A Hero's Troubles

by Flesi Kameez

Disclaimer: I still don't own DB or DBZ. If I did, I would leave school and buy a nice house on the Red Sea. There I would only sunbathe, watch TV and eat all day, until I grow wider than high. If you see it this way, it is somewhat good that I don't own DBZ, even though I'd love to, but as you all know, I don't and won't anyway… Ergh.

Summary: Gohan has had enough of it. Being the great saiyaman is becoming more and more of a burden. So he decides to neglect his duties as a super hero and let others do the work. Still, he can't stay in the background forever…

Chapter two – Decision

When Gohan packed his back for school the next morning, he realized with a shock that he hadn't done any homework, especially not the one Ms Heider had told him to do.

Gohan sweat dropped. "Mom, I've got a terrible cold. May I stay home?" he shouted towards the kitchen, although he knew exactly that Chichi wouldn't let him miss one single school day, even if he actually was ill.

A few moments later she stepped inside the floor and towards him. Completely ignoring his former attempt to miss school, she gave him a yellow capsule and said, "It's your lunch for today." Gohan nodded a thanks and turned to leave for school.

During the whole flight he tried to think of something that he could tell Ms Heider. But as soon as he reached Satan City, something else caught his attention. Several youths laid scattered about a park. As Gohan noticed that none of them was moving, he began to worry and approached the scene. He saw that most of the youths were injured and only unconscious at the moment. However, two of them were dead. Gohan couldn't feel their energies. As he took a closer look, he recognized them as members of the two street gangs he had tried to separate the day before.

He felt terrible, and not only because he couldn't help them now. But also because he hadn't been any help yesterday. He had only delayed their demise a bit. That didn't make much of a difference.

Suddenly Gohan noticed some police and ambulance cars driving in his direction. He decided it would be best to leave now, since there was nothing he could do anyway. He had learned how to fight and hurt others, but never how to heal their wounds.

Saddened he left the scene and flew to Orange Star High, not really paying attention to his surroundings. He didn't run into another crime this way, so at least he wasn't late for school again.

Quietly he went into his classroom and sat don on his seat, still remembering the incident and thinking about it.

"Gohan, what happened? Punctual today, eh?" Sharpner said teasingly. He greeted the depressed demi-saiyan with a clap on the shoulder and walked past him towards his own seat. Gohan, still in his thoughts, just nodded back.

"Boy, no offense, you really don't look good. Anything bothering you?" Videl asked concerned. She had entered the room together with Sharpner and was now standing right in front of Gohan, looking at him intensely. "Nuttin'," he just muttered. At this words, Videl knew that he again didn't want to tell her what was disturbing him. Of course, she could try getting it out of him, like she had yesterday. But today, she just didn't have the patience for this. So she went to her seat without another word, making upset noises on the way to express her displeasure.

Only then Gohan realized that he had ignored his best friend quite often lately. He turned his head to look at her. 'Videl's really trying hard. I guess, my behavior towards her is quite…unfair,' Gohan thought, still looking at the back of an upset Videl's head. 'I should tell her about it. Maybe she knows what to do. But I must be careful. I certainly don't want to tell her that I'm saiyaman.' Gohan grimaced as he got up from his seat to walk to Videl.

However, a certain someone held him back. "Son Gohan, did you do the tasks, as I told you? I'd like to see them," Ms Heider said, not letting go of her favorite student's arm.

"My brother ate it," Gohan stated slightly annoyed, as he turned to face his teacher. Finally he had decided to take some action – and now that woman prevented him from doing so!

"What?" Ms Heider asked in disbelief, raising an eyebrow.

Eventually Gohan got aware of what he had said and corrected himself, "I mean, my brother kept me from doing it." Then he added in a more nervous and less angry manner, "Sorry?"

Ms Heider snorted loudly and apparently very displeased. However, and to everyone's surprise, she let go of Gohan and went back to the teacher's desk.

Gohan sighed in relief. Plus, at least he hadn't lied to his teacher this time. Goten truly had made dinner a complicated procedure last evening: He had dashed inside the kitchen, taken all the food from the table and run outside to hide the food all over the surrounding area. Finding dozens of sausages, schnitzels, pretzels, pizzas and chicken parts was quite a difficult and time taking task, since Goten himself had forgotten where he had put them.

Gohan grinned. In fact, this little treasure hunt had been a lot of fun, even though he still couldn't figure out why Goten had begun with it.

"Umm, Gohan, why are you grinning?" Erasa asked cautiously, concerned about her classmate's sanity.

That brought Gohan back to reality. He scratched the back of his head and said, still grinning, "Just thought about my little brother."

"The one who ate your homework?" Erasa smirked.

"Yeah, that one," Gohan laughed. "Actually I don't have another one."

All of a sudden the bell rang and reminded him of his original intention: talking to Videl. He shortly looked in her direction and decided that he would have to wait until the next break.

Unfortunately, he missed that break. Someone might consider missing a break impossible. However, for Gohan nothing was impossible: After he'd fallen asleep five minutes before the lesson ended, no one and nothing was able to wake him again, nothing except for the bell which was the signal for the next lesson to start.

"Oh no, I again slept at school," Gohan whined, hitting his hand against his forehead, while Erasa giggled next to him. He glared at her causing her to shut up before he looked back at the teacher and tried to concentrate on what he said.

To Gohan, the time until lunch break seemed like an eternity. The topic, Caesar's "De Bello Gallico", was far more than boring. Besides he wanted to talk to Videl, and last but not least, he wanted to have lunch more than anything else.

Finally the lesson ended and Gohan hurried to his friend. "Wanna eat with me?" he asked Videl gallantly, causing her as well as Erasa and Sharpner to look at him puzzled. Though she was even more irritated now and a little afraid of Gohan's eating habits, she followed him outside. They sat down at one of the empty tables in the schoolyard.

Of course, the first thing Gohan did was activating his yellow capsule and spreading out the ten kilograms of food all over the table.

Videl speechlessly watched him chewing down five portions of butter noodles in almost no time, until Gohan said, "Djusht teig whaddever ya leig." Well, he hadn't stopped eating while speaking. So Videl needed some time to translate what he had said. ("Just take whatever you like.") Then, she needed another moment to wonder how someone could talk while eating at such a rapid pace. After that, she eventually was able to speak. "I… kinda fear that you might accidentally bite into my arm if I'd get too close to your food," she said honestly, noticing that the huge family pizza she'd also liked had just vanished from the table.

Gohan stopped eating for a moment and looked at her bewildered. Yet he soon understood what Videl was referring to. "Sorry about that. You still want something?" he spoke, gesturing towards the comparatively small mountain of remaining food on the table.

Videl took a cheese pretzel and slowly chewed it. 'Why did he want me to accompany him?' she wondered, while she once again watched him eating. To be honest, it was quite an unappealing sight. Then again, Videl also couldn't look away.

Within the following minute, Gohan finished his lunch. "That was good!" he said happily as he lent back and almost fell from the bench he was sitting on. However, he regained his balance and soon sat in front of Videl again, scratching the back of his head.

His friend tried to suppress her giggles, in vain. Soon she burst out in laughter, "You should have seen yourself…" She really wanted to stop laughing, but when Gohan joined her, it just was impossible. They needed several minutes to calm down.

Finally Videl spoke again, "Say, Gohan, why did you want me to watch you eating today?"

Gohan suddenly became very serious. "I," he spoke slowly, thinking every word over twice, "have a problem."

Videl raised an eyebrow. "A problem?" she questioned, sensing the chance to get to know more about Gohan and his secrets.

"Have you ever felt completely helpless?" he slowly asked. He didn't look at her, but up into the sky.

Videl had to think a moment. Then she admitted, "When I have to deal with my superhuman father, I feel helpless almost always." She shrugged.

"I don't exactly mean that…" Gohan articulated even more slowly now, "Have you ever tried to do something good, but just lacked the ability to do it?"

"Just spit out the beans!" Videl demanded, getting upset from all this theoretical speech, "What happened?"

Now there was a major silence, since Gohan still wasn't sure whether he should tell Videl about the gangs or not. 'She can be trusted,' he finally decided in his mind. So he spoke again, "See, Videl, there are these two gangs–"

"You're in a gang!" Videl yelped in shock.

"No, I'm certainly not!" Gohan said loudly. He was also somewhat angry because Videl had interrupted him in a matter which wasn't so easy for him to talk about. Nevertheless, he continued his speech, "Anyway, there are those two gangs who don't like each other much. They are even fighting sometimes. As I told you, I'm not a member of one of them. However, I know some. Well, I tried to persuade them not to fight each other. And yesterday I actually thought that I had succeeded." He paused a moment. "But, when I drove to school this morning, I saw several of them lying unconscious in the park, some were even dead." He stared at the table.

"That's terrible," Videl muttered after a few seconds, actually meaning it.

Suddenly Gohan looked back at her and asked sadly, "What could I have done to prevent this from happening?"

"I-I don't know it, Gohan," she stuttered. "Some people will never understand."

"You're saying that I shouldn't even try?" Gohan asked quietly.

"Of course you can try, but you can't always expect a success," Videl answered softly. She knew what she was saying. She'd already witnessed honorable people failing although they'd only wanted to make things easier for others. Even she had experienced something like this once. When she had saved some poor people from being shot, they wouldn't thank her. They even shouted at her, 'Why do you interfere in other people's business! Don't dare coming back here ever again, lass!'

Videl grimaced. "I guess, as long as they don't see what you do for them, the people won't value your help." She was quiet for a moment.

After that, she looked directly into Gohan's eyes and gently held his hand when she said, "Gohan, so this is what's been bothering you lately… Sure, it's superb that you wanna help. But tell me: Why don't you just take care of your own life first, before you try to help others? We all see how worn out you've been. Maybe you should just let it be?"

He looked at her stunned. Now, the two most important women in his life had told him the same: to stop being saiyaman. Of course, Videl didn't officially know about his second identity. Still she had advised him to live his own life, after Chichi had done it fourteen hours earlier.

Suddenly, Videl got up. "And as you know," she said in a more cheerful voice and symbolically did some fighting moves, "I'm still there to take care of the bad guys!"

At this, Gohan got up, too. He smiled at his best friend warmly. This wasn't his usual, rather shallow smile, but a truly sweet one that made even Videl blush.

"Thank you, Videl."

End of chapter two

by Flesi Kameez

Post-Chapter-Commentlis: To be honest, I can't think of any informative post-chapter-comments this time.

However, I wanna thank fireeyes and RomaniBriefs for their nice reviews: Thank you guys! This can be really encouraging.

And, äh, as usual, I hope you liked it, and I am eager to read your reviews. So click da funny button and write down your thoughts about the story. I'm already looking forward to reading your

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