolo, whom he respected a lot, and all three of us speculated about Namek. We really had no idea what we were heading into. We probably could've landed on a completely different planet, and maybe a couple of bored aliens could have played a prank on us and told us it was Namek, and we'd never have known the difference. Okay, I'm being silly, I'll stop. It's the hat, I tell you. It makes me like this.

I'd kind of dreaded spending a month in a ship with Bulma, but it really wasn't so bad. Honestly, I don't know what I've been doing typing so many unkind things about Bulma here. She's got a lot of positive qualities. For one thing, she has a lot of determination. If it weren't for her, practically nothing you've read or will read in this volume would have ever happened. Also, she's just scarily smart. I swear, that woman's mind goes at a pace that leaves my poor brain in the dust. On the ship, while Gohan and I kept ourselves entertained pretty easily, she was quikly surrounded with food and drawings and diagrams and books and manga and just about everything you can think of. All this is not to mention, of course, the fact that out of the kindness of her heart she supported me totally financially for like 11 years after the whole Namek affair. Seriously, despite the impression you may have been getting, I like Bulma and I'm grateful to know her.

Anyway, for all that we did to keep ourselves busy, we still found ourselves for the most part sitting around, wondering what would happen to us, worrying that we might never get back home, reflecting on recent events, and often just staring out at the amazing void of space. As fast as we were going, we didn't seem to be moving at all out in that. Space is mind-boggling. It's as beautiful as it is scary.

The Planet Namek looked very beautiful and tranquil both from space and on the surface. I was amazed at the sight of it when we landed. It didn't look that different from Earth - I hadn't expected it to be too different, really, because Piccolo could exist on Earth - but just the thought of being on another planet was pretty awe-inspiring. Bulma began a thorough diagnostic to determine whether we could breathe the atmosphere and such, but Gohan and I were already out walking around. Ha ha, she was pretty upset about that. Really, I guess walking out onto an alien planet without caution was pretty dumb. Who was the five year old on that trip, anyway? I wasn't the brightest bulb in the box in my twenties.

I couldn't believe that we'd made it. For one shining moment, it felt like nothing could go wrong. Then, of course, things went completely, totally, entirely, disgustingly, terrifyingly wrong right away.

--END OF CHAPTER SEVENTEEN--