Campfire Story
The sparks from the fire drifted upward and his eyes followed them. Wondering which way the wind would blow them distracted him from the exhaustion that was attempting to suck him under. He let his gaze drift back down and stared into the depths of the fire. A movement in his peripheral vision distracted him and he looked over at the boy lying there.
Teacher stared at student and worried. The boy looked even more tired than he felt. Tired and in pain. The older man wondered if he had been too hard on the boy. He hated that he had to push him so hard. He hated the way he felt when he pressed every advantage. But he had no choice.
He wanted to boy to grow up and be a man. To see that happen, he had to push him past his limits now. He had to make every training exercise count. He had to press every advantage and let no mistake go unpunished. And he hated every minute of it.
As if he sensed his teacher's eyes on him, the boy opened his eyes and a ghost of a smile flitted across mouth. "Tell me a story, Sensei."
"A story? What kind of story do you want to hear?"
"I don't know." The boy rolled over on his stomach and winced.
It was the wince that got through to the man. The boy was in pain and it was his fault. "I'm afraid I'm out of happy endings, Trunks."
"That's okay, Gohan. I'm not sure I believe in happy endings right now." Trunks sighed and rubbed his hand across his face. After staring into the fire for a few minutes, he turned and half whispered, "Does this get any easier?"
Gohan heard the question on two levels. He knew that Trunks was not really asking if the physical training would get easier. He was asking if he'd ever get rid of the horrific ache in the pit of his stomach; he was asking if he'd ever be able to forget the horrors that he'd seen.
Looking through the flames at his purple haired student, Gohan suddenly had an image of another camp fire, of another student and teacher.
"I do have a story for you, Trunks." Gohan sat up slowly, ignoring the twinges in his back, ignoring the ache in his thigh, ignoring the thousand places on his body that screamed at him for the abuse he forced it to withstand.
Across the fire, Trunks looked at him surprised. He had not thought that his Master would tell him a story. Not today... not after what they had seen that day.
The day had started out like any other, but they had stumbled across the remnants of a city. At first, Trunks had thought that the city had been abandoned for a long time. But the smoke rising from piles of rubble, the hastily abandoned, yet lived in feel... It hadn't been a long time. It had been maybe a few days. Maybe less...
It wasn't the first city that Trunks had seen razed to the ground by the Androids. It wasn't the first time that he had helped bury the dead. It was the first time he thought that he might have been able to make a difference. These people had no chance, they had no hope once the Androids had chosen there town for their latest game. If he had been here...
He knew Gohan had seen him pick up the doll. It had been lying there on the side of the road and it looked so alone. He had buried it later, with Gohan standing by. An unusual funeral for a terrible time.
That had been in the morning. In the afternoon, they had trained. But the training had been more violent than it had before. Trunks found himself thrown to the ground over and over again. But he kept getting up; kept fighting back. Gohan hadn't even let him stop to breathe. When they had finally stopped, Trunks hadn't bothered to change before he had flung himself down next to the fire. He had been there ever since, only sitting up long enough to scarf down the food that his teacher had offered him.
Truthfully, Trunks was worried about Gohan. His Sensei was not usually so quiet, so withdrawn. He had been hard on Trunks before, but Trunks expected it. He had to be good enough to fight the Androids. He had to be good enough to make a difference.
"It's a story about a boy growing up." Gohan's voice was sad. "He lost his father at a young age. And then he found himself with a stranger. This boy was scared. He didn't know what was happening and all he wanted was for his life to return to normal."
Trunks furrowed his brow in confusion. This didn't sound like any story he'd ever heard and Gohan didn't sound like he was enjoying telling it. "Gohan..." he started.
"The stranger tried to train the boy." Gohan cut off Trunks before he could say anything else. "But the boy resisted. So the stranger left him."
Almost despite himself, Trunks couldn't help but ask, "Where?"
Gohan met his eyes. "In the wilderness. He left the boy alone in the wilderness."
"Wow... that's pretty harsh." Trunks couldn't break away from Gohan's gaze. His Master was always intense, but this was different. Gohan looked lost in himself.
"It seemed harsh to the boy. But, he was wrong." Gohan stopped and reached out to drop another log onto the fire. "The stranger wasn't being harsh, he was being kind."
Trunks blinked in confusion. "How was that kind?"
"It was kind because it prepared the boy. The stranger knew that the boy had much more difficult and dangerous things to face than six months alone in the wilderness. He didn't want him to face those things without being ready."
"What kind of things?" Trunks asked. He knew that they weren't talking about some mysterious story character, but he didn't want to ask. He wasn't sure he wanted to know.
"Horrible things." Gohan spoke softly. "People that wanted to kill the boy, his family, everyone... They wanted to take everything from him. Only he didn't know this at first."
Trunks had no idea what Gohan was talking about. But he was fairly sure he knew who Gohan was talking about. "It still seems harsh to me," he muttered, defensive over the small boy who was no longer small and no longer a boy.
Gohan smiled at him over the fire. "The boy only thought that he was alone. The stranger was watching him the entire time. Years later, he realized that the stranger was protecting him. It was hard because it had to be hard. But, the stranger tried to make it as easy as possible."
"Sometimes, all that matters is that you feel alone at the time." Trunks reasoned.
After a moment's of silence, Gohan nodded. "Sometimes. But, sometimes, you have to do things that you don't like. Sometimes you have to hurt people to keep them safe." Gohan fell silent again. He wasn't really telling this story to Trunks as much as he was thinking out loud.
The fire popped and crackled and the silence stretched between them. Finally Gohan continued, "The stranger didn't stay a stranger. Before long, he became the boy's teacher."
He looked over at the exhausted teenager, eyes softening as he noticed that Trunks' breathing had gotten deeper and his eyes kept fluttering shut. Gohan watched the shadows play across the younger boy's face as he fought sleep.
"What happened next?" Trunks asked, his voice slurred as he drifted off.
"The boy grew up." Gohan whispered. "And he learned what it was like to be a teacher."
He didn't say anything else, instead watching as sleep stole over his student and the lines of exhaustion and fear and anger on Trunks' face softened.
"The boy didn't know then what the teacher went through. He didn't know what it was like to agonize over every punch that the boy didn't block. He didn't understand how hard it was to demand more, even when the boy was doing better than anyone had a right to expect. He didn't know how awful it was to see bruises on the boy that he had caused. He didn't know what it was like to realize that if the teacher gave any quarter, he was doing the boy a disservice, because the enemy wouldn't."
Gohan stood up and walked around the fire to put a blanket over Trunks. "The boy didn't then that the teacher would pray with every fiber of his being that he would be good enough to train the boy and keep him from getting killed. He didn't know what it was like to love a child that wasn't his own, like it was his own." He rubbed Trunks' forehead, pushing the hair off his brow. "He knows what that's like now."
He went back to his side of the fire and lay back down. "Things don't get easier, Trunks. I wish so much I could tell you that they do. The enemies keep coming; and the things that they do are awful. Enemies must be fought, challenges must be surmounted." He paused. "And sometimes the people you love most, the ones you depend on the most, leave you. But if they do their job, you'll be able to keep going. Even when you think you can't."
His thoughts drifted to Piccolo. "Thank you, old friend. I never did thank you for all that you did for me. For all that you taught me. The boy did grow up, and now he has a boy of his own. Your boy understands now what being a teacher costs, what it cost you." Gohan's voice was soft, muted. Around him the night insects sang into the darkness. In front of him, the fire popped cheerfully.
Memories of Piccolo drifted through his mind as he watched Trunks sleep. Piccolo had made sure that Gohan was strong enough to face the worst alone.
"Forgive me, Trunks," he whispered across the flames. "Forgive the punches, the kicks; forgive me the hardness; forgive me the pain. But I won't stand by and allow you to be unprepared. If you ever have to fight alone, I want you to win. I want you live. I want you to grow up and know what its like to have a boy of your own."
Finally, exhausted by the trials of the day, physical and emotional, Gohan let his eyes drift shut. He didn't know the future. He could only try to be prepared for it. His most important duty now was to Trunks.
He had seen the passion and the fire that burned in the boy and he refused to let that go to waste. So tomorrow would be the same. They would train until the point of exhaustion, and Gohan would keep pushing Trunks until he was past his breaking point. He could only hope that it would be enough.